Chapter 11
"Russell! It's nice to hear your voice again."
"Gerry! I'd just about given up on you son. Hell of a one night stand though."
"That's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. Are you going to be home this evening?"
"Are you dropping by?"
"If I may."
"Then I'm staying home. What time shall I have dinner planned for?"
"About six?"
"Lobster all right with you? Just got a shipment in from Maine. Had a cold tank put in in the kitchen this week. The buggers are hoppin' mad about the change in their lifestyle, but if you're coming over, it's gonna get worse for `em in a hurry." I laughed with him, and then told him I had a wad of ideas to talk over with him.
"I'm interested in any wads you might have. I'll see you about six. Drive carefully." He made a kissing sound in my ear, and we hung up.
The shower had stopped, and Ross was standing in the doorway of the tiny bathroom with a towel around his neck. Water was still dripping off his beautiful body. I looked at him for a minute, taking in all his masculine beauty. I sighed, and stood up taking his wet body in my arms and kissed him hard on the mouth.
He broke the kiss, but not before his cock had started to react. He pushed me down onto the bed and laid down beside me. He put his large warm hand in the middle of my chest, and after a moment of looking into my eyes, he picked up the beat of my heart with his fingers. He drummed on my chest and smiled at me.
"You know, I have to go."
"Now?"
"Yes. I have to get some rest before I report for duty this evening."
"I thought you worked days."
"Two weeks on days, then two weeks on nights. It's how the barracks is kept equidible. Everybody suffers the same."
"You said you could get time off if you wanted?"
"My commander has been after me to take time coming to me for so long, he'd jump at the chance to get rid of me for a while. Why?"
"I've got a party planning in my head. I want to bring a lot of interesting people together in Tucson for a weekend. I'm going down there tonight to discuss it with a friend who's place I want to use for it."
"Are you inviting me?"
"Can you get next weekend off?"
"Does ol' scudder have fleas?" The old yellow tom cat flashed in my mind.
"Good. I'll call you this week with the details." I kissed him again, and squeezed his semi hard dick.
"Now none of that. I won't get out of here in time to rest at all if we get started."
"Well, just save it for next weekend."
"No jacking off?"
"None."
"What if I find a sexy guy pulled off the road pulling his pud; can I fuck him?"
"Humm. No. But you can suck him if you don't cum yourself."
"What a goddamn prig you are turning into."
"I just want you to save it for what I think will be one of the best times you've ever had."
After he was dressed and gone, I showered, dressed and slowly packed my bag. I settled up with the motel, and drove back to the little fast food Mexican place Joe and I had eaten at the day I met him. I ordered a Machaca Burro and a bowl of Posole. The soup was scrumptious, and the Machaca was properly spiced and shredded. I complimented the woman who was the cook. She had stepped out the back door of the place, and was smoking. She smiled at me, and I knew she hadn't understood a word I'd said to her. I had to do something about learning Spanish.
The road to Tucson was boring and uneventful. I pulled into Russ' driveway a little before six, and he met me at the door with a Modello. I kissed him, and followed him into the kitchen where he was putting the finishing touches on a salad involving something he called Mache, and flowers. It had little bits of fresh tangerine sections and candied walnuts sprinkled through its multicolored textures. A large pot was boiling away on the stove top, and two large Maine lobsters were crawling around in the sink next to the stove. Every time he got close to the sink, both lobsters would throw their claws up at him, and start clacking the vicious looking things.
"Don't they come with rubber band restrainers on their claws?" The creatures were making me jump every time the clacked at Russ.
"They do, but I've set them free. I believe they deserve at least a chance to get even with me. After all, I am planning on boiling their little butts alive." He showed me a darkening bruise on his left hand. The claw marks were clearly visible.
"Geez Russ. Maybe we should be eating safer animals, like rattlesnakes or Gila Monsters."
"You chicken?"
"Hell yes. I'm not touching them until they're bright red, and don't respond to a fork poking them."
"That certainly will be the best way for us to approach them. They'll be a little too hot for their own good by that time I'm afraid." He walked over to the sink, and snatched one of the creepy things up suddenly. The Lobster snapped and clattered in his hand, flailing and twisting its claws and legs uselessly in the air. He dropped the thing into the boiling pot, and then repeated the process with the second one. I thought I could hear them banging on the pot in their death throes.
"Yech." I looked at the pot in horror.
"What's the matter with you? They died the minute they hit the water. The sound is caused by the boiling water rolling their shells against the side of the pot." I half expected to see a couple of really pissed off creepy things crawl out of the pot after our fag asses.
The meal, as usual, was spectacular. We ate by the pool again, and this time, he poured a class of chilled Suave with the Lobster. We ate, drank and talked about the things we'd done and thought about since we'd last seen each other. I told him about my idea for a party, and he was enthusiastic. He was planning the menu by the time the last of the Lobster was washed down with the wine.
Over brandy under the stars, I told him about John. I also told him about John's plan for the beeper. He listened to my story, and after taking his brandy down in one swallow, he put his hand on my leg.
"We have to make John the guest of honor." He smiled at me.
"I don't know how to reach him. I can ask Harold to contact him again, but I'm not certain he would come."
"Does it matter?"
"Well, he ought to be there don't you think?"
"Of course, but all we can do is invite, and hope he comes. We can make this party an annual or if necessary, semiannual event. I wish we knew John's last name. We could make it the event where the beeper is handed off to the next lucky fuck."
"That's a great idea. We could have a drawing or something to select the guy."
"How about a lottery. We could advertise it, and sell dollar chances to win it for a month. The money it raises could go to Aids research." Russ was getting into the idea.
"It might start off with just a few of us buying chances, but with the gay network, the numbers would grow quickly. Everybody would want a chance at winning the beeper."
"This is going to be exciting. There's only one problem?" He looked seriously at me.
"What's that?" I took a sip of brandy.
"It needs somebody to coordinate it and keep it going."
"You have someone in mind?"
"You."
"Me? I'm on the road all the time. When would I have time to coordinate a thing like this?"
"Well, you wouldn't have to be on the road if you did this instead."
"I wouldn't have any income if I quit my job."
"If you lived with me, you wouldn't need an income."
"Sure I would..." I did a double take and looked at him. "What do you mean if I lived with you?"
"Just that. I can't explain it Gerry, but since you and I got together the other night, I haven't been able to get you out of my mind. I'm not sure I can call it love this soon, but I can't not call it that either. I hope I'm not pissing you off or anything."
I was speechless. No one had ever told me they loved me. My mother may have been the last, but I couldn't even remember that word coming out of her mouth. I was forced to consider the hours since Russ and I had been together, and what my thoughts had been about.
"You know Russ, I spent a lot of time thinking about you since I was here last week. It's been a week of some really special encounters for me, but even though I think about the others, they don't occupy my mind like thinking of you does. I can't explain it either, but maybe it is a kind of love. Who knows?"
"Are you saying you want to keep the door open to other possibilities?" He was sitting very close to me and I took his hand in mine and squeezed it gently.
"I don't know if I'm ready to call a halt to my sexual encounters."
"I wouldn't dream of trying to enforce monogamy on any relationship we might construct. Perhaps some sort of safety agreement. After all, Variety is the spice of life; is it not?"
"How would I make a living?"
"Do you realize how much money I have?"
"No. I never gave it much thought."
"What's you annual salary?"
"About sixty grand with my bonus."
"Now don't get mad at me, but I make triple that every month or so. My textbooks do very well by me. On top of that income, I'm invested heavily in blue chip stocks and bonds. I'm one rich son of a bitch, and money doesn't mean too much to me anymore. I could pay you a salary to live with me if it would make you feel better, or I could start helping you invest what you do have so you won't have to work ever again, just like me." I looked at him in wonder. I really had no idea of his wealth.
"I've been nudging up to be worth my first hundred million this year according to my accountant. He'd love it if I hired someone to take a chunk of that away every year. Besides, I should start to do something with it instead of letting the banks have all the fun playing with it. You could help me think of things that need to be done. I think that job description, if you throw in all the sex that would certainly occur, ought to be worth a few hundred thousand a year; don't you think?"
"Russ, I can't take your money. I'd feel kept."
"Well then, how much have you got saved?"
"Last I looked, it was about three hundred thou. I don't have to spend much of what I earn. The company provides the car, and my motel bills and I get a very generous daily food allowance which I've never been able to use completely. I take a couple of vacations a year that average three to four thousand, and that's about all my expenses."
"Good. Let me begin to invest it for you, and it will begin to produce a handsome income for you very soon. But as long as you live here, you won't have to spend anything at all, unless you want to."
"Let me think about it before I give you my answer."
"That's fine. Now, would you like anything else before I take you to bed and fuck your brains out?"
"Not a thing," I laughed. "Let's go!"
The next morning, over Latte and Begnets filled with Mesquite honey, we began to make plans for the party. Russ had a list of people to add to mine, and it looked like we'd have about thirty guys around the pool.
Ross was deep into planning the menu and I started making phone calls. By one in the afternoon, everyone had been notified and given directions and was looking forward to the shindig. We took a break, and went for a swim. One thing led to another, and he and I ended up on one of the floating rafts taking turns giving each other blow jobs. I was getting to like his dick very much, and it was obvious by the way he gorged himself on mine, the feeling was mutual.
After the swim, we sun bathed nude on mats beside the pool, and I began working on my first all over tan. He spread tanning lotion on my white white body, paying close attention to my buns. He had me turning over periodically, so I didn't burn before I started to tan. Laying on my back, he couldn't resist handling my cock and balls with his lotion covered hands until I gave him a shot of cream to put into the mix.
We played with each other the rest of the afternoon, and as the sun began to sink behind Mount Lemon, we showered and dressed and went into the kitchen to find something to eat. I fixed us both drinks and sat at the counter watching him work his magic with a few ingredients he had on hand. We ate a wonderful Ratatoui and some tiny ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and the yokes of quail eggs. They were served with a sauce of lemon and burnt butter, and a grating of Mizthera cheese across the top. He offered a Retsina to sip with the food, and some hard little breadsticks flavored with Rosemary. For dessert he baked a quick shortbread biscuit for each of us, and while it was still hot from the oven, broke them in half and ladled fresh strawberries and Frambois flavored whipped cream.
"I've never eaten so well in my life Russ." I rubbed my stomach, and kissed his ear. "Thank you."
"If you came to live with me, I'd really get the chance to practice my hobby. As it is, I cook mostly for myself and occasionally for my son when he visits. I don't get to show off much with him. He's a hot dog man."
"What about him?" I watched him put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher.
"You mean if we get together?"
"Yes."
"He has his life, and I have mine. I wouldn't want to hide us from him. How do you feel about kids?"
"Don't know much about them. I've had sex with a few eighteen year olds. How do you feel about that?"
"Lets put it this way, I've probably sucked kids a lot younger than that in various toilets. I haven't made a habit of pursuing the younger generation, but I've never turned away and anxious cock stuffed through a glory hole because it looked too young."
"I don't do glory hole sex Russ. I like to be face to face with them. I guess I'm sensible about the law, and wouldn't take any underaged kid into my bed, but if they are of age and approach me, I go with the flow. What I'm saying, is I don't get turned on by little boys."
"Good, because if you touched my son, I'd have to kill you." He laughed. "It's the code of the west." I laughed with him, and took another sip of Retsina. He picked up his glass and started the dish washing machine.
"Come on, lets go take a Jacuzzi on the roof we should be able to see Hale-Bopp." He hooked the bottle of wine off the counter and headed out onto the patio. I followed him around the side of the house to a flight of hidden stairs. This house of his was full of little surprises. On the roof, I found a recreation of the desert landscape. Cactus and greasewood plants dotted the roof and gave the impression you were walking on the desert sands. A natural looking path wound through the sagebrush, and in the deepening dusk, tiny inconspicuous lights were beginning to twinkle on to help light the way. I thought I saw a small movement near the path, and as Russ came abreast of it, the unmistakable buzz of a rattler filled the perfumed night air. I froze in my tracks.
"It's all right Gerry." He stooped down toward the snake to get a better look in the dim light. The snake drew it's evil looking head back getting ready to strike him. I put y hand on his shoulder, and tugged on him to come away. He put his hand over mine, and patted it firmly. Mine was trembling, his was not.
"This is Sally, Gerry. She likes to put on a good show, but she's all bluff with humans. Now if you were a wood rat, it would be a different story." He reached slowly over and stroked the snake's triangular head. The rattling stopped, not immediately, but rather in a slow winding down until there was nothing but the distant roar of the freeway to be heard.
"I have several rattlers up here. I treat them with respect, and feed them well on their favorite live food, and they keep second story men out of my life. I won't say they're harmless." He stood, and we resumed our stroll across the roof garden. My eyes were straining to see every thing in our path. "I keep them as pets, just like my fish and birds. I like my pets to be able to fend for themselves, so I try to create perfect duplications of their own natural environments. I haven't spared a thing, except the addition of predators. The ecosystem up here, has everything the snakes need to survive. The wood rat population, and my snakes are balanced to such a degree that two of the rattlers are pregnant this spring." I shivered at the thought of being surrounded by thousands of tiny poisonous snakes.
"I'll have to capture the ladies soon and cage them until the babies are born. You know they are born live, and are not hatched from eggs." I shook my head, and then realized he was walking in front of me and couldn't see my shaking head.
"No I guess that comes under the category of more than I ever wanted to know." He chuckled.
"Well, I'll take the young snakes out into the desert after a few weeks laying in with their mom, and release them."
"Won't they starve?"
"Doubtful. They can live for several weeks, and perhaps months on a single meal. I'll make sure they all have little tummies full of little pinkies."
"Little pinkies?"
"Blind baby mice. They sell them for snake food in some pet shops. They are called little pinkies because they don't have hair yet, and because they are the pups of white mice, their skin is pink." I shuddered again, learning more than I wanted to know.
We rounded a mound of Prickly Pear cactus, and came to a pool of water sunk into the ground. A few rocks and stones were place to make it look exactly like some small desert pool. He set the wine bottle on a flat stone, and set his glass beside it. He began taking off his clothes. I set my glass down next to his, and nervously checked out the shadowy areas for lurking snakes.
"Don't worry about them. Just don't make any sudden movements or threatening actions. They always let you know where they are so you won't step on them. Sam might come to the pool to drink while we're hear, but don't be afraid, he never gets in when there are humans present."
We stripped out of our clothes, and slipped into the sun warmed water. Russ showed me where the controls for the machinery were hidden, and turned the jets on high. Below the surface were additional stones arranged to be comfortable seats for the jets to do their thing on your body. The water was wonderful, and we laid in it soaking and watched the stars slowly appear in the turning velvet of the sky. Then to the Northeast, slightly above the mountain a faint smudge of light appeared in the sky.
"There it is," Russ said, pointing. I looked, and the comet gradually became brighter in the darkening sky.
"It's beautiful," I whispered. He brushed his thigh across mine, and looked at me tenderly.
"Have you been seduced yet?"
"You mean to live with you? In this snaky place? Are you kidding? Who knows what kind of creepy crawly lives under your bed?"
"Maybe a crab or two or a bedbug, but I don't think it's any worse than those four star no tell motels you live in now."
"I'll tell you what. Let me give my boss notice, and I'll move in in two weeks."
"You mean you're leaving me to deal with this party by myself?"
"Uh, no. I'll call in sick or something until we get the party handled, but I'll tell him to start looking for a replacement. I feel I've got to give him that much."
"Fine, I wouldn't want to compromise your morals and ethics."
I noticed a movement in the shadow of a stone that jutted out over the pool. A very large rattler's head emerged from the dark crevice under the stone, and delicately stuck its mouth into the water and began sucking liquid into its body. I nudged Russ, and nodded my head slightly at the ugly head.
"Hi Sam," he said. The rattler paid no attention, but when he'd had his fill of water, he turned and crawled away into the darkness again. I paid close attention to the way he went.
"He's a loner, and my largest. I haven't measured him for a few years, but last time I checked,he was right at six feet. I think he's the daddy to be in both cases. Sara and Salome are the expectant ones. They've started to den occasionally getting ready for their birth time. I'll keep an eye on them and just before they look ripe I'll catch them and cage them until the blessed event is over. That way my ecosystem won't be disrupted. Just one too many snakes up here would do the system in I'm afraid. It's very delicate. Just like the desert."
"Why do they all have names that start with S?"
"Sssurly you jest?" He laughed at me. "It's a sound they seem to understand."
"I think you and Hal are going to have a lot in common." I told him about Hal's huge tract of land to protect the desert from human incursion, and he was smiling. "You'll also like Ross, my cop friend. He lives at the bottom of a canyon next to a stream. I think he does it because he loves being close to nature. He doesn't let people use his canyon at all, and keeps it posted against hunters and fishermen."
"They both sound like my kind of people. This state is under siege from people who don't know how to live in the desert. They plant grass, and shade trees, they even plant palms that come from the rain forest jungles of Mexico and then water the shit out of the place. It's criminal, the damage they're doing to the environment here. If they wanted green grass and trees, then why didn't they pick a place that already had them?" He had gotten a little hot under the collar so to speak. I listened to his passion about the desert, and understood something about this man.
He looked up at the sky, and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I got so hot Gerry."
"Don't be. I like a man with passion. You believe in something, and think about what you do. Most of us don't bother. Which ever way the ball rolls is all right for the majority."
"Let's go downstairs and watch a movie or something. We've been in this water long enough to become prunes." He climbed out onto the rock Sssam had slithered under, and the big snake started singing. I jumped a foot in the air at least; he sounded so close.
"It's O.K. Sam." He stepped off the rock, and reached into the shadow beneath it where the snake had gone.
"Russ!" When he stood up again, he held the largest rattlesnake I'd ever seen in both his hands. I trembled, looking at the man who was asking me to be his full time lover standing on the rock, naked as a Jay, holding the world's biggest rattlesnake in his hands. I felt faint. The snake was singing louder and louder, and I backed away to the far edge of the pool.
"We put on a good show don't we?" He stooped, and let the still buzzing snake crawl slowly out of his hands. "He actually likes to be handled. I've had him for almost twenty years now. I think he knows the routine better than I do. He was only a two footer when I first found him injured on the side of the interstate. I'm not sure what had injured him, but I suspected a motorcycle or something not as heavy as a car. He had a few broken ribs, and possibly a few cracked vertebra, that would have been the end of Sam if I'd left him there. Snakes heal very slowly, but he's a master of his race now."
"Why don't you release him back into the wild again like you're planning to do with the babies?"
"You saw our routine. He's not afraid of people any more. The first Yahoo he encountered would beat him to death or shoot him. People just don't seem to understand the Sams of this state were here first and deserve our respect." He gathered up his clothes and the wine glasses which were empty now. I got out of the water, and followed suit bringing the empty Retsina bottle.
"In a way, I am returning Sam to the wild. All those babies I have released and will continue to release, are Sam's gene pool. It's his DNA I'm putting back out there. Over the years, I must have released over three hundred little Sam clones into the desert. That makes me feel good. He hopped around on one foot, and wiggled his butt. Off the trail in the thicket of cactus I could just make out in the dim light, another snake started to sing.
"That's Sherrie, one of the expectant mothers. She's a little testy right now. She's full of babies, and you can actually see them squirming around under her skin. I don't think she's been getting much sleep, and I know she hasn't eaten in at least three months, there hasn't been any room in her body for food. She must be carrying thirty baby rattlers."
"Geez! I guess I'd be testy too." We laughed, but I was glad to come to the stairs and head down off the roof. "Do they ever come down the stairs?"
"Haven't yet, I guess they feel too much at home where they are to leave."
I paused on the stairs, and took one more look at the comet. It was brighter now in the blacker sky than it had been earlier. While I was looking at it, a brilliant meteor streaked across the sky on the same angle of the comet's tail, and for an instant, there were two trails across the heavens. One brilliant and fiery and the other still and frosty. I took a deep breath of the lemon scented air, and made a decision.