by Ian McDuff

Although it is not a songfic per se, it is, like all Songbook pieces, largely driven by a soundtrack. In this instance, that sound track is comprised of damned near every beach music song ever recorded by damned near every beach music band that has ever played for a couple shagging on the sands, from the Band of Oz to the Hardway Connection to The Tams. For me, that’s a labor of love.

James Lance Bass – James, at the moment, the public persona of ‘Lance’ being already packed away with his shaving kit – took a sharp step backwards out of the walk-in closet. Chris Kirkpatrick started to state the obvious, but thought better of it when James’s Josh pinned him with a glare.

‘What’s wrong, babe?’ Josh was concerned.

‘Ran across that Dead Bear you wore to the VMAs that time,’ Lance groused, his own disastrous foray into sequined flames conveniently forgotten. ‘I never want to see that horrid, hairy thing hanging off you again.’

‘But, Lance,’ Chris said, all mock innocence, ‘Joey’s a part of the group, we can’t dump him now.’

Lance turned and stared at him. Two for two so far with the Bass-Chasezes. ‘Tell me again why you are here, underfoot, while Joshy and I pack?’

‘I was bored. And you know you don’t want that. Anyhow, you two are endlessly entertaining.’

‘Go get Justin or Joe to be your Shiny Object of Fascination for the day,’ JC grumped.

‘Nah. Much more fun here. Besides.’ He milked the pause. ‘La Cage Aux Folles is my favoritest movie.’

Not so very far away, Nick Carter was – wait for it – whining. And pouting prettily. At least, his Howie found it pretty: though the rest of the group were not as convinced.

‘But Howwiiieeee….’

‘Ay, patito.’ Behind him, AJ quacked, derisively. The Carter-Dorough pet names sometimes got a little much, even if ducklings are, admittedly, terminally cute – from a distance, and upwind. Undeterred, D soldiered on: ‘You know you are going to have fun and enjoy this, in the end.’ AJ started to make a comment about Nicky’s ‘enjoying it in the end,’ but Brian elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Why not start now?’

It had all started when Jamesanjosh™ and the Darter Boys, Nick and Howie, had found themselves owners, in equal shares, of the whole of a very small Georgia Sea Island near Savannah, one possessed of matching plantation houses, one at each end, and situated far enough from the Altamaha roadstead and any common traffic of vessels, sail or power, to give them peace. James had subtly – well, he was about as subtle as a rhino in heat, but he had an abiding belief in his own craftiness and finesse – subtly inveigled them into going halves on a sloop. ‘Inveigled,’ as far as Nick had been concerned, meant ‘nagged,’ but Howie nor Josh had much minded to begin with, and as he got older, Nick had learned when to compromise on inessentials, when to surrender with more grace than was his wont, and when to conserve his energy for the real fights, the ones over essentials (his solo CD, for example). And James had learned a bit, too, about the art of the possible, and had actually consented to trade Nick a favor as far as investing a dollop in Nicky’s speedboat racing team, even if James did still call powered vessels ‘stinkpots,’ with lordly disdain. (In retaliation, Nick sometimes called their new sailing vessel, behind James’s back, ‘the sloop John B.’)

In another sense, it had begun, perhaps, when the character James had created for himself: ‘Lance-of-’N-Sync,’ a persona James had increasingly little use for, now: had made James enough money for James to spread his wings. There are, to be sure, plenty of rich Baptists in the Deep South. But it is a commonplace of white Southern social ascent for small-town Baptists, and indeed Methodists or Church of Christ or what have you, to become urbane (not urban), to set up as heirs of the Old South and all its moonlight-and-magnolias mystique (suitably sanitized), to transform themselves into preppily-dressed Whiskypalians. And along this well-worn path James had, in his private life, traveled far.

Josh suspected that this, in part, was a reaction to the discomforts of growing up gay in small-town and suburban Mississippi. Josh also suspected that it was, at the same time, a backhanded tribute to the lasting imprint Jim and Diane had stamped on Lance (and Stace). By becoming A Southern Aristocrat, James was in part doing penance for any lingering disappointment to his parents that his being gay had occasioned. Howie, in his own quiet pursuit of material success, from Tabu to his unemphasized real-estate empire-building, was doing something of the same thing, Josh knew, trying to ‘make’ Hoke and Paula proud of him even though their pride in him had not actually diminished a whit, any more than Jim’s and Miz Diane’s had in James Lance, over the issue of his sexuality. But then, when Josh was honest with himself, he acknowledged that he, too, had yet to manage fully to believe that his parents accepted him as much as they would have done had he been straight.

At least, thank God, none of them had Jane Carter for a mother.

However it had begun, there was no doubt that his James had progressed, or at least changed, from the shy boy from Mississippi, through a stage as Hollywood Lance, into his present incarnation as James L. Bass, horseman-yachtsman-millionaire, Southern patrician straight from the top drawer: high-cotton Bass. Next thing you know, Josh mused, he’ll start signing himself as ‘J. Lance Bass,’ perhaps as ‘J. Lance Bass II.’ Josh resolved to remind his love, regularly, that worldly glory was transitory – and that he, Josh, had fallen for even the ‘Lansten’ whom James most wished to forget, and loved and would love him if they were both reduced to homeless beggary.

For all the stylistic changes, though, the inner core of his James was still the same, and still as lovable as ever, Josh held to that, as to an article of faith, and did not let the surface changes perturb him unduly.

And thus – however the recent changes had begun – Josh still had only to look at James to feel his heart turn over inside him; and thus, if it was James’s good pleasure to indulge in another Southern Preppy trope, Josh would go along with it wholeheartedly.

‘Josh?’

‘Hmm?’

‘You’re miles away, sugar. What’s on your mind?’

Josh waved his hand, indicating their surroundings. The space was, in its details, light-years removed from that sweltering warehouse in which, in the very earliest days of the embryonic ’N Sync, they had practiced their moves until their shoes filled with blood, but in its essentials, its Spartan simplicity, its resounding echo of feet upon hardwood, it was the same: a space in which one of them was teaching the other the intricacies of their dance. Josh wasn’t sure he could explain this to James; but then, with James, blessedly, he didn’t have to.

James smiled, understanding, and quickened by the same memories, here reprised in mystic, mirrored reversal. It pleased him that he was, in some sense, repaying Josh for the tender interest of years before.

But he said, only, ‘It’ll all be fine, hon. Now. Remember: everything happens below the waist – hell, below the hips, even. Cool. Laidback. That’s the principle. And – baby? Just like you used to tell me, when this situation was reversed. Stop countin’ ever’thing in your haid, and just feel the music.’ And he cued the next track, one that would communicate just these qualities of cool, understated sexiness to the man he loved, and convey them through the medium Josh best understood.

Josh stood still and listened, with wonder: yes, he’d heard the track before, it was increasingly James’s favorite in the genre, but he’d never really listened to it as a dancer. The beginning measures were choral, lush, reverential: pure vocalization, subtly modulating into the beat that was common to all the tracks they would hear that day, all of them being between 110 and 130 beats per minute.

Ooo-ooo-ooo Miss Grace:

Satin and perfume and lace….

Nick, for his part, was down at the boat slip, waiting on Bri and AJ. The Rafe Semmes – trust Bass for that, he reflected – rode to her moorings with an air, the surrounding craft looking down-market by comparison. Howie had become a perfectly able seaman, more than capable of crewing, and Josh wasn’t wholly incompetent, but the Rafe Semmes really deserved at least six crew aboard, and his press-gang efforts had so far managed to leave him only Brian and Alex to work with. Brian was at a loose end with LA playing Momma, and Alex needed the break, and Florida was not a good place for him on his own, AJ felt. The two would sail with them, and when they arrived in South Carolina, LA and the Official Backstreet Baby and Sarah would join them. ‘Seriously, Junior. I mean, I adore LA and Button, and I love the heck outta Bri, but you know it’s serious when I agree to spend two-three weeks with a bunch of damn Republicans,’ he’d said, and Nick had foreborne to point out that he’d be aboard a sloop with four Elephants and a moderate Independent even for the time it took to sail from Florida to their Georgia place to Pawley’s Island.

AJ and Bri arrived, to a few stares from the elderly yachtsmen around them, retired board chairmen who thought Nick dressed a bit too casually and had far too many tattoos. Nick sighed, surveying the two raw lubbers, and chivvied them aboard. ‘Let’s get that Absence Flag lowered, first.’ His new after-guard looked at him blankly. ‘The rectangular blue hoist, there below the starboard crosstree.’ No response. It was going to be a long day.

‘This,’ Howie observed with a smile, ‘is simply ridiculous.’

‘Not really,’ Kev said reasonably. ‘There’s as much height difference as with Nicky, D.’

‘Oh, thanks for the reminder,’ Howie grinned. ‘I meant the whole thing.’

Kevin hadn’t done a great deal of it, it was true, but in his dance instructor days he had taught a few shagging lessons in the midst of his more common instructions. That they had been so few was just further proof that Florida wasn’t really a Southern state any longer.

‘D. Your problem is simple. You’re too sexy.’

‘I’ll tell Nick you said so.’

Kevin groaned. ‘No, don’t. But. Look. This is sort of the opposite of what we do on stage, and sort of the opposite of your salsa, ’kay? The idea is, you’re too cool to need to be overtly sexy when you’re shagging. The other principle is, you should be able to shag and keep a bourbon and water in one hand without spilling it, at the same time.’

‘This is really, really a Southern prep thing, isn’t it.’

‘Well, yeah. But – come on, D. It’s pretty much the same basic 6- or 8-count as East Coast Swing. Now. Closed position, okay, weight on the left foot. And by the way, where is Nick? I don’t want to have to do this twice, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so.’

‘He’s aboard the Rafe Semmes, trying to make seamen of a couple of lubbers. But that’s not the point. I want you to get me up to speed so I can, um, give him private lessons.’ Howie blushed as Kevin chuckled.

‘Um-hmm. I bet you will, too. Okay. The first track I’ve got cued is ironically appropriate, then,’ Kev said, touching his wrist-remote.

Down at the beach club

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

That’s where you’ll find the one you love

Down at the beach club

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

You’ll find the one you’ve been thinking of….

As soon as the Absence Flag had been lowered, signaling that an owner or master was aboard, Nick had begun, patiently, to show Bri and AJ around the ship. She was a beauty, even he admitted, and as even the two landsmen could see. The Rafe Semmes (LOA: 48', LWL: 32', Beam: 12') had been built as an inshore / open ocean cruiser and racing yacht, back in the early ’60s, by A&R, with sweet, clean lines, every inch a lady. She was all wooden, defiantly unmodern (‘typical fucking Bass’), and a veteran of over ten Newport-to-Bermuda races. A 48' sloop, with a single diesel engine for auxiliary power, she slept six luxuriously and eight comfortably, in three cabins, and her accommodations were superb, a visual feast of teak, mahogany, and bird’s-eye maple accenting. She displaced approximately 33,000 pounds, had a draft of 6' 8" , and was almost enough to make Nicky rethink his preference for power, not that he would ever admit that to Bass.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘all hands on deck.’

‘Great,’ AJ quipped, ‘we’ve signed on with Captain Bligh. I guess that makes God-boy “Mister Christian” –’

‘Belay that,’ Nick muttered. ‘For one thing, while we all four own her, the Bassmaster is her captain. I’m just his First Officer.’

‘La- James is in charge?’

‘Yes, Frick, James is in charge. Fucker sports some serious bullion.’ Bri and AJ were wholly bewildered. ‘Never mind. Let’s get you two above decks.’

AJ hesitated. ‘Um. All the way up there? I could, like, fall.’

Nick slapped his forehead, then winced. ‘I said “above decks,” not “aloft.” Jesus.’

‘Okay, okay. First, though, I gotta piss like a Hungarian race-horse. Where’s the bathroom?’

‘“Head,”’ Nick snapped.

‘Oh, that should be confusing on a boat with four gay guys,’ Bri quipped.

Nick pointed AJ in the right direction and massaged his temples. He had a headache coming on, and a sudden sympathy for what Kevin must have endured for the past seven or so years from all of them. ‘It’s a ship, damn it,’ he said, heading to the companionway.

Chris had considered the comic possibilities carefully before regretfully concluding that he wanted no part of this jaunt. Instead, he was describing a typically eccentric orbit, playing satellite to Justin in Los Angeles and Joey in New York. At the moment, he was with the latter, snarking merrily away.

‘Wonder if Captain Bass and the Love Boat have sailed away yet.’

‘I think it’s sweet,’ Joey said, playing ‘horsey’ with a giggling Briahna on his knee. ‘The Bassman’ll be in his element.’

‘Which element? Spending money on luxuries or slumming in what they tell me is the tackiest spot in the South – and believe me,’ Chris said, lowering his voice to a dramatically conspiratorial whisper, ‘that would be something to beat. I mean. Joe. It’s just us Yankees here, the Southern Twins and Miss Mary-Land can’t hear us: you know how those rednecks really are, deep down. They’ll be eating fried possum or somethin’.’

‘Keep it up, CK, and I won’t let you play “horsey” after Bri-girl is done.’

‘Like I’m eager to get on your knee, guido.’

‘Unca Chris! Ride horsey! Fall off! Make me laugh!’ Briahna’s laughter pealed out.

‘Um, later, honey.’

‘Much,’ Joe muttered. ‘Giddap,’ he added, to his giggly daughter.

‘Anyway – leaving the Little Pitcher out of this, ears and all –’

‘You sayin’ my daughter’s got big ears?’

‘No, thank God she takes after Kel, and looks pretty, not to mention human. Anyhow, I looked up Myrtle Beach on the ’Net. Dude. It’s all touristy and sh- stuff, and lately it’s turned into Branson-Dollywood-NASCAR, which, ’kay, is Lancey’s roots, but–’

‘It’s also still the world capital of beach music, and that’s why Bass is goin’, to shag with C.’

‘Dad-deeee! You said a naughty word!’

‘Wha- no, precious. Promise. It’s not the Austin Powers sort of, um, thing, down South it’s a type of dancin’, a’ight, like – remember how Mommy and I taught you, so you could lindy with Gramps?’

‘Lin-deee! Lin-deee! Unca Chris! Let’s dance!’

Joe glared at a wincing Chris. ‘You got us into this,’ he growled. ‘You can deal with it. Besides, she’s about your height now.’

‘When does Kel get home?’ Chris heard his knee pop as he clambered off the couch.

‘Oh, not for hours,’ Joey said, with a grim smile.

‘Almost,’ said Kevin. ‘But the shag pivot is done in a really tight radius, on account of the dance floors bein’ so damn crowded. And smooth, D, smooth. If you’re not on a dance floor, you’re shagging on the sand, right out on the beach. Try it again: come into the closed position and do a full 360.’ He cued the music:

You’re more than a number in my little red book….

‘The open position’s like the charleston, sugarpie. Way we’re both facin’ ’s the di-rection of travel, all right? Fast, you step for’ard on 1,3,5,6; slow, it’s on 1 and 3. Like this, Joshy.’

Sweeter than candy, hotter than heat,

More precious than di’monds, girl, you can’t be beat…

Carolina girls….

‘Who you callin’, Frack?’

Nick looked up at his lubberly crew, his expression disgusted. ‘Our marine insurer and the Coast Guard, so they’ll know to track us for search-and-rescue.’

Notwithstanding Josh’s difficulty in holding his upper body still while shagging (James kept reminding him, and every time, Josh would listen with his head canted to one side, the way Jackson did when he was willing to please but wholly uncomprehending); and notwithstanding the very slow, not to say imperceptible, progress AJ and Brian were making aboard the Rafe Semmes, within the week Howie and James had agreed that they could safely weigh anchor, and safely let their better halves loose on a Grand Strand dance floor without utter embarrassment.

‘Nick picked it up quick, I take it.’

‘Mmmm. Yes.’

James’s smile was audible over the phone. ‘Too quick?’

‘I was enjoying the lessons,’ Howie blushed.

‘Naked dance practice,’ James agreed. ‘Always good.’

Howie didn’t even ask how James knew.

‘What worked in the old days for Josh teaching me moves, what worked now,’ James went on. ‘Of course, I picked good tracks to teach by, for naked shag lessons.’

‘Don’t tell me. Gloria Hardeman, “Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On.”’

James roared. ‘You know it. And William Bell….’ He paused, waiting for it, and he could tell even over the ether that Howie was blushing.

‘D-don’t,’ Howie stammered. ‘You did not use “Easy Comin’ Out–””

‘“– And Hard Goin’ In”,’ James confirmed.

‘Uh. I gotta run,’ Howie said.

‘Decided Nick may need at least one more lesson – for polish?’

‘I’ll call you later.’ And Howie hung up hurriedly as James wheezed with laughter.

A few days after, the six SDBs – Sailing, Doughty Boys – met up in Stuart, Florida, where the Rafe Semmes was moored. All of them had been strictly admonished about their dunnage: James had no intention of letting his clothes-horse friends lade the vessel with garments they wouldn’t need until they arrived in Georgia, or indeed at Pawley’s. On the other hand, James also felt, adamantly, that the Rafe Semmes had a reputation to keep up, one established by her very look, and the result was that even Bri and AJ had been chivvied into looking like something out of a Brooks Brothers ad, and had with them what James considered proper attire for, say, dining ashore. On the other hand, Josh, to the mortification of his notoriously thrifty soul, had been dragged by his James to the tailor’s, and had found that James had previously ordered him plenty of off-the-rack from certain catalogues; a process similar to that imposed on D and Nick.

Josh hadn’t seen that much madras and Duck Head khaki and pinpoint Oxford cloth and Lacoste since he left Bowie for Mousetown. Tyler had said their luggage and its contents looked as if a KA chapter had had a yard sale. James had never been happier.

Then again, James was fully in his element. He and Nick had plotted their course with absolute care and dedication, knowing that at least at first, Bri and Aidge were at best ballast, but determined at whatever cost not to have outsiders aboard: before AJ and Brian, after all, the couples could be themselves, instead of having to play it straight lest they end up on the front page of every tabloid in the Winn-Dixie checkout line.

James had even tried, politely, to involve Brian and AJ in things the night before, but gave up when he determined that neither of them knew that the area of a circle is found by multiplying the square of the diameter by the fraction 0.7854. What put the capstone – or capstan – on it was when James was obsessing over which burgee to display and when and where (James had a fatal passion for details and no ability to delegate). AJ responded with confusion: ‘I thought that was that fuckin’ stew Frick’s people make back home.’

Given his preferences, and a full crew, James would have insisted – as on occasion he had, on past cruises – on warping out from the slip and manœuvering, under sail power only, to get steerage way and be under way, backing and filling out of the anchorage and standing out to sea. This morning, though, he consented, with distaste but a certain realism, to getting under way by auxiliary power.

Brian was inexperienced, but sharp. ‘Um. I thought.’ He’d also been reading up. ‘I thought we’d take the Intracoastal?’

James snorted. ‘We draw too much water.’

Nick hastened to translate. ‘It’s too shallow for us.’

‘And besides,’ James grinned, eyes glinting. ‘She’s made for the sea.

‘Mr Carter. You have the con. Littrell, McLean, you two come with me.’

It was a perfect day for sailing. The Rafe Semmes had stood out to sea – under sail, as soon as they’d cleared the harbor buoy – until she reached the point where she could benefit equally from the Gulf Stream (3 extra knots, it imparted to her speed) and a fair wind from the ESE, and it had been a soldier’s wind getting there, too, or nearly to that point, requiring practically nothing in the way of ship-handling, thanks to a bellied-out frontal boundary that had given her a fair run before a wind from the WSW, nearly dead on: ‘starting neither tack nor sheet.’ It was only briefly, in fluky airs between the two winds, in fetching the point at which they changed course, that the Rafe Semmes had had to go about. Fortunately, that had not required any actual effort from AJ and Brian, whose confusion at James’s command of ‘Ready about!’ had caused even James to smile, briefly.

He had not smiled, however, when – on a perfect day for sailing, the Rafe Semmes scudding along with barely a scrap of sail being needed, and those ‘all asleep,’ full: on a perfect day with a dead-fair wind, his beloved vessel sailing along with a bone in her teeth and all things perfect between the brilliant blue of the sky and the brilliant blue of the Gulf Stream – he had decidedly not been amused when his two landsmen aboard had managed, ‘scop’ patches or no ‘scop’ patches, to turn green for no reason and start puking their guts out. ‘God DAMN it,’ he bellowed, in his carrying hail of a voice, ‘keep it out-board! Not on my decks, you lubberly bastards! Cox! Cox’n!’ That was Howie, and it was the perfect berth for him. ‘Bear a hand there!’

Nick had steeled himself not to laugh.

By the time they fetched the buoy that marked the end of their sailing, and started their powered cruise about to their private Sea Island, late the next day, James and Nick, as the watch-keeping officers, were tired, Howie, as coxswain, was dragging, and Josh, as the only Able Seaman, was exhausted. The landsmen, Brian and AJ, were hollow-eyed, drained, with weariness, with new experiences, with their earlier seasickness … and with excitement. Thirty-six hours at sea was not what James had hoped for, though he’d acknowledged from the beginning it was a possibility, and the front – and its corresponding winds – had acted, on the second day, precisely as his worst-case calculations had indicated. Yet, while the glorious early portion of the voyage had left Bri and AJ only seasick, the latter portion, with the wind often dead foul, a dizzying amount of tacking, and confused seas where the Gulf Stream’s flow faced and met contrary winds, had somehow led to their being bitten by the sailing bug.

They weren’t canvasback salts, yet, not by any means, but they had managed to find their sea legs – and lose their land legs, as Nick and Josh found when they had had to steady them after mooring the Rafe Semmes at their private landing, and both landsmen nearly did a face-plant on the dock.

Geography had dictated that their private anchorage be built closer to Jamesanjosh’s place than to Nick-and-Howie’s (to Nick’s everlasting annoyance), and sheer exhaustion impelled them all to sleep at the Bass-Chasez place that night.

There is such a thing as being too tired to sleep, too keyed up to collapse even when every nerve is screaming for sleep’s oblivion. This was not a condition that afflicted the Carter-Doroughs or the Bass-Chasezes (even Mr Clean himself, Captain Bass, had been too tired to shower, falling into bed with Josh with barely the energy for a good-night kiss, and Howie and Nick were probably in REM sleep before they quite made it to a prone position in their own bed). But AJ and Brian, having showered, found themselves unable to sleep. AJ knocked, tentatively, on Brian’s door, and Brian was as wakeful as he, though so tired he’d let his guard down enough to be speaking Pure Kentucky.

They sat together on the bed, tailor-fashion, as they had done so many times after a concert in Germany, and feeling the same strange, half-forgotten sensation of paradoxical lassitude and adrenal energy and the loom of new possibilities.

‘Lance – James – is so funny.’

Brian snickered. ‘Ah know. Ahab Queeg, man.’

‘Fellatio Hornblower.’

Brian laughed outright at that. ‘That’s him, James Lance Bligh. Still an’ all. Ah’m right glad we were able to do this for them.’

‘They. I mean, both. Couples. All four. They are so fuckin’ cute, no wonder I was blowin’ chunks.’

‘They are cute, ain’t they. Almost as fun to watch moon over one t’ th’ other as you and Sarah.’

‘As if! When it comes to sick-making billing and cooing, you and LA –’

‘That’s on account of Ah’m so snuggly and sexy-hot at the same time.’

AJ did an exaggerated double-take, mouth hanging slack, as Brian sat there looking blandly smug. ‘You? You? You have got to be shittin’ me – no, if you think that, you’re shittin’ yourself – I mean, you, hot? It is to laugh –’

‘Methinks th’ lady doth protest too much,’ Brian smirked.

That was when AJ attacked him with a eider-down pillow.

It happened to be Josh who wandered into the guest room they’d given Brian, the next morning, to wake him, planning to wake AJ afterwards. Obviously, Captain Bli- er, Bass, had decided in a moment of uncharacteristic kindness to let the landsmen sleep in: after all, Josh’s being up meant the morning was well advanced. Brunch was now ready, though, or nearly so, and there was just time to roust these bad bargains of the lower deck out. (Nick had barely been dissuaded from going upstairs with a bosun’s whistle. James would have let him, but Howie decided he preferred an intact lover.)

When Josh wandered into Brian’s suite of rooms, though, he was stopped cold in the middle of a yawn. The sappy grin that succeeded that yawn made his face glow, and he wasted no time in slipping out to the hallway and intercom-ing the dining room.

The other three nearly fell over themselves in getting up the stairs.

‘Awwwwwwwww,’ Nick said, milking it.

‘What the slashers wouldn’t give for a JPEG of this,’ James grinned.

‘And they’d be projectin’ as usual,’ Josh added, curtly, having his own, less-indulgent views on slash.

‘I remember the mileage they got out of that still from the Millennium tour, all of us conked out together aboard the airplane,’ Howie said.

Tangled together and surrounded by strewn pillows, Bri and AJ slept on, oblivious, snoring gently. Nick raced for the digital camera: Sarah and LA would never stop ribbing these two, if he could just get a decent shot.

Not that the ribbing would wait for the ladies to arrive, later in the week. As soon as Nick had his snapshots, the four in the doorway woke the unfortunate pair by crooning ‘The Two of Us’ (it was, after all, Jamesanjosh’s house, so their rules applied), and they continued to rag on Brian and AJ all through brunch.

‘Now I know what it feels like to be part of persecuted sexual minority,’ AJ whimpered.

‘What sexual minority would that be, Alexander?’ James was relentless. ‘“Straight guys who sleep with other straight guys”?’

‘I think there’s a Pride organization for that,’ Josh said, with mock gravity.

‘If LA boots you, Bri, can D and I adopt our niece?’

‘Shut up, fuck off, and pass the grits,’ Brian smiled, sweetly.

‘So,’ James asked Brian, as they pottered about aboard the Rafe Semmes, making sure she was shipshape (besides, James had wanted to change out the Southern Yacht Club burgee for that of the Pass Christian, likewise founded in 1849. James liked being a member of as many 19^th- Century-founded Southern yacht clubs as possible). ‘Is McLean really Macedonian?’

‘Huh?’

Howie chipped in, deadpan. ‘You know. Alexander the Great?’

Brian rolled his eyes, and snorted. ‘I heard that,’ AJ muttered from somewhere aft and below-decks.

‘Well,’ Nick said helpfully, ‘you guys could always just fuck and find out.’

Josh was no help to him as Brian and AJ chased him around the decks: he’d collapsed on Howie in one of his flailing, helpless laughing fits.

After a day ashore, the six departed again aboard the Rafe Semmes for Pawley’s Island and Litchfield Plantation, where they had rented out the six-bedroom Guest House Mansion. They all approved of privacy. Besides, the place had its own marina, made a perfect base for cruising up and down the Grand Strand, and had been home to James Dickey at one time, which James found irresistible. (It came, Josh was convinced, from James’s having been a shy teenager in the Jackson exurbs, where his best adult friend, growing up, was an eccentric little old lady in the area in whom he confided: a nice old lady, approved of highly, and indeed deferred to, by James’s schoolmarm mother, of course. A fairly typical arrangement, especially for Sensitive Gay Boys, except of course that James’s eccentric old neighbor lady was Eudora Welty. That always made Josh feel inadequate when he showed James a new set of lyrics, though those feelings had failed to spare the world from ‘Digital Getdown.’)

It was an uneventful sail to Pawley’s, except that Brian’s all too new Topsiders, being wet, stained his feet an unattractive shade of tannic brown, and AJ still had trouble with ‘port’ and ‘starboard,’ as was evident when they’d gone about once or twice: AJ had not yet grasped that these were not cardinal directions like West and East, but were dependent only upon the ship’s architecture, being equivalent to stage left and stage right. Still, it had worked out well enough, to the point they’d all been able to relieve each other in short watches at the end of the voyage and go change clothes in turns. It pleased James immensely to tie up at the resort’s private marina with his crew and himself all nattily attired in full ‘cap, blazer, and white duck trouser’ rig. Nick had pointed out the insignia on James’s yachting cap to Brian and AJ: ‘That’s what I mean by “serious bullion.”’ They noticed that Nick’s cap device was different, and he cut them off: ‘Unlike Mister Social Register over there, I belong to the Power Squadron, thankyouverymuch.’

AJ and Brian agreed, later, that they would never understand yachtsmen.

So began an idyllic time, while Joe was in rehearsals for a yet another revival of West Side Story and Justin promoted his latest interim solo endeavor by being seen with as many B-list starlets as possible (always with one or two unexplained twinks in the background, entourage members of no discernible function). Chris oscillated between the two, trying to place as much Fu-gear before as many cameras as possible (the line was enjoying a mild, renascent boom, and Chris was not about to miss the moment). Meanwhile, Kevin had decided – or rather, Kris, who was expecting, had decided for him – that saving the planet and all other forms of charity began, and for now ended, at home, and he was devotedly waiting upon her hand and foot.

At any rate, both bands had a month yet before the one went on tour and the other started recording. Six of the ten, at least, were determined to enjoy the time.

Having gotten all hyped up about it thanks to James, Nick and Josh were eager to see if shagging – in this new-to-them sense – was all it was said to be, but AJ and Brian were a little uncomfortable about hitting any clubs until Sarah and LA got there, and D rather suspected that both wanted to do a bit more ‘messing about with boats’ before their womenfolk descended upon them. James, for his part, once ensconced in the lap of luxury, seemed oddly hard to shift, given that this was his idea to begin with (and some luxury it was: Josh went through the roof when he learned that their Guest House was costing them between $9 and $10K per night amongst all of them). James, though, took him aside and pointed out, quietly, that he wanted them all to go out together, but no one, least of all AJ, was comfortable with AJ’s going to places with bars in them until Sarah was there to be with him.

So, instead, they cruised … and they ate.

A car was always available if they needed it, but they eschewed it if there were any way possible to get the Rafe Semmes within walking distance of wherever they wanted to go; and it generally was possible. Especially since James was now switching between Charleston Yacht Club and Charleston Ocean Racing Association burgees, which seemed to get them slightly better berths.

Josh reflected again, daily, that he had never worn so much madras, and chino, and seersucker, and sailcloth trousers (James had a couple of real go-to-hell prep classics in his wardrobe, including one four-paneled one, with one leg green in front and blue in back and the other leg half-red and half-yellow, not to mention his perfectly faded Nantucket reds and his patchwork madras trousers and more Izods than the entire clientele of LL Bean’s put together [James had taken to calling it ‘Leon’s,’ like any Ivy League-educated Old Maine Hand]), and as for deck shoes and white bucks and nobody wearing socks…. Of course, later that afternoon, he chanced to overhear two conversations with James that put the matter in a different light.

‘James? Yoo-hoo, J-La.’

‘Yes, Little Nicky Hamhock?’

‘Asshole. But. Thank you. I know you’re pro’ly catchin’ hell from Josh for being a fashion Nazi, but, thanks.’

‘Well, you’re right welcome.’

‘It’s just … well. You know. When I first met and encountered D. He was always attuned pretty preppy, and….’

‘Howie likes that, um, attire –’ they’d all learned from Howie, over the years, to correct Nick’s tangled English by stealth – ‘and he always looks good in it.’

‘I know. I mean. It’s how he dressed when I first, you know, felled for him. And. So. Thanks.’

‘No problem.’

And the second scrap of conversation, overheard from where Josh was thought, naturally enough, to be sound asleep:

‘James?’

‘Howdy, D.’

‘Thanks.’

‘For?’

‘The dress code. Nick may bitch about it, though, oddly, he hasn’t, this time, but he looks … I like him dressed this way, but, I mean, it’s not something you can just ask your guy to do, is it, out of the blue, not without sounding pushy or kinky or just fetishistic. This way, he’s wearing the sort of things I like, and so am I, and I feel more comfortable, and he looks so damned good. It was really sweet of you to arrange it for me.’

‘Glad I could help. Besides. Means I get to see Josh togged out. Boy’d look like Adonis if he were in a damn flour sack, but still. Much as I like him any way he likes to dress, with that figure and those cheekbones….’

‘Oh, I know, it’s like a combination of Abercrombie and Joe Banks porn. Herb Ritts would cream his boxer briefs to photograph you three –’

‘– Us four –’

‘– Dressed this way. So. Glad you’re getting off on it too. But still. Thanks. This has meant a lot to me.’

Josh, not wanting to let on he’d overheard, and had caught James doing favors without fanfare, showed his appreciation in other ways, that evening.

Not that that was a problem. They needed to work off the calories, and practically everything they were served was seafood. Given Nicky’s notorious bottom-boy libido, it was always wise to keep Howie in oysters, anyway. And while they waited for LA and Sarah, they had all seized the moment to eat like little pigs. As Brian noted, sadly, with all the resignation of a much-married man, ‘You just know, once they get here, they’ll glare at anybody as eats anything more’n a damn salad or puts real sugar in the ice-tea.’

Josh and Nick had been getting along so well for so long now that they had gone the entire trip without Josh calling Nicky ‘Hamhock’ or Nick calling Josh ‘Sashay,’ and perhaps this made Nick less self-conscious than usual. Or perhaps it was the realization that between D and the Rafe Semmes, he’d quickly burn off whatever he consumed. For whatever reason, he led the charge, AJ right behind him, when it came to serious eating.

Once Josh had discovered the wine list at the Litchfield Plantation’s Carriage House Club, he’d gotten high-behind the project himself. Within days, even Nick and AJ were admitting that the only thing better than smoked quail over grits with pan gravy was shrimp-and-grits, and they were eating enough she-crab soup (except for AJ, because it had sherry in it) that they hoped Kevin wouldn’t suddenly appear on the doorstep, brandishing a pamphlet about how they’d caused a species extinction all by themselves. They ate their fair share at Litchfield, but they had all heard that Murrells Inlet was the seafood capital of the world, and they were all – especially a skeptical Josh, who was after all a son of Maryland and the Bay – determined to put it to the test. The Hot Fish Club and Captain Dave’s Dockside won grudging approval even from Josh, what with the littleneck clams, pan-fried crawfish tails, Low Country shrimp sauté, five pepper crusted yellowfin tuna, and crab fritters.

It was AJ, whose sweet tooth had grown to remarkable proportions ever since rehab, who dragged them to the Kudzu Bakery in Georgetown, where James nearly wept at finding a red velvet cake just like Miz Diane’s and elderberry jelly the way Big Mama Bass used to make it.

It couldn’t last, this part of the idyll. They got back to the resort one afternoon to find that the ladies had arrived a trifle earlier than planned: as in, by about a day: and LA was on the warpath.

‘Brian Littrell!’

‘Ohshit,’ AJ breathed, as one word.

‘If I’m fixin’ to be a widow, buster, I’ll make those arrangements myself, rather’n you dig your own grave with a fork. Pan-fried oysters? Cornish game hen livers with shrimp? Lemon chess pie?’

‘Now, hon –’

‘Lobster Wellington?’

‘Sweetie –’

‘Ay, Jesús y Maria,’ D said, ‘she’s found the pre-order menus for tonight.’

‘And you, James Lance Bass. Beef tenderloin with morels, port-shallot demiglaze, and gorgonzola? Duck breast salad? Pecan fudge pie?’

‘Now, Miz LA–’

‘Don’t you “Miz LA” me, sugarpie. All that the Oysters Rockefeller and the cornmeal-battered grouper in mustard-cream sauce’ll do to Nicky is make him break out and spread a little in the belt, and D and C could stand to eat for a change, but I cannot believe my two favorite heart patients have lost their tiny little minds to this extent.

‘Well? And what do you have to say for yourselves?’

‘Virgen Bendecida Maria,’ Howie whispered.

Brian was sure, when Sarah came in with the Littlest Littrell, to be cooed over by all, that LA was done taking a strip out of his hide. Sarah had apparently thought the issue was done with, after all, if she thought the emotional barometer was steady enough to bring his offspring on in. Um. Right?

‘Well,’ Brian said, diplomatically, over dinner. ‘It sure is nice to have my three other favorite people join us.’

LA looked at him, levelly, not buying it for a single minute. ‘How’s your spring vegetable tart?’

‘Excellent, dear. Would you care for some? Or some of the herbed risotto?’

‘No thank you, honey. I’m enjoying my glazed pork chops just fine.’

Brian gulped down a whimper.

AJ couldn’t resist. He hadn’t forgotten or forgiven Nick’s photos or James’s jibes, and he was just waiting for the two gay couples to play that card. ‘So, Bass. How’s that roast chicken?’

‘Fine,’ James said between clenched teeth. ‘Your meal?’

‘Oh, I love filet of sole á la maison. Lots of shallot butter. Just dripping with it.’

‘My salmon’s excellent,’ Josh said, hopefully.

‘Well, dear, you can afford to eat all that oil in the artichoke hearts. It’s not the salmon, it’s the way it’s garnished. Just like a baked potato,’ LA said, ‘or a nice green salad: it’s what people put on it….’

Sarah hid a smile, and kicked AJ’s ankle under the table.

‘And Brian will have the fresh fruit medley,’ LA said (AJ looked over at his four gay friends, and chuckled audibly). She had already decided on the Cœur á la Crème for herself and the Chocolate Mousse Bar for Sarah. ‘Lance – I’m sorry: James – I’m sure you’d like a sorbet.’

‘Yeah, James,’ AJ said. ‘A sorbet would sure hit the spot for you, wouldn’t it.’

‘Be a shame,’ James observed, to no one in particular, ‘if Brian were in the doghouse so bad he had to bunk in with AJ.’

They dismissed the staff when they got back from dinner, and all spent some time doting on Littrell Minor. After the ‘uncles,’ and ‘Aunty Sawwah,’ had left them, ‘Tater Tot’ – Nick, of course, was responsible for that one – asked a sleepy question. ‘Uncle Nick and Uncle D. An’ Uncle Joss and Uncle James. Are they mommy-and-daddy together like you?’

‘Well, daddy-and-daddy. But yes. They’re together just like Mommy and Daddy, or Uncle AJ and Aunty Sarah.’

‘Then why don’t they have children for me to play with?’

‘They will, someday.’

‘ ’Cause they’re together just like you?’

‘Um-hmm. Except Uncle Josh doesn’t nag Uncle James like Mommy nags me,’ Brian winked.

‘What’s “nag”?’

‘That’s a word daddies use,’ LA said, with an answering wink, ‘when they mean loving reminders.’

‘Oh. Like when you mermind me about baths and toothbrush and putting toys away?’

‘That’s right. Now. It’s time to go sleepy-bye. Goodnight, honey.’

‘G’night, Mommy and Daddy. I love you.’

‘Love you too, punkin. You know how much.’

‘This much,’ said Button-the-Official-Backstreet-Baby, arms wide.

‘That’s right. And how much does Jesus love us, you and Mommy and Daddy and Sarah and all the uncles and everyone?’

The arms widened further, as on a cross. ‘This much!’

‘That’s right, honey. Sleep sweet, now.’

Bri and LA managed to control themselves most of the way down the hallway.

‘You were very supportive of the guys, back there,’ LA said, struggling not to laugh out loud. ‘Or am I nagging?’

‘That’s not even “merminding.” Tell you one thing, though, darlin’.’

‘Hmm?’

‘C ever nags the Bass ’bout puttin’ their “toys” away, I sure as hell don’t want t’ know ’bout it.’

That’s when LA lost it, laughing so hard her husband got the high honor and distinct privilege of carrying her across the threshold – which, being reminiscent of their wedding night, gave them both ideas….

They weren’t the only ones with ideas. ‘We finally going dancing?’ Nick asked.

‘Tomorrow night?’ Howie hated to be interrupted when he had his tongue in Nick’s ear, and, as a rule, he wasn’t, as it usually reduced Nick to utter incoherence in five seconds flat. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Just…. You best be prepared to lead, because I am planning on having trouble walking by breakfast time.’

Howie got the point immediately – after which Nick, in short order, got a point, and then, well, all bets were off.

‘You think small children hear as well as everyone says they do?’

‘Maybe not at lower cycles,’ Josh whispered back.

‘So bass moaning is less likely to be overheard than tenor moaning?’

‘Just be glad you didn’t hook up with Kirkpatrick.’

‘Oh, thanks for killing the mood.’

‘I can fix that.’

‘Shake a leg, then, sailor.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

‘You what?’

‘I told Leigh I’d take care of Shortcake if needed, tonight. She and Brian deserved a night to themselves.’

‘They deserved –’

‘Go to sleep, Alex.’

‘I’ma kill that b-balling midget.’

‘But Alex. Rok’s so snuggly and sexy-hot at the same time. Worked for you, right?’

AJ sat bolt upright. ‘Which one of those bastards,’ he hissed.

‘Sssh. Child in the house. Nick emailed us. Leigh and I laughed all the way here.’

‘He didn’t have the common fuckin’ decency to wait until –’

‘Hon. What’s the point of a digital camera unless you use it for Fun With Attachments? Did you have fun with Brian’s attachments, honey?’

‘You’re not funny, Sarah.’

‘I dunno, Leigh laughed at that line so hard she nearly dropped Sweetpea.’

AJ turned on his side, pointedly, his back to her. It didn’t help: her grin could be sensed at 60 yards. ‘Keep your day job,’ he grunted.

In the small hours of the night, Sarah awoke to see a sleep-mazed AJ sitting back against the headboard, brows knitted.

‘What is it? The baby?’

‘Naw. Must have been a dream, I guess. But I distinctly heard someone quote Walt Whitman.’

Sarah giggled. ‘Tell me it wasn’t “O Captain! My captain!”’ She indicated the wall that joined their suite to the Bass-Chasezes, just as a stifled tenor gasp was faintly heard.

AJ buried his face in his hands, blushing with realization. ‘Friggin’ oysters,’ he growled. ‘Friggin’ poetic Frenchified dance-boy. Friggin’ Bass.’

Despite the fact that a couple of tenors were the worse for wear the next morning, and moving gingerly, the girls’s presence was not allowed to go to waste. James had a glint in his eye that was not fully due to how he’d spent his night, and his plans would have shut Kirkpatrick up, decisively. All Southern boys have a soft spot, somewhere, for at least some country or mountain or bluegrass or old-time music, true, even if it’s Western swing or Lyle Lovett or something equally high-cotton; but as far as James was concerned, as long as Mother Fletcher’s and Studebaker’s were in business, the rest of Myrtle Beach could turn into GarthBrooksLand and he wouldn’t care. He was there to shag, and that was that.

This was fine by LA, who had in fact dragged Brian to lessons with the Atlanta swing-dancing groups long before this trip had ever come up, and AJ had a freakish, Timberlake-ish ability to pick up dance moves osmotically, so a few quick lessons in following for Sarah and they were good to go.

For the next three nights, they threw themselves into the open arms and heart of the Grand Strand: ‘One Foot Draggin’,’ ‘Cruising Down Ocean Boulevard,’ ‘Shaggin’,’ as the Band of Oz might say, with ‘Carolina Girls,’ ‘Higher and Higher,’ in ‘This Magic Moment.’ They spent their ‘Carolina Nights’ taking to heart the injunction to ‘Be Young, Be Foolish, (But) Be Happy,’ closing down the clubs every night and still begging ‘Give Me Just a Little More Time’ and ‘Hold Back the Night.’ They ran riffs where their whole conversation consisted of song titles or the lyrics of beach music: ‘Cool Me Out,’ James might say to Josh, or ‘Get On Up,’ Bri might tell LA; ‘Give Me Some Kind of Sign, Girl,’ AJ would beg Sarah, and ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ was Nick’s excuse for anything, even if Howie caught him with his ‘Backfield in Motion.’

On their last night before Sarah and AJ and the Littrells were to leave, and the Bass-Chasezes and Carter-Doroughs were to turn the Rafe Semmes over to be crewed back to the Island while they themselves flew back to Orlando, they did not go into Myrtle Beach. They had arranged to reserve the Litchfield Plantation beach house, and the discreet staff of the resort provided a sound system and a DJ. It was time for the couples to be able to dance just together and amongst themselves, without fans or paparazzi.

Their last bit of ‘Hot Fun in the Summertime,’ in fact, ‘Down at the Beach Club,’ just shagging in the sand, beneath the stars, without even ‘The Smoke From a Distant Fire’ to trouble them. It was time to ‘Tighten Up,’ time for them to (trust AJ to find this funny, and tease Josh about it) ‘Ride the Mighty High,’ time to be free enough and private enough that Howie could ask Nick, or James could whisper to Josh, ‘Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box,’ without causing a scandal. (As each had proven himself a ‘Sixty Minute Man’ long since, it’s not as if the request would be refused.) And besides, at some point, everyone in the four couples had pledged, ‘With This Ring (I Promise You),’ and AJ had made it very clear to Sarah she was ‘More Than a Number in [His] Little Red Book.’

As they pivoted, the night wearing thin, Josh leaned in and whispered to his James, ‘Babe, honestly, it really is the way you do the things you do. It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.’ And not far away, as Nick spun Howie, he murmured, ‘Always, D. Always save the last dance for me.’

I love beach music

I always have and I always will….

END