Karen Mercury (22 page)

“That’s admirable. But striving for perfection can lead to female disorders. You must restore your blood by recreation and rest once in a while.” While Chess really did believe all this, he was merely blathering in order to keep his tongue active while he fucked his wife.

The front door opened before the words were out of his mouth, and Spenser jangled into the parlor. “Female disorder? What’s all this about?” Spenser at least had the presence of mind to unbuckle his gun belt and toss it onto the couch before coming up behind Chess and handling his full balls. “Mm. You’re a fucking animal, Chess. At least take off your damned chaps before you mount our wife.”

Chess stopped moving and stood poised, thighs trembling, when Spenser uncorked a bottle of Macassar oil they kept on the mantel, hidden behind the mirror. He even tilted his hips, arching his lower back, to submissively display his ass to Spenser. He panted, trying to control his breathing, while Fidelia whimpered impatiently, reminding him to stroke her clitoris. When he spoke, it came out strangled, poised as he was, awaiting Spenser’s next touch. “Fidelia. She wants to continue making cheese. But I fear she has chosen to do too much work.”

“It’s not just
cheese
,” Fidelia protested weakly.

Please massage my balls. Please take out your delicious cock.
It was maddening, pausing here while Spenser looked him up and down, inspecting his body with a professional eye. Spenser cocked a hip, exhibiting his long, beefy erection cradled in the crotch of his chaps. Spenser had worn that pair of denims so long there was a washed-out, faded outline of his cock and balls, and he posed there as though in a Morning Star performance, holding that damned Macassar oil. As though he didn’t look like the Hercules he had portrayed for so long.

Chess knew he was teasing him. This was evident when Spenser ran a palm slowly down his own abdomen and clutched his prick. He knew that Chess watched him in the mirror. That was why he put on such an arrogant attitude and came across as such an impudent, virile stud—just as Chess himself had always posed.

Chess still enjoyed playing the brawny, tough son of a bitch, but today he craved the punishment of Spenser’s body. “It’s not just the cheese,” Chess panted, agreeing with Fidelia. “It’s the one hundred other tasks you set for yourself. Tell her, Spence. Tell her not to do so many things.” His cock twitched in Fidelia’s pussy as he anticipated Spenser’s touch.

Spenser merely squeezed his clothed cock at the base so that it bulged more lewdly between his fingers, angling his hips at Chess’s ass. “You know Fidelia. We can’t tell her to assign tasks to others. She’ll rebel and do even more work herself.”

“But it’s for the sake of the child.
Mon Dieu,
Spence! Let me see that cock!”

This brought a sly smile to Spenser’s face. “You want it, don’t you? Let me hear you beg.”

“
Please
, Chess,” Fidelia urged him. “Beg!”

Chess was still resistant to supplicating himself, however. His ass fairly tingled to be spanked, and waves of desire rushed through his balls and prick. But he had never begged.

To encourage him, Spenser unbuckled his chaps and let them sag toward the carpet, displaying his white ass more fully. He slapped Chess’s rump with an oily hand, the asinine grin never leaving his face. Chess squeezed his eyes closed but not for long. He couldn’t resist taking a peek at that spectacular stud still wearing his spurs, now spanking his ass.

Chess knew that Spenser had had an erotic fantasy of being dominated by a vaquero in chaps and spurs. Spenser had confessed this to Chess one night as they lay entwined together, exhausted, fiddling with each other’s pricks. Apparently years ago, some older vaquero had teased a bunch of other hands into frigging themselves onto Spenser’s bound and naked body. As a result, Spenser had a perverted desire to be fucked by a buckaroo wearing all his gear.

Chess feared that was his own new desire.

Now Spenser had their favorite quirt in his hand. He spanked Chess’s ass so expertly the braided rawhide falls tickled his scrotum. Spenser knew how to flick the little whip so exactly, he could tease Chess’s exposed asshole with the stinging falls. Chess noted Spenser’s penis twitch under the denim, straining the fabric.

“For the love of God,” Chess gasped. “Please.”

“That’s better.” Spenser smiled but continued to flog Chess’s rump in a crisscross pattern. Chess churned his prick inside Fidelia, as much from a desire to fuck as from a desire to cringe from the punishing little whip. “Tell me how much you want me to chastise you. You’ve been an awfully bad buck, unable to control your willful little fräulein here. Your pristine ass needs a whipping.”

“Oh, hell!” Chess gasped. Every lash of the falls made his prick quiver and swell inside Fidelia, and he feared he would embarrass himself by shooting his load far too soon. But he couldn’t resist the teasing Spenser was taunting him with. He did want to be whipped. And chastised by a splendid stud wearing spurs. “I know I’ve been disobedient.”

“Good.” This admission encouraged Spenser to flick the whip skillfully around Chess’s swollen testicles. The tips touched the base of his prick, now deeply embedded inside his wife.

Fidelia gasped when her own muff was whipped, and she let loose a wild animal sound. “Spence!” she roared. “Give him what he wants! Fuck the stuffing out of him.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Spenser teased, apparently amused by the shuddering, trembling couple. In the mirror, Chess saw him drizzle oil over the handle of the quirt and position it against Chess’s tight anal ring. “Is
this
what you want, you naughty thing? You want something hard and long up inside that tight asshole?” Spenser further tormented him by sliding the quirt handle two inches or so inside Chess and jiggling it about.

“
Yes!
” Chess growled. “
Yes
that’s what I want, you lowdown bastard. Fuck me with that thing.” Spenser obliged, running the leather-covered quirt handle fully inside Chess, tickling that sensitive spot deep inside him. “You know it’s going to make me shoot if you fuck me up the ass. Show me how bad and disobedient I’ve been. You’re the big, brawny, muscular boss—”

Chess’s words caught in his throat when Spenser tossed the quirt to the floor. In a flash Spenser had unleashed his purplish, veined cock. Chess was nearly crazed with arousal by the time Spenser splashed some oil on his prick, not even taking the time to tease Chess by frigging himself first before plunging it into Chess’s asshole.

All three of them gasped and held their breaths for a brief moment. Fidelia’s pussy clutched and grabbed Chess’s penis deep inside her. He’d never felt like such a well-hung stallion as at this moment, sandwiched between the two people he loved the most in the world. Fidelia even reached a supple arm over Chess’s head to cradle it to the back of her neck. Chess knew that Spenser held his breath for fear of ejaculating immediately, as he was doing.

The men exhaled when Fidelia shrieked, “Oh, just
fuck him
already, Spence!”

Chess could feel Spenser’s groan reverberating inside his very balls. The big prick twitched and throbbed inside his asshole for a few moments before Spenser began thrusting, grunting like a pig. When Spenser’s cockhead brushed that sensitive spot, Chess knew it was all over. He couldn’t hold back, and his prick spewed a heavy, hot load inside of his wife. Wave after wave of seed spurted from the tip of his cock while Fidelia moaned in anguish, as though about to break into sobs.

Chess’s mind went blank as his entire body convulsed in the orgasm. Every nerve in his body seemed centered in his pelvis as Spenser erupted inside of him.

It was a good long while before the men’s cocks shuddered out their final drop of semen. Fidelia detached first, as though she couldn’t support Chess’s weight any longer. She staggered as though roostered, weaving a zigzag trail over to the sideboard, where her hand hovered over the various carafes as though she didn’t see them.

* * * *

The noxious fumes of whiskey stung Fidelia’s nostrils before she even had a chance to take a bracing sip. It burned as it swept down her gullet, and she was glad. She needed to be shaken out of her groggy and blissful haze.

When she turned back to the men, she had to laugh. They looked so silly locked together like two dogs, panting. Chess now balanced with his palms on the back of the couch as she had done. Spenser still wore his Stetson, and both men were in spurs and chaps with their pants down around their asses. “You look ridiculous! Oh, such manly fucking cowboys.”

Spenser stumbled back a few feet before regaining his balance, then laughed. “Here.” He grabbed Chess’s Stetson from the couch and slapped it on Chess’s head. “Now at least we look equally as stupid.”

A grubby, folded piece of paper fluttered out of the hat, landing on the carpet. Fidelia picked it up and unfolded it but only got as far as reading

CERTIFICATE OF OWNERSHIP

before Chess cried, “A piece of paper!”

Spenser added, “In the boss’s hat!”

Fidelia looked up from the paper. “So?”

Chess was wide-eyed with excitement as he fastened his crotch buttons. “Remember Ulrich’s prophecy? You said he kept singing about the boss’s hat, which we figured out was my Stetson, and a piece of paper.”

Fidelia was frozen with the prophetic realization. Her eyes grew wide. “You’re right. This paper must’ve fallen out of the hat’s sweatband. How odd.”

Chess said, “That definitely wasn’t in there when I bought the hat in Omaha. Bullet Bob must’ve put it in there when he tried to steal my hat. Certificate of ownership for what?”

Fidelia continued reading. The handwriting was of a German person writing in English. “Oh!
Mein Gott
. This is my brother’s handwriting!” Her two men crowded closer around her as she read aloud, “I certify that I am the owner of the Gottlieb Schick painting,
Allegory of the Divine Beauty of Nature
, and—I remember that painting! It hung on the wall of our dining room in Stuttgart, and our parents sent it over here with us on the ship, as something from the old country, to remind us of home. It depicted an Eve, or a nymph, and a huntsman.”

“That’s incredible,” said Chess. “So where is the painting now?”

“We had it in Wisconsin at the farm, hidden in a wall. Not that it was worth much, but we didn’t want our master”—Fidelia swiftly corrected herself—“our boss to get ahold of it and sell it. Not that it was worth much, it was just some old folksy romantic thing, so I wonder why Ulrich was certifying he was the owner?”

Spenser breathed on Fidelia’s shoulder. “It sounds like he pawned it. Look at that riceman handwriting, the signature. That must be the person he pawned it to.”

Chess read. “C. Chang—”

Fidelia cried, “C. Chang, Proprietor! Good old C. Chang, Proprietor!”

“Who’s that?” asked Spenser. “Oh, the fellow who did Josephine’s autopsy?”

“Yes, yes!” Fidelia exclaimed. “It says Chang gave Ulrich five dollars for the painting.” She looked at the men. “I’m sure it was worth more than that! We must get it back from Chang. Chess, may I put the painting over our new mantel?”

Chess looked guarded. “Depends how sentimental it is.”

Spenser slapped Chess with the back of his hand. “Chess! Let her have her painting of Eve. After all, Eve figured importantly in how we met.”

But Fidelia knew her husband was only joshing. He’d let her put the sappy painting over the mantel. Her sister Ivy had let Harley hang a photograph of a dead man’s eyeball, after all.

She put her head on Chess’s shoulder and began to relax into the beginnings of slumber, but she was startled awake by a jarring guitar strumming. She had completely forgotten about Ulrich’s
geist
the past few days. Ulrich had attended their wedding on the grounds of the Vancouver House, seemingly in order to meet Chess’s siblings, all of whom could see him manifest. He provided the guitar music, as well as the hollering folk songs he blared at the top of his lungs. He had played little tricks Chess didn’t think were so funny, such as removing Simon Hudson’s top hat and putting it on a statue’s head. Ulrich replaced the hat on Simon’s head with a napkin folded into a swan, but Simon just seemed nonplussed. Apparently, Simon was in the habit of losing his hat, anyway, so nobody was the wiser.

But the Hudson siblings all warned Fidelia that now that Bullet Bob had confessed to killing Ulrich, Ulrich could rest. This meant more than likely he would fade away, stop manifesting to them. Fidelia didn’t want this to happen, but she supposed she should want what was best for Ulrich. He needed to move on, to reincarnate as a newborn, if the opinions of some of the siblings could be believed. Bullet Bob had once imagined Ulrich was his Zeus, his savior and idol, but he had been disappointed when Ulrich had proved to be only a mere man with a guitar. So he had killed him to make way for a new Zeus, who would only emerge if Ulrich was dead. Bullet Bob had apparently found this new Zeus when someone had pointed out Chess as being the subject of the
Illustrated News
article Zeke had been flashing around town, bragging about his employer’s bon vivant son. Zeke had blathered about “the infamous Tower of Power incident” for weeks.