the palms of his hands down my thighs, taking my jeans and
boxers with them. I was lying naked underneath him, draped
across his green velvet couch, and he took his time looking
at me.
“I knew as soon as I saw these couches how beautiful
you would look on one of them. Your skin is the color of a
fawn in spring, you know? Such a beautiful warm brown
boy.” He crawled back between my legs and sat on his knees,
lifted my legs until my knees slid over his shoulders, then he
bent his head and took my cock into his mouth.
The heat inside his mouth, silky smooth, with the rough
edge of teeth sliding against the length of my cock. He was
stronger than he looked, and I felt his hands grip my thighs,
tug them apart until he had free rein. He used his tongue to
tickle the sensitive underside, and when he felt my balls
draw up tight, he let my cock slide out of his mouth until
just the tip was caught between his teeth. My heart was
beating so fast it felt like it was ready to fly out of my chest,
and I couldn’t control my breathing, grunting, and moaning.
I slid my fingers into his silky hair, down to the back of his
neck. It was damp with sweat under his hair.
He moved his hands now, circled the base of my cock,
pushed the foreskin down with his teeth. When he blew
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across the wet, exposed head, I jerked so hard I nearly
bucked us both off the couch. “Easy, cowboy. Easy, my little
zo-zo.” And he kissed the straining head, kissed it and
sucked it into his mouth, sucked hard and squeezed the
base of my cock, slid his fingers down around my balls. “I
bet you taste good. I’m ready if you are.” He moved his
fingers up my arm until he got to my hand, holding the back
of his head, and we meshed our fingers together. I could feel
the first hot splash hit the back of his throat, tension down
my belly, into my balls so strong and hard it was almost
painful under the sweetness. Instead of pulling his head up,
he sucked me in deeper, swallowing. I felt like I was shooting
a gallon of semen down his throat, and when he sat up, and
smiled at me, and licked his bottom lip, I nearly broke his
hand, hauling him up and into my arms, kissing his warm
sweet mouth, tasting myself on his tongue.
“I FEEL like I’m walking through a mine field here. Don’t get
your feelings hurt if I don’t do what you expect, Jesse.”
“I don’t get that. You have this big brown gorgeous body
and a face off some stone monument. I bet guys have been
coming on to you since you were fifteen.”
“Yeah, well, fourteen. But being experienced doesn’t
mean being skilled. Or smooth. You have got smooth tucked
up in your back pocket.”
“You’ve been living in a world where it was dangerous.
Where you had other priorities. But that isn’t all of it. You’re
a Western man. Quiet. Self-contained. Tough and strong and
brave and all those other cowboy lies. But they’re true for
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you, aren’t they? You’re more a Marathon cowboy that I am,
even if I did grow up here. This seems like your world.”
“And it’s not yours?”
Jesse was in my arms, and I had him wrapped up, arms
and legs. He seemed to be enjoying making my chest his
pillow. He shivered a little. “It has been before, and the
people I love are here, but no, I wouldn’t choose to stay here
forever. I like the city, even though….”
“What?”
“Sometimes the energy seems frantic, hysterical. I can’t
hear myself think. That’s why I came down here. I couldn’t
find enough quiet to work.”
“I don’t want to mess anything up. I’m here to work,
too.”
“What, you mean me and you dirty dancing? It won’t
mess anything up, zo-zo, if we fuck around on our couches.
We’re allowed some play time.”
This was exactly my point, I thought, though I didn’t say
it out loud. A man jerks your Levi’s down, gives you a world-
class blow job. Now, that man wasn’t a stranger. How did
you find out if he was your lover or just a friend who liked to
suck dick? Or if you were just having a little play time? And
how the hell would you know if somebody was falling in love?
Oh, God, that could be bad. That would be really, really bad.
I decided the best thing I could do was keep my mouth shut
and listen to Jesse and let him take the lead. Because he
was slick as pig shit between the sheets. Or on the couch.
“Where did Sadie go?”
“She went back to her mama’s house. It was like I
thought. She’s down here hiding from some asshole
boyfriend. I only wish he was dumb enough to come down to
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Marathon after her.” He lifted his head. “I may be a nancy
boy, but I’ve got enough of Marathon in my blood to say that
we protect our women around here. I suspect The Original is
getting his squirrel gun out of the closet.”
“As long as he doesn’t use it on me.”
“No, he’s got some massive admiration going on for you,
my friend. He likes your cartoons.” Jesse hesitated. “I do
too.”
“What?”
He leaned up on his arms, still wrapped up tight, that
pretty mouth very close. “You’re going easy. You hit the ‘easy
to laugh at’ target. I get the feeling you don’t want to make
people upset.”
“Well, isn’t that what a cartoon is for? To make people
laugh, and maybe think just a little?”
“Is it? You could dig in a little deeper. Of course, you
always risk offending somebody that way.”
“Give me an example.”
“Your little cartoon about the fight in the bar up in
Alpine? It’s good, funny. You made sure you were the only
guy being laughed at. You were very careful not to make
anybody a caricature. But if you’d made me a little more
flaming, with my red shoes and a tattoo of a rainbow
showing on my butt—you know, like those pictures by Paul
Richmond? And if you made the jerk in the ugly boots just a
little more a caricature—some smokes rolled up in his sleeve,
a little Confederate flag on the butt of his jeans. I don’t
know, I suspect the humor would be sharper. Funnier. What
I loved was the way your character just stood there, not
seeing the bottle coming down on his head. Joe Cool and
Crazy Horse, all mixed into one. But with that Gary Larsen
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twist—the man seconds before the bottle descends. That’s
good.”
“I see what you mean.” I put my hands back behind my
head, laughed when Jesse nuzzled a little in my armpit.
“What’s your cartoon about, now you’re out of the
Marine Corps?”
“I’ve been wondering that very thing. See, it’s not just
being a Marine. It’s that, for a certain cohort, we were born
Marines. We’ll be Marines when we die. The same values and
strengths of the corps are natural parts of our character. I
think The Original’s like that, and your cop uncle up in
Alpine. So how does that man live in the world? In the
USMC, we’re all alike. But out in the world, there are all
these crazy people we’ve got to deal with. Wearing red
sneakers into bars.”
“Your Devil Dog, he’s been in uniform so far?”
“Yeah, infantry.”
“So if your theme is how a man, one of these born-and-
bred devil dogs, makes it out in the world, out of the corps,
then you’ve got to take the uniform off the boy. Not all of it—
leave some external pieces for reference.”
“A cap with insignia. Or a devil dog tattoo. Like the
rainbow flag tattooed on your pretty butt—those sorts of
external references.” I thought for awhile. Maybe what he
needed was a cohort of characters he could use to bounce
ideas off. Rainbow boy for sure. “Did you mind that I put you
in a cartoon? I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first.”
Jesse shook his head. “It’s fine. I know how it is when
you’re working. The ideas come, you’ve got to get them down.
No time to secure consent forms.” He reached over my body,
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picked up the sketch book lying on the floor. He showed me
the sketch of my face.
“Jesus! Don’t show that to anybody. I look like
somebody’s giving me a blow job.”
“This one’s just for me. A picture of our first time. You
can be a cartoonist and a gay sex symbol at the same time,
you know.”
“Thanks, but I believe I’ll pass on being a gay sex
symbol.”
“Maybe when Devil Dog takes off his USMC uniform, he
puts on a cowboy hat. Those are the values you’re talking
about. You could be one of my cowboy angels.”
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Chapter Five
I WAS dreaming, some Marty Robbins West Texas cowboy
tale, but my horse had a blanket made out of pale-green
velvet. I heard a metallic click, and it woke me, woke me into
full alert, and I ripped the shotgun out of Jesse’s hands and
slammed him back against the wall of my room, my forearm
against his throat. He stared at me with big eyes, and I
stared back at him, and then I looked down at the gun in my
hand.
“Jesse, don’t rack a round into a shotgun in the same
room where a Marine is sleeping, okay? Especially a Marine
who was in Afghanistan two months ago.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “I can’t breathe.” I let
him loose.
I studied the gun again. “This isn’t a squirrel gun. This
is a shotgun.”
“Okay, whatever. Can I borrow your truck? I’ve got a
little errand. I thought you might have left the keys on the
dresser.”
I stared at him again, then reached over and turned on
the light. My heart rate was about two hundred. “Oh, fuck
me sideways. I ought to kick your ass.” He was dressed in
Texas ninja: jeans and a black T-shirt and a ball cap. “What
in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I have a bad feeling about Sadie. I thought I’d just ride
over there and make sure dipshit wasn’t sitting outside her
house.”
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“And if he was?”
Jesse nodded toward the shotgun.
“Oh, please. I ought to lock you in your room.”
“I’m not gonna mess up your truck!”
“Give me a break.” I pulled on the pair of jeans I’d left
over the back of the chair, then reached in the top drawer for
a T-shirt. “The first rule of combat, cowboy, is nobody goes
anywhere alone, dig?”
“Oh, fine, fine. I was just
trying
to let you get a good
night’s sleep!”
Right. I reached up and carefully scratched around the
stitches in my face. They had been itching like mad. I pulled
on my shoes. “Every time you tell a lie, my stitches itch.
Okay, let’s go. And be quiet so we don’t wake up your
granddad.”
“We’ll probably see The Original circling the block.”
“Oh, I doubt that. He has more brains than you and I
put together.”
I kept the lights off until we were back on Main Street.
“Okay, where we going?”
“Lee Street,” Jesse said, pointing. “I thought we could
just skulk around. Loiter.”
“That’s what deputy sheriffs always look for, at,”—I
checked my watch—“at 0300. Don’t you think he would
notice if the dipshit was hanging around Sadie’s house? It’s
not that big a town.”
“There’s only one deputy on duty. He can only be in so
many places at once. Turn off the lights.”
I cut the lights, coasted a bit. Then I could see where
Jesse was pointing, a late-model Honda Accord parked on
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the street. There was a light on inside the car, and the radio
was playing real low. Jesse reached for the shotgun, but I
pulled it out of his reach. “I don’t think so.”
“I grew up around guns. I know what to do!”
“I don’t think so,” I said again. “Get the flashlight. You
go around to the passenger side, shine the flashlight in. I’ll
be on the other side in case he tries to run. I thought you
said he drove a pickup?”
“That’s what Sadie said. A dark blue Chevy with a cap
on the back.”
Jesse slid out of the truck, left his door open, and
tiptoed up to the Honda. I had to admit he was light on his