by Blair Aaron
“I want to buy a gun.”
--
Carter left the gun shop, flew in his car to the wealthiest area of the small town and pulled down the driveway of the judge's house. Parking in the yard, he put the gun in his pocket and beat on the front door.
“Open up you fuck head. It's time you paid the price for what you've done!”
The door opened and the judge stood in the doorway in his underwear. “What in God's name has gotten into you faggot!”
Carter stopped and took a deep breath, then exploded in anger at the man. He beat him over the head with the pistol, breaking his nose, sending thick, hot blood all over the beige carpet of the judge's living room. The judge's eldest son heard the commotion and came running through the hallway. Carter beat him again and again and again. “Call the governor! Call the governor! Call him! Call him now!”
The judge could barely get any answers out of his mouth for all the pain. “I can't. It's too late! I'm sorry.” Carter looked up and could see the son standing in the hallway, pointing a rifle at Carter. Death was not something he feared anymore; in fact, he welcomed it. In the distance, he could hear the sirens blaring. They were coming for him. He took one look at the son and bolted, but not before the son got one shot off, grazing Carter's shoulder. He jumped into the car and sped away, unsure of where he was going or what his destiny was.
The Execution
I
Stetson lay on his cot in his prison cell, the day of his execution. This was the moment of truth, and there was no going back. Other prison guards came the night before and picked up what was left of the dwarf-sized guard with a malicious smile. They wanted to know how managed to kill them all with his bare hands and then fake his own punishment by eating dog shit and tying himself to his cell. Stetson said nothing, because he drugged, but he was nevertheless conscious of what happened in the cell earlier. The fact that the prisoners claimed Kwahu killed the guards to protect Stetson, or maybe he was drugged and dreamed it up. But one thing was certain, those guards were dead and Stetson had no recollection of killing them.
When Presley Watkins showed up to the scene, for some reason he was overjoyed that the guards were dead.
“You're going to fry for certain now, big guy. If you didn't do it then you certainly did it now. Aw, what's wrong boy? Are you sore? One too many punches to the head?”
Stetson just lay in the hospital bed earlier that morning, staring dead-eyed at the man who caused him so much grief. He wanted the energy to kill him--because, if he was going to electric chair for a murder he didn't commit--why not actually commit the crime he was accused of so the death sentence had value. Watkins made sure the orderlies delivered him back to his cell, where the haunting murders took place. Watkins charged and convicted him with the murders to ensure the governor would carry out the execution, falsifying document after document. The man truly had no limits to the depths he would sink. But the truth was that he didn't kill those guards--whom the other prisoners said were twisted again like Barbie dolls sucked up by a lawnmower. As the drugs wore off and he came to his senses, Stetson began to believe there was something supernatural about Kwahu and his powers. He believed in his heart of hearts that the Indian was working from the lockdown of his cell to protect him. If Kwahu's motives were to delay the execution, it wasn't working. If anything, the events that transpired the night earlier sped up the execution.
His cell door open and a different set of guards came in to dress him for the event. Stetson could sense they were petrified of what he might do to them. They pulled off his shirt and pants and put him in nurse's scrubs, then placed a black bag over his head. From Stetson's perspective, all he could see was black, but he could hear and feel the gurney they laid him on roll down the hall and into a new room. The air conditioner in the adjacent froze him like no other, and it smelled sterile like a hospital. Stetson was sure they had him in the room he would die in. The next thing he knew, Presley Watkins pulled the bag off his head, stood over him, smiling.
“You know you're going to die in 15 minutes, right?”
Stetson ignored him and looked away, past his head at the ceiling. Two orderlies came into the room, followed by a man in his mid-thirties wearing a priest's collar. The orderlies wrapped Stetson's wrists with thick leather straps and used the electronic chair to sit him up.
“OK doc, we're going to set you up in the chair, but you got to promise you won't do anything to hurt us.” Stetson again said nothing. “OK we'll take that as a yes, doc. Here we go.” They pulled him up from the gurney heaving all their weight to counterbalance his. They placed him in a large wooden chair, strapping down his arms and legs. Then they doused a sponge with a bucket of water, bathing the crown of his skull with the wetness. The water dripped down the front of his brow onto his shirt and into his eyes. He never blinked. As the orderlies screwed a metal plate over the top of his head and connected various electrical wires to the chair, Stetson could see through the plate glass window Stetson alone in the observation room, staring, and smiling. It was silent in the room, but Watkins turned around suddenly in the darkness of the room, as if he suddenly saw or heard something. Suddenly Watkins body was thrown against the glass violently and the two orderlies rushed out of the room to help. Several moments passed, and Stetson could hear screams through the other side but then there was silence. The door to the execution room open and Stetson looked over at the figure standing in the door, saying nothing, too weak finally to put up any fight. The figure threw a red package in his lap, labeled EVIDENCE.
--
After an hour or two, when the place was silent, two middling guards walked with the priest into the execution room to find the prisoner, cloaked with a black hood over his face, sitting tied to the electric chair, with all other orderlies missing. Missing too was Presley Watkins.
“What the hell is going on here?” one guard asked.
“Beats me. I'm hungry. Let's get this show on the road,” the other guard yawned. They turned on the lights in the observation to find an empty, clean room. Another hour or so passed and witnesses came filing in, one after another, sitting in the chairs. Some of them were Jaidon Marsh's relatives. Some of them were friends of Presley Watkins, one of whom wondered out loud, “Where the hell is that boy?”
II
Carter pulled into his driveway, sure the police would arrive at his place any second. He got out of the car, racing in circle like a rabid dog, unsure where to go or what to do. He paced back and forth in the den of the mountain home. The quiet of the house terrified him. He thought about the past few years and all that he'd been through, all the suffering which he didn't seem capable of escaping. It was like he was the plague, and everything he touched died or abandoned him. He just couldn't cope anymore with the unbearable sadness of losing Stetson. He stared at the loaded on the table, knowing this was it. He picked it up, placed the end of the barrel into his mouth, closed his tear-filled and pulled the trigger.
But the chamber wasn't loaded. He looked down at the clip to make sure there were bullets, found something lodged in the clip and dug his finger in to remove it. There was a desperate knock on the door. Carter looked up frightened, as he approached the front door. He wondered for a second whether he should open it, certain cops were waiting outside with loaded guns, ready to blow him away. He placed his hand on the doorknob, ready for his fate, and opened the door. He stared at the figure on the doorstep for several seconds in shock.
“Stetson,” he said. “How did you?” The figure belted him in the chest with a red package labeled EVIDENCE.
III
The second set of guards to enter the execution chamber, never bothering to check the identity of the man in the chair, gave the approving look to the switch handler. “Roll on one.” The handler nodded and flipped the switch, sending thousands of volts of electricity through the terrified human sitting in the chair. After a few seconds which seemed to last forever, the doctor walked over the prisoner and checked his pulse
.
“Dead.”
The lights in the observation room went up and the doctor pulled the veil of the head of the prisoner, revealing his identity at last. There were shocks from the room were murderous. “PRESLEY WATKINS!” one of them screamed.
The Redemption
I
Michael Ingram sat in his cruiser, now by himself, thinking about the love of his life, the one human being he loved managed to really love, Carter Simmons. He knew it was over now, and perhaps he always knew the relationship would never last because the boy only loved the cowboy. Subconsciously he knew it would end when the cowboy was executed, and Ingram's heart broke because of it. He just wished there was something he could do. He longed for some way he could help the boy feel whole again and understand that Ingram really cared about him. His biggest regret was never speaking up to the injustice he helped to bring along with Presley Watkins. Now he was left alone, no family, no spouse, without even a partner to call backup.
Just then a Ford-150, blue raced past his cruiser. The truck looked vaguely familiar to the truck he remembered Carter driving, but then these days he saw Carter and everything associated with him all over the place--in his dreams, in the supermarket, in the locker room, everywhere. He put the car in gear and started his lights, obliged to chase down the speeding vehicle.
As he came closer to the pickup, he noticed it did look even more similar than he originally thought to Carter's truck. He got out of his cruiser and approached the driver's window.
“Sir, do you know why I pulled you over today?” he said before he could get a good look at who was sitting in the driver's seat, none other than Carter himself. “Holy shit man. What are you doing out here? Don't be doing anything stupid now, you here?” He looked in the back seat to see who was sitting there, even more shocked to see Stetson Carthswaite covering his face with a cowboy hat. In that moment it was clear he could help Carter as he last wished.
“Uh--I'm going to give you a warning this time sir,” pretending not to recognize the man in the back seat.
“They'll have your ass for this you know.”
“They already do man. Just trying to help.” Carter gave him the first genuine smile of appreciation he'd ever received from the boy. In those eyes in that moment he saw nothing but gratitude. Carter reached over to the passenger seat and tossed him a red package. “Here's your real chance, friend.” Then he sped away, leaving Officer Michael Ingram standing on the highway, holding a red package labeled EVIDENCE.
II
Michael Ingram plopped down at his old desk, long overused and disgusting compared to the one he had before Watkins demoted him. He opened the red package to reveal a tape. He popped it in the cassette player. The audio played over the loud speaker, accidentally, voiced:
“I don't care. He's still going to fry. I'll just say Jaidon was a liar and thug. Thugs can still be murdered you know.”
“So you admit it then? You slimy bastard.”
“Are you retarded, Carter? We were both there and know what happened. You saw it, and I saw it. I just wish my little plan to off you and your lover would have worked out better. Too bad Jaidon didn't have the guts to shoot you while you were on that fence post. And I would have done it myself if there weren't witnesses. Give me that, faggot. They'll never believe you.”
The entire police department looked up in the air, listening to the sound of the guilty air their sins through the speaker. They would know why Jaidon Marsh died. They would know Stetson as the hero he was. Michael Ingram looked around at his comrades as the audio revealed Jamie Simmons and Presley Watkins for what they really were.
A new day had come to the town of Baggs, Wyoming--a kinder, gentler, more understanding day, one which Michael Ingram finally had a chance to help bring to fruition. They could all feel then a hope for the future and its improvement. Ingram himself felt it particularly strongly, because he recognized this was at last his chance to right his wrongs, address his regrets, and finally save the poor blonde boy he should have stood up for so long ago.
III
There was a cabin on the coast of California, white stucco plastered on the outside for protection. If a casual stroller stopped to notice, he would think it was some ancient Indian church yard, hanging off the cliff near the ocean. The cabin withstood the edge of the cliff all this time, and there were no signs it would stop. Deep inside its interior, there was very little furniture, a few desktops, a coffee table, a small television, and a large strong wooden kitchen table in the dining area. On that table was a beige cowboy hat and a pile of clothes. Outside, through the window, two men, one large and looming and the other blond and frail, ran down the edge of the embankment, toward the ocean, naked as the day they were born. Carter and Stetson were finally free to live their lives as they pleased, away from the prying eyes of the hateful and scornful.
At this juncture in their relationship they had adopted to some extent or another each other's qualities. For Stetson, this meant he was more open and expressive of his love for Carter. And for Carter, this meant he could stand silences better than ever, using those quiet moments in the early afternoon to communicate the contentedness he was experiencing with the second person he'd ever truly loved.
Carter jumped into the ocean, Stetson wading after, a little more reluctant, protective of the open water. Carter motioned him further into the water, assuring him without speaking he was all right. Stetson stepped into the water slowly at first, then dived head first.
The water was salty and warm, perfect for the breezy, yet somewhat chilly air above the surface of the ocean. There wasn't much turbulence that day, and Stetson reached under the water for Carter's wrist, giving him the indication he was “in the mood.” As he pulled the boy closer to him, his dick grew harder in anticipation of the passionate love they were about to make to each other. Stetson could feel various parts of Carter's body under the water, guessing only from touch what body part was caressing him. First it was Carter's dainty hands, running through the salty spray over Stetson's cheeks and back and then his hard nipples. Then it was Carter's long legs entangled in Stetson's, swimming to stay afloat then wrapping around Stetson's waist. After that it was Carter's lips under the water groping for Stetson's member and waist, as Carter held himself under the water long enough to give Stetson fellatio. Stetson put his hand on Carter's head under the water, his blonde hair somehow infinitely softer in the water than it was dry. In the rustling waves he could see through the foam the shape of his lover's head bobbing up and down but it didn't last long, as Carter came up from beneath the water for air. He gasped and Stetson couldn't help but wonder if he was okay. He was always wondering if Carter was okay. Somehow Carter himself knew this and gave Stetson a casual pat on his cheek with a wet hand to show him everything was all right. Carter was groping for Stetson's erect member underneath the whole time. He hopped on Stetson like a bronco and pushed his large penis into him from behind. The water made things a bit uncomfortable so they allowed the tide to drift them ashore, onto the cake-like sand, which the waves caressed them from behind, washing away and covering them with billions of sand grains altogether. Sometimes Stetson wondered if he had really been executed, and somehow was hallucinating in heaven about living the rest of his life with Carter. It wasn't a long shot, especially considering how he'd escaped, which didn't hold too much memory of. His entire life after meeting Carter seemed surreal and dream-like, as if time had stopped or slowed down and he had left the world to the rest of its business.
Carter drifted onto Stetson's naked lap, slipping Stetson's giant member into his mouth, massaging the tip of his penis with his tongue, tasting his sweet juices, then covering his face in the folds of Carter's body, running his hands along Stetson's thighs, squeezing every now and then, then speeding up his stroking motion with his hand. Carter grabbed Stetson's hand and placed it on his head, as if he wanted to be treated like a toy, a pliant, obeying personal slave, created all for the special purpose of making Stetso
n feel comfortable. In those moments it occurred to Stetson that Carter was probably used to being a slave of sorts, obeying others commands, thinking of how his actions and statements affect other people. Carter himself wondered from time to time what it would feel like to have someone take care of you, what it would feel like to let someone else do the work for a change. But those were just dreams, he thought as he rolled onto his back. Stetson leaned over and stared into his eyes, smiling, almost reading Carter's thoughts. It was time Stetson committed to taking care of the one person who'd suffered more than he'd ever consider. Carter could not turn off his feelings for people and the world. He simply had too much love to give, and one day it would fully exhaust him if Stetson didn't do something about it. He crawled on top of Carter and got him erect with his mouth, then turned onto his stomach, offering Carter to be the first person to penetrate Stetson. Carter crawled on top of Stetson and rammed himself into Stetson's thick buns as hard and fast as he could, knowing full well how strongly he'd have to push to even register in Stetson's mind, he was so large and hulking. He continued pumping away for several minutes and after damn near physically exhausting himself, he reached around Stetson's waist to stroke his erection. When Carter was on the verge of ejaculating inside Stetson, he heard a faint moan from him. And it occurred to Carter in that moment, Stetson enjoyed taking in Carter from behind. He continued pumping away, faster and faster, and threshold of climax passed him before he realized it, leaving a sweet feeling, calming and subdued, satisfying Carter not just physically but emotionally.