Introduction - Son of the Beach

Sometimes, your life’s work is handed to you. Sometimes you fall into it. Sometimes, it comes to you in a kind of religious experience. That was how it was for me.

I was never a great student, football or baseball player, employee, or a great lay. Of course, at the time, I would have said otherwise. High School kids are cocky that way. Following senior year, I drifted from job to job. I landed with Charlie Conner of Conner’s Custom Van and Detail in La Jolla.

Charlie hired me to wash the vans as they came in. When I finished, the detail team did their thing. It was entry-level work, with an opportunity to learn detailing and the custom car business generally, not that I cared. The money was enough to kick a couple hundred a month to my parents for the room I was still using. Occasionally I could borrow a van, but fucking in a van gets old, and there was hell to pay if it came back smelling of sex. Like any 18, then 19-year-old kid, I wanted a place of my own to turn into a sex haven. In short, I was drifting, and with no clue I was doing so.

Then came the big announcement; Charlie was putting a team on the road for a string of car shows. Everyone wanted in until they discovered it meant being away for almost six months. Soon all the married, engaged, and seriously committed guys had pulled out. A bit reluctantly I think, Charlie put me on the traveling crew. I had never been a great employee, but I look good and speak well.

Charlie needed a portfolio of show pictures, so he hired a professional photographer named Justin Immons. Justin and I worked closely during the shows. As required, I was the lighting man, gofer, agent, model, and lover.

After Philadelphia, Charlie and several of the team headed home. Justin wanted me to stay on and continue working with him. I wanted to return to the coast, to lazy days with my surfboard, but I agreed. It shows how much a simple decision can lead you to unexpected places. A few weeks later I found myself, gagged, tied up like a turkey, hanging by my armpits, staring at a beautiful witch as she stretched her catlike legs on a ballet bar.

Then she looked at me.