The City of Lovely Brothers (14 page)

The stable hands applauded, and the children came out to see what was going on. Darcie came onto the porch wearing her apron and broke into a broad smile.

"Now, you hold the reins and I'll hold you steady,"

Nick said. "How long's it been since you rode?"

"Ten years, about."

"But you ain't forgot how to steer a horse, have you?"

"I don't think so."

"Good. Let's go for a ride."

"Not too fast, okay?" They rode out toward the Johnson house. Nick

quickened the pace to a trot, but it bounced Caliban up and down. "My hip can't take this," he said.

"Then we'll try a lope. It's smoother."

They broke into a lope. Caliban found it easier on his hip than a walk. He started laughing. "I can't remember having this much fun in ages!"

"Afraid you'll fall off?"

"Not with you holding me. You hold me real tight and gentle, like cradling a baby."

"You like how it feels?"

"Yeah. It feels nice."

They passed Calhoun on his horse next to the herd.

He waved and yelled out, "Good going, baby brother!"

Then he said something else they couldn't hear. They doubled around and asked him what he had said.

"I said, 'Go show Julia. She'll get a kick out of it.'"

"That's where we were headed." And they took off at a lope in the direction of the house.

They rode for over an hour. Then Caliban said,

"That's enough," and they turned back to the stables. On the way, Nick asked, "Wanna do it again?"

"Do I ever!"

"Like tomorrow?"

"Not so soon. My hip can't do so much. It's 17stiffening up."

"It'll get used to it."

"It won't. I know my hip. It'll need a few days to stretch out and loosen up."

"Once a week, then?"

"Yeah, once a week would be great."

Calhoun knew Nick was the best rider on the ranch and asked him to come on the cattle drive as a wrangler.

Nick refused, saying he didn't much care for cattle. He would stay at the stables with Caliban.

Calhoun thought it odd that he added "with

Caliban."

* * * *

Early in winter, after the first big snow —it lay about a foot deep on the ground— one of the mares was ready to foal. For a week Caliban spent every night in the stable, thinking it might be her time. Jaggers stayed there with him. One night he went to the mess hall while the ranch hands were eating supper and said, "I'm about near certain it's gonna be tonight. Anybody wanna stay up with me to assist? I have a feeling it's gonna be a difficult delivery."

As he had expected, Nick volunteered. The mare went into labor around midnight. It went smoothly for a first time, and she had her foal in not much more than an hour.

"A stallion!" Caliban said. "And a beaut."

He sat back against the wall of her stall next to Nick. Nick had his arms out to the side, so when Caliban sat down, he found himself leaning against one of them.

"You ain't driving all the way to your place in the middle of the night, are you?" Nick asked.

"Ain't got much of a choice. There ain't no free beds in the bunkhouse, and I don't wanna wake up Calvin and Darcie."

"You could sleep in the hayloft."

"Can't climb up there. Slats're too wide."

"I'll give you a boost halfway, then climb up and hoist you up after me. You can get down by yourself?"

"That's easy."

"Then what're we waiting for?"

They stood up, and Nick put his hands on Caliban's waist to boost him. Caliban winced. "Sorry. Your hip, ain't it? I'll hold you up higher, at the bottom of the rib cage."

He put his hands on Caliban's ribs. Caliban flexed his left knee to jump, but Nick didn't make a move to lift him. Instead, he said in a quiet voice, "You're like me, ain't ya." "You mean how we both like horses?"

"I mean how we both like guys."

"Like guys how?"

"How d'ya think? In the way other guys don't think we should like 'em. Am I right?"

Caliban caught his breath, and after a few seconds'

pause, he whispered, "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Just a feeling I had. Nobody can tell. They can't tell about me, neither. But now you know. We know."

"And?"

"You wanna have sex with me in the loft?"

"I don't know. It don't seem right."

"Feels right, though, don't it? Or ain't you never done it?"

"This 'd be my first time."

"Don't say that. Say it
will
be your first time."

"I don't know what to do. I know what to do if you was a girl. Caleb told me everything about that."

"I'll show you.
I
know what to do. I done it lots o'

times. I'm sure you'll love it. Will you?"

Caliban wanted it. He wanted it more than anything in the world, more than he had wanted to ride with him on a horse. But he was afraid to say so.

"Will you?" Nick repeated, and Caliban nodded.

"Then up we go!" Before Caliban could flex his knee, Nick 17had lifted him so high he could put his foot on top of the second slat, a third of the way. Then Nick clambered up into the loft, reached down his arm, grabbed Caliban by the wrist, and pulled him up the rest of the way.

The loft was dark. They had left the lantern hanging outside the stall. "Whatta we do first?" Caliban asked.

"Same thing what you do with a girl. We kiss. Or didn't your brother tell you that?"

They kissed. Caliban began it as a pucker, but their mouths opened and their tongues swirled around each other. He went limp in his friend's arms, but his arms clung tightly around Nick's back. Their cocks were pressing hard on each other. Caliban's was leaking. He felt his heart as a painful lump deep in his chest that slowly melted as it was sucked into Nick, and his own body felt as though it was drinking Nick's essence.

When their lips parted, Nick said, "Well, somebody taught you how to kiss!"

"You did, just now."

"You say you ain't done anything? Have you

imagined doing things?"

"Always. Mostly things with my hands, but… This is gonna sound really stupid."

"Tell me."

"Things with my eyes, too." "It don't sound stupid. I know exactly what you mean."

"And I imagine tastes, but…"

"But?"

"Mostly I imagine things being done to me."

"That's what most guys like us imagine. I'll do 'em to you, and you say if I'm good at it like you imagined."

Nick took three blankets that were hanging over a rail in the loft. He placed one over the hay and the others to the side. Then he began to unbutton Caliban's shirt, kissing the skin he exposed. "Are you cold?"

"I got the chills, but it's your tongue that's giving them to me."

"We'll be under the blankets soon."

"I wasn't kidding. It really is your tongue."

But he had started to undo Caliban's belt. "Damn.

Forgot about the boots."

Nick took off the boots. Caliban had to hold his shoulders for balance when he took off the left.

Nick was on his knees now, and he did not stand up.

He unbuttoned Caliban's dungarees and, pulling, inched them down his leg. The pubic hair came in view, then the base of his cock, more of it, and it sprang free, blushing pink and engorged with blood. When the dungarees were around Caliban's ankles, Nick said, "You are beautiful." "Stop making fun of me. I'm all twisted."

"I wasn't talking about your hip. I'll say it different:
it
is beautiful."

He put his lips to Caliban's cock and drew it deep into his mouth, running his tongue along the base of the shaft and around the head.

Caliban sighed. "Yeah, I imagined 'em doing that, but it didn't feel this good when I imagined it."

Nick pulled back, gasping for air. "You… are…

big!" Then he rose to his feet, picked Caliban up in his arms, lay him on the blanket, and covered him with the other two; then he stood back up. "I want to see you,"

Caliban said.

"Here I am!"

"I meant—"

"I know what you meant. I was about to do it. Can't you wait even a minute? Greedy!"

"I can wait. Do it real, real slow, so I always wanna see more."

"I'll freeze!" Nick joked, but he undressed with measured slowness, and as each part of him in turn unveiled itself to Caliban, Caliban's eyes grew wider in awed anticipation of the union of that body with his own.

Nick slipped under the blankets. They held each

other in their arms and replayed their first kiss many, many 18times while their hands explored and caressed.

Then Nick disappeared under the blankets. He

licked Caliban's balls and between his legs. He ran his fingers over every fraction of an inch of his penis. He didn't have to pull back his foreskin; Caliban's cock was hard and stretched to its limit. Nick held the shaft between two fingers and moved it up, down, to one side, to the other, as if studying it, though it must have been dark under the blanket, too dark for him to see. Then he returned to licking, while Caliban, moaning, dug his fingers into Nick's hair. Nick's tongue slid lower, reaching into the cleft between Caliban's buttocks. His mouth licked its way back to the cock-head, and he lowered his face onto it as his mouth glided down around it to the base. While he was slowly sucking it into the back of his throat, he wet a finger and gently corkscrewed it into Caliban's hole, and while his head moved up and down over Caliban's shaft, he massaged the little glowing kernel that radiated heat throughout Caliban's body like molten gold.

Caliban came soon. His pelvis bucked

uncontrollably, and with each buck he felt a slight twinge in his bad hip, but far away, as if it wasn't his body, his every nerve drowning in the intensity of his orgasm.

Nick came off his cock and slipped the finger out of his ass. Still hidden under the blanket, he kissed a circle of 18tiny kisses around his belly, then laid his head on it and gently stroked Caliban's side down his leg, across his pubic mound, and over his penis, still engorged but no longer iron hard. Caliban was remembering things his brother had told him, and thinking,
Now I know what it must feel like to
girls, an orgasm that takes over your whole body.

He asked Nick, "Can I suck you now? Can I find out what you taste like?"

"Yeah, give it a try. See how it feels to suck on a prick. But you may not get to taste my cream this time, unless… But there'll be a next time, won't there?"

"Oh, yes… yes."

"You ain't sorry I talked you into this?"

"You didn't talk me into nothing. I just took my time figuring out if I wanted to say yes."

"'Cause there's something else I wanna do."

"I know. Am I supposed to get on my hands and knees?"

"Get so it's comfortable for you. I can do it with you on your side."

"The left? It hurts to lie on my right."

"Right, left, it's all the same. Your hole's in the middle."

"Is it gonna hurt?"

"D'ya think it'll hurt?" "I dunno. It might."

"You're right: it might. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it don't. When you're used to somebody, and you know how to do 'im or how he does it to you, you both kinda relax and it goes real easy. When some guys do it to you, it hurts all the time."

"All this ain't relaxing me. How bad can it hurt?"

"Remember when you told me how bad it hurt when the doc broke your hip for the second time? Well, it never hurts that bad."

"You trying to scare me?"

"No, honey, I'm just teasing. I ain't gonna hurt you.

If it starts to hurt, even a little, you tell me and I'll…"

"You'll… You'll what? Stop?"

"No, I'll go slower. It takes a little time to stretch a guy out. Same as your hip, I guess."

"You're always talking about my hip. It's distracting you."

"
You're
always talking about your hip. I'm making jokes about it to show you it don't matter none."

"Well, let's get it over with."

"No, honey. I'm gonna make it last real long so it feels real good. It gets better as the good feeling grows inside you. I had a finger in there already. I'm gonna stick it back in and press it to this side and that side and back to 18this side… Feel okay?"

"Yeah, not so bad like when I broke my hip."

"Wisecracker. My prick is bigger."

"Than mine?"

"Don't I wish! Bigger'n my finger. And when I put it in you, it's gonna feel… Can you guess?"

"Big."

"And what else?"

"Different."

"Bingo!"

"You're making me laugh!"

"You ain't scared no more?"

"No."

"Now breathe slow, in the back of your mouth, with your throat wide open."

"Why?"

"'Cause when you're open at one end, you open up on the other."

"You're still trying to get me to laugh."

"No, it's the God-honest truth."

Nick's way of teaching was very different from

Caleb's. No lectures, no interrogations; just putting him at ease and talking him through it. And it didn't hurt. But it sure felt different. And it did get better, and better, and better, until Caliban felt darts of ecstasy shooting out from 18a spot inside him that seemed glued to his insides between the base of his spine and his balls, and his whole body was crying out for more, and Nick put his hand over his mouth and said he was scaring the horses, and Nick was kissing his neck, and Caliban felt his muscles tighten, and down behind he was strangling Nick's prick inside him, and the prick was throbbing, and he came, or Nick came, and he couldn't tell which one of them had… and it was both.

They lay there panting on their sides, Nick behind him, his penis gradually shrinking inside his lover until it popped out. They lay still a while. Caliban realized he had been crying, and that he had been crying because he was happy.

"Are you gonna want me doing that to you too?" he asked Nick.

"You better, but not tonight. We gotta get some sleep, and we don't want the guys finding us up here naked.

We'll take the blankets down with us and catch a few winks outside her stall."

* * * *

A stable hand found them asleep on either side of the stall a half an hour before dawn, each wrapped in his own blanket. Nick rubbed his eyes and sat up. "You sore, 18Caliban?" he asked. "Feeling stiff?"