Splash
We were leaving the restaurant when Howie turned to me and asked what I wanted to do next. I wasn’t really expecting to do anything next.
Still, I thought about it on the way to his car and finally said, “You know what I haven’t done in a really long time?”
We arrived at his car just as I said, “Go skinny dipping in the ocean.”
Rewind to a particularly warm evening in August of 2005, back when I lived in California and was the Art Director of a magazine.
I’d recently met my new downstairs neighbors, Matt and Chris, and after a few meetings in the hallways and in the laundry room, I was invited to their apartment for a particularly bawdy game of I Never.
My turn came around and I said, “I’ve never gone skinny dipping in the ocean.” Chris, of course, had to do a shot.
About an hour later, and perhaps a wee bit tipsy, we arrived at a secluded stretch of beach along the edge of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, stripped down, and went for a dip.
Howie’s house isn’t too terribly far from downtown Southport, so when we got to that very short stretch of shoreline with the intention of going skinny dipping, it was a tad risky. But let’s be honest, that’s the fun part.
Howie and I have seen each other naked, more than once, even in a sexual context, so neither of us were worried about, um, shrinkage issues, but let’s just say, it was damn cold. We ran in, we splashed, we ran out.
Luckily there was a hot shower waiting back at his house.
And of course, given water shortage concerns here in North Carolina, we showered together. It was our civic duty.
A couple of hours later, I was driving home from Howie’s house and returning to a world where Valentine’s Day didn’t factor. I mean, who needs chocolate and candy when you have a hot guy to share a minor indiscretion with in a shower at a quarter past midnight?