After Closing With the Miami Boat Captain

The Iron Palm in Coconut Grove never really cooled, not even past ten. Fans ticked over the racks. The AC lost every round to the wet Miami air that lived in the cinder block and the rubber mats. I was stripping forty-fives when the front door clicked and Diego Reyes came through it like the marina had followed him up the block. Thirty-one, charter captain out of Dinner Key, a faded gray tank stretched over shoulders that had hauled lines since dawn. Sun sat deep in his skin. His forearms were thick, veins up, a fresh rope burn near one wrist. I was thirty-four.

- Thought you locked this place at nine.
- I lock it when I'm finished. You sweet-talk the desk or did the door just give up?
- Kid went home. Door was lazy. Figured you'd still be in here punishing yourself.

He dropped a salt-stiff duffel by the flat bench and peeled the tank over his head. His chest was dense, hair darkened and stuck, nipples tight, stomach cut but still heavy through the middle the way a man stays heavy when the work is real. A pale scar hooked under his left ribs. Sweat tracked the line of it. I had spent the day correcting other guys' form, hands professional, voice even, and looking at him my mouth went dry for a reason that had nothing to do with the last set.

- Bench. Spot me. Don't hover like you're scared of the bar.
- How much you putting up?
- Enough that I want those hands close if I miss. He lay back. The knurl bit his palms. I stepped in over the bench so the back of his skull sat near the front of my shorts, and every rep his traps jumped and a rough sound broke out of him. On the last one his arms shook hard. I took the bar and racked it. He didn't sit up. His eyes stayed on the ridge in my shorts like that had been the weight he actually came for.

- You've been walking around like that since I came in.
- You planning to do something about it, or you just like the view?
- Lock the door, Caleb. I threw the bolt. It cracked loud in the empty room. When I turned he was already on his feet, close enough that I caught coconut sunscreen under iron and diesel and the sharp clean stink of a man who had been in the Gulf sun all day. His palm found my hip. Mine found the damp heat at the small of his back. For a second we only stood there, breathing, the gym humming, neither of us pretending anymore.

He kissed me hard, mouth open, salt on his lip, tongue pushing in like he had decided the second he saw me on the floor. I shoved him back into the rack and the cold uprights hit his shoulders while his hands went under my waistband and dragged my shorts down my thighs. My cock sprang out heavy and flushed, already wet at the tip. He wrapped a fist around it and stroked slow, thumb smearing that slick over the head, watching my stomach jump under his knuckles. I got his shorts down the same way. He was thick and cut, darker than the rest of him, velvet over steel, balls drawn tight, a clear drop shining at the slit.

I went to my knees on the rubber. The mat was gritty against my shins. I took him into my mouth and the weight of him filled my jaw, hot and heavy, my tongue pressed flat along the underside while my hand worked what I could not swallow. He tasted like salt and skin. I hollowed my cheeks and sank until my nose brushed the coarse hair at his base and my throat fluttered around the head. He gripped my hair and rolled his hips in short careful thrusts that made my eyes water and my own cock throb against my thigh, leaking, untouched. I pulled off with a wet sound, spit shining down his length, strings of it catching the fluorescent light, and I stood on legs that did not feel steady.

He turned me and bent me over the bench. The pad was still warm from his back. His chest sealed to my spine, heavy, hair scratching, sweat dripping onto the groove of my back. One broad hand spread me open. The other dug through the duffel, and then slick fingers, cool from the bottle, circled my hole and pressed and pushed inside. The stretch pulled a groan out of me into my forearm. He worked me with two fingers, then three, slow and filthy, curling until a bright shock ran straight up my cock and I leaked onto the vinyl in a thin shining line. I pushed back onto his hand, greedy for it, and he answered by spreading those fingers until I was open and shaking and ready.

He pulled his fingers free, lined himself up, and the blunt head nudged, paused, then sank. Inch by inch he filled me, the burn sweet and enormous, my hole clutching around him. He held there, buried, one arm banded across my chest, until I rocked back for more. Then he moved. Deep strokes slapped his hips into me and shook the bench. Every thrust dragged over that spot inside and turned my vision white. Sweat ran off his jaw onto my neck. His free hand fisted me, rough palm, perfect pressure, stroking in the same rhythm as his hips. I braced on the rack and met him, the wet sound of us loud in the empty gym. The coil in my gut snapped. I came hard, striping the vinyl, clenching around him in pulses I could not stop. He drove deeper, hips stuttering, and I felt him swell and spill, heat flooding me, his heavy body locked to mine until the shaking eased and the AC finally found our wet skin.