(no subject)
Title: Love Boat (With Men) [2/?]
Rating: R
Pairing: Stan/Kyle, Kenny/Butters, others, randos
Summary: Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny, and Butters all find themselves on a gay cruise. The cabins are small, and the the Speedos are smaller. Yet everyone is struggling with enormous agendas. And by agenda I mean penis.
Note: Welp, two chapters in and this is already a parody of itself.
Not that I am promising more chapters, mind.
Stan is roused by the sound of humming, and the snap of an elastic waistband against soft flesh. There is rustling, and then a pause, then more rustling, and then a pause. Then the entire mattress shifts, and Stan throws a pillow across the room and drags himself out of the pretense of sleep.
“Jesus.” Kyle is holding the pillow, standing directly over Stan. He’s wearing a pair of black half-length yoga pants, which Stan recognizes as nothing like anything that could have come out of Kyle’s closet. “Was that necessarily?” He shoves the pillow back down in Stan’s lap.
Stan wants to reach up and touch Kyle’s bare torso, his trail of sparse hair marching from navel on down into those pants. They’re not particularly subtle, and as Stan’s vision comes into focus, he almost makes out the diagonal bolt of Kyle’s cock - but then Kyle walks away, and starts rooting around in their wardrobe for a T-shirt.
Yawning around his wrist, Stan looks at the clock. It’s 5:50 a.m. “Jesus,” he murmurs, tucking the pillow between his thighs. “What time did you come in last night? And what the hell are you wearing?”
“What time did I come in last night?” Kyle says this like he doesn’t understand what it means. “I just got back 30 minutes ago.”
“What!” This is enough to wake Stan fully, making his head throb with the unnatural incandescent cabin lighting and the lack of good ventilation. “I was trying to sleep!” Stan didn’t get to bed until midnight himself, which is late for him. Generally he’s in bed by 10:30 and up at 6, with enough time to run with his mutt, shower, eat muesli for breakfast, check the forecast, bike to work. It is a very metered, routine lifestyle, and he really enjoys it. Nothing on this ship is metered or routine, and it has been less than 24 hours and Stan is ready to jump into the ocean if it means he doesn’t have to deal with this shit anymore.
“I’m going to yoga,” Kyle says, like this is some excuse, like he’s always gone to yoga at 6 in the morning; how could Stan have agreed to room with him and not known that?
“You don’t do yoga.” Stan knows now he’s not falling back to sleep.
“That’s right.” The pale blue T-shirt Kyle is wearing looks idiotic with his hair; it’s too tight, pinching him in the armpits and chest. “But I’m going today. Some guy invited me. Um. Scott? No, that was his friend. Ah-Kevin?” The shirt clings to his middle, which isn’t exactly the powerful core of a seasoned yoga enthusiast.
Stan scoffs at it. “Don’t ask me,” he says. “That shirt makes you look fat.”
“It does not!” Kyle tries to slap Stan, but misses and decides to settle for pulling Stan’s hair. “Fuck you!”
“Whenever you’re ready.” Stan lifts the sheets, hoping maybe Kyle will take off that ridiculous outfit and hop in.
“I’m not here to be - to be objectified!” Kyle snaps. “So tell me if you’re being serious!”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’re not.” Stan lowers his eyes. “Sorry,” he says. “You should go. Go off to yoga. I’m just cranky because I was rudely woken up by someone.”
“You’re impossible,” Kyle says when he’s stomping to the door. “Impossible!” he repeats before he snaps off the lights. Stan is grateful that their ‘affordable’ inner cabin has no window, or the daylight would peek in through their curtains, shining off late-winter seas.
Curling up on his side, Stan hears Kyle say, “You’re the most impossible person on this ship!”
“I thought you were going to yoga?”
“Gah!” Kyle makes an exit by slamming the door shut.
Under the blanket, Stan thinks about reading. He even reaches for his book, which slid onto the floor last night when he dozed off. But as his fingers slip over the cover, Stan realizes he’s too tired for serious intellectual activity. He pulls his hand back and tucks it under his chest. Soon the tired visions of pre-sleep weave in and out of his concentrated thoughts of Kyle.
When Stan’s awoken again it’s by crashing sounds and shushing.
“My roommate,” says a voice. Then that voice sort of titters, then collects itself and says, “No, seriously, he’s sleeping.”
“Whatever,” says a deeper voice. “Just get out of those yoga pants.”
“I thought you liked these yoga pants,” says voice No. 1. It’s Kyle.
“I only said that to get you to take them off!”
Kyle starts laughing again. “Okay, okay, but - shhh, he’s asleep.”
“Whatever, if he wakes up he can get in on this.”
If Kyle has a reaction to that statement, Stan doesn’t get to hear it, because he groans loudly and pulls the covers tighter over his head.
“Seems like someone had a late night,” says Kyle’s fuck-buddy.
“Oh, no,” Kyle replies. Stan hears the snap of latex against skin again, and even in this situation he’s impressed at how hard Kyle is attempting his put-upon stage whisper. “He’s an English teacher. I think he just stayed up reading.”
“He’s nerdy?”
“Kinda.” Now Kyle’s dropped any effort he was making to conceal this conversation. “But you wouldn’t know it, actually, he’s really into fitness, and he’s got good taste in music - I mean, not my taste, but empirically good, he’s kinda broody-”
“Hey,” says the other guy. “Are you just gonna talk about him the whole time? Like, is he hot? Should we ask him-”
Kyle at least sounds sheepish when he says, “No, it’s okay. Let’s just - let’s just get in the shower.”
“Mmmm. I like it.”
“Yes,” says Kyle.
Stan waits to hear the shower start, but it doesn’t. The room goes quiet for a moment, and then it’s pretty clear that Kyle and whoever the fuck have started having sex. The door to their cabin bathroom is not exactly thick, about the weight of the lavatory on an airplane, and the pounding against it is so loud that the whole room trembles. Not even covering his head with a pillow could spare Stan having to experience this. What’s worse is when the other guy starts trying to talk dirty, at first asking Kyle, “Do you like this?” Kyle says yes, he does, in a breathless way, but before long that’s degenerated into “Take it” and “I’m fucking your ass” and Kyle is just like, “Yes, yes,” as if this dipshit needs to have it confirmed while he’s at it.
It takes a lot for Stan to avoid vomiting. This is his least favorite kind of sex, macho overly demonstrative bullshit. Stan has become a very quiet person, and he likes that even if Kyle can be a bit shrill, he’s equally contemplative and doesn’t exude gross self-confidence. Kyle is a very old soul, or at least, he was before they got on this boat. Right now he seems to be coming. Stan knows this because he can hear Kyle shouting, “Oh fuck, I’m coming! I’m coming! Fuck me, fuck my ass,” about seven feet away from where Stan is sitting up in bed holding himself and trying not to cry.
It doesn’t last very long; Stan is eyeing the clock. Whoever this jackass is, he doesn’t make it to the four-minute mark before Stan hears him shout that he’s “jizzing” (not a word Stan would ever use; it makes him cringe) inside of Kyle. The pounding peters out to a stillness of heavy breaths, and then someone turns on the shower. Stan curls back up under the covers and blinks some tears from his eyes, sniffling. They run down his face and fall onto the stiff, white sheets, hotel-grade and bleached with something that mingles with the scent of Kyle’s sweat from the previous afternoon to prick at Stan’s senses. He hates this room and this cruise and he hates Kyle a little right now, too. Stan’s been pining for years, living like a war widow, with a numb feeling of loss and passion erected like a shrine in his heart. But to have to listen to Kyle have sex, even brief and likely horrible sex with some yoga enthusiast with pathetic stamina, makes Stan feel lower than he ever has in his life.
The bathroom door opens, and Stan feels it’s his right to ignore it. But Kyle’s trick says, “Hey, man,” and Stan sits up, hoping his tear tracks have dried up. “Hey, sorry we woke you.” This is Stan’s first good look at the guy. He’s tall and eerie, very light skin and delicate limbs that seem to float at his sides; there’s not a trace of hair on him, not even on his head. Or - yes, he has big, black eyebrows. Big full pink lips. His cock is soft; he must be a grower, Stan figures, because it’s petite, his foreskin twice as long, his balls smooth and compact.
“It’s fine,” Stan says, resting his head on his fist and his elbow on his thigh, hunched over.
The guy starts picking up his stuff from the floor. He puts on his socks first, then his underwear. “Whatcha doing today?”
The shower’s still running, and Stan would rather listen to that than speak with this guy. But the room is so small that Stan feels obligated to say, “Oh, I don’t know, too much to choose from.
Hairless guy laughs. “Tell me about it! Hot stuff, am I right?”
“Who?” Stan asks. “Kyle?”
“I meant everyone onboard. But, yeah, he’s a piece. Not so great at yoga, though. I could show him some moves. I could show you guys both some moves. You should come to yoga tomorrow.”
“No thanks.”
Pulling his taught tank over his head, Hairless says, “You seem pretty chill. How often do you hit that?” He gestures to the bathroom door with his shoulder.
Stan snaps, “That’s none of your business!”
“Take it easy.”
Stan picks up an unused pillow from Kyle’s side of the bed and hurls it. “Get the fuck out of my room!”
Hairless raises his palms. “Okay, whoa. Sheesh. I’m going.” He picks up a duffel bag and slips into his flip-flops. “Why does every hot guy have to be such a headcase?” He makes a point of slamming the door when he leaves. Stan can’t remember the door to this cabin ever not being slammed.
It’s not long until the shower shuts off and Kyle emerges from the bathroom. Stan is sitting up against the remaining pillows, arms crossed glaring. “I chased away your friend, sorry,” he growls.
“Oh, okay. Whatever.” Kyle’s in a towel that covers only the area between the tops of his nipples and the very bottom of his ass. He’s got another one wrapped around his head, like a turban. Stan smiles at this glimpse into Kyle’s fussy reality. Kyle crosses the room and starts rifling through the wardrobe while he holds up his towel with one hand. Every so often, Stan gets a glimpse of his dick. “He’s not my friend. I don’t even know that guy’s name.”
“Why would you fuck a guy whose name you don’t know?”
“I bet you’ve never done anything of the sort.” Kyle shakes the towel from his hair. Stan expects to see Kyle’s wet curls fall against his face, but since his hair’s been cut, nothing dramatic happens. Kyle smoothes it back down and pulls a pair of briefs from a shelf.
“I’m not keen on it, no.”
Kyle rolls his eyes and says, “Are we going to meet up for breakfast?”
“Who, me and you? Where are you going now?”
“No, I mean, are we going to meet up with Kenny and Butters?”
Stan shrugs. “Fine. I guess so.” He hasn’t been asleep for awhile now, and it’s almost 8, so he figures it’s time to get up. He does so, and stretches; his shirt pulls up, revealing some of his stomach. When he pulls it back down, he catches Kyle staring.
Kyle looks away. “Just put on your damn black shirt and let’s go.” He pulls one from the wardrobe and tosses it at Stan. “I’m starving.”
“Why? You sounded pretty sated to me back there.”
“You don’t have to act like a jealous prick about it!”
“I’m not being a jealous prick,” Stan says. He knows he’s being jealous, but he’s sure he’s not a prick. “We’re sharing this room. You can’t just bring tricks back here at 7:30 in the morning.”
“Why not?” Kyle puts his hands on his hips. “I came on this ship to have sex with as many people as possible. It’s the whole reason I’m here. What am I doing here if not to drag men back to my room if I feel like it? Do you want to act like we’re in college, and I put a sock on the knob if I’m fucking?”
“You fucked two people already-”
Kyle raises his eyebrows.
“-in the room, that I’m aware of,” Stan adds. “In like, 18 hours. That’s a lot. Maybe slow down.”
“Slow down? Do you know what it’s like, being a 28-year-old virgin?”
“Well, no-”
“Then stay out of it!”
“I’d like to,” Stan says. “But you’re kind of rubbing my nose in it.”
“You signed up to room with me!”
“I didn’t expect you were going to attempt to make up for 10 years of celibacy in six nights!”
“Maybe that wasn’t my plan, but…”
“But what?”
Kyle shakes his head. “We’re late for fucking breakfast!”
“Fine.” Stan grabs his keycard and iPod from the nightstand, and leaves with Kyle.
~
Breakfast is a buffet on the lido deck, by the pool. It’s relatively quiet, which Stan figures must be because the majority of the ship was up partying the night before. Most of the people eating at this hour are women. A few older men are eating in pairs, slight coffee-and-grapefruit breakfasts. Stan and Kyle find that Kenny and Butters are already sharing a plate of powdered sugar-covered french toast sticks with a big ramekin of syrup, poring over the daily bulletin.
“What the hell is that?” Stan asks.
“We’re trying to figure out what to do today,” Butters says. He’s got syrup on his chin. “There’s a lecture on bird-watching in St. George’s. I wanna do that tomorrow. Can we do that tomorrow, Ken?”
Kenny slumps in his seat like it’s been a long morning already. “Sure, we can go fucking bird-watching.” He picks up a french toast stick and jams it into the syrup. “Great, I’d love to.”
Butters’ expression turns sour. “You know, mister, I’m getting real sick of your attitude! We’re here to have a nice time, and it’s not every day I get the chance to go to Grenada!”
“We’re here for a reason, Butters. You can fucking bird watch in Colorado. We’ve got woodpeckers in the backyard for fuck’s sake.” Kenny slams the syrupy french toast stick in his mouth, all at once.
“I see you guys are in about as good a mood as Stanley,” Kyle says, sitting down.
“Yeah?” Butters looks up from the bulletin. “What’s wrong, Stan?”
“I’m great.” Stan coughs. “I’m getting some breakfast. Excuse me.”
Stan makes himself a bowl of cereal, and piles it onto a tray with a carafe of coffee, three different muffins, two bananas, a vanilla yogurt, a cruller, a cheese danish, and a plain bagel. He’s about to head back when he realizes he needs a package of light cream cheese. He regrets getting the cereal first, as the raisin bran is probably soggy already, but he figures that there should be enough here for him and Kyle to share.
When Stan returns to the table, Kyle is in the middle of ranting. It takes Stan a moment to realize that this is because Eric’s showed up.
“If you want it to happen you have to make it happen!” Kyle is shouting in Eric’s face. “Don’t just - just sit there like a fat piece of crap! You have to put yourself out there! You have to act pleasant! People can smell desperation!”
“I thought that was your Marc Jacobs perfume,” says Kenny.
Butters sniggers into his hands.
And Kyle goes red as Stan sets the tray down next to him. “You know what, I don’t have to take this.” He stands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Stan! First you want to control who I sleep with, and now you’re getting me breakfast?”
“I just thought you might like something here,” Stan says, “since I was getting it anyway.”
“I wanted hot food!” Kyle pushes Stan aside as he stalks off to the buffet, leaving Stan to sit down, shaking his head. Nothing on the tray looks appetizing to him anymore, especially not the soggy cereal.
“What’s a matter with Princess?” Eric says in his most grating voice. “Did she lose a glass slipper at the ball last night?”
Butters starts laughing even harder, pounding the table.
“Oh, fuck you, Butters, it’s not funny,” says Stan.
“I don’t think Kyle could balance in high heels!” Butters says. “It’s so funny - ah.” He has to wipe tears from his eyes. “He’s ungainly.”
“See, this is why we can’t get laid,” says Kenny, licking thick syrup from his fingers. The manufactured smell of it makes Stan gag around the danish in his mouth. “You’re turning people off.”
Eric reaches over Butters and Kenny to grab a french toast stick. “Yeah, I don’t know if it’s just Butters that’s a turn-off,” he says.
Kenny slaps Eric’s hand away. “Get your own fucking food!” he snaps.
“Come on, fellas. There’s enough to go around. You need to share more, Kenny.”
“I’m trying-”
“I thought anyone could get laid on this cruise,” Stan says to Kenny. He grabs the coffee and pours himself a cup.
“Apparently it’s trickier than I thought.”
“Not for some people,” says Stan.
“Nice.” Kenny crosses his arms. “Who’d you bag?”
“Me? No one.”
“Then who?”
This is when Kyle returns, which a plate of scrambled eggs and buttered toast. “What?” he asks, sitting down.
“What’s your secret?” Eric asks.
Kyle peers at him over the slice of toast he’s slathering with jam from a little foil packet. It’s supposed to be orange marmalade, but to Stan it reeks like Hi-C. “My secret to what?”
Eric raises an eyebrow.
Dropping his toast, Kyle turns to Stan and yells, “Did you tell them?”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“He just implied a little,” says Butters.
“Implied!” Kyle puts his head in his hands. “Oh Jesus.”
“I think it’s great,” says Kenny. “You’re doing better than the rest of us.”
“Sex isn’t a competition,” Stan says.
“Like fuck it’s not!” Eric sits as forward as his bulk will allow. He grabs the bagel off Stan’s tray. “What’s your secret, Jew? Do you trick them into it with your Talmudic secrets?
“Talmudic secrets? You don’t even know what the Talmud is!”
“It’s the, um, Jewish book of spells that teaches you how to use the Imperius curse.”
“I can’t dignify that with a response. I’ve never even read the fucking Talmud!”
“Aha! So you can’t prove it’s not full of spells.”
“It’s full of commentary on the Sabbath and shit,” says Kyle. “Oh man, I’m losing my appetite suddenly.”
Kenny clears his throat. “But seriously,” he says. “If you had some trick to bagging guys, you’d tell us, right?”
“Ha! There is nothing I could ever tell you about sex, Kenny. You bagged a guy when you were 15.” Kyle points his forkful of scrambled eggs at Butters.
“So I’m out of practice,” Kenny says.
“Can we all just eat fucking breakfast?” Stan asks.
“Yeah, you guys are not good for my image,” Eric says. He belches as he stands up.
“Eric, that’s very rude,” says Butters. It’s unclear if he means getting up in the middle of the meal, belching in company, or asserting that their group could possibly be worse for Eric’s image than Eric himself.
“Like I give a shit. Well, gentleman, it’s been delightful.”
When Eric is gone, Kyle groans. “The fucking Talmud? Where’d he even get that from?”
“Let it go, dude,” Stan says, more to himself than to Kyle.
After breakfast, they’re walking back to the room, or at least Stan thinks that’s what they’re doing until Kyle splits off at the elevators.
“Where are you going?” Stan asks.
“Got a date.” Kyle puts his hands on his hips.
“What the fuck?” says Stan. “At 9 a.m.? Did you not just have sex 50 minutes ago?”
“Sorry!” Now Kyle throws his hands in the air. “People like me! Go figure!”
It’s surprising to Stan that such an innocuous comment is his limit. “They don’t like you, Kyle! They like fucking the little bimbo you’re acting like!”
“What’s so wrong about acting a little dumb to get laid?”
“Because it isn’t you!” Stan feels like this could be his moment, finally, but he looks at Kyle standing in front of the elevator in this drab cruise ship corridor wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt and knee-length cut-off shorts that Kyle has owned since high school. They are way too small for Kyle’s ass, and Stan realizes that he’s not even in the mood. “If I believed you’d waited this long to have sex so you could throw it all away on some dipshit named Chad I wouldn’t be nearly as fond of you as I am,” Stan manages to spit out in a soft voice.
“How fond of me are you, then,” Kyle asks, “that it matters to you what I do and how I compromise myself?”
“Well,” Stan says. He sounds hoarse. “You’re my best friend.”
Kyle sniffs. “Yeah. I know.” He wipes his nose. “Well, it’s not the job of my best friend to tell me who I can and can’t sleep with.” He stands there waiting for Stan to reply, but Stan is frozen, unable to move. Finally, Kyle says, “Figures,” and walks away.
~
So upset he cannot even concentrate on the words on the page of his book, Stan changes into shorts and a ratty T-shirt, tube socks and a pair of trainers. He grabs his iPod and his Naglene, sticks his keycard in his sock, and goes up to the ship gym.
The place is packed with bulging men, spotting each other as they do reps on the free weights. Stan has to admit it’s a beautiful view - the sea, that is, not the men. The men are the same losers Stan’s used to fending off when he works out, beefy studs who think Stan is looking for some instruction because he isn’t stacked. Stan works out to listen to music and clear his mind with repetitive movements, not to turn himself into some physical ideal. He doesn’t like big muscles on anyone, least of all himself.
Finding a free treadmill, Stan starts with a slow walk, about two miles an hour. This is a good warm up, because he doesn’t feel like stretching. There are big picture windows out of which he can watch the water ripple in the ship’s wake. He finds it incredibly calming.
“Dude, hey, what’s up?”
Stan hasn’t had a chance to turn his music on yet, but he yanks his headphones out and is horrified to find Eric on the next treadmill over. “What are you doing here!”
“Oh, you know. Just getting my usual gym sesh in.”
Stan shakes his head. “You do not work out,” he says.
“Do so.”
“You’re full of shit, Cartman.”
“Nuh-uh. See, I always pick up, um, hot guys at the gym.”
Stan snorts. “Doubt it.” He increases his pace to 2.5 miles an hour.
“Maybe some guys like my built figure.”
“You are not built. You are four minutes away from a coronary.”
“Well!” Eric punches some keys on his treadmill display. “We’ll just see about that!”
Stan inspects Eric’s outfit of horribly baggy brown sweats and a red hoodie with yellow piping. “You know what,” Stan says. “I think I’ll just use the track.”
“Suit yourself,” says Eric. “More poon for me.”
Shuddering, Stan hits the cancel button on the machine and steps off, grabbing his water and iPod.
After a vigorous run of several laps, Stan decides the sun is becoming too bright and the track is becoming too crowded. He’s not sure what the length of the track is, or how far he’s run, but it hadn’t cleared his mind at all. He’s wondering where Kyle is, who he’s with, if Stan shouldn’t have said something different when they had their confrontation in front of the elevator. Stan stops to pick up his Nalgene from the spot where he left it on the floor near the entrance to the track, and when he stands up, a guy is there, lingering.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hello.” Stan unscrews the top of his water.
“You look like you got a nice work out.”
Stan wipes his mouth after a deep swig of water. “I guess so,” he says.
“You guess so?”
“It was fine.”
The guy puts a hand on Stan’s waist. He’s of average height and weight, a couple of inches shorter than Stan, but his gray beard and mostly brown hair don’t match and Stan finds this jarring. “Saw you running,” he growls, pulling Stan into him. “Your ass looks nice in those shorts.”
With one hand, Stan pushes him off. “Yeah?” he asks. “Wanna fuck it?” It comes off more sarcastic, and therefore crueler, than Stan meant it.
But this doesn’t deter the guy. “Oh,” he says. “My mistake.” Boldly, he sticks his warm hand down the front of Stan’s shorts, fondling Stan’s soft cock through his boxers. “Didn’t realize you were so butch.”
“I’m not butch, I’m not anything. Get your fucking hand out of my pants.”
This doesn’t have the effect Stan was intending, the removal of the hand from his shorts. Instead, the guy starts stroking, which starts making Stan hard. “I’ve got a suite,” the guy whispers, bending in so he can say it in Stan’s ear. “Big shower. You want to clean yourself up?”
“Maybe.”
“Then you can stick this big thing in me. You want that?”
Stan is forced to physically remove the hand from his shorts himself. It’s useless, though; he’s now completely erect, his cock tenting proudly. He thinks about what he always visualizes when he beats off, lying with Kyle, face-to-face, kissing as they rub against each other. Then Stan thinks of someone else doing this with Kyle. It makes him sad, but it also makes him harder.
“Let’s have a shower,” Stan says, “and I’ll think about it.”
The older man pecks Stan on the lips, smiling. As they walk out through the gym, Stan catches Eric glaring at him.
Rating: R
Pairing: Stan/Kyle, Kenny/Butters, others, randos
Summary: Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny, and Butters all find themselves on a gay cruise. The cabins are small, and the the Speedos are smaller. Yet everyone is struggling with enormous agendas. And by agenda I mean penis.
Note: Welp, two chapters in and this is already a parody of itself.
Not that I am promising more chapters, mind.
Stan is roused by the sound of humming, and the snap of an elastic waistband against soft flesh. There is rustling, and then a pause, then more rustling, and then a pause. Then the entire mattress shifts, and Stan throws a pillow across the room and drags himself out of the pretense of sleep.
“Jesus.” Kyle is holding the pillow, standing directly over Stan. He’s wearing a pair of black half-length yoga pants, which Stan recognizes as nothing like anything that could have come out of Kyle’s closet. “Was that necessarily?” He shoves the pillow back down in Stan’s lap.
Stan wants to reach up and touch Kyle’s bare torso, his trail of sparse hair marching from navel on down into those pants. They’re not particularly subtle, and as Stan’s vision comes into focus, he almost makes out the diagonal bolt of Kyle’s cock - but then Kyle walks away, and starts rooting around in their wardrobe for a T-shirt.
Yawning around his wrist, Stan looks at the clock. It’s 5:50 a.m. “Jesus,” he murmurs, tucking the pillow between his thighs. “What time did you come in last night? And what the hell are you wearing?”
“What time did I come in last night?” Kyle says this like he doesn’t understand what it means. “I just got back 30 minutes ago.”
“What!” This is enough to wake Stan fully, making his head throb with the unnatural incandescent cabin lighting and the lack of good ventilation. “I was trying to sleep!” Stan didn’t get to bed until midnight himself, which is late for him. Generally he’s in bed by 10:30 and up at 6, with enough time to run with his mutt, shower, eat muesli for breakfast, check the forecast, bike to work. It is a very metered, routine lifestyle, and he really enjoys it. Nothing on this ship is metered or routine, and it has been less than 24 hours and Stan is ready to jump into the ocean if it means he doesn’t have to deal with this shit anymore.
“I’m going to yoga,” Kyle says, like this is some excuse, like he’s always gone to yoga at 6 in the morning; how could Stan have agreed to room with him and not known that?
“You don’t do yoga.” Stan knows now he’s not falling back to sleep.
“That’s right.” The pale blue T-shirt Kyle is wearing looks idiotic with his hair; it’s too tight, pinching him in the armpits and chest. “But I’m going today. Some guy invited me. Um. Scott? No, that was his friend. Ah-Kevin?” The shirt clings to his middle, which isn’t exactly the powerful core of a seasoned yoga enthusiast.
Stan scoffs at it. “Don’t ask me,” he says. “That shirt makes you look fat.”
“It does not!” Kyle tries to slap Stan, but misses and decides to settle for pulling Stan’s hair. “Fuck you!”
“Whenever you’re ready.” Stan lifts the sheets, hoping maybe Kyle will take off that ridiculous outfit and hop in.
“I’m not here to be - to be objectified!” Kyle snaps. “So tell me if you’re being serious!”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’re not.” Stan lowers his eyes. “Sorry,” he says. “You should go. Go off to yoga. I’m just cranky because I was rudely woken up by someone.”
“You’re impossible,” Kyle says when he’s stomping to the door. “Impossible!” he repeats before he snaps off the lights. Stan is grateful that their ‘affordable’ inner cabin has no window, or the daylight would peek in through their curtains, shining off late-winter seas.
Curling up on his side, Stan hears Kyle say, “You’re the most impossible person on this ship!”
“I thought you were going to yoga?”
“Gah!” Kyle makes an exit by slamming the door shut.
Under the blanket, Stan thinks about reading. He even reaches for his book, which slid onto the floor last night when he dozed off. But as his fingers slip over the cover, Stan realizes he’s too tired for serious intellectual activity. He pulls his hand back and tucks it under his chest. Soon the tired visions of pre-sleep weave in and out of his concentrated thoughts of Kyle.
When Stan’s awoken again it’s by crashing sounds and shushing.
“My roommate,” says a voice. Then that voice sort of titters, then collects itself and says, “No, seriously, he’s sleeping.”
“Whatever,” says a deeper voice. “Just get out of those yoga pants.”
“I thought you liked these yoga pants,” says voice No. 1. It’s Kyle.
“I only said that to get you to take them off!”
Kyle starts laughing again. “Okay, okay, but - shhh, he’s asleep.”
“Whatever, if he wakes up he can get in on this.”
If Kyle has a reaction to that statement, Stan doesn’t get to hear it, because he groans loudly and pulls the covers tighter over his head.
“Seems like someone had a late night,” says Kyle’s fuck-buddy.
“Oh, no,” Kyle replies. Stan hears the snap of latex against skin again, and even in this situation he’s impressed at how hard Kyle is attempting his put-upon stage whisper. “He’s an English teacher. I think he just stayed up reading.”
“He’s nerdy?”
“Kinda.” Now Kyle’s dropped any effort he was making to conceal this conversation. “But you wouldn’t know it, actually, he’s really into fitness, and he’s got good taste in music - I mean, not my taste, but empirically good, he’s kinda broody-”
“Hey,” says the other guy. “Are you just gonna talk about him the whole time? Like, is he hot? Should we ask him-”
Kyle at least sounds sheepish when he says, “No, it’s okay. Let’s just - let’s just get in the shower.”
“Mmmm. I like it.”
“Yes,” says Kyle.
Stan waits to hear the shower start, but it doesn’t. The room goes quiet for a moment, and then it’s pretty clear that Kyle and whoever the fuck have started having sex. The door to their cabin bathroom is not exactly thick, about the weight of the lavatory on an airplane, and the pounding against it is so loud that the whole room trembles. Not even covering his head with a pillow could spare Stan having to experience this. What’s worse is when the other guy starts trying to talk dirty, at first asking Kyle, “Do you like this?” Kyle says yes, he does, in a breathless way, but before long that’s degenerated into “Take it” and “I’m fucking your ass” and Kyle is just like, “Yes, yes,” as if this dipshit needs to have it confirmed while he’s at it.
It takes a lot for Stan to avoid vomiting. This is his least favorite kind of sex, macho overly demonstrative bullshit. Stan has become a very quiet person, and he likes that even if Kyle can be a bit shrill, he’s equally contemplative and doesn’t exude gross self-confidence. Kyle is a very old soul, or at least, he was before they got on this boat. Right now he seems to be coming. Stan knows this because he can hear Kyle shouting, “Oh fuck, I’m coming! I’m coming! Fuck me, fuck my ass,” about seven feet away from where Stan is sitting up in bed holding himself and trying not to cry.
It doesn’t last very long; Stan is eyeing the clock. Whoever this jackass is, he doesn’t make it to the four-minute mark before Stan hears him shout that he’s “jizzing” (not a word Stan would ever use; it makes him cringe) inside of Kyle. The pounding peters out to a stillness of heavy breaths, and then someone turns on the shower. Stan curls back up under the covers and blinks some tears from his eyes, sniffling. They run down his face and fall onto the stiff, white sheets, hotel-grade and bleached with something that mingles with the scent of Kyle’s sweat from the previous afternoon to prick at Stan’s senses. He hates this room and this cruise and he hates Kyle a little right now, too. Stan’s been pining for years, living like a war widow, with a numb feeling of loss and passion erected like a shrine in his heart. But to have to listen to Kyle have sex, even brief and likely horrible sex with some yoga enthusiast with pathetic stamina, makes Stan feel lower than he ever has in his life.
The bathroom door opens, and Stan feels it’s his right to ignore it. But Kyle’s trick says, “Hey, man,” and Stan sits up, hoping his tear tracks have dried up. “Hey, sorry we woke you.” This is Stan’s first good look at the guy. He’s tall and eerie, very light skin and delicate limbs that seem to float at his sides; there’s not a trace of hair on him, not even on his head. Or - yes, he has big, black eyebrows. Big full pink lips. His cock is soft; he must be a grower, Stan figures, because it’s petite, his foreskin twice as long, his balls smooth and compact.
“It’s fine,” Stan says, resting his head on his fist and his elbow on his thigh, hunched over.
The guy starts picking up his stuff from the floor. He puts on his socks first, then his underwear. “Whatcha doing today?”
The shower’s still running, and Stan would rather listen to that than speak with this guy. But the room is so small that Stan feels obligated to say, “Oh, I don’t know, too much to choose from.
Hairless guy laughs. “Tell me about it! Hot stuff, am I right?”
“Who?” Stan asks. “Kyle?”
“I meant everyone onboard. But, yeah, he’s a piece. Not so great at yoga, though. I could show him some moves. I could show you guys both some moves. You should come to yoga tomorrow.”
“No thanks.”
Pulling his taught tank over his head, Hairless says, “You seem pretty chill. How often do you hit that?” He gestures to the bathroom door with his shoulder.
Stan snaps, “That’s none of your business!”
“Take it easy.”
Stan picks up an unused pillow from Kyle’s side of the bed and hurls it. “Get the fuck out of my room!”
Hairless raises his palms. “Okay, whoa. Sheesh. I’m going.” He picks up a duffel bag and slips into his flip-flops. “Why does every hot guy have to be such a headcase?” He makes a point of slamming the door when he leaves. Stan can’t remember the door to this cabin ever not being slammed.
It’s not long until the shower shuts off and Kyle emerges from the bathroom. Stan is sitting up against the remaining pillows, arms crossed glaring. “I chased away your friend, sorry,” he growls.
“Oh, okay. Whatever.” Kyle’s in a towel that covers only the area between the tops of his nipples and the very bottom of his ass. He’s got another one wrapped around his head, like a turban. Stan smiles at this glimpse into Kyle’s fussy reality. Kyle crosses the room and starts rifling through the wardrobe while he holds up his towel with one hand. Every so often, Stan gets a glimpse of his dick. “He’s not my friend. I don’t even know that guy’s name.”
“Why would you fuck a guy whose name you don’t know?”
“I bet you’ve never done anything of the sort.” Kyle shakes the towel from his hair. Stan expects to see Kyle’s wet curls fall against his face, but since his hair’s been cut, nothing dramatic happens. Kyle smoothes it back down and pulls a pair of briefs from a shelf.
“I’m not keen on it, no.”
Kyle rolls his eyes and says, “Are we going to meet up for breakfast?”
“Who, me and you? Where are you going now?”
“No, I mean, are we going to meet up with Kenny and Butters?”
Stan shrugs. “Fine. I guess so.” He hasn’t been asleep for awhile now, and it’s almost 8, so he figures it’s time to get up. He does so, and stretches; his shirt pulls up, revealing some of his stomach. When he pulls it back down, he catches Kyle staring.
Kyle looks away. “Just put on your damn black shirt and let’s go.” He pulls one from the wardrobe and tosses it at Stan. “I’m starving.”
“Why? You sounded pretty sated to me back there.”
“You don’t have to act like a jealous prick about it!”
“I’m not being a jealous prick,” Stan says. He knows he’s being jealous, but he’s sure he’s not a prick. “We’re sharing this room. You can’t just bring tricks back here at 7:30 in the morning.”
“Why not?” Kyle puts his hands on his hips. “I came on this ship to have sex with as many people as possible. It’s the whole reason I’m here. What am I doing here if not to drag men back to my room if I feel like it? Do you want to act like we’re in college, and I put a sock on the knob if I’m fucking?”
“You fucked two people already-”
Kyle raises his eyebrows.
“-in the room, that I’m aware of,” Stan adds. “In like, 18 hours. That’s a lot. Maybe slow down.”
“Slow down? Do you know what it’s like, being a 28-year-old virgin?”
“Well, no-”
“Then stay out of it!”
“I’d like to,” Stan says. “But you’re kind of rubbing my nose in it.”
“You signed up to room with me!”
“I didn’t expect you were going to attempt to make up for 10 years of celibacy in six nights!”
“Maybe that wasn’t my plan, but…”
“But what?”
Kyle shakes his head. “We’re late for fucking breakfast!”
“Fine.” Stan grabs his keycard and iPod from the nightstand, and leaves with Kyle.
~
Breakfast is a buffet on the lido deck, by the pool. It’s relatively quiet, which Stan figures must be because the majority of the ship was up partying the night before. Most of the people eating at this hour are women. A few older men are eating in pairs, slight coffee-and-grapefruit breakfasts. Stan and Kyle find that Kenny and Butters are already sharing a plate of powdered sugar-covered french toast sticks with a big ramekin of syrup, poring over the daily bulletin.
“What the hell is that?” Stan asks.
“We’re trying to figure out what to do today,” Butters says. He’s got syrup on his chin. “There’s a lecture on bird-watching in St. George’s. I wanna do that tomorrow. Can we do that tomorrow, Ken?”
Kenny slumps in his seat like it’s been a long morning already. “Sure, we can go fucking bird-watching.” He picks up a french toast stick and jams it into the syrup. “Great, I’d love to.”
Butters’ expression turns sour. “You know, mister, I’m getting real sick of your attitude! We’re here to have a nice time, and it’s not every day I get the chance to go to Grenada!”
“We’re here for a reason, Butters. You can fucking bird watch in Colorado. We’ve got woodpeckers in the backyard for fuck’s sake.” Kenny slams the syrupy french toast stick in his mouth, all at once.
“I see you guys are in about as good a mood as Stanley,” Kyle says, sitting down.
“Yeah?” Butters looks up from the bulletin. “What’s wrong, Stan?”
“I’m great.” Stan coughs. “I’m getting some breakfast. Excuse me.”
Stan makes himself a bowl of cereal, and piles it onto a tray with a carafe of coffee, three different muffins, two bananas, a vanilla yogurt, a cruller, a cheese danish, and a plain bagel. He’s about to head back when he realizes he needs a package of light cream cheese. He regrets getting the cereal first, as the raisin bran is probably soggy already, but he figures that there should be enough here for him and Kyle to share.
When Stan returns to the table, Kyle is in the middle of ranting. It takes Stan a moment to realize that this is because Eric’s showed up.
“If you want it to happen you have to make it happen!” Kyle is shouting in Eric’s face. “Don’t just - just sit there like a fat piece of crap! You have to put yourself out there! You have to act pleasant! People can smell desperation!”
“I thought that was your Marc Jacobs perfume,” says Kenny.
Butters sniggers into his hands.
And Kyle goes red as Stan sets the tray down next to him. “You know what, I don’t have to take this.” He stands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Stan! First you want to control who I sleep with, and now you’re getting me breakfast?”
“I just thought you might like something here,” Stan says, “since I was getting it anyway.”
“I wanted hot food!” Kyle pushes Stan aside as he stalks off to the buffet, leaving Stan to sit down, shaking his head. Nothing on the tray looks appetizing to him anymore, especially not the soggy cereal.
“What’s a matter with Princess?” Eric says in his most grating voice. “Did she lose a glass slipper at the ball last night?”
Butters starts laughing even harder, pounding the table.
“Oh, fuck you, Butters, it’s not funny,” says Stan.
“I don’t think Kyle could balance in high heels!” Butters says. “It’s so funny - ah.” He has to wipe tears from his eyes. “He’s ungainly.”
“See, this is why we can’t get laid,” says Kenny, licking thick syrup from his fingers. The manufactured smell of it makes Stan gag around the danish in his mouth. “You’re turning people off.”
Eric reaches over Butters and Kenny to grab a french toast stick. “Yeah, I don’t know if it’s just Butters that’s a turn-off,” he says.
Kenny slaps Eric’s hand away. “Get your own fucking food!” he snaps.
“Come on, fellas. There’s enough to go around. You need to share more, Kenny.”
“I’m trying-”
“I thought anyone could get laid on this cruise,” Stan says to Kenny. He grabs the coffee and pours himself a cup.
“Apparently it’s trickier than I thought.”
“Not for some people,” says Stan.
“Nice.” Kenny crosses his arms. “Who’d you bag?”
“Me? No one.”
“Then who?”
This is when Kyle returns, which a plate of scrambled eggs and buttered toast. “What?” he asks, sitting down.
“What’s your secret?” Eric asks.
Kyle peers at him over the slice of toast he’s slathering with jam from a little foil packet. It’s supposed to be orange marmalade, but to Stan it reeks like Hi-C. “My secret to what?”
Eric raises an eyebrow.
Dropping his toast, Kyle turns to Stan and yells, “Did you tell them?”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“He just implied a little,” says Butters.
“Implied!” Kyle puts his head in his hands. “Oh Jesus.”
“I think it’s great,” says Kenny. “You’re doing better than the rest of us.”
“Sex isn’t a competition,” Stan says.
“Like fuck it’s not!” Eric sits as forward as his bulk will allow. He grabs the bagel off Stan’s tray. “What’s your secret, Jew? Do you trick them into it with your Talmudic secrets?
“Talmudic secrets? You don’t even know what the Talmud is!”
“It’s the, um, Jewish book of spells that teaches you how to use the Imperius curse.”
“I can’t dignify that with a response. I’ve never even read the fucking Talmud!”
“Aha! So you can’t prove it’s not full of spells.”
“It’s full of commentary on the Sabbath and shit,” says Kyle. “Oh man, I’m losing my appetite suddenly.”
Kenny clears his throat. “But seriously,” he says. “If you had some trick to bagging guys, you’d tell us, right?”
“Ha! There is nothing I could ever tell you about sex, Kenny. You bagged a guy when you were 15.” Kyle points his forkful of scrambled eggs at Butters.
“So I’m out of practice,” Kenny says.
“Can we all just eat fucking breakfast?” Stan asks.
“Yeah, you guys are not good for my image,” Eric says. He belches as he stands up.
“Eric, that’s very rude,” says Butters. It’s unclear if he means getting up in the middle of the meal, belching in company, or asserting that their group could possibly be worse for Eric’s image than Eric himself.
“Like I give a shit. Well, gentleman, it’s been delightful.”
When Eric is gone, Kyle groans. “The fucking Talmud? Where’d he even get that from?”
“Let it go, dude,” Stan says, more to himself than to Kyle.
After breakfast, they’re walking back to the room, or at least Stan thinks that’s what they’re doing until Kyle splits off at the elevators.
“Where are you going?” Stan asks.
“Got a date.” Kyle puts his hands on his hips.
“What the fuck?” says Stan. “At 9 a.m.? Did you not just have sex 50 minutes ago?”
“Sorry!” Now Kyle throws his hands in the air. “People like me! Go figure!”
It’s surprising to Stan that such an innocuous comment is his limit. “They don’t like you, Kyle! They like fucking the little bimbo you’re acting like!”
“What’s so wrong about acting a little dumb to get laid?”
“Because it isn’t you!” Stan feels like this could be his moment, finally, but he looks at Kyle standing in front of the elevator in this drab cruise ship corridor wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt and knee-length cut-off shorts that Kyle has owned since high school. They are way too small for Kyle’s ass, and Stan realizes that he’s not even in the mood. “If I believed you’d waited this long to have sex so you could throw it all away on some dipshit named Chad I wouldn’t be nearly as fond of you as I am,” Stan manages to spit out in a soft voice.
“How fond of me are you, then,” Kyle asks, “that it matters to you what I do and how I compromise myself?”
“Well,” Stan says. He sounds hoarse. “You’re my best friend.”
Kyle sniffs. “Yeah. I know.” He wipes his nose. “Well, it’s not the job of my best friend to tell me who I can and can’t sleep with.” He stands there waiting for Stan to reply, but Stan is frozen, unable to move. Finally, Kyle says, “Figures,” and walks away.
~
So upset he cannot even concentrate on the words on the page of his book, Stan changes into shorts and a ratty T-shirt, tube socks and a pair of trainers. He grabs his iPod and his Naglene, sticks his keycard in his sock, and goes up to the ship gym.
The place is packed with bulging men, spotting each other as they do reps on the free weights. Stan has to admit it’s a beautiful view - the sea, that is, not the men. The men are the same losers Stan’s used to fending off when he works out, beefy studs who think Stan is looking for some instruction because he isn’t stacked. Stan works out to listen to music and clear his mind with repetitive movements, not to turn himself into some physical ideal. He doesn’t like big muscles on anyone, least of all himself.
Finding a free treadmill, Stan starts with a slow walk, about two miles an hour. This is a good warm up, because he doesn’t feel like stretching. There are big picture windows out of which he can watch the water ripple in the ship’s wake. He finds it incredibly calming.
“Dude, hey, what’s up?”
Stan hasn’t had a chance to turn his music on yet, but he yanks his headphones out and is horrified to find Eric on the next treadmill over. “What are you doing here!”
“Oh, you know. Just getting my usual gym sesh in.”
Stan shakes his head. “You do not work out,” he says.
“Do so.”
“You’re full of shit, Cartman.”
“Nuh-uh. See, I always pick up, um, hot guys at the gym.”
Stan snorts. “Doubt it.” He increases his pace to 2.5 miles an hour.
“Maybe some guys like my built figure.”
“You are not built. You are four minutes away from a coronary.”
“Well!” Eric punches some keys on his treadmill display. “We’ll just see about that!”
Stan inspects Eric’s outfit of horribly baggy brown sweats and a red hoodie with yellow piping. “You know what,” Stan says. “I think I’ll just use the track.”
“Suit yourself,” says Eric. “More poon for me.”
Shuddering, Stan hits the cancel button on the machine and steps off, grabbing his water and iPod.
After a vigorous run of several laps, Stan decides the sun is becoming too bright and the track is becoming too crowded. He’s not sure what the length of the track is, or how far he’s run, but it hadn’t cleared his mind at all. He’s wondering where Kyle is, who he’s with, if Stan shouldn’t have said something different when they had their confrontation in front of the elevator. Stan stops to pick up his Nalgene from the spot where he left it on the floor near the entrance to the track, and when he stands up, a guy is there, lingering.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hello.” Stan unscrews the top of his water.
“You look like you got a nice work out.”
Stan wipes his mouth after a deep swig of water. “I guess so,” he says.
“You guess so?”
“It was fine.”
The guy puts a hand on Stan’s waist. He’s of average height and weight, a couple of inches shorter than Stan, but his gray beard and mostly brown hair don’t match and Stan finds this jarring. “Saw you running,” he growls, pulling Stan into him. “Your ass looks nice in those shorts.”
With one hand, Stan pushes him off. “Yeah?” he asks. “Wanna fuck it?” It comes off more sarcastic, and therefore crueler, than Stan meant it.
But this doesn’t deter the guy. “Oh,” he says. “My mistake.” Boldly, he sticks his warm hand down the front of Stan’s shorts, fondling Stan’s soft cock through his boxers. “Didn’t realize you were so butch.”
“I’m not butch, I’m not anything. Get your fucking hand out of my pants.”
This doesn’t have the effect Stan was intending, the removal of the hand from his shorts. Instead, the guy starts stroking, which starts making Stan hard. “I’ve got a suite,” the guy whispers, bending in so he can say it in Stan’s ear. “Big shower. You want to clean yourself up?”
“Maybe.”
“Then you can stick this big thing in me. You want that?”
Stan is forced to physically remove the hand from his shorts himself. It’s useless, though; he’s now completely erect, his cock tenting proudly. He thinks about what he always visualizes when he beats off, lying with Kyle, face-to-face, kissing as they rub against each other. Then Stan thinks of someone else doing this with Kyle. It makes him sad, but it also makes him harder.
“Let’s have a shower,” Stan says, “and I’ll think about it.”
The older man pecks Stan on the lips, smiling. As they walk out through the gym, Stan catches Eric glaring at him.