I had been a chronic, persistent masturbator since my earliest memories of self-awareness, long before the word had attached itself with such gravitas to the act in my adolescent reading. As a boy, it had been furtive and shame-ridden, small hands burrowing under the covers at night and then, when older, a quick rush behind locked bathroom doors. Even as I aged into young manhood, the compulsion didn’t abate, but neither did the web of self-consciousness and embarrassment that bound it. I never confided in anyone about my habits—certainly never shared a session with a friend after school, as I’d sometimes read happened between more adventurous boys. Even into my late twenties the act remained solitary, shame-tinged, and strictly hidden from the world.
Then, on a hot July morning on a Mediterranean coast, everything changed. My friend Alice had invited me to accompany her on a beach holiday, a week-long escape from our gray, rainy city. Alice and I had a friendship with a complicated but unspoken sexual undertone—she was blunt spoken, disarmingly matter-of-fact, and often teased me for my lack of sexual confidence. Our arrangement at the resort was clear: separate beds, a shared fridge full of wine and cheese, free reign to mingle with strangers or sunbath together as we pleased, but no expectations, no pressure. I agreed eagerly, craving both the sun and her company.
The beach abutted a small village, beyond which the coastline stretched wilder and less developed. The second afternoon, after a long, slow lunch with too much rosé, Alice declared that she intended to tan topless. That flustered me, so I excused myself for a walk: “I want to see how far the beach goes,” I said, but in truth I needed space to process the sight of her bare skin, the faint tan lines and the way she’d shrugged off her bikini top with a shrug, as if it were nothing at all. “Suit yourself,” she called, already rolling onto her stomach, eyes closed.
I walked aimlessly, letting the crush of sand under my feet and the play of sun on my neck bleed the tension from my body. The further I wandered, the emptier the beach became. The crowds of families thinned, then disappeared, replaced by couples under umbrellas, then solitary figures. The dunes rose up on my left, and I cut up into them, craving the soft silence. I didn’t notice the man at first; I was too absorbed in the hypnotic pulse of the waves and the heady, slightly metallic scent of salt.
He was standing not far from the edge of the dunes, just above where they dipped again toward the next beach cove. He looked, at first glance, like an outdoor-sportsman type—trim, sun-browned, with a tight torso and strong calves, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties. It took me a second to register that he was entirely naked. Not just bare-chested, but entirely unclad, his skin a seamless golden tan except for a paler band at his midriff, presumably where shorts or swimwear had recently been. He wore sunglasses, the kind that wrap around the face, and a faint, bemused smile.
But what was far more startling was his erection, a large, heavy-looking shaft that projected forward from his body, impossibly hard. I had never seen an erect penis in real life apart from my own, and I had certainly never expected to encounter one, openly and without a trace of embarrassment, in broad daylight. For a second I froze, caught in a childish loop—should I look away? Should I keep walking, as if nothing were amiss? Should I confront him? My body flooded instantly with the old, familiar cocktail of fear and excitement.
He made no move toward me, only observed, and when he saw that I had noticed him, he slid his hand down, encircling the base of his cock and began slowly, methodically stroking himself. He did it almost languidly, as though enjoying a cigarette. The rhythm was slow, not urgent, just a gentle rolling of the foreskin up and over the glans, a pause, and then the reverse. The movement was mesmerizingly confident, practiced, shameless.
Every nerve in my body prickled and I felt myself flush, both from the sun and from the shock of the sight. I had read stories of men exposing themselves, ambiguous tales of exhibitionism and public masturbation, but I had always imagined the participants as dangerous, predatory, or at the very least deeply broken—a way to distance myself from the uncomfortable curiosity those stories sometimes provoked in me. But this man didn’t look dangerous. He looked at peace, serene and self-possessed, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
And the most shocking thing was that it worked. In that moment, some involuntary part of me responded to his display. I could feel my own cock stirring, thickening against the inside of my swim shorts, as if called to attention by this strange, unspoken fraternity. I was intensely aware of my own body, the tightness in my stomach, a low ache in my balls, the sticky, humid heat building between my thighs. I tried to keep my face neutral, but I was certain the man could see my reaction.
I considered turning back, but that would mean passing closer to him. Instead, I forced myself to keep going, eyes fixed somewhere above his head, as if I were nobly ignoring the spectacle. He made no move to intercept me. Instead, as I walked by, he increased the pace of his stroking, his hand a blur, his mouth drawn tight with concentration. I could hear his breathing, ragged and wet, over the hush of the wind.
The moment was electric. I hurried on, my own cock now painfully hard, every step a torment as the head brushed against the mesh lining of my shorts. I felt exposed, as if the entire world could see the outline of my erection bobbing with each stride. My mind was alive with images—of the stranger’s cock, of Alice’s breasts, of my own secret, solitary habits, all colliding in a swirl of shame and lust.
I found a secluded hollow in the dunes and collapsed onto the sand, heart pounding. My hands trembled as I slipped them under the waistband of my shorts, desperate for relief. I told myself it was just to calm down, to collect myself before returning to Alice, but there was no mistaking the urgency, the feverishness in my grip. My cock felt swollen and hot, as if it belonged to someone else. I gripped it and stroked, imitating the stranger’s slow, deliberate rhythm. It was better than any fantasy, more illicit than the darkest corners of internet pornography. I imagined the man watching me, approving, maybe even waiting for me to come join him.
It didn’t take long. My orgasm was messy and intense, the kind that left me gasping for air and seeing stars. It spattered into the sand, soaking through, before I could even think to control it. I lay there for a long time, legs splayed, breathing in the scent of sweat and salt and cum, as if some old, reptilian shame had burned itself away.
I returned to the main beach with burning cheeks and a lingering, jelly-legged exhaustion. Alice glanced up from her magazine, taking in my disheveled appearance and the faint stain on the front of my shorts. “Everything alright?” she asked, a knowing glint in her eye.
I tried to play it cool. “Just walked farther than I’d planned,” I said, but my voice was hoarse. She let the subject drop, though over dinner that night, she asked if I’d seen anything “interesting” on my hike. I shrugged, unwilling to admit the truth, but she only laughed. “You’re such a poor liar,” she said, and poured me another glass of wine.
Back at the holiday apartment, Alice noticed the tension in my body, particularly the stiffness that had developed. With a kind and attentive touch, she generously applied a soothing lotion, its coolness offering immediate comfort. Her hands moved gently and deliberately, caressing with a tenderness that gradually eased the discomfort. As her rhythmic motions continued, a wave of much-needed relief surged through me, culminating in a warm, throbbing release that dispelled the ache completely.
The incident stuck with me for the rest of the trip, replaying in my mind with a frequency that bordered on obsession. Each time I thought about the man’s boldness, or the way my own body had responded with such involuntary excitement, I felt the urge return, harder and more insistent. It became a feedback loop: the more I tried to repress the memory, the more it seeped into my dreams and daydreams, until I was masturbating four, five, sometimes six times a day, always in secret, always with the image of that stranger in the dunes looming in my mind’s eye.
It was on later sunshine holidays that I gained the confidence to let other gentlemen chance to see that I was a masturbator who had come to enjoy masturbating in the open air.
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