Beyond the Reef

Copyright © A.J. Llewellyn 2013. All Rights Reserved, Total-E-Ntwined Limited, T/A Totally Bound Publishing. My mother always told me to accept every invitation that came my way, to put myself 'out there' because the man of my dreams wasn't going to just show up at my door. Except she was wrong. That's exactly what happened. Well, not exactly. Actually, he turned up naked, in my shower. Now, I'm a single and, frankly, beyond desperate gay man who at the age of thirty has been rejected by eHarmony and a few gay dating sitesfor indeterminate reasonsso normally a naked man in my immediate vicinity would be a rare and beautiful thing. Just a whiff of interest from a man, even a smile from a passing vehicle, has me running to the nearest Restoration Hardware creating fantasy wedding registries, practicing putting my name and his together Mr Anthony Kaven and Mr George Clooney invite you Except that I'd never seen this man before in my life. "Hello, Tony darling," he was saying. Who are you? How did you get here? What are you doing with my loofah? These would have been logical queries, but my brain refused to work. Instead, I felt bewildered. Who was this guy? A ghost? A figment of my imagination? A deranged lunatic? Knowing my luck with guys lately, yep, definitely, probably, door number three. But I am getting ahead of myself here. I must start at the beginning, which is when I was born. No, no It really all began just twelve hours before the naked man was doing rude things with my favorite body shampoo. * * * * My big Hollywood Break was a disaster from the moment I set foot on Hawaiian soil. I flew into Kahului, Maui, on a warm October afternoon, looking forward to my first day on the set of Lava Mama, a big action movie. I'd been hired to work as the personal assistant, or PA, to movie star Rufus Roscoe. I had a big crush on him. A cool-looking dude with tattoos and long shorts and a Bluetooth parked over his right ear found me among the throng of tourists getting their official lei greetings. He knew who I was simply because I wasn't wearing one. "Tony Kaven?" When I nodded, he shook my hand. "I'm Keoni, the set driver, production coordinator, you name it. I'm gonna take you to the set." He looked me up and down, but not in a sexual way. I almost felt like he was measuring me for a coffin. "Dude, he's gonna chew you up and spit you out. Sure you wanna do this?" "What do you mean?" A pretty blonde-haired girl, sobbing into a tissue, rushed past us to join the crush of passengers waiting to board a plane at the next gate. Keoni inclined his head toward her. "That's his last assistant. She's a wreck, poor thing." "What? Why did she quit?" I was very nervous now. "She didn't quit. He fired her. He fires everybody. You're the sixth assistant in three days." I gulped. "Really?" We walked out into the warm, tropical air. I could practically hear music and could almost feel the sway of hula skirts against my skin. I was in Hawaii, I was in Paradise! I caught Keoni's pitying glance and my heart sank. That's what I got for posting my résumé on a site called Monster.com. "We won't have time to drop your gear off back at the estate. We're all staying there, at a place called Spartan Reef" Spartan Reef! How romantic! "Yeah, it's a small upcountry village called Kapukaulaua Point. That's its traditional name, though the guidebooks that know about it, since it's really off the beaten path, refer to it as Nahiku Landing. The estate we're staying at used to belong to George Harrison." George Harrison! My God! I love The Beatles. All you need is love! "How wonderful," I prattled aloud. "No, it damned well isn't. That actor"he threw me a disgusted look"your new boss, Rufus Roscoe, nabbed the best house and we all get the cabins." "A cabin! Howtribal! Howexotic." "No, it isn't." Keoni threw my things into the back of the Jeep Cherokee he had left in a red zone, a parking patrol officer glowering at us. "The locals hate us and weird f

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