Bellingham Mysteries 3: Black Cat Ink (12 page)
Rory recoiled slightly, not sure whether to believe them. From the next room came the sound of Rory’s dad’s voice, reading some sort of scripture. Real loud.
He said, “Why do you want that goat so bad?”
“Why do you care?” Peter countered. “The cops’re coming right now. Make a decision.”
Shadows of anger and panic crossed Rory’s face. He grabbed the rope around Melinda’s neck and yanked her toward Peter, thrusting the rope into his hands. “Here, take it, you sick goat fucker.”
“Thank you very much.” Peter inclined his head cordially.
Nick said, “Now get the fuck out of my sight, you little twerp.”
Rory sneered and gave them one final single finger salute before he slid behind the black curtain and vanished.
Peter handed Melinda’s lead to Shawn, but there was no need. She lunged for him, yanking Peter’s arm nearly out of the socket with the force of her enthusiasm. Shawn embraced her, nuzzled her. With teary eyes he whispered, “Thank you.”
Peter said, “You’re welcome.” Then, to Nick, “I think I hear a martini and a slutty nurse costume calling my name.”
Nick gave a curt nod. “After we call your cop friends and tell them about the cage of cats.”
“Agreed.”
* * *
As Peter saw the last of their drunken guests into the waiting limo at three o’clock in the morning, he reflected that the hard part about throwing an epic Halloween party was not the decor, the drinks, or the costumes. It wasn’t attracting the bespangled and bewigged guests or choosing just the right music that allowed people both to dance and not dance whenever the mood struck them.
No, the hard thing was not drinking so many martinis that his slutty nurse costume would go to waste.
But this, he managed. He had imbibed only two of the magic elixirs and declined to drink any of the holiday-themed shots in favor of this moment, when he, tired but not too drunk, would turn to Nick and utter the words, “Well, Doctor, do you need me for anything else?”
Nick, also relatively sober and wearing a set of blue scrubs that were too tight for his shoulders, looked him up and down. Sometime during the night, Peter had abandoned his shirt and wore now only tight white pants and the white latex platform boots. His cheesy nurse’s hat with a red cross on it had been lost on the dance floor. He shuddered as the chill October fog rolled off the bay and moved across his chest.
Immediately Nick looped an arm around his waist.
“I do need some assistance turning down a bed.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “That’s candy-striper work. Call me when you’ve got a real medical emergency.”
Nick leaned close. “I’ve got a great big case of priapism that no candy striper within five miles has the credentials to help me with. I need a professional slutty nurse,
stat
.”
Peter snickered, trailing his hand down Nick’s abdomen, past his drawstring waist. “Dealing with problems like this is my specialty. Let’s get you into a bed right away, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Taking Nick by the hand, Peter led him back inside the house, picking his way through the carnage of the party and tiptoeing past the sleeping Gigi to their room. Peter quietly closed the door.
“So just get out of those things and lie down right over there.” Peter indicated the bed with a gesture reminiscent of Vanna White revealing the location of the letter E on
Wheel of Fortune
. Not exactly nurselike, but Nick didn’t seem to mind. He stripped off his scrubs, crawled onto the bed, and lay down on his stomach.
He said, “I hope I don’t have to get some sort of injection. I’m afraid of them, you know.”
Peter paused. This was new.
“Don’t worry, it will only hurt for a second.” He ran his hand along the curve of Nick’s shoulders, following it from the dip in his lower back and back up the rise of his buttocks. A shiver went over Nick’s skin. “Are my hands too cold?”
“Not too cold.”
“I just need to prepare my instrument, and I’ll be right there.” He almost managed to say this without laughing, and Nick laughed too, slightly nervously. Peter wished he’d thought ahead enough to have a pair of latex gloves on with him, but alas, he had not. Instead he made a production of fetching lube and warming it in his hands. “Now if you’ll just ease your legs apart, I can examine you.”
Nick shifted, allowed him access. Peter made a slow and careful assessment of Nick’s anatomy, murmuring reassuring phrases he’d heard on medical dramas. Finally holding Nick’s rigid flesh in his hand, he said, “This seems to be the problem right here.”
“Is there anything you can do?”
“There is an experimental treatment, but I’m afraid you will need an injection. Shall I call a specialist, or do you trust me to give it to you?”
“I trust you,” Nick glanced over his shoulder. “You come highly recommended by the International Sisterhood of Slutty Nurses.”
Peter smiled, stripped off his boots and pants, freeing his own cock from the confines of the now very tight pants. He settled himself between Nick’s legs. “Now I’ll just start with a couple of fingers. You tell me if this is getting uncomfortable.”
Peter took his time working first one and then two fingers inside Nick. The construct of his role allowed him to be careful and ask questions that would seem timid or amateur out of context. When he finally pushed his own stiff cock inside that tight, hot entrance, Nick stilled against that blanching shock of pain Peter knew so well.
“Just take your time,” Peter breathed into Nick’s ear. “This injection could take a little while. Relax.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten a treatment like this,” Nick said.
“I know.” Peter wrapped his hand around Nick’s erection, running his thumb gently across the glans. “I’ll monitor your progress by this. You’ll be just fine.”
Nick began to move, at first almost shy. Then, thought processes consumed with making friction, Peter’s character broke. He moaned against Nick’s back. Then they weren’t a nurse and doctor turned patient, just two men fucking.
Nick bucked back against him, and Peter responded pumping faster and harder, chasing release inside this mass of hot muscle beneath him. Nick came first, ejaculating into Peter’s hand while Peter kept pushing into his clenching body until he broke through that barrier of effort into ecstasy.
He collapsed onto Nick, breathing hard, his own heartbeat hammering through his ears. Peter rolled off him to lie flat on his back. Then he regained himself enough to ask, “Are you feeling a little better now?”
Nick moved to kiss him—a grateful, appreciative kiss. “I am. Thank you, nurse.”
He pulled the covers up around them both. Hovering on the edge of sleep, Peter heard a quiet scratching and meowing at the door. He was about to rouse himself when Nick gently disentangled himself, rose, and went to open the door.
Gigi was scaling the side of the bed in half a second. Upon reaching the summit of Mt. Bed, she trundled across the plateau of twisted covers until she reached the head. She gave Peter one vexed meow and settled in the hollow between two pillows. Nick followed, slipping back into bed, gathering Peter against him, breathing softly into his neck.
Peter asked, “So, how does it feel for the doctor to become the patient?”
“I’m feeling some relief, but I’m not sure I’m completely cured. You’ll probably have to repeat your treatment a few times for me to be sure it’s working.”
“Anything you say, Doctor.”
Epilogue
Whatcom County deputies recovered Walter De Kamp’s famous missing sculpture
Untitled Five,
from property owned by the Whatcom County Church of Christ on East Pole Road just before midnight on Halloween. When questioned, organizers of the church’s Hell House event claimed to have no knowledge of how the sculpture came to be in their possession, though an anonymous witness claims to have seen it being unloaded from the back of a black pickup truck decorated with extensive flame decals.
“It could’ve been brought there by the Devil himself for all I know,” stated the witness. “It seems like his kind of mischief.”
No charges have been laid.
Peter stopped typing, marveling at how nearly accurate that witness had been. On November fourth, four months to the day after
Untitled Five
had been removed, it was cemented back onto its pedestal in the university’s sculpture garden. Both Nick and Peter were in attendance, as were Stephano and Dr. Gerholt, both of whom seemed nervous and unusually quiet.
Though he wanted nothing more than to expose them for their crimes, the fact was he had no proof. The only witness who could place the statue at Gerholt’s house had fled the state with his enlightened goat.
The one bright spot in service of justice was that police, following information provided by a not so anonymous tipster, arrested Rory on charges of animal cruelty.
Stephano’s escape from the long arm of the law didn’t seem to bother Nick. He phoned Bradley and left a message on his voice mail informing him that the insurance claim was no longer being filed so he should probably stop shopping for that new Miata. Bradley responded, through his lawyer, that Nick would still be seeing him in court.
Altogether Peter found the whole thing frustrating but respected Nick’s wishes to keep the entire story under wraps. Because who would have believed it anyway? No one.
As though sensing Peter’s vexation through some sixth sense—most likely the expression on his face—Nick sidled up behind him and laid his hands on Peter’s shoulders. The mere touch and gentle pressure caused his muscles to relax.
Nick said, “My cousin wants to know what we’re doing for Christmas this year.”
“Not snow camping,” Peter pronounced. “I’m over snow. Plus there’s no way to pack Gigi. I don’t want her to be alone for the holidays.”
“Christmas doesn’t mean anything to cats.” Nick started to massage his shoulders gently.
Peter stretched into his touch. “Sure it does. It’s the magical day when the living room is littered with empty boxes to jump into and wadded up balls of paper to destroy. We can’t take away her first Christmas.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Nick kept moving his fingers. Slowly he bent to kiss the top of Peter’s head. “I guess the three of us are a family now.”
Peter smirked, mainly to hide the sappy tenderness stabbing through his heart. “Yeah, we sure are.”
Loose Id Titles by Nicole Kimberling
Primal Red
Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Black Cat Ink
* * *
“Red Sands”
Part of the anthology
Hell Cop
With Astrid Amara and Ginn Hale
* * *
“Dark Waters”
Part of the anthology
Hell Cop 2
With Astrid Amara and Ginn Hale
Nicole Kimberling
Nicole Kimberling lives in Bellingham, Washington with her partner, Dawn Kimberling, two bad cats, and approximately 100,000 bees.
She is the editor for Blind Eye Books.