Journey Thru Abilene

[This is a completed nine-chapter work that will be posted in four segments by 30 November 2018]

Chapter One: Sweet Spot in Beaufort

“Now you just stay there, like that, little darlin’, and someone will be along in a minute to give you more comfort.”

More comfort, Gordy thought, turning his face to the side and suppressing a sob, as Josh Cardwell slid his knees back from under Gordy’s buttocks, rose off the cramped bench bed inserted into the curve of the sailboat’s cabin, zipped up his shorts, and turned and climbed up the ladder to the deck above.

Gordy remained there, on his back, his legs bent and spread, the soles of his sneakers—all that he was wearing—flat on the red vinyl surface of the bed as much because he was numb except for the soreness in his ass as because Cardwell had told him not to move.

At the sound from the top of the ladder at the hatch out onto deck, Gordy turned glazed eyes toward the roofline of the cabin. The rectangle of blinding light from the sun over South Carolina’s St. Helena Sound was blocked by the massive body of the Marine drill sergeant from nearby Parris Island. Cardwell, with Gordy functioning as the deckhand, had brought the Marine out of Beaufort, South Carolina, for a fishing trip.

Gordy hadn’t had an inkling before they cast off from the Beaufort yacht basin that he was the fish being snagged.

The Marine, probably in his forties, had the muscular body of a much younger man. A very fit man, as would be required of a “show them rather than tell them” Marine drill sergeant.

“You ready for a real man?” he growled, the stern gravel in his voice belying the big grin on his face, as he stood at the end of the bench, looking down on Gordy’s vulnerable open stance, unzipped his hip-hugging cut-off jeans shorts, and flopped out a whopping, hard cock. He fished a condom packet out of his shorts pocket before pushing the shorts off his legs, kicking them to the side, and starting to roll the Trojan Magnum on his cock.

Gordy moaned and threw an arm over his eyes, trying to make this go away. He’d have expected his first time would occur on this sailing, but he’d thought it would just be him and Josh Cardwell.

It was his fault, he knew. He had teased Josh Cardwell. He’d even wanted to do it. But it had mainly been a fantasy of doing it up until now. He’d gone to work for Cardwell in his Beaufort harbor bar straight out of high school. He couldn’t serve drinks yet, of course, but Cardwell had found other things for him to do and had slowly worked up to what he’d done today.

Gordy had used knowing Cardwell was gay and aggressive to get the job. He had dressed provocatively, curled and lightened his hair, scrupulously shaved his pits and chest, and even trimmed his pubes. He worked to show he was in good shape and didn’t look away as Cardwell’s looks increasingly showed his interest. He did a bit of posing in the light from the front windows of the bar and let a hand stray to his crotch to “make adjustments” when it seemed nobody was watching but he knew that Cardwell was watching.

Gordy Johnson needed a job coming out of high school. He had zero support for what he did from there. That’s when any state support for him in foster care with the Johnson family ended. And when the support ended, the Johnson’s interest in him had ended. That had not come as a surprise to Gordy. How quickly they had told him to move on to somewhere else had surprised him, though. Johnson wasn’t really his last name. No one claimed to know what Gordy’s last name really was. So, he’d taken Johnson, the surname of just the last family to foster him—during his high school years. Now he used it as rarely as possible.

He’d picked Cardwell because he figured that if he strung the man along, it would be the easiest way for him to get a job in a town where jobs were pretty scarce. But that was only one reason. Gordy had developed a realization that he liked men—and older, muscular men. But that had mostly been a “maybe” fantasy. Until today.

He’d had no idea he’d fall apart and give into being fucked by a man—actually show such welcome to it—and he couldn’t blame Cardwell for assuming that he wanted it—and bad. And now it wasn’t just one man; it was two. Gordy hadn’t figured on losing control, but he had.

They had rounded north of Parris Island and were safely into St. Helene Sound, when Cardwell lashed the wheel and came to the stern of the sailboat, where Gordy was bent over, coiling rope. Gordy had felt self-conscious for some time, wondering if the tiny Speedo, all basket in front and showing butt cleavage in back, he was wearing was too much. He had jumped at Cardwell’s invitation to go out fishing today and even had some notion that maybe he’d let Cardwell fool around with him if he made advances. Gordy wanted a raise at work and had connected that to giving Cardwell a rise—and, eventually, what he wanted. But he hadn’t realized that Cardwell was taking someone else out on the boat to fish. The Marine had sat there, as they wove through the channels north from Beaufort into the broader channel emptying into the sound, drinking beer and giving Gordy the eye.

The Marine was arousing and frightening at the same time. A massive chest. His head was shaved in a crew cut, but the thatch of hair on his chest was thick, black, curly, trailing down into his low-slung cut-off jeans shorts. His body was deeply tanned and heavily muscled, with veins popping out on his arms and thighs and a thick one running down from his pecs into his groin that Gordy found fascinating, kept looking at, and was frequently caught looking at by the Marine, who gave him a knowing little smile.

Cardwell approached Gordy from the rear, startling him as he put his hands on Gordy’s waist. The young man straightened up, surprised at the sudden intimate touch. Despite the shock of the familiarity, a jolt of electricity went through his body. He felt himself going immediately erect, and a long, low moan emitted from Gordy’s lips.

He had no idea why he was reacting this way, completely giving in at a touch—he felt a charge of arousal coursing through him at the touch of Cardwell’s fingers up his sides at his hips. On the left side in particular. In fact, all sensation seemed to rush to focus on that one spot to the lower left of his navel.

He pushed his buttocks into Cardwell’s groin, feeling the man’s insistent hardness, and turned his face to the side, allowing Cardwell to take his mouth in a brutal kiss. Cardwell’s right hand moved down under the waistband of the Speedo, and he fisted Gordy’s cock and began to stroke it. The man’s left hand remained on Gordy’s waist, his middle finger stroking the very spot that was making Gordy collapse against him and whine for attention.

Gordy came quickly. Cardwell moved his mouth to Gordy’s ear and whispered, “Let’s go down to the cabin and get more comfortable.”

“Yes, oh god, yes,” Gordy murmured, having no idea why he was giving in this easily or fully, only knowing that if the man didn’t stop rubbing that spot on his lower abdomen, he was going to come again.

Cardwell hadn’t stopped fisting his cock inside the pouch of the Speedo, either, and Gordy did ejaculate again.

“Shit, you want it bad, don’t you?” Cardwell growled, giving a little laugh. “You’re a regular little slut for it.”

Gordy was too busy gasping and concentrating on that finger rubbing that spot to reply.

The cry from the initial penetration was just taken as vocal welcome by Josh Cardwell, as, knees wedged between Gordy’s bent and spread legs and pushed up under Gordy’s buttock, angling Gordy’s ass passage for maximum penetration, Cardwell pushed his cock head beyond Gordy’s tight ring. Cardwell had no idea from Gordy’s response that the young man had never been ass fucked before. So, he gave the young man no slack.

He held Gordy in suspension there, allowing the channel to open to his cock for a while, but not long enough for Gordy not to feel the demands of the stretch for the full six and a half inches he took before Cardwell began to pump.

In shock and still focused on “that” spot as Cardwell held him by the waist and his thumb rubbed against Gordy’s skin below and to the left of his navel, Gordy arched back, supporting the weight of his torso on his shoulder blades, with fists pressed into the red-vinyl surface of the bench in the small ship’s cabin.

Gordy ejaculated yet again up his torso as, having the time of his life from the writhing and groaning and moaning of the young, blond flesh under him, Cardwell pumped to a fully satisfying “end of the road” pursuit of his luscious employee.

Now that it was the Marine’s turn, with a much longer and thicker cock than Josh Cardwell’s, Gordy opened his eyes and gave a low, frightened moan. Not wasting time, though, the Marine grabbed Gordy’s ankles and pulled his butt to the end of the bench. His hands moved to Gordy’s knees, and he lifted the young man’s pelvis off the surface of the bed, pulling him further up so that now his shoulder blades were taking his weight on the surface of the bench. The Marine positioned the bulb of his stiff cock at Gordy’s already-slackened hole and thrust deep inside the channel, immediately beginning to pump.

Gordy flailed around, crying out, and grunting and groaning between gasps. The Marine laughed and pumped fast. He moved his hands to Gordy’s waist, a thumb landing on “the spot” to the lower left of Gordy’s navel.

The younger man’s demeanor changed immediately. He switched to begging for the fuck. He pulled his torso up toward the Marine’s chest, his hands climbing the ropy arms of the soldier, and pressed his face into the Marines chest hair. His tongue followed the line of the prominent vein up the Marine’s sternum, and his mouth latched onto a plump nipple hidden in a swirl of black hair.

“Ha, knew you were a little slut for it,” the Marine boomed out in triumph. “Knew you wanted it rough.”

The Marine straightened up and pulled out of Gordy’s channel, backing off enough to allow Gordy to continue licking his way down the vein, into the groin. The young blond opened his mouth over the sheathed and slickened cock and took as much as he could down his throat, as the Marine laughed, told him to try to take more of it, and pronounced Gordy a teasing pro.

When the Marine had had enough of this play, he fisted Gordy’s hair, pulled Gordy’s mouth off the throbbing cock, and turned Gordy’s body over to where the young man was on his knees on the surface of the bench, his chest pressed into the surface of the vinyl covering. The Marine thrust inside the ass channel and fucked him doggy style, deep and fast. The right hand slipped under Gordy’s belly and milked the young man’s cock.

As long as his left thumb remained clutched to Gordy’s tender skin, rubbing him just below and to the left of the navel, Gordy was willing to let him do whatever he wanted with him.

* * * *

It didn’t take long after that for Josh Cardwell to discover that Gordy had a “sweet sex” spot—there to the lower left of his navel. Whenever Cardwell pressed or rubbed that, Gordy was putty in his hands. Gordy would open his legs to him, and, as long as he continued to rub that spot, Gordy would pull the cock inside him and fuck himself on it.

For a reference point, Cardwell took Gordy to a tattoo parlor and had a rose tattooed on “the spot” with blue ink, touched in red. The craftsmanship of the rose, when examined closely, perhaps wasn’t first-rate quality, because Gordy was riding the tattoo artists’ cock while he was inking it on, which made a steady hand impossible. Gordy just couldn’t sit still with someone touching the spot without having a cock inside his channel.

Cardwell found Gordy to be sexually insatiable as long as the rose tattoo was brought into play, and, entrepreneur that he was, Cardwell cleared out and set up a room above the bar on the Beaufort waterfront where men, paying as much for the secret of the tattoo as for Gordy’s time and body, lined up to fuck the nice little blond piece.

Gordy was being fucked by as many as four men a night when, exhausted and depressed, he decided to run away. He decided to go west. He had saved enough for bus fare as far west as Abilene, Texas, when he finally broke and ran. But that wasn’t until after Dean had deserted him.

Chapter Two: Dean

His name was Dean Horton. When Gordy first saw him, the young man was sitting at the bar in Josh Caldwell’s establishment in the old line of buildings ringing the Beaufort harbor, with front doors out onto Bay Street and the back doors out onto the fringe of the bay itself. The young man was watching Gordy polish beer glasses. The guy was tall and handsome, clean-cut, with a crew cut and an easy smile. He wasn’t at all like the retirees or the wiry, grease-stained handymen who predominated in the bar clientele. The man was so squared away that Gordy immediately thought of the nearby Parris Island Marine training complex and he grimaced, because this thought took him back to the Marine drill sergeant who had drilled him roughly the first time he’d been fucked. He’d been fucked fairly frequently since then, mainly by Josh Caldwell, but also by the occasional bar patron. The extra money was good, although the sex was becoming a little indifferent—unless the men brushed their fingers across his sweet sex spot, in which case they got a stellar performance.

For bar patrons, Gordy tried to turn his body such that they wouldn’t brush against the tattoo. Josh Caldwell knew all about the tattoo, so their fuck sessions were wild and steamy, with Gordy more than holding up his end of the sex play. But he would be slightly disgusted with himself afterward for so easily having lost control.

This guy didn’t look like one of those quick fuck types of patrons, though. He looked too clean-cut. He did look like a Marine, which brought Gordy’s thoughts back to that Marine sergeant—mixed thoughts. The man had taken him roughly, not knowing and apparently not caring that Gordy wasn’t seasoned to it. But no one since then had taken Gordy so fully and so satisfyingly either.

Maybe Marines could do it better. Gordy changed his grimace into a shy smile.

The young man had noticed the look of pain that had crossed Gordy’s face and was looking a bit confused. He looked away but then looked back at Gordy.

“Any chance of a refill on this beer?” he asked. His voice was a smooth baritone.

Gordy looked around and realized that the young man was addressing him. “Uh, not from me,” he answered. And then, calling down to the other end of the bar where the bartender was chatting up a call girl, “Stan, man here wants a refill on his beer.”

He looked back at the young man, who had taken a stricken look on his face of having been rejected. “Sorry,” Gordy stammered. “I can’t serve beer here. Not old enough.”

“Not eighteen yet?” the young man exclaimed, giving Gordy a look up and down for everything he could see on Gordy’s body to where the sight line disappeared below the bar top. Gordy was glad he couldn’t see any farther down behind the bar, as he was beginning to warm to this guy and his body was showing the reaction.

For some reason the young man’s face was showing disappointment.

“Sure, I’m older than eighteen,” Gordy answered, which was technically correct, as he’d recently turned nineteen. “You have to be twenty-one to serve alcohol in this state, not eighteen,” he explained, “Sorry about that. Here’s Stan, though. He can serve you.”

Embarrassed, as much by his body’s reaction to this guy as the little flash of misunderstanding, Gordy turned back to polishing glasses. He’d almost choked on the world “serve.” There was something about this guy that made Gordy think the guy wanted service—the kind that Gordy gave upstairs, not down here in the bar. There also was something about this guy that told Gordy he would be several cuts above the bar patrons Gordy usually serviced as a sex partner.

Gordy looked over his shoulder at the bar when Stan had moved away and saw that the young man was still looking at him closely—and had seen that Gordy was looking back at him.

Truly aroused now, Gordy turned and said, “I’m nineteen now. Had to get a job coming out of school, and I’ve never lived anywhere but here, so this is it, I guess. I’ll probably grow up to be a bartender here. And you? Are you from Beaufort? I haven’t seen you in here before.”

“I’ve been in here before, and I’ve seen you,” the young man said, giving Gordy a more intense look that should mean something to Gordy. And maybe it did. Some nights, when Gordy needed extra cash, he was a bit more forward with male patrons than usual—and he had a room dedicated to his use on the second floor for a percentage of the take. Near closing some nights he could clearly be seen mounting the stairs up to the second floor with a salivating guy in tow. If the young man stayed around outside past closing to see the man who had gone up the stairs with Gordy come out of the bar—and the young man had done that a couple of times—he was able to see the look of complete satisfaction on the john’s face. So, he knew Gordy could deliver.

“My name’s Dean. Dean Horton,” the young man continued. “Haven’t been here long and won’t be here much longer. I’m at the recruitment command over at the Marine base on Parris Island. Waiting for my orders. I’ll be a recruitment officer in some city when I’ve been placed.”

“Hi. I’m Gordy. An officer? A marine officer?”

“Yep, I’m a lieutenant now. Not long off embassy guard status in Rome.”

“Ah, Rome. Far away from here,” Gordy said. But his mind was elsewhere, despite where he wanted it to be. His mind was wondering if Marine officers fucked any less roughly than Marine drill sergeants did.

“You don’t like Beaufort?” the Marine asked. “Want to be somewhere exotic, like Rome?”

“Rome would be nice—mostly because it sounds like something’s happening there. Beaufort’s OK, although there’s little happening here. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be where less is happening than around here.”

“And when something is happening for you, what would that be like?”

Gordy didn’t want to understand the question—well, he wasn’t sure he didn’t want to understand it one way. He just wasn’t really sure if he was understanding it wrong. It didn’t seem wrong. He had put a hand down on the bar top and the Marine lieutenant had moved his hand close to it and had an index finger on top of Gordy’s finger. Gordy didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

“Look, I don’t want to beat around the bush,” Dean said. “I’ve come in here looking for some companionship. It’s lonely for guys like me out on Parris Island. I like my companionship with men—younger men, cute blond men. I’ve seen you reacting to men before in the bar. Going upstairs with them. They come back downstairs looking like the happiest men on earth. If I’m off base here, let me know. I’m looking for a good-looking guy who will go out with me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Gordy said, Dean’s hand moved over his. Gordy didn’t take his away. “You’re saying you want me to take you upstairs?”

“Not upstairs. Not here. I’m looking for a younger guy who will go out with me—me paying for everything—and then who will take my cock at the end of the date—but not here. Sorry if that’s too blunt, but this is a small town. I’m getting restless here.”

There was a pause without Gordy saying anything, but he didn’t turn his eyes away from Dean’s.

Dean continued. “You interested in going out with me sometime? There’s a new Spiderman movie on at the Plaza Stadium Theater. Tomorrow night maybe? It will end with me being on top of you. I don’t want to beat around the bush about that.”

“I work tomorrow evening,” Gordy answered. “Thursday’s my next evening off.”

“Thursday then? I’ll meet you here at six and take you to dinner and then the movie?”

And then what and where? Gordy’s mind was screaming. Where will he take me to do it? Will I have no control? I have some control when I take them upstairs. But he guessed he was way past bringing that up now. He hadn’t rejected the idea when it had been flatly stated. The Marine lieutenant was just too good looking and smooth to turn down. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be here; it’ll be good to get away from the bar,” is what he said.

“And you’ll take my cock? We have to be clear about that.”

“Yeah,” Gordy answered, “You can fuck me.”

As Dean got up from the bar, not finishing his second beer, making clear that it wasn’t beer he’d come in to the bar for, and moved off toward the door, Gordy’s first thoughts were “nice buns” and boy he’s tall—but broad shouldered. His next thought was that he had forgotten to name a price. But maybe this one was special. Maybe he didn’t want to whore himself for this one.

And the guy had said he’d pay for everything on the date. Gordy didn’t get many offers that good. Being a rent-boy if a town this small didn’t pay that well.

* * * *

Gordy didn’t remember afterward what they ate, but since it was at a pizza restaurant, with them eating there because Dean had asked him what he wanted to eat, it must have been pizza. Nor did he remember much from the Spiderman movie. He remembered being courted when the guy didn’t have to, as the guy had already established he was going to fuck him. That was nice—that the guy was treating him right. And Dean was someone it wasn’t hard to go with. The man towered over him, slim but with great musculature, looking down at him with a nice smile as they walked along. Dean wasn’t holding Gordy possessively, but he was stooping to whisper how cute Gordy was, what a nice body he had, how nice his smile was.

And he was touching Gordy here and there—on the arm, the thigh, a palm to the small of Gordy’s back as the Marine politely held the restaurant door for Gordy to go through, a palm on Gordy’s butt as they went through the doors into the theater, holding Gordy’s hand in the dark theater, inserting a finger into the palm of Gordy’s hand and making Gordy shudder at the feel of the finger moving back and forth, suggestively, keeping Gordy thinking that after all this the guy was going to put his dick in him and move it like the man was moving his finger on Gordy’s palm in the theater. Not just that, but Dean put an arm around Gordy’s shoulder in the theater and turned his head for a kiss as Dean’s hand went to Gordy’s basket and traced the hard cock it found there. Gordy’s cock had been hard since before Dean had picked him up at the bar. Gordy pushed his groin up into Dean’s hand and he covered it with his own. Oh, yes, Gordy was going to let Dean fuck him.

Gordy had never been courted—and prepared—like this. Ever.

“Well, I guess this is it for the night. That was very nice,” Dean murmured in front of the garage in back of the old house on Harrington Street, running up from the Beaufort harbor and Bay Street. Gordy was living in a small studio apartment above the garage, only partially paid for by Gordy. Josh Cardwell liked someplace more private he could go to for his trysts with Gordy, so he footed most of the bill.

Gordy didn’t know what Dean was saying was nice. The laid-back evening they had shared or the deep kiss they had just joined in the shadows of the back of the garage, around the corner from the lit stairs up to Gordy’s rooms.

“Aren’t you going to come up?”

“I don’t want to push it on the first date,” Dean answered in a low, hoarse voice. “I want to do this one right. I think you’re special. I know what I said about the date—what I mind you say you’d do. But I think you’re too nice to push like that. You should have a say in this.”

Dean gave a little jerk and shudder then, though, as Gordy was pulling the zipper down on his trousers, wrapping an arm around his neck, and pulling his face in for another kiss. Pulling away from the kiss, his hand already gripping Dean’s hardened cock, Gordy went down on his knees between Dean’s legs. The Marine braced his arms on the clapboard boards sheathing the back of the garage and whispered, “Oh, god, oh holy shit. Yes, like that,” as Gordy swallowed his cock.

If Dean was just working Gordy so he’d want it, it was working.

They only made it to the couch inside the door of Gordy’s rooms for the first fucking. Gordy’s chest was resting on the arm of the couch, his head and arms dangling toward to the floor at the side of the couch, his body streaming out along the bench of the couch, while the fit Marine was suspended above him, doing an endless set of pushups above Gordy’s back, with his cock thrusting down and pulling back with each pushup. After twenty minutes of it, exhausted, Gordy had just collapsed along the sofa and let the Marine take his time. Gordy had already ejaculated.

For the second fucking, on the bed, in the missionary position, Dean crouched over Gordy’s chest, their eyes glued to each other, as the Marine showed the famous stamina and vigor of his service in pumping Gordy long and hard again. From time to time the fingers of Dean’s hand moved close to the rose tattoo on Gordy’s hip, but each time the young blond brushed it away, murmuring, “No, please, I want to do this right. I don’t want this to be because of that.”

Dean had no idea what that meant, but he was lost to Gordy, followed the young blond’s lead, and fucked on.

When they subsequently met, Gordy gave in to Dean’s discovery of the power of the tattoo and their lovemaking became wilder. Gordy refused to take money for it, saying it was too important to him for that.

The two managed to meet and fuck nearly every day for the next three weeks. Josh Cardwell noticed the change in Gordy, quizzed him about it, and didn’t like Gordy’s evasions one bit. Leaving the bar one evening, he saw Gordy arm in arm with a Marine who was showing up at the bar more frequently than he had been in previous weeks. The two obviously were headed back to that garage apartment Cardwell was helping to pay for on Harrington Street.

Cardwell hadn’t fucked Gordy in a couple of weeks. Cardwell had been preoccupied with a business problem, and Gordy never seemed to be around except to do his job and then to bug out before Cardwell could get his hands on him—and, more tellingly, before one of the male patrons mounted the stairs to the second floor of the bar behind Gordy. Those second-floor visits didn’t pay much. Cardwell was losing financial opportunity on the young man—and he was missing the wild fucks that stroking Gordy’s sweet sex spot got him.

Part of Cardwell told him to do something about the situation. He knew guys who would do whatever he wanted. Another part, though, told him to just let it ride out. Gordy was a little whore. This was just a passing infatuation. He’d be back in the saddle soon.

And then Gordy was, indeed, back into the old grove. He wasn’t his former self, though. He had always been withdrawn and distant, but now he was more so and was a bit testy and morose in the mix as well.

Cardwell had been right about the Marine lieutenant being a passing phase. One day he was there, upstairs in Gordy’s rooms, fucking the young man in various languid positions. And the next day he was gone, without a word. But then Cardwell knew more about the why of that than Gordy did.

Three weeks previously Dean had gotten his assignment—to Billings, Montana, as a Marine recruitment officer. And he’d told Gordy about that, almost apologetically.

“It’s not anything like Rome,” he’d whispered in Gordy’s ear as he held the young blond into his stomach, both of them on their sides on the bed, only Dean’s pelvis moving as he fucked Gordy slow and deep from the back. “It isn’t even anything like Beaufort in terms of liveliness,” he said.

“But you are going there.”

“I’ve been assigned there. I’m a career Marine. I go where I’m sent. It isn’t Afghanistan either, which is good for us, although Afghanistan would be better for my career.”

“Good for us?”

“Because you can go with me. You couldn’t go to Afghanistan with me—unless you enlisted. And I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want you to take that risk.”

“Go with you?”

“Just think about it.”

Gordy didn’t have to think about it. He knew he’d go. He’d somehow get to Afghanistan even if he had to—to be with Dean. But the fucking got a bit intense and he didn’t have time to answer. He was asleep when Dean left him, having to spend his nights at the base.

And then there was no opportunity to give Dean an answer. Dean just didn’t show up again. Dean had abandoned him. It had all just been so that Dean could dip his wick for free while he was waiting out a temporary Parris Island assignment.

Gordy waited for a week and then grieved for a couple of weeks and then went back to the bar, offering himself even more often and freely than before. Because now Gordy was sure he wanted to leave Beaufort. To get far, far away from Beaufort. He decided to head for the West Coast. That was as far from Beaufort as he could conceive he ever could go. Dip his feet in the Pacific. Yeah, that’s what he’d do, he decided. It had to be better than the Atlantic. Any place must be better than here.