This story has a degree of sexually-explicit behaviour between men. If you are offended by such powerfully emotional things, aren't at least 18, are from a locality proscribing such material, please don't read any further.
This is totally a product of my fevered brain, so please don't think you recognise someone as a real person, cause you'd be wrong. The same goes for the places. In this story, you'll find smart people practicing safer sex and some not. The author recommends that you always make the smart choice and use a condom. Eroticize it.
The author retains all rights. No reproductions or links to other sites are allowed without the author's consent.
Note: This story is not intended to be the lube merchant's best friend. It may take some getting used to, but if you stay with me, you may get a bit of the 'bodice ripper' and a bit of the 'storke story' to boot. I just hope it's different enough from other things you've read to give you at least a modicum of amusement.
Almost any writer wants to know that people are affected in some way by his work. Please send any comments you may have to R. V. Picard at corbin75408@earthlink.net
Special thanks go the three mentors who's encouragement and empowerment have allowed me to share this with you by sharing themselves. Thank you Sara, Tim and Patrick!
Pud Chapter 7
Foolish me. I had hoped that this being the weekend and all of my friends having been present at Joe's and my meeting and their understanding the moment of that event (not to mention the ensuing hilarity and my embarrassment quotient having topped out) that we might have been left to our own devices for the two days. I had hoped to have some time to discover everything about Joe and his former life and to bring him gently into full realization about my life and to work out how the two were going to mesh. I had no doubt that now we had finally connected, we wouldn't part.
When one considers the facts of the case, it becomes clear that Joe and I really didn't know shit about each other. We had established that each of us knew we were destined for a certain man. Now that `la forza del destino' had been accomplished and the implied promise made flesh . . . what? Apparently even a two-day honeymoon was out of the question for now.
A relationship isn't just sex. I want the whole schmageggi. I want the intimacy, the special shared language, the private looks and jokes, the quiet times when talking isn't required and the silence is an enveloping veil of comfort and surety. I want to touch him fleetingly as he walks by and know that he considers that touch an oration, a declamation of how my soul sings at his nearness. I want to be of such accord that if, perhaps, I wanted a glass of water, I'd completely mindlessly just pour two and hand him one. I long to take him for granted. I want to take for granted that at the end of a long and treacherous day, he'll wash my back and slap my ass and put me to bed. I want to take for granted that when he's stressed and snappish, he'll be that with me and not hide how he feels, never questioning that forgiveness and comfort are his. I want him to take for granted the sheltering harbor of my arms and my love. I need to take for granted that he'll take me for granted just as much as I do him.
The love and trust between us was intrinsic, irrefutable. The quotidian intimacy would have to wait for time to build it. Hell, I don't even know what kind of underpants he wears and that should tell you how fraught with divine fire I was last night!
A man's underwear is one of my little private joys. For example, I can be dulled from too much paper work and not thinking carnally in any way and then a man might walk by and I'll catch a glimpse of vpl (visible panty line; a term coined for a woman, but I like it too) and I'll be off to fantasyland like a shot! When a guy is in only his underwear, he's twice naked. He is defined, accentuated, his masculinity made express and manifest. Underwear, or the lack thereof, can be expressive of mood and intention (think about it!). It can be lyrical, whimsical, ironic, alluring, protective or provocative. It can cling, define, caress, uphold, divide, conceal and comfort. It can be couture, prêt-a-portier, stylish or mundane, but always, always sexy. I have a vague memory from last night of my tongue laving a 2xst logo but I could have hallucinated that! Given the exigencies of this particular Saturday morning, a further exploration of Joe's underpants, on any level, would have to wait.
We made short work of the after breakfast clean up since I'm a clean-as-you-cook kind of guy. It's not that I'm a neat freak, it's much more relevant to the fact that I know after I eat, I'll lose all interest in the clean up. So, over the years I've come up with the least painful way to handle one of my least favorite jobs. I may need to rethink this solution because it was more than wonderful to be rinsing dishes wrapped in the arms of my lover as he sniffed my hair, nuzzled my neck, bit my earlobes and whispered his lust for me as his dick tried to break through his clothes and mine to reclaim its rightful connection. With the dishwasher and both our dicks fully loaded, I took control of the situation by turning in Joe's embrace and taking his delightful mug in my hands as I said, "You, sir, are breathtaking in your person, your actions and your words. I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have you as my partner and partnership requires honesty, so . . . come with me to the terrace and I'll regale you with some facts about myself that may add some nuance of shading to your decision to hook up with me."
I shouldn't have been surprised at his response. Joe took my hand in his, a gesture of such ease, with such an unconscious flow that it could have been the product of years of association and shared affection. As we walked out the French doors with their rich wood and beveled glass catching the dazzling morning sun and tossing it back and forth between the polished reflective surfaces in an exuberant game of catch, the light was rendered less dazzling and more honey-colored. Shimmering, the bevels added rainbow notes to the effect. Joe said, not looking at me and with great meaning, "Peety babe, I've known all my life that I'd find you one day. Now I have, nothing short of death can persuade me to leave you. Accept what I'm giving you of my own free will. Pete? Look at me. Hear me when I tell you that I want everything you have. I want us to share it all. I'm not going `anywhere' my love. Be my true partner. Give me your worst shot and watch how I support you. I'm your Boswell, your Toklas. At other times, I'll be your Ghengus Kahn, your Alexander, and when you need grounding, I can even be your Yorick. I'm the butch hunk of pulse-pounding man you've been waiting for. I come to you fully loaded with magic, fire and music. I'm very smart and a little dangerous and have survived on my own for quite a while now. Don't sell me short and please don't disrespect me by denigrating yourself or your life. I'm here for you no matter what. Deal?"
"Shit yes, snookums!" I said, too overcome to be more eloquent.
"Snookums?!"
"Ok," I parried, "You don't call me Peety and I won't call you snookums, deal?"
He flashed me his Gablesque grin and giggled, "Deal."
We entered into the sun-kissed morning by stepping out onto the terrace with its green, grey, and tan mottled slate floor. This was my haven, my garden room, my giardino segreto, as it were. The air was perfectly humid and not yet shimmering with heat. The humidity served as a medium for the roses and honeysuckle to convey their voluptuous yet calming scents to him who possessed the good fortune to pass by or linger a while. I led us to a nook where two redwood deck chairs eagerly awaited someone to comfort with their commodious cushions and semi-recumbent design. Their existence was wholly to comfort, support, and soothe. They were my partners in cogitation. Often, I've come here seeking solitude in which to ponder issues or to comfort and fortify myself when facing difficulties. Today, I needed the shelter of this shaded, perfumed glade as I brought Joe up to speed.
As we seated ourselves, the clock in the campanile of St. Cecilia which had a luscious muted tone to its brass-throated bells, chimed 9:00 o'clock. We had recently started referring to that cathedral named after the patron saint of music as St. Cecilia de Bartoli given the pervasive media blitz surrounding the young mezzo.
Joe cocked his head and asked me, "Why are you standing there with your yap open staring at me?"
"I'm imprinting; like a baby goose upon its (in this case) gander. It's just that I've never seen you in the full light of day. You're a goddamn knockout. Do you know that?? What celestial lottery did I win to have you love me? Did you get `all' the good genes in your family? Where the fuck did you come from . . . I'm babbling aren't I , or should I say ain't I? I'm shutting up now. I'll start again. I know when I've said too much. I'm not the type that doesn't know when to keep still . . ."
Joe leaned forward in his chair, stopped giggling and kissed me to shut me up. "Pete, take a breath. There, that's better. Now, yes, I'm very handsome and have been all my life. It's part of my fatal charm and can be a real pain in the ass to deal with." He said, as if to a dull tot. "You're going to have many years to enjoy me. I want you to enjoy me to your heart's content but you're avoiding the reason we came out here. You have something to tell me and I want to hear it. If you promise to tell me what it is, right now, I promise that I'll send to Savannah for my costume trunk and I'll pose for you in my lumberjack suit, my Tartar costume or a fucking Nun's habit. I'll even show you my Hurrell boudoir photos, but tell me already!"
Chastened, yet piqued by the possibilities of a lumberjack suit, I began, "You already know what I do for a living and I'll share with you the story of my childhood some other time. Let me instead take as my theme those years after college when I burst upon the world fully formed and ready to make my mark. I've always had a mind for minutia and so, in college I studied a broad range of subjects. I had always been interested in so many varied things, it was difficult for me to find an area of concentration. I ended up with double degrees, one in Musical Theatre and the other in Forensic Science. Being a glutton for learning, I exited graduate school with lots of letters after my name or, as Vivvy is so fond of saying, "Lots of lettuce . . ." after my name."
"It seems that providence really does have some kind of whacked-out master plan after all, something of which I've been given evidence over and over. I've often remarked that my life has been incident-filled and that's the truth of the matter. Little difficulties and situations seem to be drawn to me rather like drag queens to a wig sale. `Things' keep happening and I, usually against my will, find myself involved."
Joe regarded me solemnly, then looked upward as he formed his question. His face was in profile as he thought. The skin of his face was perfect. Not a blemish nor a splotch. It covered his facial bones with that succulence which only youth and health can produce. His jaw muscles tightened and relaxed as he thought. My man swallowed and that action made his Adam's apple rise up and then return to its base. The action was stunning, it was so indescribably sensual. Am image of an amorous Joe played on the porn screen that is my mind and I saw not an Adam's apple but the head of Joe's hard cock outlined under the front of dark gray pinstripe Savile Row trousers: tropical weight. As he beckoned and teased me to love by tightening his ass and abs, his cock head became engorged and moved up, stretching the fabric, and then down, as he relaxed, to its original position. I shook my head to clear the image. It wasn't a cock head, it was an Adam's apple again. Perhaps if I tried to think of him trimming his toenails I could come back to reality and finish our conversation.
Joe rescued me from having to picture him in such a banal situation by stating, "This isn't sounding too weighty, babe. Stuff happens and if they happen around you, of course you become involved. Big woo!" This last, rather cheeky statement was said with the thrust of, "So what? That's life. I don't see what you're concerned about." " Can you be more specific?"
Well, I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound!
"Do you recall a news item about a year ago involving the famous cellist and performance artist, Pee Bo Dupuis whose instrument had gone missing?" The light of recognition dawned in Joe's eyes as he nodded his head, yes. I continued, "Well I happened to find myself in the same city as he, arranging some last minute publicity for our opera company who were to appear there in a few weeks on our annual tour. Finding myself with a few hours to kill before my appointment, I had decided that morning after seeing a flyer, to go to the city plaza and see the lunchtime concert by Pee Bo Dupuis about whom I'd read a few reviews. The buzz was, that one never knew what to expect from Pee Bo when he performed. His playing was passionate and supported by exquisite technique, so one always expected wonderful music. The thing which set him apart from your work-a-day musical masters was his quirk for performance art. It is recorded that once after a protean performance of one of the Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suites, number 5 in C minor if I remember correctly, the audience called for an encore so Pee Bo happily removed every stitch of clothes from his body, sat down and played the entire Suite again. As if that weren't enough, his second rendering was so much more moving that he obviously spunked all over the back of the cello and took his bow with a fully fledged but flagging erection. Given that, I just knew that I had to be on hand in case history repeated itself today.
Now it is my belief that music can induce ardency where none existed previously, but Pee Bo's little stunt, I thought, smacked just a bit too much of sensationalism and that I cannot abide on the musical stage. Lust, damnation, murder, Druid rites, gods screwing goddesses, cannibal barbers and tarts dying of consumption were all well and good and a part of the literature of musical drama, but cumming on the back of an exceedingly rare Gasparo da Salo cello was going too far! I began to distrust Mr. Dupuis.
"I timed my arrival on the plaza so I'd be sure to have an unobstructed view of the concert and still have time to eat some lunch into the bargain. I found a small bistro with shaded tables on a raised dais offering me not only the view I sought but a lunch special specifically for concert viewers. I dined on a perfectly fresh and meticulously-composed Cobb salad accompanied by a fragrant sourdough battard with sweet butter and a small ramekin of Rilletts du Canard. The crowning jewel of this repast was one of the most delicious Merlots I have ever drunk. It was round and sumptuous with heady fruit and over notes of chocolate and hay. It was quite indescribable and I was just ready to ask the server for the label when he brought my Baba au Rum, a glass of miraculous Vino Santo, the check, and announced that the concert was about to begin. All thoughts of the Merlot label were pushed aside (to my everlasting chagrin!).
At that moment Mr. Dupuis made his entrance. I could do nothing but stare as the audience greeted him with warm applause. I had never encountered a Korean Comedia del Arte mime before and was therefore, somewhat at a loss as to what to expect. All I could do was sit there in dumb surprise and sip my Vino Santo awaiting what was to come.
I believe I remember some Mozart, a Beethoven and a couple of lesser Boccherini sonatas but can't be sure since I was so overawed by the mix of cultures precipitated by Pee Bo's choice to appear as a silent Punchinello. Peculiar in the extreme, I thought, even with his brilliant cadenza work!
He never said a word between numbers. He simply mimed his thanks then retreated to stage right where there was a plasma monitor. He pushed a button and the title of the next number was displayed. I saw the obvious reference to the old system of cards used in vaudeville but I continued to be exceedingly perplexed. What was he about?
The concert ended and I, sated with both delicious food and quite good tunes, toddled off to my appointment and thought no more about the strange spectacle I had just witnessed. I thought no more about it until I heard the 6pm news. The terrifyingly bouffant newscaster was relating the perplexing account of the apparent theft of Pee Bo Dupuis's cello. It seems that after the concert Mr. Dupuis had retired into the adjacent hotel to his dressing room with his cello in tow. He was observed some time later, sans whiteface makeup weighed down by a garment bag, a reticule and his cello in its case. He made his way past the hotel and flagged down a passing cab which spirited him away. He was to play that evening at a rehearsal with a student chamber music group at the local conservatory but when he got there, his cello case was bare and I didn't believe it for a minute. Mr. Dupuis was too damned pat. He bothered me. Now, I'm as much in favor of performance art as the next guy, but Pee Bo's choices just didn't ring true to me. I saw no art in his choices. They seemed too contrived, if one can 'ever' say that about performance art! Now Joe, I hope I don't offend you with this, but mimes are clowns in my book, and I just can't abide a clown. The fact that mimes are repulsive in and of themselves with their demanding participation from onlookers who merely wish to be entertained and not roped into being a part of the performance, they remain clowns and need to be sent to their own island with the likes of Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Music Makers. Oh, and Don Ho too.
"My mind was in overdrive due to my flight-from-clown reflex and soon I had an idea. I was a bit worried that the conservatory would be held liable for the loss of the cello or at the least, lose any possible revenue from the chamber music concert which would have to be canceled. The director of the school was a friend of Frank and Vivvy so I call Viv and told her what was on my mind. She felt that I might be on to something so she called the director and arranged an interview for me for that same night since I was to leave in the morning. When I arrived, the cops were just finishing their fourth or fifth interview with Mr. Dupuis. I asked the director to have the police let me propose something to them in the presence of those involved. I was taking a terrible chance, but my ire was up and my sensibilities had been sullied. I had no choice but to stand up for art and righteousness.
The police assembled everyone involved and I, after having been introduced as a friend of the conservatory, began my story. In summary, what I said was very simple. I posited that the cello had indeed been stolen but not by any unknown party. It had been stolen by Pee Bo Dupuis himself with the aid of an accomplice. The detective in charge said that wasn't possible since several witnesses had seen Mr. Dupuis leave the hotel with his cello. I reminded him that that may have been what the witnesses thought they were seeing but the facts were most probably these. Mr. Dupuis did carry his cello into the dressing room, but instead of putting it in the case, I suggested that he turned it over to a waiting accomplice who removed it from the premises unseen. Mr. Dupuis then removed his repellant makeup, packed his costume into a garment bag, collected his makeup bag and his empty' cello case and split. He was observed by the witnesses using his considerable talents as he MIMED carrying a weighty cello case. Any mime worth his salt could have carried it off. Why did he hail a cab once he was away from the hotel? Simple, he would have been a fool to allow the hotel door man to lift a too light' cello case into the cab and recall it later after the theft had been announced. Being a musician of no character, and too lazy to work for what he wanted, Mr. Dupuis readily confessed that I had guessed the whole thing. He said it was a performance and all part of his act.
In the end, he escaped prosecution because no insurance claim had yet been filed. This slick little incident did turn out to be the end of his career as a performance artist. No one cared after that. Today, his concert career is past and he plays commercial dates in Manhattan which is both a rewarding and noble career and far, far to good for a clown like him!
The reason, I'm telling you this, is that it was the beginning, Joe, of my becoming involved in the solution of those pesky little difficulties I mentioned earlier. There have been several instances since `The Punchinello Cello Caper' as Frank refers to it. I, seemingly, attract riddles and appear to have a knack for solving them. Hence, cocktails and dinner tonight."
Joe dropped his head into his hands and said, in obvious agony, "You mean you're Grandma Marple and I'm detective inspector whatever his name was?"
"It's `Miss' Marple and no, I don't mean that!" I spat. "Besides, you're beautiful enough to be Nora Charles, if anyone."
He looked up at me and I saw that he'd been having me on. He wasn't phased one iota by what I'd told him. I expect I could have confessed to torching a national park and he would still have loved me.
He reached behind himself into the bower of roses, plucked one and after de-thorning it, placed it in my mouth and tangoed me off the terrace, through the double doors and into and afternoon of bliss.
It was going to be a swell afternoon and I was positive we'd both be flushed, relaxed and ready for cocktails, dinner and a revelation or two this evening.