Eli and Me in 1993 By Kent Radcliffe radcliffekent@gmail.com
It had been a long time since high school, but my friendship with Eli still felt pretty much the same---our individual great taste in music had just enough overlap so that we agreed on the best bands yet could still surprise each other with some new sounds every time we hung out. In high school he had been so preppy it hurt, with those popped-up polo shirts and the skin-tight khakis. I had grown up on a farm outside town, and the clothes that had made me seem sloppy in high school made me the King of Grunge as the nineties came rushing in, with my dirty jeans, white undershirts, and flannel tied around my waist.
But it wasn't 1993 anymore, and Melrose Place had been cancelled, and I hadn't been to a Pearl Jam concert in twenty years, and I couldn't remember the last time I had run into my old friend Eli—until tonight. I can't stop thinking about what happened tonight—it's like 3am, I've still got sand on my calves, and there's no way I'm gonna sleep till I write this one down.
I ran into Eli at the gym this afternoon. Like I said, it had been awhile, but we're always just the same with each other—open and honest, intuitive and funny, no bullshit and tons of music. He was on some sort of ab machine and didn't see me at first, staring straight ahead like a man on a mission, big headphones on, blasting what I could only guess was like—My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult. He pretty much looked the same as he did back then—he always had a trim body, just a clean, healthy look. Parents always loved him even though behind that teenaged Kirk Douglas face he had a kinda dirty mind. We weren't kids anymore but he still carried himself with that same level of energy and focus.
Once I was standing directly in front of him, his eyes met mine and one of them narrowed a bit, but he continued his workout for a few more moments, counting in his head till his goal had been achieved. Then he slid the headphones down to his neck and said, "Please tell me you have time to go for a drive later tonight."
"I've got time to go for a drive later tonight," I said.
He nodded. "8pm by Rock and Roll Heaven." And he snapped the headphones back in place and started his presses again. Bam.
So at eight o'clock I pulled up at the record store with my convertible, top down, sweating a little bit because it was a summer night in Florida. Eli slid into the passenger seat and we were gone. Gone gone gone.
We took the back highway out toward the Atlantic beaches, listening to my Book of Love CD and not saying much as the day cooled off and the sun went down behind us. In that last twenty minutes of sunset the Central Florida woods glowed like they were on fire, and so did Eli as I glanced over at him, this beautiful man on fire on the bench seat next to me. He was still staring straight ahead into the gathering night, still a man on a mission, silent and a little scary even.
After dark we cruised up A1A, the beach highway, where my car got lots of attention from vacationers on the sidewalk. And then we left Daytona behind us in favor of Ormond Beach, the quiet beach town north of the city. The heat of the day was replaced a comforting warm mugginess. We ditched the car in a small parking lot, crossed the dune, and walked a short way down the dark beach to an abandoned red lifeguard tower. We climbed up onto its broad seat, two kings sharing a throne. The tide was out, and the wide expanse of sand glowed slightly under the stars.
"So," I said, as I leaned back and stared up at the summer constellations lumbering across the sky above us. "That was a long, silent drive. You having some sort of marital problems?"
He sighed heavily and leaned forward, spitting in a wide arc out into the night. "Yeah, of some sort."
Eli had been married like, forever. That was part of the reason we had a little trouble keeping in touch, because relationships take time, and he had family responsibilities and so on. I was the opposite—I had a few relationships over the years, but none that really went anywhere. I traveled a lot and didn't try very hard. And I was okay with that.
"The irritating, but you'll get over it kind," I said, "or the it's-over kind?"
"Somewhere in between," he answered. "You know what? I don't even want to talk about it. I just want to sit here staring at the fucking ocean at night with my friend sitting a few feet away. And maybe get ice cream later."
I glanced at my phone. It was already 10pm. "Most of the ice cream places are probably closed."
"7-11 isn't closed. They have ice cream sandwiches and stuff. Let's focus on the just sitting here silently staring at the ocean thing."
But I stared at the stars instead. I was still wearing my Adidas shorts from the gym, and a clean white t-shirt. I kicked my sandals off and they fell to the sand down below. I heard him spit again. And just then, a huge shooting star blazed across the sky. It fizzled out over the ocean, directly in Eli's line of vision.
I had leaned forward to follow it, then slouched back again in the lifeguard tower. Eli stirred next to me, shifted his position a bit, and sighed again. `I'll just bet you made a wish on that, didn't you."
He still knew me pretty well. "Yeah, of course I did."
"Well go ahead and tell me what it was. I know you're dying to."
I said, "I wished I could go back to 1993, for just like, half an hour."
"Half an hour? What's the point of that? What are you gonna do for thirty minutes in the nineties?"
"I don't know---start a boy band?" I said. "You're not the only one on this beach with a complicated life. I like my life right now, but I wouldn't mind a little bit of 1993. The last summer of my college years, hanging out with you, cheap concert tickets, that stuff."
Eli adjusted whatever was out of place in the front of his jeans, and then looked across at me. I took a good look at him in the dark blue night, and he just looked so sad. His brow was furrowed and his cleft chin had a certain defiance to it. "You know what we would do if it was 1993 right now?" he asked. "We'd probably drive out to the beach in your car and sit in a lifeguard tower. So congratulations, your wish came true."
I laughed, and put my hand on his shoulder. He was still rock solid, 1993 or 2016 or whenever. "Okay then Eli, it's 1993. We've got thirty minutes. What do you want to do?"
He inhaled, looked up and down the beach, and then said, "You know what I'd do if it was the summer of 1993 and it was late at night on a dark beach? I'd rip off all my clothes and jump in the fucking ocean."
I fiddled with my phone for a bit, and then said, "Okay. I've got my stopwatch app set to count down thirty minutes, starting right now. You ready?"
He glanced over at me and then back to the water. "You know what, joker? I am. Let's go to 1993 for half an hour." And Eli jumped to the ground, ripped off his shirt, and ran off into the starlit night.
I jumped down and chased after him. As I pulled my shirt over my head, I passed his jeans and underwear laying in the sand. When I jumped out of my shorts, I saw a naked man splashing into the dark waves up ahead. I'm not a dreamer or anything, but in the starlight he really did look like he did back in 1993, a college kid confident in his skin, diving naked into the breakers, unworried about sharks or drowning or police floodlights.
We dove into the waves in water that was only knee-deep, rolling around and coming back up in time to be hit in the face by another wave. The water was warm and the night was beautiful. We moved further from shore and the water was waist-deep. The waves were breaking behind us as we looked out into the dark ocean. "This was a good idea," he said.
"I agree. You seem ... lost, Eli."
He shrugged, and hugged himself for a moment, his hands pulling his shoulders inward as if he might just fold up into an even more compact person. "That's the right word for it, lost." Then he relaxed and slicked his hair back with his hands. Just like in the car, he had transformed into some kind of golden god, only now he was made of cobalt. "How often do you have sex?"
I grinned. "I'm single, Eli. And I don't try very—"
"When was the last time?"
I said, "Like two weeks ago. On vacation. It was nice. Now we're facebook friends who live 500 miles apart."
He said, "Nice. Last time for me was New Year's Eve. Happy fucking New Year."
I gave a low whistle. "Wow. I mean, have you talked about it?"
"Sure. In shorthand, you know?" And then: "You know, maybe I don't want to have to have a whole big discussion in order to arrange for a possible sexual encounter at some point in the next seven days, planning it like it's a fucking space shuttle launch—"
"They don't have those anymore, actually," I interjected.
He splashed me in the face with a surprisingly effective water punch. "It's 1993, remember?"
"Oh yeah—we're kinda running the clock on that, though," I pointed out. I was guessing we had used up ten or twelve minutes so far. But he was willing to actually talk in 1993, so it was worth it. "Eli, maybe you should cut the shorthand at home and just be blunt. Or just walk in there and be naked and hard and bold and direct. Or go to couples therapy, or—"
"I know you're trying to help," he said. "But honestly, there aren't any new solutions to this stuff. So I'm gonna dunk you."
And he pounced on me, trying to force my head under water. This kind of thing was common in swimming pool play as kids, and I never remembered it feeling particularly homoerotic. But despite our apparent decision to engage in nineties role-play together, we were full grown men. I was a good four inches taller than Eli, and my shoulders broader, but he was wiry and strong and as he wrestled with me in the water I could feel him against my thigh, that certain thickness of his flaccid but substantial cock sliding against me. And as I struggled not to have my head dunked into the swelling waves, I found us face to face, and for a moment our cocks seemed to tangle, two sharks passing one another before th—
I went under, he held me there, and then a wave bigger than the others knocked him over and we both surfaced, laughing. And Eli moved quickly toward shore, his cock heavier now, silhouetted in whatever kind of magnificent light this was around us. I followed him all the way back to the lifeguard tower, gathering stray clothing along the way.
We had no towels, and Eli made a show of shaking himself dry like a dog. I leaned against the tower and checked my phone, pausing the stopwatch. "We used up 18 minutes, buddy."
"I'm not your buddy, guy."
"I'm not your guy, friend."
He stepped about two feet away and began to piss. "What are we gonna do with the other 12 minutes?"
"Let's piss them away," I said. I started the countdown clock again, and stood next to him with my dick in my hand. I pissed like a racehorse and so did he. I hadn't seen him naked since the showers in college, and I could see that he trimmed down there now, something we never would have done back then. These days, I shaved mine completely. We're all getting so metro or whatever.
And I noticed he was hard now. He caught my glance, and shrugged a little as he began to work his cock with one hand and hold his balls with the other. I had definitely never seen this guy masturbate before, but I wasn't offended. And so I began to do the same.
After a minute or two he said, "You have the biggest dick I've ever seen, Kent."
I probably did. I wasn't a bragger but I just had a really big cock—you never know who's gonna have one. My eyes held his as we each stroked our own cock. His eyes were clear but still a little sad. The lines were gone from his forehead. He was breathing like a man on a mission, a man on an ab machine, a man who—
A man who was slowly sinking to his knees in front of me. He didn't reach out and take my cock in his hand, and he certainly didn't try to suck it or anything. I wouldn't have let him, because he was married and he needed to deal with that. But for whatever reason, Eli was on his knees on the beach, stroking his cock, staring at my massive dick as I pumped it into my hand right in front of his handsome face. What the hell. The Summer of `93 rocks.
I was getting close to cumming, because I guess this whole thing was become pretty overwhelming for me. I wasn't confused though. I was pretty clear about how I felt about this—it was a perfect night in 1993, a good looking guy who I loved a lot was my audience, and I rested my free hand on his shoulder as I brought myself closer to what we both knew was going to happen.
I have big balls too, I forgot to mention, and I have a lot of cum in them. The first shot hit his cheek, and as he looked up to me, he didn't look lost anymore. My hand left his shoulder and closed around the side of his head, my fingers sliding into his perfect haircut, as my semen splashed onto his forehead, down the side of his matinee-idol nose, and then two quick final shots on his lips and the cleft of his chin. I am not sure how he felt about all that, but then I dropped to my knees and licked my seed from his face. I didn't kiss him or anything, because we had probably already crossed enough lines, but I quickly cleaned him and licked across his lips to finish up. Then I reached for my cell phone and stopped the clock with twenty seconds left to spare.
We got dressed silently in the dark. Before we went back to the car, I hugged him. The hug was actually more intimate than my semen on his lips had been. He pressed himself against me with everything he had, and I wrapped myself around him and held him so close. The stars began falling into the ocean, and the ocean boiled over and the sand swirled around us like a hurricane until we were back in 2016 again, and the night seemed over so we got back into the car and we drove home.
Neither of us talked, but we were both good at silence, and I wasn't worried about either of us. Depeche Mode was taking care of everything—the Music for the Masses CD was playing loud. The roadway was empty and there were no streetlights in the countryside between Daytona and Orlando. At one point I realized his jeans were open and he was jacking off in the passenger seat as the miles flew by. I remembered then that he had never cum on the beach.
I pulled the car over on the dark highway, no other cars around. I turned the music down, turning up the sounds of the nocturnal forest and Eli's rich breathing by my side. He was stroking hard now. He would soon cum. I had nothing to clean it up with.
His breathing became more intense. I got out my phone. There were still twenty seconds of 1993 left over.
Eli reached over with his free hand and activated the countdown clock. Then his hand closed around my neck, and he pulled me down.
For the first and only time, his penis entered my mouth. He immediately filled me with his cum. Gallons of it. Months of it. It was the fucking Fourth of July in my mouth, and I celebrated it with him.
I swallowed him. He deserved that.
He closed up his jeans and then leaned back to watch the stars go by as I drove.
Another shooting star shot across the sky.
Pretty sure we were thinking the same thing.