Mike and Danny

Mike and Danny: Forever, Chapter 6

Mike and Danny: Forever
by Rock Lane Cooper

This is a work of homoerotic fiction. If you are offended by such material or if you are not allowed access to it under the laws where you live, please exit now. This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be copied or distributed in any form without the written permission of the author, who may be contacted at: [rocklanecooper@yahoo.com](mailto:rocklanecooper@yahoo.com?subject=Forever [6])

Note that these stories, including this one, are not an endorsement of unsafe sex. They take place many years before the appearance of AIDS and before it was standard practice to use condoms to reduce the risk of infection from sexually transmitted diseases. Remember always: that was then, this is now. Sex is precious, and so are life and health.

Chapter 6

Randy woke in the dark, needing to piss, and lay there trying to remember where the bathroom was. He reached from under the covers with one naked arm and felt for the lamp he remembered beside the bed.

The light on, he looked around him at the bare room, a single chest of drawers in one corner and the walls covered with old-fashioned wallpaper, a faded pattern of garden lattice and ivy. Beside him in the narrow bed lay Chad, buried under the layers of blankets, just the back of his head visible, neatly trimmed with a haircut he'd got yesterday in town.

"Got your ears lowered," Randy had said when he took off Chad's hat. And he'd brushed his hand through Chad's short hair as they sat together on the couch, both of them still dressed, not even out of their coats yet as they waited for the fire to catch in the fireplace.

He swung his feet onto the floor now, finding a rag rug under his toes and reaching for his shirt, which lay beside it. Slipping his arms into the sleeves, he got up quickly and hurried out of the room and down a hall, opening one door and then another until he found the bathroom.

The light, he remembered, was on a short pull chain over the mirror, and as he groped for it in the darkened room his naked dick fell against the cold porcelain of the sink.

"Yikes," he said, grabbing himself, his voice a sharp whisper of surprise.

Then he found the light and was standing at the toilet bowl, sending a fierce stream into the water and scratching his stomach with his free hand. In his belly hair there was a crust of cum.

He was not sure who was more surprised by what had happened the night before. The kiss in the pickup had been only a desperate attempt to leave Chad with a small sample of the feelings he'd wanted to show him all day.

At the start, he'd meant to get the young cowboy a little drunk if he could and see how far he could get with him, but by evening, he'd had a change of heart. It started as he'd stood in the drugstore looking at a plastic package of colored pencils next to a sketchbook. They were in a little section of art supplies for school kids, but he found himself imagining the look on Chad's face on Christmas morning when he got them from Randy.

"Now you can draw all the horses and cowboys you want," he would say.

And he'd bought them, along with a picture frame he found. "When you've done one you're willing to part with," he'd say. "I want you to put it in this frame and let me have it."

And Chad would smile, in his way, and maybe understand how much Randy wanted to be his friend—and that being friends was enough, if that's all Chad wanted.

The pharmacist, a woman in wire-rimmed glasses, seemed amused as he set the pencils, sketchbook, and frame down by the cash register and took his wallet from his back pocket. She may have been wondering what need a cowboy could possibly have for art supplies.

"Christmas present," he said, thinking he should explain. "They're for somebody else."

She nodded, but there was still the same smile on her face as she rang it all up. And as she put them one by one into a paper bag, he wouldn't have felt any more self-conscious buying hemorrhoid cream—or rubbers.

He'd waited at the door, looking up and down the street for Chad, and when he saw only a postman delivering the mail, he walked to where Chad's truck was parked and slipped the package under the seat.

In the grocery store, he'd bought a box of chocolate-covered cherries for Slim who claimed to have a sweet tooth, and he considered a pouch of Red Man for George before wondering if Indians ever chewed Red Man. So he settled on Beech-Nut instead.

These went into the truck, too, and with no sign of Chad anywhere, he figured he'd go for a couple beers. He'd done enough shopping, and the bottle of Wild Turkey he said he'd buy for Chad could wait.

From instinct, he knew the kind of bar he was looking for was not there on the main street. It would be somewhere on the way out of town, looking too rundown to be inviting to ordinary people, where a cowboy could easily find his own kind—just look for another hat—and there was room enough in the parking lot for truckers. There'd be men there with time to kill and stories to tell.

And he'd found it—a rough but friendly place called Elsie's.

Somehow a couple hours had passed before he realized what time it was. And he'd gone to the men's room to take a last piss before going back to the hotel, where Chad said he'd be waiting. While he was there, a very drunk cowboy came to stand at the urinal beside him, teetering in his boots and almost wetting himself as he struggled with his fly buttons to pull out his dick.

Finally there he was, bracing himself with one hand against the wall, but standing too far from the urinal. His aim wasn't good enough to keep from pissing on the floor, where it splashed on Randy's boots.

"Hey, watch what you're doin' there, pardner," Randy said, trying to step out of range.

"Fuck off," the cowboy said.

"You're pissin' on the floor and it's gettin' on my boots," Randy said, louder in case the guy couldn't hear well.

"I said, fuck off."

The punch, when it came, was a glancing blow that sent Randy backwards into the door of the toilet stall behind him. Which is where Chad, appearing out of nowhere, had found him.

For a while, and much of the way home, it felt like his face was broken. He'd held the cold beer to his cheek, dulling the burning numbness. Watching the snow-covered road ahead of them, he wished he could just get out and put his face down on it.

He studied his cheek now in the bathroom mirror. The bruise had turned an ugly purple, but it wasn't like the worst he'd ever seen himself—after getting hit in the face once with a hay boom working on a haying crew one summer in Oregon. He'd busted his nose that time and the doc had to reset it.

Shivering in the unheated bathroom, he hurried back to bed and got in, hugging himself under the covers. Chad stirred now, yawning, but didn't open his eyes as he rolled over, his face now turned to Randy.

What a face, Randy thought, almost sweet, just a trace of whiskers on his chin. It had been that face he couldn't resist wanting to kiss last night—putting his lips to the young cowboy's mouth.

What he hadn't expected was that after a moment Chad would recover from the surprise and return the kiss. Suddenly there was his warm, wet tongue pushing gently against his. It wasn't a fevered, passionate kiss—those came later—but tenderly surprised and unresisting.

"Can I do that again?" Randy asked when it was over.

"I dunno," Chad said, like he was a little bewildered. But he didn't refuse.

Randy leaned again toward him and the second kiss was longer and deeper than the first. He'd put his hand to Chad's face this time, pressing their mouths closer together.

It had been more than a year since he'd been like this with another man, lifted in a swiftly rising sea of feelings while his cock felt ready to burst in his jeans. He didn't dare yet reach between Chad's legs and discover whether he was having the same effect on him.

"I didn't think you liked me," Randy finally said.

"Me neither," Chad said. He hadn't shifted from where he'd been sitting, his hands still on the steering wheel. The pickup's engine idled. A few snowflakes drifted through the beams of the headlights.

Now what? Randy wondered. He ached to put his hands inside Chad's clothes, to feel his skin and to hold him in his arms, kissing him more, letting his emotions surge from where they welled up in his heart. Chest pressed to naked chest.

Or he could go straight to a simple blowjob, right there on the seat of the pickup, without the complication of any feelings and the uncertainty of how Chad would regard him the next day. Surely he'd had his dick sucked before and understood it was only sex and that it had nothing to do with anyone's feelings.

He could happily have settled for Chad's cock in his mouth, hard and warm, and after just seconds probably, getting a gush of cum over his tongue and in the maybe awkward moments that followed, opening the door to get out of the truck and go into the bunkhouse, not even looking back.

But somehow it hadn't turned out that way.

They'd got to talking instead. Randy couldn't remember just how it got started, but with all the trusting innocence of someone born last week, if not yesterday, Chad had told him about his feelings for Don. Not like this was a big revelation for Randy. Anyone could see the young cowboy was devoted to the boss. The man was his hero—worth no less than a bottle of Wild Turkey at Christmas.

What worried him sometimes, Chad said, was that Don might never see him the same way. Much as he wished it wasn't true, Don didn't need Chad the way Chad needed him. It was his bad ankle that kept Don concerned about him. The accident had happened while he was working for Don, so he'd felt responsible, even paying his doctor bills.

But when he was healed up again, that would all stop. He'd have to work for his keep, move out to the bunkhouse with the rest of them, and maybe there wouldn't even be a job for him. Don didn't need four hired hands.

It was, Randy saw, a simple wish to be loved and to have another man cherish him and never let him go. I could love you like that, he thought. Boy, could I love you like that.

He put his arms around Chad, then, and held him for a while. They didn't talk, and there hadn't been much talking for the rest of the night, except for Randy to say, "You suppose there's some cocoa in Don's kitchen? What a man needs on a snowy winter night like this is a cup of hot chocolate."

So much for getting Chad a little drunk. He hadn't even been able to get him to drink one beer.

And so they ended up in the house, Randy rummaging in the pantry until he'd found sugar and a canister of Hershey's, and he set to heating milk on the stove.

"How about you go start a fire," he said, and Chad nodded and left the room without a word.

Randy's plan, as he remembered, was to keep Chad company in front of the fire until he got sleepy and then say goodnight, walking across the place in the snow to the bunkhouse. If Chad fell asleep there on the couch before he left, he'd cover him up with a blanket and let him be.

They sat for a long time watching the fire, drinking their hot chocolate, and saying nothing. When he offered to put his arm around Chad, Chad had snuggled against him. There was no telling what was going through his mind. But it didn't matter. Randy was content with this, and his dick had settled into a holding pattern in his jeans, ready to spring into action, while Randy knew there wouldn't be any.

Their cups long empty and sitting on the floor, Randy had finally pushed up Chad's shirt cuff so he could see his watch. It was getting late, and he started to get up.

"Stay with me tonight," Chad said. "Don't go yet."

For one thing, Randy's place was in the bunkhouse. Don had not asked him again to sleep over with Chad like he'd done before. He'd have to come up with a good reason to explain this when Don came back. He'd surely find out, and probably from Slim, who'd bring it up one way or another.

Meanwhile, he couldn't tell what Chad really wanted. "You sure?" he said.

Chad nodded.

Randy decided to set caution aside for a moment and bent down to touch his lips to Chad's, and the response was that same lingering kiss he'd got in the pickup.

Then, in a kind of slow motion, he began to unbutton Chad's shirt, slipping a hand inside to caress his chest through his tee shirt, where he soon found the little hard nubbin of a nipple. And as he felt Chad relax against him, he got up and lifted Chad's feet until he was stretched out on the couch.

"If you're not with the man you love," he whispered. "Can you love the man you're with?"

Chad looked at him now, not understanding.

Randy shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said and kneeling beside the couch put his hand on the front of Chad's jeans. Under his fly, he could feel the start of an erection. He pressed his fingers around it, and Chad took in a little gasp of air, his body stiffening.

"Try not to come," Randy said softly. "I'm gonna do it for you."

And he'd slowly, carefully unhooked Chad's belt, opened his jeans and pulled down the zipper. There, barely contained in his underwear, rose a full, hard cock, pressing away from his body.

Randy slipped his fingers under the waistband, and let the young cowboy's hard-on spring free onto his belly. He licked the length of it with his tongue and then put his mouth over it. In a moment, Chad's whole body was suddenly convulsing in spasms. A surprised cry came from him that sounded like he was falling, and Randy felt bursts of cum filling his mouth.

After a while, he gently tucked his spent penis back into his underwear and pulled his fly together over it. Then he leaned over Chad, cradling him in his arms and rocking him against his chest.

"You are a fine, beautiful man," he said softly, his voice hardly above a whisper, and he felt the warmth of the dying fire against his back as he knelt beside the couch.

After that, he'd lost track of the time. He couldn't see Chad's watch, which was somewhere under him. All he knew was that his knees were getting sore and his back was starting to ache. Chad seemed to be asleep, and he thought he might be able to slip away, but as he began to get up from the floor, Chad's eyes fluttered open.

"You going?" he said.

"I was thinking I would."

"I thought you was gonna stay."

"Still want me to?"

Chad hadn't answered, just got up, took his hand, and led him to his bedroom, where they got quickly undressed and crawled in under the covers. They held each other for a long time, until Chad had turned his back and nestled his butt into Randy's belly. From then on there was no sleeping. This was all too much like bliss to let go of. He slid down the back of Chad's underwear and put his cock—hard all over again—against his bare skin.

"You want to make love to me?" Chad said.

"This is OK," Randy said, though the desire to be inside Chad was almost more than he could bear.

"I've never done it before," Chad said. "I want to know what it's like."

Randy didn't know if it was possible. For a first time, as he knew from when it happened to him, it had to be slow and gentle, and there they were with not even anything to grease up with.

"I can try," he said.

And with more patience and willingness than he thought either of them was capable of, they had finally done it.

When it was over and Chad was falling asleep against him, Randy lay there wondering what had just happened. He would not know until tomorrow and probably not even then.

Tired as he was, what he did know was that he wanted to stay awake as long as his body would let him. This wee small hour had become something precious. Before sleep finally took him, he'd put his arm over Chad and pressed his hand to his chest until he could feel his heart beating.

Now, the next morning, as the first light of the new day showed dimly in the window, he knew he could not make it last any longer. Slim, who was the cook while Don was away, would be coming into the kitchen to start the coffee and cook breakfast.

Soon as the new snow had melted from the calving shed roof under the bright sun, he would be back at work, finishing the job there. Boil or no boil. And what happened next would be up to a young cowboy in love, so far at least, with somebody else.

— § —

Chad awoke to the sound of voices in the kitchen. He reached out beside him under the covers and found Randy gone, then he quickly got out of bed and looked for his clothes.

After splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom and studying himself in the mirror, he determined that he looked like the same Chad he'd been the day before, yet he knew that something about him had changed.

He'd never thought of himself as a virgin. But now he realized that whatever he was yesterday he could never be again. He'd given that up for something else—he wasn't sure what. A new self it seemed, but what kind of man did that make him?

In the dreamy minutes as Randy had held him in his arms and he drifted off to sleep, it had been a lot clearer. It all felt so good and so right. Now, facing the new day, he wondered at what he'd done.

There was no time to think about it. He hurried out to the kitchen, where it was warm, and there were the men he'd felt so close to yesterday as he stood with the presents he'd bought for them in town. Slim was at the stove and George was sitting at the table, pouring Karo syrup over a plate of pancakes in front of him.

The mood in the room was unusually jovial. They were laughing about something as Chad came through the door, and he suddenly wondered if there'd be suspicious questions about why Randy had stayed so long at the house the night before. He glanced now at Randy, who was sitting beside George, an embarrassed grin on his face.

"Here's the man who can tell us what really happened," George said.

Chad went to the stove and poured himself a cup of coffee. "About what?" he said.

"How he got that shiner," George said, pointing to the bruise under Randy's eye.

"I wasn't there. I don't know," Chad said.

"I told them," Randy said. "I had one too many and fell off a barstool."

Chad shrugged and tried to laugh. "Coulda happened."

"Aw, they're not talkin'," Slim said and flipped over a pancake. "They must have something to hide."

Chad glanced at Slim, trying to measure the meaning of what he'd just said, but there was only Slim's easy and unsuspecting smile on his face as he patted the pancake down in the sizzling bacon grease.

Then he looked across the room to where Randy sat, his cheek angry and turning color. He was cutting with his fork into the pancake he was eating and gave Chad a blank look, as if the night before hadn't happened. Then when neither of the other men was looking, he winked.

Slim took a plate from the warmer above the stove, put a pancake on it, and told Chad to sit down and eat.

"Any chance I can help out doin' something today?" Chad asked him.

"What'd the doc tell you yesterday?"

"He said if I took it easy— ," Chad started to say.

"Then long as I'm in charge, that's what you're gonna do," Slim said. "Take it easy."

"A little work ain't gonna hurt me none," Chad said.

"You got a hearing problem?"

"No, sir."

Chad went to the table with his plate and coffee and sat down, reaching for a knife and fork from where the clean ones were kept, handles up, in old canned fruit tins.

"I'm gonna finish that roof today," Randy said to Slim. "What you got for me after that?"

"You any good at electrical?"

"Give it a try."

And as the two men talked about what it would take to replace an old fuse box with circuit breakers, like Don wanted, Chad felt himself having arrived in a new day in which life went on as usual, even while here he sat across the table from the man who had—well, sucked and fucked were hardly the right words for it—made love to him the night before.

Yes, made love. For at times it surely felt like what he'd always dreamed of, being lovingly held, embraced, caressed by another man who cared for him. And that had surprised him about Randy, who'd never seemed capable of those kinds of feelings, even while he claimed to have them for the friend who'd left him.

This loving tenderness— starting with that warm, soft kiss he'd never imagined coming from another man—had made him realize something. As much as Don could ever love him, he would never love him so deeply. And if he spent his whole life with Don, never leaving his side, there would never be the sweetness and the heart-stopping excitement of feeling his touch like this.

He could hug a pillow Don had slept on and rub his own cock, thinking of this handsome man and his smile, but the hands touching him would always be his own, and finally he would always be alone as he came. This he was beginning to understand would never be enough to satisfy the yearning of his heart.

With a living, breathing naked man, muscle and blood and warm skin, he'd discovered himself surrendering to desires he didn't know he had, wrapping arms and legs around him, thrusting his cock against him and kissing him deeply. In the darkness of the room, he'd lost all awareness of who he always thought he was. There was only wanting this passion to never end.

"Hey, you in there?" he heard Randy saying, and he felt Randy's boot kick against his leg under the table.

"What?" Chad said, looking up at him and realizing he'd been lost in thought.

"Slim's sayin' it's OK if you want to drive the truck while I throw some hay out to the cows this morning," Randy said. It was usually George's job, but the shed roof wouldn't be dry enough to work on for a couple hours.

"But that's all," Slim said. "Unless you want to knit some ear warmers for the calves when they start comin' in. We could use about a hundred pair of 'em."

"Ear warmers?" Chad said. He'd never heard of such a thing.

Then all the men busted out laughing.

— § —

Randy was in the hay barn, loading the pickup with hay bales. He concentrated on the work, thinking only now and then of his night with Chad. He remembered some of his own doubts the next day after his first time, wondering how his good feelings had changed in such a few hours into troubled confusion. Full of regret, he'd promised himself never to let it happen again.

It had taken a long time, years really, to let himself have this—the deep satisfaction that sex with another man was when he became totally himself and nobody else. It would surely take a while for Chad to find those feelings, too.

The truck was almost loaded up when Chad came from the house, dressed in his hat and winter coat. He walked along kicking up the snow that had fallen the night before and still lay in patches where the ground was frozen. He stood at the foot of the stack of hay bales, his hands in his pockets and looking up at Randy.

I could just love the dickens out of you, Randy thought, but he said nothing, just smiled.

Chad drove them out to the pasture, Randy getting out to open and close the gates, and the cows came gathering around them from all directions. Chad set the truck in low gear as Randy got into the back, snapping open the baling wire with a pair of pliers and tossing out flakes of hay onto the snow-covered field.

When they were done, Randy got into the truck cab again, and Chad turned back toward the ranch. A long line of cows stood eating the hay where it had fallen.

"I've been thinking," Chad said.

"What about?"

"You really meant it when you asked me to come with you to Nevada?"

"I sure did."

"When were you planning to go?"

"It depends."

"On what?"

"Whenever you're ready to pack up and go with me."

"I don't have much to pack."

"Well, you say the word."

Chad thought for a while. "OK, I will."

Continued . . .

More stories. There are links to all the Mike and Danny stories, YouTube videos, and a MySpace blog, plus pictures of the characters and some cowboy poetry at the Rock Lane Cooper home page. Click here.

© 2009 Rock Lane Cooper
[rocklanecooper@yahoo.com](mailto:rocklanecooper@yahoo.com?subject=Forever [6])