Surprise (8 page)

I undressed and folded my clothes. The bathroom light was harsh florescent and illuminated the bags under my eyes. Otherwise, I looked fine. Not worthy of donning the pages of a fitness magazine, but good enough to be ogled by a minion of gay men.

A knock came at the door. “Oh Todd!” Derek walked in and found me before the mirror. “Ooo. Doing some last minute inspection?” He eyed me from head to cock. “Don't blame you for wanting to take in all of that.” He smiled. “Ready then?”

“Yeah. Let's do this.”

My skin alighted with goose bumps when I entered the hall, and my cock shrank. Derek frowned. “Don't worry, we have a fluffer.”

I opened my mouth but nothing emerged.

“We have a female one, too.” Derek' s proximity again enveloped me. “You're not the only straight boy we've gotten around here.”

I followed him into the studio. The heat was a welcomed change, but the techno music was gone, and the details of the room were stark: a chair propped in the far corner, studio lights ablaze before it, microphones and cameras and wires coiling every which way, and a three-man crew adjusting and peering into or at equipment. One woman sat on a nearby couch reading a magazine.

“Everyone, this is Todd.” All turned to see. “He's straight, so be nice.” There was some grumbling, and one of the crew crossed the room and spoke with Derek. The woman on the couch set down her magazine and patted the seat next to her.

“It'll be a few minutes. Come on. I don't bite.” She smiled and her teeth were bucked. “Unless you want me to.”

My heart pounded so concussively that I feared I might pass out. I sat down.

“I'm Maria.” She offered her hand. It was silken, like the rest of her skin. She wore a low-cut top that offered two scoops of heft that were as smooth as the trace of exposed belly. She dropped my hand and looked at my lap. “Grower, not a show-er, huh?”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Don't be. Relax. Sit back. Close your eyes. Take a nice deep breath.” Her voice had the soothing command of a school nurse, in spite of the lisp. I stared at her dilapidated smile and my mind colluded with images of my wife: her in bed, caring for the girls, sitting by my side on the couch. Yet here I was, naked, next to a woman who gets men erect for a living. What the fuck was I doing?

Maria took hold of me then, and I jerked in response. She spoke softly. “It's all right. There's nothing to this. It's just a job. That's it.”

I nodded, but did not mean it. My wife's face was still visible. She'd been the only one who'd touched me in over a decade. The only one I ever wanted to. And now? This was just a job? Just a way to make money? Nothing more. Right? I sighed and tried to relax.
“Another month. Then…”

Maria touched me again and I did not recoil. I let her smoothness envelope me. I grew to half-mast and then fully erect. Techno music entered the background and Maria slipped into the rhythm. I let my body go, gave over to the moment and accepted this as necessary.

“Now you,” Maria whispered. She switched her hand with mine. “Keep it up.” She clenched my hand and stroked. By virtue I did the same. “That's it.” I took hold like a child coming off training wheels. “Five minutes of that on camera and you're done.”

Derek walked over. “Looks like you're good to go.” I nodded. “Right this way, then.” Derek directed me to the chair. The heat was concentrated and beads of sweat broke out on my shoulders. “Let's get you situated.” Derek positioned me, moving my arms just so, adjusting my legs wide and having me rest my chin on my shoulder. “That's as high as the camera will go. You'd be surprised at how much viewers enjoy seeing just that much of your face. It makes you real.”

The music cranked, underscoring Derek's words. This was
real
. I was really doing this. I was about to support my family in this manner. A flood of emotion surged.

“Just close your eyes and picture whatever gets you hot.” Derek's voice was a notch above a whisper. He smiled one last time before I closed him out.

I'd like to say that I envisioned my wife, that I thought of our sexual exploits, that I even thought about previous girlfriends. But I didn't. I gripped my cock and stroked and searched for an image. My mind drifted and my hard-on slackened. I squeezed and gritted my teeth, desperate to maintain an erection.

The heat boiled and I felt like an animal penned in a cage, on display and disappointing the audience. I was pathetic. I was desperate. I was doing the best I could. That's when the sight came to me, as if I had finally turned to the right page. I saw Derek and Sven and the receptionist and Maria. They were all on their knees before me. My cock solidified.

They were silent and waiting, eyes looking up. Expectant. I stroked with force, sliding into a more comfortable position on the chair. Their mouths fell open and I saw myself in the image, towering over them and thrusting into my fist. They bunched closer and the first tingling danced in my testicles. I held my breath and the sensation spread. I stroked and stroked and stroked until I erupted.

I blasted off in Derek's face, in Sven's face, in the receptionist's face, and in Maria's face. My ass lifted off the chair and I bucked. The hot semen coated my hand but I continued until they were covered. The pleasure coursed through me. My mind felt serenity. I'd done it. I'd made my $1,000. I was back on top. We would survive. All I needed was one shot.

I sat up and shook the drowsiness from my limbs. Derek approached and handed me a towel.

“Excellent! I knew you would do well.” He crouched at my side while I cleaned up. “Now, how soon until you can go again?”

 

 

 

 

“Leslie? Leslie Goosemoon?” Dina cried, chasing after the rodeo champ. “Wait up, will ya?”

The remarkable rider stopped in her tracks twenty meters ahead, and Dina slowed her gait from a gallop to an amble. It felt like a good five minutes before the mysterious stranger turned her head. Even when she did, the brim of her tawny cowboy hat obscured her eyes until she took it off to wipe dusty sweat from her brow.

“Well?” Leslie Goosemoon prodded.

Dina's blood ran cold. She wasn't anticipating such piercing blue eyes on a rough-and-tumble rider. Her eyes should be brown like the mud spray across her cheek.

“Hi,” Dina began, forgetting why she'd chased her down in the first place.

“Whaddya want?” the rider grumbled, her quick-draw stance keeping Dina at a distance.

“It just seems strange that nobody came to congratulate you. All the other girls in competition have their legions of fans. Here you're the big winner and you've got no one telling you how great you rode today.” Dina tried to sound casual, taking a tentative step forward.

With a shrug, Leslie Goosemoon replied, “Lots of folks on the circuit could do without me.”

“Well, of course they could. If you weren't around, those other girls might have a chance in hell at winning. Do you always ride like that?”

Another shrug, and a fraction of a smile.

“This is my first time,” Dina went on with a keen grin, “at a rodeo, I mean.”

“That so?” Leslie asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yup.” Silence made Dina nervous, so she filled it. “My roommate's boyfriend, Rod the Clod, commandeered our TV during the Calgary Stampede last year. I never liked cowboy stuff before that, but when you're subjected to something night and day….”

“It grows on you.”

“Exactly. Although, I never did warm up to Rod the Clod.” Dina hesitated, but what the hell.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“I probably hated him so much because that rat bastard totally crushed my chance to get with Vicky. Hard to make a move with him on the couch twenty-four-seven.”

With a wolfish smile, Leslie gave her a blatant once-over. “You lookin' to get over Vicky?”

Dina shrugged, meeting her penetrative gaze straight on. Leslie took two steps closer. In one fluid motion, her arm swooped around Dina's waist and a dusty hand brushed through her hair, firm against her scalp. Those pink lips hovered like Tantalus' water glass, so close she could nearly sip them.

“Best way to get over someone is to get under someone,” Dina whispered, giving herself in to a searing embrace. Leslie's mouth was hot, her kiss fierce. It mixed Dina up until she felt thoroughly liquid and smooth.

When Leslie backed away, it was too soon. “Is that all you've heard?”

“I don't know…” Dina stammered, eyes closed, senses reeling. Maybe Leslie was fishing for compliments? “I've heard you're the best cowboy on the circuit.”

“Cow
girl,
” Leslie snapped. Without notice, her countenance turned harsh. She wasn't looking at Dina anymore, her gaze was locked on her oxblood and tan cowboy boots kicking up dust underfoot.

“Not the way you ride!” Dina cheered. “I've never seen a girl do calf roping before. They don't let women into competition at the Stampede, except in the barrel racing, but what fun is that? Christ, you're so rough-and-tumble you could easily compete against the men. I bet you'd take the cake.”

That was obviously the wrong thing to say, because Leslie Goosemoon turned on her heels and walked away, her long black ponytail whipping side to side. She hadn't gone six strides before turning around. “Go to hell.”

Strutting off, she stopped again but didn't turn around this time. Her voice broke as she shouted, “I don't ride with the boys. Not anymore.” She didn't look back as she marched toward the parking lot where her trusty pickup awaited. When she slammed its rusty door, Dina jumped.

Perplexed, she watched Leslie drive off. What else could she do? She hadn't expected the great Leslie Goosemoon to be so volatile, and it haunted her all the way back to Aunt Jo's old farmhouse. Even as she opened the front door those baffling words burned her brain.

“How was the rodeo?” Aunt Jo asked from the open kitchen.

“Pretty good. You should have come with.”

“Scrabble tournament's not going to run itself, kiddo.”

“I think I'll check out day two tomorrow. Want to join me?”

Setting down her menacing carrot-chopping knife, Aunt Jo replied, “Tomorrow's my turn to lead Yoga for Seniors. And, hey, I had to force you to take in the rodeo in the first place, and now you're champing at the bit for the next installment? What happened, see a boy you liked?

“A girl,” Dina wanted to say, but the words stuck like a fishbone in her throat.

“I need to look something up on the Internet, Auntie.”

“Off to the library with you, brat!” Aunt Jo chuckled. “Jeeze, my favorite niece comes to visit for the long weekend and spends the whole time out on the prowl!”

“If you weren't such a Luddite, I wouldn't have to leave the house just to check my e-mail. I don't know how you survive without a computer.”

“Like my parents, and their parents, and their parents before them.”

 

Dina sat down at the library computer with one eye on the clock. Fifteen minutes to closing time. Into the search engine she typed: Leslie Goosemoon. The results made her gasp. Page after page of competition stats, articles and commentary, some positive but most not. Leslie Goosemoon had competed with the boys because Leslie Goosemoon had
been
a boy.

Pale-faced, Dina clicked the window closed and her throat released one of those impossible-to-contain shrieks. The librarian in a cat sweater shot her a piercing glare. So did the woman with a mess of orange curls who'd been picking her nose and wiping it into her paperback every time she thought no one was looking. Dina asked the woman in the cat sweater, “Do you know where I could find Leslie Goosemoon?”

The librarian clicked her teeth. “Some people would tell you he's from our town, but that is most certainly not the case.”

“Now Linda, you were singing a different tune back when he made it to Stampede,” the nose-picker interrupted. “Oh, you loved him then alright.”

“A bald faced lie, Shelley. I was the first to call him a nancy-boy, if you'll recall.”

“Well, I
never
liked the kid. Those Rez brats should stay put if you ask me,” Mrs. bad-dye-job rejoined.

With a combination of nausea and anger, Dina spat, “And I'm sure everybody in this time-warped town is just
dying
to hear your illuminated opinions. If you'll excuse me, I'd rather be anywhere but here.”

“Well of all the rude little…” the librarian muttered as Dina slammed the entrance door. Shaking out her arms, she tried to get that prickly anger feeling out of her body. She had to find Leslie. She had to see her again and there's no way she could wait until tomorrow.

It didn't take much asking around to locate someone in a small town, particularly if that someone was adored or despised. “Aren't you Jo's niece?” replied the man outside the pharmacy when she inquired after Leslie. “What does a nice girl like you want with that pansy?”

If she weren't after the whereabouts of the town misfit, Dina would have cried, “Get a fucking clue, asshole!” but for the sake of information she held her tongue.

Leslie Goosemoon lived somewhere between the reserve of her upbringing and the town that wouldn't have her. Her property was large, her home modest. Little more than a log cabin in fact, but it suited her. When Dina pulled up she found Leslie under the overhang, rocking in an ancient porch swing, still wearing her dusty rodeo gear.

“Mind if I join you?” Dina asked.

Leslie set aside her journal. She didn't seem at all surprised to see the rodeo fan again. “Have a seat,” she offered. “Can I get you anything?” but she didn't give Dina a second to answer before wrapping an arm around her shoulder and laying a smoldering kiss on her lips. Leslie's mouth tasted like the scent of sawdust and pine. She tasted like the woods, like she was an extension of where she lived. It was those eyes though, blue as still water, that really made her melt. “The people around here are a bunch of idiots,” Dina sighed, dazed by Leslie's hot affection. “They all seem to think you're gay.”