Swell Zine: The Onanist

The summer I masturbated to my mom's Chippendale stripper cards was the summer I hoped to bleed in the shark triangle of the world. Located north of San Francisco, this usually gray patch of Pacific had the fog of the city and a deadly kind of bustle. Beneath the choppy surface, Great Whites assembled to tear the innards of fish and mammals.

I arrived at the quiet killing grounds by riding with the Liveson family, the youngest of whom was my childhood pal. We'd both sprouted into existence east of San Francisco, in an upper-class enclave that supported a college matriculation rate of 90% and housed the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Our moms were best friends, and while my mom shuttled us to the flag football practices I dreaded, Mrs. Liveson supervised us at the beach house she and her husband rented every August. When the weather consented, the Liveson brothers and I bogeyboarded, threw wet sandballs at each other's stomachs, and managed all those other aggressions expected of healthy California boys.

But this year-my thirteenth year-something was bent inside me, like one of those starfish that would turn to stubborn curl after I plucked it from tide pool. My behavior matched my weird interior. Come sun's sinking, when the Livesons would retreat from sand to shower, I would continue toeing the saltwater. And as the family boiled "German sausages" (Mrs. Liveson was a Frankfurt native) and advanced their brains around the Scrabble board, I dove under icy waves and conjured visions of rolling shark eyes and jagged teeth. I had to concentrate on terror to distract me from desire.

I'd only glimpsed Tony R.'s card once-during that surreal night I'd snuck the entire Chippendales troupe from my mom's stockings drawer to my bedroom-yet I couldn't pull my mind from the trail of fuzz leading from the valley between his nipples to the peak beneath his G-string. The hairsprayed, bow-tied exotic dancer had seduced me into territory no male should go, and after a few Tony R.-inspired orgasms I knew I'd forgotten the route back to normalcy. On the drive to the shark triangle of the world, I decided that the only way to regain my masculinity was by losing a little flesh. Or a lot of blood.

No jaw opened, nor did a tail thrash the water. But the shark bell sounded one weekend.

"Fag alert," my childhood pal said as we obeyed the coast guard's warning and evacuated ocean. My childhood pal pointed at one of the exiting swimmers, a fellow who resembled a moustached version of the King of Hearts from my mom's cards.

"That man?" I said in doubt. I'd always pictured fags as dejected, reptilian creatures that couldn't survive beyond the shadowed alleys of San Francisco. Yet this sinewy specimen of athleticism smiled as he followed foamy crests toward shore. His thighs must have been twice the size of Tony R.'s.

"I spotted him French-kissing a guy in the water yesterday," my childhood pal said. "One of them was holding something, and when I snuck closer I saw it was a soap dick."

"Disgusting," I said, rolling onto stomach so my childhood friend wouldn't spot the rise at the front of my swimsuit. I shut my eyes and located the homosexuals' object in my imagination. Pink and smooth and curving, it evaded darting sharks and floated onto land like some special baton.

I drifted a great distance from the beach house that day. Nothing could convince me back inside the structure. Not my childhood pal, who tried to goad me onto the deck by saying he'd conquer all continents if we played a game of Risk. And not Mrs. Liveson, who shouted for me to return when I strayed past family homes and skirted the less-fashionable apartment complexes lining the beach. She hurdled driftwood to reach me, and gripped my arm when she said I was acting odd for not opting to watch E.T. with the rest of the Livesons.

I'd thought of death as being in that direction. Now I calculated that if you kept on paddling past horizon you'd catch up with the sun and witness what Japan looks like at daybreak.

In reply to my silence, Mrs. Liveson said, "Do you want me to phone your mom? I can tell her you refuse to stay out of the sea."

In truth, I had no intention of swimming. I didn't want to miss seeing how other people spent their Saturdays.

Fiction writer David Massengill grew up in the Bay Area and has resided in Seattle for nearly a decade. His short stories have appeared in StringTown, The Raven Chronicles, 3 A.M. Magazine, Rivet Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, Little Engines, and N.O.L.A. Spleen, among other literary magazines. He has also contributed nonfiction to Seattle Weekly and American Book Review.