Setting down the bottle, Tallulah wiped her nose off with the back of her hand. “How dare you?” she sputtered. “You were hiding behind the bar this entire time, listening to my private conversations?”
“My dear spitfire,” the fellow said calmly, “I could hardly have avoided your private conversations. I think everyone attempting to sleep under the roof of the Blue Wing Inn was privy to your private conversations.”
Tallulah snorted heatedly, swiping at a glass in which to pour the aguardiente. “Who are you? Hiding behind my bar? What did you do, fall asleep back there from drinking too much forty-rod?”
“Schiedam,” the jackass corrected her, coming forward.
Now that she really looked at him, she saw that he was annoyingly handsome. Even with a piece of baked salmon clinging to the locks of his long pigtail, he had an air of authority and superiority, and the iciest arctic blue eyes she had ever seen. “Right. You were the one who kept ordering schiedam. A very strong Dutch liquor. Only men who intend on getting roostered order that.”
“Well,” he admitted, “that was the intention. There’s not much reason here in this heartless hinterland to remain sober, now, is there? Nothing but an endless parade of bad news and tragedy.”
Tallulah had to agree with that. “Yes. I was so ignorant to imagine that because women are scarce out here I could manage to find the one man capable of faithfulness.” She sipped the liquor and exhaled acrid anger. “Bastard!”
“Men will be unfaithful no matter how beautiful, loving, and attentive their woman is.”
“All men?”
“Well…” The fellow paused, thoughtfully staring at the filthy floor. Lamplight flickered in his icy eyes, warming them. He was dressed in the manner of many of these backwoodsmen. Fringed shirt, a filthy rag as a turban around his head, a brace of pistols bouncing at his hips. His accent was floridly European, his hawk’s nose giving him an exotic air. Tallulah could tell from his form that under his leather shirt was an athletic, muscular chest. “Perhaps not all men. But almost all. Just about all, I’d venture to say.”
Tallulah steeled herself to loathe this man all over again. She snorted. “And I presume you’re one of the majority of cheating men.”
Again, he looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t really know. I haven’t been with a woman in five years.”
Tallulah was shocked out of her anger. That this man—quite beautiful, really—hadn’t been with a woman in five years could only mean one thing. He was a bumfucker, an aficionado of other men. That was a pity, although if he was one of those obsessed cheaters, perhaps it wasn’t such a loss. Tallulah saw all manner of those ganymedes out here in the lonely wastes of California. Some men wanted to avoid the pox-riddled dirt of the hog ranch. For some men, it was just handier to reach for the nearest cock. Men were lazy swine, after all. They accepted the nearest receptacle they could stick their johnsons into. But the few men who would turn down a willing woman, who were dead set upon the Greek life, were usually androgynous and liked to wear women’s drawers. This vigorous and stunning man hardly seemed the sort to put on earrings and prance about in petticoats. He might be a promiscuous toad, but Tallulah couldn’t imagine him drinking tea with his pinkie finger extended.
“You don’t seem very…very botanical to me. You seem like an ordinary backwoodsman. You’re one of those hotheaded Osos, aren’t you?”
“The Bears, yes. We intend to proclaim California an independent republic. Most Spaniards I know will be satisfied and pleased with that.”
“I believe you,” said Tallulah. “Most Spaniards don’t feel any great loyalty to the government in Mexico City. Now get out from behind my bar. I’m the one who’s supposed to be behind there.”
They switched places. Tallulah was appalled to find herself ogling his superbly rounded butt as they passed by each other at the end of the bar. Cradled between the leather leggings, the curvaceous globes swayed impudently, and her mind went nearly blank with admiration. Then it occurred to her. What am I doing? I just tossed over one chiseling jackass because he dipped his wick with other women. Already I’m ogling the beautifully molded ass of a confessed bumfucker? Tallulah, get your brain out of the back alley. He doesn’t want you. He’ll never want you.
“Tillie, is it?” the fellow asked saucily. “I do hope you weren’t terribly dead set on that cheating guy.”
Well, one thing could be said for ganymedes. A girl could certainly talk to them and feel relaxed and comfortable. But when this fellow angled his hip against the bar and crossed his ankles as he leaned, the delicious bulge of a slug-like cock was revealed, nestled in his crotch. Out here men just wore thin pantaloons under their leggings, and even in the dim lamplight Tallulah could see the outline of his prick’s crown. She struggled to avert her eyes, and poured more aguardiente for both of them. “Not terribly. But he was the most dashing fellow among this crowd of ruffians and loafers. You’ve been in California long? Then you know that Californio men are so lazy all they want to do is drink, gamble, and lasso animals. Sam was a step above that. He ran a good cattle operation. I did admire him.”
“I run a good farming operation up the Sacramento River.” Tallulah had no idea why this man would be trying to impress her. What was the point? “Acres of citrus trees, several thousand head of longhorn. There’s no time to be lazy. But I know what you mean. I employ Diggers to labor for me.”
“And what is your name? Might I have heard of your farm?”
“Ah,” he said and held out his hand for Tallulah to grasp. “I’m sorry. Milo Stephens. You may have gotten some grapefruits or oranges from my farm, Virgin Groves.”
Tallulah even smiled, amused. “Virgin? My. It’s been years since I’ve been able to say that.”
Milo’s icy aqua eyes danced, reflecting the lamp flame. His delectable bowed lips curled up at the corners. “To your credit. You’re a spitfire, all right.”
The compliment warmed her innards. Already her confidence was being rebuilt thanks to this appreciative ganymede. “So why Virgin Groves? The land was so virgin when you purchased it?”
“Not the land, although that is true. It was untouched by man. Me. I was reborn a virgin when I had to start my life all over again.”
Tallulah wondered what that meant. She presumed it had something to do with him not having touched a woman in five years. “I wish it was that simple to become a reborn virgin, Mr. Stephens. Sometimes I think all these men I’ve screwed have really and truly screwed me.”
“I take it this isn’t your first encounter with a disloyal suitor.”
“How do you know?”
“A woman who had never been betrayed wouldn’t react as violently as you did. She would be too shocked to throw things, too taken by surprise. That you even threw things lets me know this isn’t your first experience.”
Tallulah tried to be flippant. “Well. What woman has not been betrayed a hundred times?”
“You seem a lot more sensitive to it than most.”
Milo may have been a ganymede, but Tallulah couldn’t confess her husband’s transgressions to him. “Yes, I am very sensitive to it. There is no excuse for a man to need hookers when he has a perfectly amenable belle waiting for him, if only he had the gumption to walk another half a mile!”
Milo raised an eyebrow and drank. “Less French pox, too.”
Tallulah was getting angry again. “Well, don’t you agree with me? I mean, back when you—when you did touch women. Were you a chiseling cheater as well?”
“Me? No. I was married.” A faraway look came into Milo’s eyes as he looked out the bodega window. The sun was rising. Tallulah had been awake all night waiting for Four-Fingered Sam to show up from his hacienda, serving roostered gamblers in her bodega. Now she’d have to wake her assistant, if he wasn’t sprawled half off his bedstead, corned. Origin Oakley could oversee making breakfast for the early-rising guests if his bender hadn’t been too severe the night before.
“So being married preve
nted you from philandering?”
Milo returned to reality and briefly glanced at Tallulah. “Yes. Of course. Why would I philander if I had a woman I was in love with waiting for me? There’s no reason.”
“Exactly!” Tallulah pointed at him with vindication. “What is wrong with men? They have to drain their penises every six hours? It’s a medical necessity or the sperm backs up and comes out their eyeballs? Jumping Jiminy. Men are dogs.”
“I didn’t say men didn’t have to drain their penises every six hours. That part’s probably true.”
Tallulah examined Milo’s face for any sign of jest. But either he was serious or was doing a good job stuffing down his laugh. “You refer to your ganymede life now. Yes, I’m sure you ganymedes run around bumfucking every six hours. I’m the proprietor of an inn. I have to listen to that noise every night. It’s like living in a barn.”
Milo frowned and put his palm on his abdomen. “Ganymede? Who are you calling—Me? Now wait just a second here.”
Tallulah’s curiosity was piqued. She wanted to hear this powerful stud’s explanation. Then she loathed herself. Her heart actually leaped when he tried to deny being a ganymede! “Why do you protest—”
“Land’s sake!” Origin Oakley banged in the bodega door. The enormous Californio spurs that he wore jangled like an entire cavalry, and he headed straight for the bar, predictably. He had no reason to be wearing the spurs—he lived, along with Tallulah, in a little house directly behind the inn. So he had not been riding this morning. He just liked how dashing they looked. “Them damned greasers is finally coming to scalp us and you’re sitting here drinking aguardiente? Give me some.”
Tallulah sighed and shared looks with Milo. She didn’t know if her handsome new ganymede friend was acquainted with Origin, but everyone in the small settlement had to be, eventually. “What makes you say they’re coming?”
“A rider just came from the Cosumnes River, where Frémont’s men have engaged with a hundred greasers in battle! Yes, indeed. Frémont sent fifty of his irregular hunters and riflemen to beat back the greasers into Mexico. Castro has loathed Frémont ever since that great man stole some of Castro’s horses near Monterey, so we shall see a bloody pitched battle, mark my words! Frémont is already proclaiming the war has begun in defense of American settlers—us.” He lifted his glass, nearly overflowing with aguardiente, to his lips and gulped.
Tallulah said, “Fifty of us versus a hundred of them?”
Milo explained, “The Mexicans are usually armed with old flintlocks and sabers. Believe you me, those numbers are fair.”
Origin paused in his gulping and looked suspiciously at Milo. “You’re one of those Osos, aren’t you? Why aren’t you down there fighting the noble battle for our Republican government?”
Tallulah could see Milo struggle to maintain composure. He could have very well pointed out that Origin wasn’t down at the Cosumnes River either. To his credit, he refrained from being rude to the inn assistant. “I’m waiting, actually, for Frémont to arrive in Sonoma. Tomorrow I have a supper with Comandante-General Vallejo. I’ve heard Vallejo supports California annexation. He’s been paying his troops out of his own pocket for awhile and has been ignored by Mexico.”
“That may be true.” Origin knitted his brows. “I hate to say it, compadre, but the time for rational discussion has ended. Tomorrow you may sip aguardiente with the general, but war is inevitable.”
“Today,” Tallulah reminded her friend. The sun had risen, birds were chirping, it was already “tomorrow.” She had known about Vallejo’s supper because he’d requested many items from her storehouse. She usually wound up serving at these events anyway.
Tallulah treasured and valued Origin. They had become fast friends a year ago when Tallulah had first arrived in Sonoma, downtrodden and alone. Having just left the Mormon group he’d come to California with, Origin was downtrodden and alone too, so they forged a pact to stick by each other’s sides. Even so, Tallulah was constantly reminded of Origin’s downfalls. One was his abundant love of the vine.
Origin ignored her. “I have heard you are the loudest Oso to proclaim the superiority of the rule of the people! Or are you all talk, sir?”
“I assure you,” said Milo with narrowed eyes, “I am far from all talk. I merely think it is prudent to have the Comandante on the side of righteousness before we resort to more violent methods. And so far, I’ve seen no enemy to engage. I prefer to wait for Frémont’s arrival.”
“Yes, yes,” said Origin thoughtfully. “Find out the outcome of this Cosumnes battle. Then we can unite our adopted country!”
Milo grinned, and Tallulah thought she’d never seen a more handsome man. Those sparkling, intelligent eyes! It was a shame of the worst sort that he preferred buggering men. “Believe me, Oakley, I didn’t leave my farm to some Digger Indians just to come out here and dine with Vallejo. This will be done. We will suffer under the oppressive yoke of Mexico City no more.”
And so, as stimulated as she was by the rancher’s idealism, Tallulah had to drag herself off to bed. She could get maybe four hours’ sleep before her Digger maid woke her to prepare things for Vallejo’s supper. Milo offered to walk her “to her home,” but it was only several yards behind the bodega, and Origin wanted to keep drinking with Milo.
She stripped off her camisa shirt as she entered her upstairs bedroom. She closed the curtains of the two windows so sunlight wouldn’t interrupt her sleep. She didn’t bother unbraiding her hair—if she took it down after her nap, it would flow over her shoulders in shining wriggles, perhaps attracting the attention of that stunning—
Like hell! Why did she persist in thinking of that muscular backwoodsman? He’s an androphile, you idiot. He likes to suck cock. Then she giggled. Well, so do I. We have that in common. Tallulah draped her embroidered white muslin skirt over a chair and leaned back on her pillows. The last thing she saw before slumber overtook her was her ivory dildo on the nightstand. She and Four-Fingered Sam had been playing with it a few days ago. She would have to put it back in its box, because she’d only use it by herself at this rate.
Men. It was impossible to get along with them. But the law wouldn’t allow you to kill them, either.
Chapter Three
“Vallejo lives a genteel life here, does he not?” Reynaldo asked Lieutenant Gillespie as he handed his reins to a trooper and surveyed the solid adobe buildings that fronted onto Sonoma’s plaza. A two-story barracks had a wide balcony that ran around the entire building. A crenellated tower connected with Vallejo’s Casa Grande domicile, where Gillespie and Corporal Reynaldo Vargas were heading. Frémont had chosen Vargas for this mission because Stuttering Zeke Merritt loathed Vallejo and wouldn’t be able to hide his disdain.
Reynaldo was part of the advance guard coming to warn Vallejo about what had transpired on the Cosumnes River. Reynaldo didn’t look forward to giving this report, which was why Frémont had sent them ahead while he lollygagged back with the hundred horses they’d captured from Castro. The initial report had been that a hundred of Castro’s men were on the rampage toward Sutter’s Fort, but all Reynaldo’s detachment had discovered was a couple of vaqueros collecting horses intended for the Mexican militia. The vaqueros were taking them to the south side of the bay, to Castro in Santa Clara.
The sun was disagreeably warm. This lush valley was like a heated bowl at this time of June, a veritable hothouse of fertile soil. The rich plains were studded with oaks and nestled in hills of lofty height, intersected by a network of man-made ditches. Reynaldo was interested in the vineyards Vallejo had planted. Back in Massachusetts, Reynaldo had made tolerable wine from a forlorn and pitiable vineyard, and everything grew much more abundantly here in this romantically picturesque valley. Maybe he could look at the grapes after this miserable meeting with the great comandante.
“Yes,” Gillespie agreed as they went through a wide, tall gateway and into a courtyard furnished with enormous cacti. “Only one thing, Vargas. Vallejo
is the one who sent those horses to Castro to begin with.”
Reynaldo jumped a foot in the air when a cannon exploded not a dozen yards behind him in the plaza.
Gillespie clapped him on the shoulder. “A salute,” he informed the jumpy corporal. “See? They’re hoisting the Mexican colors in our honor, too. For years Vallejo has desired the changes we’re about to make. He just sent Castro those horses as a formality.”
After ascending a flight of stairs to the first story of Casa Grande, a Digger servant let them in the main door. They passed through the vestibule down a long, fifty-foot room populated with heavy mission furniture of mahogany framework, and even some chairs from Oahu. A fine piano was the first Reynaldo had seen in California. Everything was fastidiously clean, the corridors off the main hall gleaming with reflected sun that poured through small square windows. Paintings of ancestors and landscapes decorated the walls. A gracious woman wrapped in a finely embroidered rebozo scarf greeted them. Reynaldo assumed it was Señora Vallejo.
“Buenas tardes,” Reynaldo replied and allowed her to lead them into the dining room.
He went stiff with mortification when he saw a lavish supper was already in progress. There were of course many gentlemen he was unfamiliar with sitting at Vallejo’s long table. Reynaldo turned his eyes first to Vallejo at the head of the table, jolly and mellow with liquor. Vallejo stood and approached as Reynaldo saluted. Vallejo spoke in English so as not to alienate Gillespie, no doubt.
“Greetings. Welcome to my table.”
Reynaldo introduced himself, and Vallejo waved a hand at each of his guests in turn. A Jacob Leese, who was apparently the alcalde, or mayor, as well as being married to Vallejo’s sister. There was a Don Victor Prudon, a Don Pepe de la Rosa, a Salvadore Vallejo who was no doubt the general’s brother, a—
Reynaldo froze like a waxworks figure. The only gentleman who ceased stuffing tortillas and stewed beef into his face and gabbing with a full mouth when introduced stood and made a little curious bow. It took an entire second for it to sink in. This is that pendejo from Sutter Buttes. This is the bastard who fucked me up the ass, smacked me around, and then treated me like something on the bottom of his boot.
The Obedient Servant [Going for the Gold 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 3