Danny walked the streets of Cherry Grove that afternoon, reaching into the residential section. Wherever he saw men who attracted him on the decks of the beach houses, they weren’t alone. There were other guys—sometimes only one; sometimes several. They were all having a good time, obviously comfortable with each other. All a family.

He had moved to the beach side and walked the line of the monster mansions. He stood, fingering the dog tags laying between his pecs with the word “family” running through his mind, in front of a house built in weathered gray wood that spread its wings toward the sea and swept up in the middle to a high peaked roof covered in wood shingles. It looked like a massive bird or ship ready to soar out to sea. It made Danny want to soar out to sea with it, to seek ultimate satisfaction somewhere out there in the cloud-draped sky.

Two men, one older and one younger, were on the deck, drinking beer and cuddled together. Focusing on them, Danny recognized Billy, the guy he’d 69d with on the Lighthouse Beach. The two looked so happy and into each other. Knowing a bit of Billy now, Danny thought that it wasn’t natural. Billy was probably putting on an act, and the older guy, the guy Billy had said was Kyle and was loaded and an architect—probably the architect of this glorious house—probably had no idea that Billy was playing him, using him.

While he watched, the older guy stood and shrugged a robe off his back. He looked real good from behind—not thin, but built solid and with good, firm buttocks, his shoulders lightly covered with curls of dark hair. He sat back down in his deck chair. His pecs were covered in hair that trailed down his sternum. The man reached over and pushed the robe off Billy’s shoulders. Then the man pulled Billy up from his chair and down into his lap, facing him. Billy spread his legs and dug the soles of his feet into the railing of the deck behind the chair and at the side of the deck. He arched back, his arms over his head and draping down to the flooring of the deck, while the older guy grabbed his waist with both hands, and then Billy’s body was moving in and out on the older guy’s lap, being fully powered, Danny thought, by the hands of the older guy.

Aroused, but with a feeling of frustration, Danny lowered his eyes and walked farther up the beach. He passed the soaring house again on his way back to the bar more than a half hour later. Billy was standing at the rail, riding it with his belly, his head and arms swinging low toward the beach. The older guy was standing behind him, hands on Billy’s hips, . . .

. . . His other hand let loose of the dog tags at his chest. He turned and walked up the beach several yards. He looked back for one last view of something he ached to experience, and stopped dead in his tracks, surprised, but with what Billy had said to him about Kyle—that he was insatiable and could go all day—floating up in his mind. Billy was on his back on a patio table, the older man between his legs, holding one of Billy’s legs up the line of his hairy, barrel chest.

Danny wanted to run up to the house and scream that he’d give anything to be Kyle’s Billy. But, of course he didn’t. He returned to Sam’s Bar to nap until the crowds started to arrive later in the evening—to prepare for what he knew would be a taxing performance of his own.