“Rabies? Oh, God. Don’t they give you foot-long shots in the stomach for that?”
“If they catch it early enough,” Victor said portentously.
“Oh, God,” Felicity repeated. “Seems my sisters are right. There is never a dull moment at the Triple Play Lodge.”
“People get lions and tigers. Last month, a Bengal tiger tore the arm off a four-year-old boy in Moab. Another adolescent lion got through someone’s dog door in Provo and mauled an infant.”
Ian had finished parking the wildlife truck now. He approached the couple while Perry hooked up the tow truck. He did look macho and confident with the shotgun. “Ready to track the Virgin Smuggler?”
“Yes, the Bride Smuggler,” Felicity said with disgust. “Just make sure he doesn’t bite you. And I see by the state of your windshield that he’s armed.”
Now Ian embraced her. She snuggled her face against his warm neck. “I don’t like all this gunplay. I don’t know how my sisters married men who shoot people for a living.”
“It’s actually a very small percent of what black ops commandos do for a living,” Ian said.
His words were hardly reassuring. “It only takes a small percentage to kill someone.”
Victor said, “Ian’s calculators and spreadsheets aren’t normally this dangerous. Come on, Ian. Put down the girl and pick up your piece.”
Felicity had to admit. The danger of the men’s situation, of course, frightened her. But their bravery was awful damned attractive. Pleasure pooled in her abdomen to watch the men check their weapons and start off into the desert without flashlights. It was obviously smart not to make themselves into even bigger targets by waving flashlights around, but she knew that Ian had very poor eyesight even with his contacts in. Victor had these enormous night vision goggles that looked like something a soldier in Afghanistan would wear—that, or someone reading an eye chart at the optometrist’s office—and that reassured her a bit.
Felicity huddled with Perry against the tow truck. “Do you often have to arrest people?”
Perry nodded. “I guess you’d say often. You’d be surprised. Most of the arrests are for poaching or hunting without a license, but I’ve had to arrest people for taking illegal firewood or plants, growing marijuana. I’ve had arrests for assault, killing California condors, and several times for running meth labs.”
“Meth labs? Out here in the desert?”
“People think they can hide in plain sight in the desert. That, or they’ve seen too many Breaking Bad episodes. Arrests for meth lab motor homes went way up after the first season of that show aired. Oh, and one time, I was angry with Rowan, so I arrested a couple of Furries for yiffing.”
Felicity sighed. “I don’t even want to know what that is. Oh, Dear God!”
A sudden shot made Felicity jump a foot in the air. She clutched Perry’s shoulder as he ripped his truck door open.
A radio inside the tow truck cab crackled. Victor’s voice came as though he was speaking from inside a tin box. “Just letting you know where we are. Look out. You should see our torch beams.”
Perry took the radio outside the truck and squinted into the distance. Felicity saw the flashlights and started jogging into the desert.
“Hey!” Perry yelled. “Stop right there, Miss McQueen!”
Victor’s canned voice said, “It’s all right. There’s no danger. You can both come out.”
She was already nearly to her men’s spot by the time Perry caught up. In fact, Ian wobbled his torch beam around to guide her, that’s how little danger Todd Beard apparently posed.
Victor caught her before she literally ran right over Beard. “Whoa, whoa.”
There, in a slight ditch perhaps caused by a flash flood or seasonal creek, lay Todd Beard. His cause of death was obvious—the method a bit less obvious. The meat hook the men had told he had carried into the darkness had somehow pierced his mouth. The metal hook had gone down his throat and punctured through his trachea, right in the middle of his collarbone. One of his dead hands clutched at his throat.
The other hand was splayed out as though trying to grapple for the aye-aye cage. The trap had obviously smashed against the ground when Beard had fallen into the ditch. It was on its side, and the poor primate gripped its bars, staring wide-eyed at Beard as though watching a drive-in movie. The lemur had enormous cupped bat ears, and its eyes were bulging chartreuse marbles. Felicity could see where Victorians had thought it rodent or squirrel. Its spidery fingers were vampiric. Altogether, it was a most unattractive critter, but Felicity felt sorry for the poor thing. It should never have been taken from its island jungle.
Perry asked, “What in God’s name did he do?”
Victor said calmly, “Well, he did take that hook out with him. I figured he was in the mania phase of rabies or whatever tropical disease was eating his brain. He would’ve gone soon anyway. But it sure looks like he just stumbled and gave himself an accidental tracheotomy.”
“Right,” said Ian. “If he was breathing in when he swallowed the hook and it pierced his throat, it closed off his airway. We actually heard a few gurgles when we first arrived.”
“The aye-aye looks fine,” Victor said reassuringly. “Must’ve been another lemur that bit Beard. Then he died, poetically enough, of hook in mouth disease.”
“Oh,” moaned Perry. “That’s a bad one, Victor.”
Even Felicity had to giggle at Victor’s bad simile as Victor led her back to the road. She knew she should be sad for anyone’s death, but Victor was right. Beard’s death had been poetic justice. It was hard to muster sorrow or even pity for someone who had been so callous about the lives of others.
Victor said, “Enough excitement for one night. My sweet Bettie Page needs her beauty rest. There’s a wedding tomorrow.”
“Yes. Will you be attending, now that you’ve caught your perp?”
“Well, that depends. I suppose Ian is already hooked up as your date.”
Warmth spread through Felicity, just thinking that Victor wished to be her date. “Would it be horribly out of line if I had two dates to my sister’s wedding?”
Victor cocked his head, considering this. “I don’t think it’d be out of line, seeing as how your sister basically has two husbands.”
Felicity had spent a lot of time thinking about that. All three of her sisters lived openly with two men. Their polyamorous lifestyle didn’t seem to raise many eyebrows. And for the first time in Felicity’s life, she was considering the option too. She wrapped her hands around Victor’s elbow as they strolled back to the trucks. “Good. Because I think I’d like that, too. I don’t want to give up Ian, and of course I’d never want to imagine a life without you, Victor.”
“That’s good. Because Ian is trying to find a way to relocate here, too.” He sighed heavily. “I love both of you, so I guess I’m stuck with you.”
Felicity had known she loved both of the men for awhile now. But after years of hiding her true self away from the outside world, she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words. She just squeezed Victor closer to her. She walked even slower, because to reach the road would mean the end of their conversation.
“I’m glad. A life without either one of you is a life not worth living.”
“You won’t have to find out,” Victor assured her.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
The woman whispered, “I’ll leave you alone for ten minutes.” She patted Victor reassuringly on his bare shoulder. He didn’t even hear her leave the room.
He lay on his front, naked except for a towel draped over his ass. Soothing ambient music noodled from the speakers. Victor usually chose andante Mozart when getting a massage at the spa, but today Audrey had turned him onto some “zen brainwave massage music.” It wasn’t half-bad. It served its purpose, although it did tend to empty his brain.
Before he’d hit the spa, he’d been vigorously going over the details of his new master bathroom. The contractor had instal
led two single vanity sinks on either side of the Roman step-in tub. Victor had specified one of the sinks be a double, for him and Ian to shave and whatnot. The contractor apparently couldn’t wrap his head around that, for he’d ordered two singles.
Now that worry was miles away. Their house was almost done being built. Ian had been oddly specific that he wanted it to be Mountain Craftsman style similar to Xandra’s Bait & Switch “cabin.” It was more like a chalet, though, with extensive decks that looked out onto Prism Canyon. From the top floor master suite one could see for about a hundred miles to the distant Henry Mountains, a blue shimmering ribbon on the horizon. An almost identical suite to the master was connected to it by going through the bathroom. They had discovered it was impractical, really, to sleep three to a bed. Even a king bed was too small, and someone was nearly always tossing and turning. Since Ian liked the room about twenty degrees cooler, he usually slept in the annex with the windows open, with or without Victor or Felicity.
Besides, they had to maintain an image of propriety for Victor’s son Travis, who spent about one weekend a month with them. Boy, did they have to maintain an image for Travis. It would not do for the ten-year-old boy to go back to Green River telling Judith that her ex-husband was making out with the “hotel president,” Ian Lawson. Victor was already in enough hot water with Judith after Travis had taken home a leather G-string he thought was a slingshot. Another time, he had found Felicity’s Ben Wa balls and had walked around clacking them together at the ends of their strings. Felicity had managed to convince him that they were an important piece of exercise equipment and to not take them back home to Green River.
Sighing deeply, Victor let his arms dangle freely beneath the massage table. The door opened quietly—Audrey was back to finish him off. She always swept her hands very lightly over his arms and shoulders using eucalyptus-scented water. It left Victor feeling like he’d just rested in a sunny grove.
Victor sniffed. Today Audrey was using a finishing water that smelled of cinnamon instead. He didn’t like smelling like a donut, but he didn’t protest as her hands glided down his arms. She squiggled each of his fingers expertly, adding more of the cinnamon stuff, which felt more oily than the tree-scented water she usually used.
Oh, well. Maybe she was trying something new that Felicity had recommended all masseuses try. Nobody really wanted to feel oily the rest of the day, but she was now working some kinks out of his lower back that she’d neglected before. Victor wouldn’t complain about that. When she skipped her hands over his ass and massaged a knot from the back of one thigh, Victor grunted. How did she know he had practically been cramping there? She must be even more intuitive than he thought.
Victor gasped when Audrey’s hands ventured to his inner thigh. His penis stiffened instantly when she nearly brushed his hanging ball sac with her fingertips. What was this? Felicity had a strict rule against any touching that could even vaguely be considered sexual. Audrey seemed intent on easing the cramp in the back of his thigh, and maybe she didn’t know she was brushing his balls.
Still, he couldn’t stop his penis from lengthening when she made several quick sweeps over one buttock, separating them, allowing warm air to bathe his asshole. Victor was becoming uncomfortable. Would he have to report Audrey? When she bent and dove her face between his thighs, sticking out a tentative tongue to touch his anus, Victor flipped over to face her.
“Listen, Audrey—” I should’ve known. Embarrassment turned to anger as he viewed a grinning Ian leaning on the massage table with both hands. “What’d you do with Audrey?”
“Paid her to leave.” Ian grabbed Victor by the wrist, spinning him around to sit up properly on the edge of the table. “We have another two hours until Sasha flies us to Durango. You’re all packed, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Victor said cautiously. He was now unembarrassed that his fat prick tented out the towel that was only lightly draped over his groin. The three of them were flying first to London, then onto Maputo, Mozambique. “If you’ve got the wedding rings.”
“Of course I’ve got the rings.” Ian wiggled his way between Victor’s outspread thighs. He squeezed Victor’s dick underneath the thin towel. “‘Audrey sure got you hard.”
“It’s a natural reaction to anyone brushing against your balls. What do you want me to do—will it to stay soft?”
“You’re still hard,” Ian said lewdly, “even though you thought Audrey was burying her face between your cheeks and licking your arsehole.”
“I’d much rather it be you licking my asshole,” Victor said, not really answering the question. To take Ian’s mind off the touchy subject, Victor flung aside the towel, allowing Ian to admire the length and breadth of his meat. Ian grabbed the bottle of what turned out to be the cinnamon oil and drizzled some over the shiny glans. “Get down, slave.” Victor couldn’t wait for a quickie before going on the plane. Spreading his thighs wide and standing on tiptoe leaning against the massage table, Victor pressed down on Ian’s shoulder.
“You know how much I want you,” Ian murmured against Victor’s mouth. “Every day. In my mouth. Up my ass. I want to chew on your balls.”
“Fine with me.” Victor pressed harder, and Ian fell to his knees. He wasn’t worried about the connotations of Ian “chewing” on his balls. Ian chewed very lightly, Victor knew. He did that now, guzzling at his balls with such hunger and urgency Victor hitched one heel on the undercarriage of the massage table, swiveling his hips at Ian. Seed surged from his balls and up the underside of his cock. Victor couldn’t help but squeeze his own prick in anticipation of the great cock-washing Ian was going to give him.
It was the perfect life, living here with Felicity and Ian. Their house was nearly done being built. Xandra had given them ten acres as a wedding gift, even though they were going against her wishes and getting married in the Bazaruto Archipelago off the coast of Mozambique. There in “The Pearl of the Indian Ocean” they could swim with sea turtles and dolphins and hang with the black-winged flamingoes and red duiker deer for ten days. Victor knew he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from studying the turtles and flamingoes, but his partners would just have to tolerate it.
And living near Bird in Hand wasn’t turning out to be inconvenient at all. Sasha flew Victor to Salt Lake for once-a-month staff meetings where he reviewed the work of the biologists underneath him. And he could still fly wherever he wanted, although he wanted to less and less often. He had just completed a speaking engagement in Berlin. Instead of being aroused and thrilled with the sea of adoring faces when he spoke, he had found himself eager to get back on the plane to return to Utah, to his wife and partner.
The partner that now guzzled his ball sac voraciously. Ian seemed to be quite satisfied with his new position as CFO of the Triple Play Lodge. It turned out the Director of Finance, who had been loyal to the deceased owner, Wanda McQueen Burns, had been eager to retire. He just wanted Xandra to get her feel for the business first. So Ian had taken over, training with the old guy for a few weeks before being cut loose. While not as stimulating as managing finances for Hawkeye Corp.—he got to purchase industrial dishwashers, not semi-automatic rifles—as Ian often said, the work was the same everywhere. And it was far more intriguing to eat lunch in the restaurant with cowboys, Furries, or randy AARP golfers than it was munching at the DC restaurants he had long ago tired of.
Victor groaned. “Suck me, you fucking slave,” he snarled, grabbing a handful of Ian’s hair. He impaled Ian’s mouth with his reddened dick, shoving his cock in to the hilt. Ian suctioned his meat right down, swirling his tongue lovingly around the glans, teasing the corona with the stiffened tip of his tongue.
Ian had become quite the cocksucker in the past six months. Ian had been fucking Felicity while she still had the IUD inside her uterus, but now that she’d had it removed, Victor was the only one allowed to hump that tigress. Ian understood, and they were all pleasantly surprised to find Victor had succeeded almost immediately in getting
the thirty-five-year old Felicity with child. Now that she was securely pregnant, Ian had been harassing them to allow him to hump her once again. It was Ian’s turn next. He deserved a child as well.
“Ah, God, that’s good,” Victor groaned, corkscrewing his dick into his lover’s mouth. There was something erotic and naughty about having his cock sucked by another man. He supposed it was the taboo aspect of it that aroused him to the heights of titillation, but within seconds he was on the verge of coming. Shoving against Ian’s shoulders, he detached Ian’s mouth with a popping sound.
“What’s wrong?” Ian cried then smiled. “Ah. You’re close to coming.”
That Ian knew this angered Victor. He yanked the younger man to his feet, grabbing a handful of the uncut dick in his trousers almost viciously. “I seem to feel that you’re the one turned on by sucking my tool.”
Ian shrugged. “Of course.” He licked his lips salaciously. “I think it’s my favorite thing in the world. You know you’re the only man I’ve ever sucked on.”
“You were a virgin,” Victor breathed, stiffening even harder at the memory. He knew what he wanted to do now. His fingers flew as he unbuckled Ian’s belt, yanking the staid trousers down to his knees.
Ian allowed him to press him against the massage table, facing the wall. Like a pole dancer, Ian lifted his arms and embraced Victor from behind, caressing his neck and shoulders while undulating his spine. He shimmied from side to side, teasing Victor’s bursting cock with the mounds of his shapely ass. “I was a virgin,” Ian agreed, “but now I’m experienced in the ways of manlove. And today is Thursday, as well.”
Ian referred to a story Victor had told him about a lecture he’d given in Afghanistan. Victor had run into something called Manlove Thursdays. Oddly enough, every Thursday among Pashtun men it was considered fine, even mandatory, to engage in some assfucking and cocksucking activity. Victor had learned quite a lot in Kandahar. While they couldn’t love another man, there was nothing against them using another man for sexual gratification, something that fit in perfectly with where Victor had been in his life. He had been quite popular over there. A dozen men, easily, at any one given moment had clamored to suck his white penis. Men were clean, women were unclean. This odd idea gave Victor many long hours of sexual ecstasy, and he’d urgently wished he could come more than a dozen times a day.
Two Sirs, with Love [McQueen Was My Valley 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 16