On Archimedes Street (24 page)

“You mean greasy perfection,” Rita harrumphed, but she was nonetheless very pleased with the Latinate compliment.

“Yes, it’s very good,” Flip added.

“Fat what make it taste good. Why take the skin offa chicken, jes’ to make it taste like a paper sack?”

“Yes, that’s what I love about Boston butt—it’s really pork shoulder, you know. It’s so fatty that you just leave it in the oven at three hundred for hours. Impossible to overcook. A long, slow cook, and it bastes itself in its own juices.”

Flip observed that dinner conversations at Rita’s house—and now that he recollected, at Dutch’s house, the few times he had dined there—centered on the food presently being consumed, fond reminiscences of past meals, and eager anticipation of meals to come. The people here were obsessed with food.

“And the collards and rice are the perfect complement,” Honoria offered. “So simple and satisfying.” Rita glowed. “But Doodie, what could Lotte LaNasa possibly want with the Dirt Detective, or whatever it’s called?”

“Beats me,” admitted Doodie. “Jes’ know she gettin’ too big for her britches, winnin’ the cook-off alla dem years in a row.”

The table erupted in conversation. Honoria, Rita, and Doodie—all good cooks—competed in vain against Lotte in the Greater Gretna Cook-off year after year, and past slights from the judges were aired and old grievances rehearsed again and again.

“Elwood should have won that year! Remember his glazed mirliton?”

“What about dat pigeon casserole you make two years back? Bettah dan dat Eye-talian beef any day.”

“Oh, Honoria, and you were cheated last year. Your grillades beat the pants off LaNasa’s stuffed eggplant, in my view.”

The accolades and recipes were thick on the conversational ground. Flip and Dutch caught each other’s eyes, and each made a small smirk. “Pen-cil,” mouthed Dutch wordlessly to Flip, and winked. Flip couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“What you makin’ dis year, Miz Rita? An’ how ’bout you, Miz Honoria?”

The culinary parliament came to an abrupt close.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Me needer.”

But of course they had. This year’s entrant had been secretly re-created with variations in three different kitchens for months now. The threesome dined together regularly, so they could eliminate any dish recently served in each other’s houses—including Boston butt.

A united front against Lotte LaNasa, the three rivals eyed each other suspiciously. Yes, LaNasa was due for her comeuppance, but who would be the one to rub her defeat in her face?

“What you givin’ us next Wednesday, Miz Rita?”

The ghost of Repast Future revived the conversation.

Chapter 34

F
RENCHY
’
S
VIOLIN
lessons took place not far from his own Garden District home, in a grand old house that had been subdivided into apartments. He sat in the front room of the double parlor, waiting his turn for his evening lesson and overhearing, through the shut pocket doors separating the two parlors, the efforts of the student before him. He or she was playing the same piece he’d been practicing for weeks now, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 5, the
Spring Sonata
. Frenchy loved the violin, and he loved this piece. He listened critically. His analytical mind took note of a few missed or wrong notes. Then his analytical mind turned itself off, and he got lost in the music.

Music was another language for Frenchy. It took him to another place, another country that seemed familiar and exotic at the same time. In that country, there was no time, no Manny, no desire, no leukemia, and no money. Despite the skipped or wrong notes, he was transported there now. He stayed there, rapt, until the sliding of the massive pocket doors brought him back. Out slipped a diminutive black boy.

“Later, Maestro.” His high five was inexpertly returned. “Dat was dope.”

“Practice, Loo-loot, practice! You’re not living up to your potential.”

The black boy registered Frenchy coolly and then made his way out.

“Good evening, Maestro.”

“Hello, Frenchy. Did you practice the sonata this week?”

“Ten hours.”

“Well, let’s see where you are.”

Frenchy took up his violin and bowed into the attack. He winced when he missed one note, but otherwise, there was no other misstep in the seven minutes it took for the sonata to play itself out. The maestro did not interrupt.

The maestro schooled his face into a benign impassivity. This student was depressing. He had no fire, no feeling for the music at all. Yet he was his most important student. Without the income from Frenchy’s exorbitantly priced lessons and the generous underwriting of his music stable by Paule Saint-Paix, he would be unable to take on scholarship students like the one he’d taught just before Frenchy.

“Very well, Frenchy. I can see you put in the hours of practice. A missed note or two, and the temp—”

“Oh, it’s no good, is it? I’ll never master this. I’ll never be a tenth as good as the kid before me, no matter that he skipped notes and fudged his way through the more difficult passages.”

The maestro was shocked into wordlessness.

“What’s his name?”

“The student before you? Louis—Loo-loot, they call him.”

“And he can’t be more than ten or eleven.”

“Yes—eleven or twelve now.”

Frenchy set his bow and instrument down on the maestro’s desk. “Here. Keep these here for him, for when he’s ready. They’re wasted on me.”

“Oh, Frenchy, no.”

“You don’t
know
how frustrating it is.” They both fell silent for a minute. “You know, when I was sick, in the hospital, music got me through. The Beethoven Violin Concerto, the Pergolesi
Stabat Mater
, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach. Music took me to a place where there was no chemo, where there almost was no me—just the beauty.”

The maestro was ashamed but said nothing.

“Do you think I don’t
know
how pedestrian and mechanical my playing is? I know the soul of music; it’s in my soul. I can recognize joy, resignation, sorrow in the playing. But I can’t put any of that into my fingers.”

“Perhaps with practice—”

“No, this is our last lesson, Maestro. Thank you very much for trying with me.”

The maestro panicked. “No, you must not—”

“Don’t worry, Maestro. I will pay for Loo-loot’s lessons from here on out, at the rate you charge me. He should come more often. And I’m sure my mother won’t withdraw her sponsorship for the stupid reason that her son has no aptitude for the instrument.”

Now the maestro was truly thunderstruck. “You do have music in your soul, Frenchy.”

Frenchy stepped up to the desk and fingered the 150-year-old French instrument he was leaving behind on loan. “At least Maman didn’t waste her money on an Amati or a Strad.”

“It’s a beautiful instrument, Frenchy. You’re very generous.”

“It is beautiful, isn’t it? The violin shape is so curvy and sensual.”

“Yes.”

“Are the best violins still made in Italy, in Cremona?”

“It’s a good question, Frenchy. I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know.”

“I hear the wood is rare, hard to come by.”

“Yes, that’s true. Not that spruce and maple are in and of themselves rare, but the best old-growth timber that projects sound best is rare.”

“Might be a good investment—the wood, I mean. You know, for a while there I worked in a woodshop. My hands understand a chisel better than a violin. What is a violin maker called? Just ‘violin maker’?”

“Luthier.”

And then the maestro and Frenchy smiled sadly at each other.

Chapter 35

“A
LL
RIGHT
,
Pencil, all right. Don’t get your panties in a knot. I’ll do it.”

Flip was backing Dutch into the wall, his face a study in determination. “On your knees. Take it out of my pants.”

Dutch’s eyes registered sudden interest. “Oh, yeah.
Talk
that talk.” He sank to his knees and reached for Flip’s zipper.

“Nuh-uh. Pull it down with your teeth.”

Dutch looked up and gave him a knowing, X-rated grin. Before obeying the order, he grabbed Flip’s bike-hardened calves and leaned in to mouth the growing lump behind the placket of his chinos.

Oh shit. Oh shit. It’s really gonna happen.

As Dutch pulled the zipper down with his teeth, he reached up to unbutton the waistband. And instead of taking it out of Flip’s pants, he drew the pants down to the ankles, taking the briefs along with them. He slowly nuzzled the gold-fuzzed balls, then reached down to work the laces of the shoes and drew them off. “Take off your shirt.”

Flip was looking down in fascination. Dutch had inched his nose up and under his balls and was giving the skin there soft bites. Never had Dutch so much as touched him there before. Flip’s dick was so stiff the head brushed his belly. His mind could hardly register the reality that his eyes were relaying.

“Huh?”

“Your shirt. Off.”

Flip shrugged out of it.

“Nice chest, Flabbott. What say we take this to the bed?”

Flip wordlessly yanked him up and scrabbled at Dutch’s shirt. “Off. You too. Off. Everything.”

To torment Flip, Dutch began a methodical, tantalizingly slow disrobing. Finally down to his boxer briefs, he tucked both thumbs under the waistband and turned to face away from Flip, drew them down to his ankles, and bent forward to tug them off his feet. Bent over, he turned his head to look back at Flip.

“Is that what you want?”

Flip was on him in a second, pushing and prodding him to the bed.

Dutch knelt on the mattress and patted it. “Lie on your back.” This was a position they often took when Dutch fucked him.

“Oh, no, I’m not laying down on my back and taking it tonight.”

“It’s ‘lie,’ not ‘lay,’ you ignoramus. And this is the blowjob part of the deal, which usually comes first.”

Flip reclined warily, propping his torso on his forearms to keep an eye on Dutch.

“Lie back. Cup the back of your head with your hands, pretend that you’re lying in a hammock.” Flip followed directions.

“Now say, ‘Knock yourself out.’”

Flip grinned. “Go for it. Knock yourself out.”

“Even better.”

Dutch lay parallel at Flip’s side, crotch near Flip’s head, in a position suggesting that reciprocal, simultaneous fellatio would not be unwelcome. Flip was tempted, but no. He’d almost moved out over this. Let Dutch prove himself.

Dutch began mouthing at the root, then licked the crease between scrotum and thigh, and finally took one ball completely in his mouth.

“Huw out ow? Duh oy ook gay
ow
?”

“Oh for Pete’s sake. Stop clowning around and put my dick in your mouth, already.”

But Dutch didn’t. Instead he stroked Flip’s dick with two fingers, slipping the foreskin over the engorged glans, and peeling it slowly back down. He looked at it with great curiosity, as he had looked at the cow eye he’d dissected in class, as if he had stumbled upon some new insect or rare archaeological find.

“What does it feel like to have a foreskin?”

Flip hissed his pleasure. “It feels like it’s always felt. I’ve never been cut, so I can’t compare.”

“Is it very sensitive? Does it hurt after you ejaculate, if it’s stimulated further?”

“Jeez! Stimulate it some, why doncha, and then I’ll tell you.”

“Wait! I have a capital idea!” Dutch sprang from the bed and headed in the direction of the kitchen.

“Is this a blowjob or a shaggy dog story? I’m dying in here!” Flip called after him. A drop of slick had gathered at the slit, and it was desperate for attention.

Dutch returned with a foil-wrapped wheel about the size of a doughnut.

“What the hell is that?”

“Gorgonzola.”

“Not that smelly-ass cheese!”

“One and the same. An imp to the nose; on the tongue, a rose.”

Dutch swiped up a gob of the cheese and spread it on Flip’s glans.

“No! Gross! It stinks to high heaven!”

But Dutch paid him no mind as he worked the foreskin up and down over the head to distribute the Gorgonzola in an even layer. Then he bent his head to lick the very tip, where the slit was still visible.

“I can’t believe you. You’re such a twisted hairpin. You’re really gonna lick that smelly cheese off my cock?”

Dutch’s eyes flashed. “Say that again,” he said in a low voice. “But use the imperative.”

That finally earned Dutch a smirk. Flip brought as much salaciousness as he could muster, considering the situation, to the imperative.

“Lick that smelly cheese off my cock. You know you want to.”

Dutch sprang into energetic action at those words. He used his tongue to push back the prepuce, then swirled it around the head, gathering up the Gorgonzola like vanilla ice cream from a cone.

Flip forgot all about the Gorgonzola. It felt so wonderful. He looked down. And this was Dutch—
Dutch!
—doing it. He couldn’t help some involuntary, shallow thrusts into Dutch’s mouth. Dutch took them in stride. As the pleasure mounted, however, Flip began to thrust more deeply, and finally Dutch gagged and spluttered.

“Take it! Take it!” Flip could feel it bubbling up and out.

Dutch was animated by the words and renewed his efforts. Somehow, he lost himself as Flip thrust up, and before he knew it, the cockhead was deep in his throat. He swallowed around it.

“Pull off! Pull off! I’m coming!”

But Dutch didn’t. He drew back until the cockhead was on the middle of his tongue, and he clamped down with his mouth, sucking hard.

“Oh, fuck! Fuck! Dutch! I’m warning you! I can’t hold out!”

This was something Flip had refused to do for Dutch. Flip thrashed, trying to escape the vise of Dutch’s mouth. He couldn’t. He gave up trying. He let it gush.

“Oh sweet Mary! Oh, fuuuuck!”

Flip pulsed into that warm haven, shuddering. Dutch kept his mouth still, stopping the sucking. Then he drew himself up from the crotch and loomed over a lifeless, limp Flip.