by Rob Rosen
I looked away for a few stops, knowing I had plenty of time until we got to my street. It wasn’t so much that I was playing it cool as that I felt a flush in my cheeks I didn’t want him to see. I kept my eyes on the landscape, while my mind was working overtime. I wondered what his name was. Common like mine or something exotic? I rolled my eyes at myself for turning some bus driver into my personal walk on the wild side.
I’d closed my eyes for a minute, picturing what it would be like to be lying together in my bed, passionately kissing, when the bus jerked to a stop. Blinking into the light, I was surprised to find the last two passengers getting off. Where had the others gone?
As the door closed and the lights went down again, the driver turned and called to me. “Hey, come on up front.” He sounded younger than he looked.
I did what he asked, guessing he was going to yack my head off about his favorite bands or something. Instead, he turned the radio off and watched me. Really watched me.
“Not there,” he said as I took a front row seat.
“What?”
“Come here,” he demanded, crooking a finger when I hesitated.
I got back up and just stood there, feeling a bit like a student being called out by a high school teacher. His eyes drew me in. He looked down between his wide-spread legs, so I looked as well. A sweet, hard brown cock poked out of his unzipped pants. A little plum head pointed up at me. My jaw gradually dropped as my dick steadily rose.
As if I were slow on the uptake, he ordered, “Go on, get down there and suck me off.”
Proving I was as stupid as he thought, I searched the bus for others, even though I knew we were alone. When I turned back, he was giving me an amused grin.
“Just us, dude.”
I nodded.
“So.” He took my wrist and pulled me in for a kiss. His lips were soft, though the kiss wasn’t. “You know you want to.”
I could easily have pulled away and told him to fuck off, but he was right. I crouched and crawled and banged my head hard on the steering wheel before forcing myself into a cramped kneeling position. As soon as I was still, he grabbed me by the hair and pushed me down. Then I felt his leg move as he stretched around me for the gas pedal and pulled out into traffic again.
“That’s it, suck it good. Nice and slow.”
Before I’d even gotten accustomed to his shape and size, he was forcing me down. Deep-throating wasn’t my best skill, so I gagged a little, but that hand on my head and his dirty talk made me give it my all.
“You like my big dick, don’t you?”
I nodded and pulled off for a gulp of air before diving down again, trying to work my tongue around his shaft as I drooled onto his balls. My cock was achingly stiff. I humped fruitlessly in my loose work pants.
Suddenly, the bus came to a halt again. I paused, but he didn’t let me up. Someone got on. I panicked. It wasn’t that he was particularly strong; I just couldn’t get out without being seen. No way I wasn’t totally visible down there. I held my breath.
Miraculously, the passenger paid his fare and moved inside. “People don’t pay attention to their surroundings,” the driver said, fingers of one hand still wound tightly into my short hair. He tugged and then pushed me down again. “Finish the job.”
He drove on, and I grew determined to impress him, reaching a hand up to tug his balls and to suck him faster and as deep as I could. His swollen head plunged the back of my throat as he humped my face, all this while driving a bus smoothly enough to avoid missing a single stop. A few more new passengers joined the first, but I didn’t care anymore. I focused on the task at hand, letting the driver do the driving. Me, I wanted to feel him come.
My lips were numb and my jaw ached before I finally felt his muscles lock. I was going to finish him off, feel him burst and gush down my throat, when he spoke again. “Guess we missed your stop, huh?”
I froze. His voice was totally calm. Not a hint of urgency in it. I looked up. It was bright in the bus and I wasn’t on my knees anymore. The driver was smiling, eyes sparkling but gentle now.
I shook my head a little, fighting for words. I was sitting in a seat. Except now it was the backseat. “Uh…sorry,” I finally managed.
“It’s cool,” he said. “I didn’t want to wake you.” His smile widened.
As the mental fog cleared and I took in my surroundings, I realized that not only had I not been giving him a blow job, but also we were parked in the bus terminal. He’d intentionally let me sleep until we got there, it appeared.
“Shit,” I said. “I live miles from here.”
“Me, too,” he answered, not missing a beat. “I could give you a ride. My car’s over there.” He jerked his head in an ambiguous direction—employee parking lot, no doubt—and his dark, wavy bangs fell across his amber eyes. As he pushed them back, I saw a bit of playful mischief, maybe more.
I stood. “Okay.”
“Or we could go somewhere…”
My heart leapt; cock, too. Reaching out, I pushed a stray curl behind his ear. “Sounds great,” I offered before leaning in to risk a kiss on his soft lips, the ones it seemed like I’d already tasted. He met me halfway. “I’m Dan,” I said.
“I’m Jack,” he replied with a grin, crushing the embers of my exotic dream as he woke me to the fiery spark of one hell of a beautiful reality.
VAQUERO’S PRIDE
Evey Brett
The scent of roses welcomed me home before the carriage had navigated the final stretch of road that led to my father’s house. Hacienda de la Rosa was named after both our family and for the roses lining the walls. There were hundreds of them, carefully tended to by the woman who had been my mother’s maidservant and later my nurse. Their fragrance brought back hundreds of memories, most of them pleasant—though a few of them, sadly, were not.
In a manner unbecoming of the gentleman I now was, I stuck my head out the carriage window, heart pounding as I searched for any sign of Santiago, my father’s most skilled vaquero, the herder. In the distance was a cloud of dust thrown up by the cattle, but beyond that I could make out nothing clearly. Disappointed, I ducked back inside.
My father, likely alerted by the servants as to my arrival, rushed out to meet me. I was glad to see him after four years away at the University of Madrid. Except for some additional silver in his hair, he’d changed little. The servants and peones, the common laborers, were equally excited, and I gave them a halfhearted welcome as I searched in vain for the one face I yearned to see.
The sound of hoofbeats caused me to turn. I recognized the figure on horseback long before he rode near enough for me to make out his features. Santiago hadn’t changed in the past four years. He was still rough and muscular, spending his days on the back of a horse, looking after my father’s cattle. Sweat soaked through his shirt from his back and under his arms. His boots were dusty, his face roughly shaven. Even so, my cock ached at the sight of him.
“Santiago, you remember my son, Fernando,” my father said.
“Yes, patrón, I do,” Santiago replied.
That was it. His voice was flat, with just the barest glance in my direction. I didn’t know if it was because he hated me or because the divide between master and servant was so much greater now that I’d returned from my studies in Spain. Perhaps he was being careful, since my father was present, but he’d clearly put up a wall between us, and I was sorely disappointed.
“I have business to attend to with the other caballeros in town this afternoon,” said my father. “Why don’t you give Fernando a tour of the hacienda? Show him how much we’ve accomplished while he’s been gone.”
Still without looking at me, Santiago tipped his hat. “As you wish, Don Esteban.”
Servants saw to my trunks and saddled a horse while I changed into riding clothes. After being cooped up in a rickety carriage for days on end, I was glad to again be on a horse, despite the ferocious heat.
My father was proud of his lands, as well he should ha
ve been. As the youngest son of a noble, he’d had no chance of making his own name back in Spain. He’d applied for a land grant and gotten one here in the Pimería Alta, near Padre Kino’s famed mission of San Xavier del Bac, and made his fortune.
I was seventeen when Santiago was hired into my father’s hacienda. He was pure vaquero stock, born and raised in Anda-lusian Spain, yet wanting to seek his fortunes in the New World. I’d lusted after him even then. He’d been strong and sure of himself, able to train his horses to respond to the slightest touch. I’d longed to feel those expert hands for myself.
Several of the vaqueros were natives familiar with the land and eager to learn the art of raising livestock. Santiago taught them how to ride and cut cattle. He’d taught me, too, until I’d nearly drowned trying to save a calf in a flash flood.
Now we rode in silence past acacia and mesquite trees, tall saguaro and rotund barrel cacti. A pair of quail burst from the brush, startled by our horses. In truth, I had no need of a guide; I could see for myself how my father’s herd had increased. Over a thousand head now, I guessed. Most of them would be driven down to Mexico and sold for beef and leather.
Tension hung between Santiago and me the way it had those last few days before I’d left for college. After several minutes more, I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Are you angry with me?”
“No, Don Fernando.” The answer was short, terse, and still he wouldn’t look my way.
The silence hurt. We’d been friends of a sort, back when age and status had mattered little. I remembered his hand against mine as he showed me how to hold the rope so it didn’t burn. My skin tingled with the thought of his body snuggled against mine as he’d demonstrated how to lasso a calf and throw it down for branding. There’d been the sizzle, the scent of scorched hair and flesh, and the infuriated bleating as the animal surged onto its feet and away from its tormenters. In my childish, fevered mind it was all too easy to imagine Santiago roping me, pulling me down and using his weight to pin me to the ground. “Then why won’t you speak to me?”
“You’re Don Esteban’s son.”
And there, in a few words, was the problem. I didn’t know if I’d be able to break through that honor he upheld, the determination to do nothing to bring shame upon either himself or the hacienda. He would forever be distant and polite.
Had I been a youth still, I might have railed at him, or worse, begged him to reconsider. As it was, my schooling had taught me to think logically and rationally, to consider all aspects of a problem before implementing a solution.
My body, however, had no concept of rationality. The mingled scents of horse and man reached my nose, and my cock stiffened unbearably within my trousers. There had been dozens of handsome young men at the University of Madrid, but none of them had affected me like Santiago. A few had shared my bed, but when they had, my thoughts were thousands of miles away in the desert heat.
“Is this the way it’s going to be between us from now on?” I asked.
“It must be, señor.” His fingers tightened uncharacteristically on the reins, and his horse jerked, all too aware of his tension. I knew then that he wouldn’t look at me because if he did, he wouldn’t be able to look away.
Angry, I turned my horse and trotted away from him. I went blindly, aware enough only to guide my horse around the jumping cholla cacti, yet memory led me a mile to the west. My body was tight with both need and grief as I urged my horse down the slope into the wash, to the place I would have died had it not been for Santiago.
On that July night over four years earlier, the monsoon rains had come, filling washes and flooding rivers. Every vaquero had kept watch on the herd to keep the cows from stampeding in the thunder and lightning. One calf panicked and veered away. I went after it. Santiago followed me.
I should have submitted to his expertise, but I was young and stupid and desperate to earn his approval. I urged my horse into the wash after the calf. I’d just looped the rope around its neck when my mount slipped and stumbled. The water swept me from the saddle and pulled me under.
I kicked and flailed, but the current was too strong, even if I had known how to swim. Something hard—perhaps a branch or a hoof—struck me in the back, knocking the little air I had left from my lungs. Terror streaked through me. I couldn’t get my head above water. I couldn’t breathe.
I’d almost blacked out when a hand grabbed my wrist and yanked, pulling hard. An arm wrapped around my chest and kept me afloat. I coughed and choked, unable to stop even when Santiago dragged me to the shore and pounded on my back.
Rain continued to pour. Santiago lifted me onto the back of his horse and climbed up after me. My own horse had disappeared, but by some miracle the rope was still around the calf’s neck and Santiago dragged the animal along behind us.
Santiago had taken me to a little adobe hut, one that had probably belonged to a hacienda worker, and built a fire. I’d been shaking so hard I hadn’t noticed the gentleness with which he’d stripped my sodden clothes and hung them near the fire to dry. He pulled a woolen blanket from a trunk and wrapped it around my shoulders. All we had to eat were dried strips of meat from Santiago’s saddlebag. I gnawed on one, trying to ignore the way Santiago’s tight, wet shirt showed every contour of his torso.
“You must be cold,” I said.
He eyed me and then slowly removed his shirt and boots. I watched him, eager to see as much of that handsome body as I could. There were few Spanish women in the Pimería Alta, so many of the vaqueros had taken native women for lovers or wives. Santiago never had. Neither had he bragged about the times he’d taken his fellow vaqueros to bed, but I’d heard the whispers, and all had admired Santiago’s various talents.
I could see hints of them in the subtle way he moved his hips. His trousers were soaked and too tight to hide the bulge within.
“You are a damn foolish boy,” he said. “Riding straight into the water. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I wanted you to be proud of me.” Feeling brazen, I let the blanket fall so it barely concealed my waist. “I wanted you to…” I stumbled, unable to continue beneath his glare, and then adjusted my covering.
“You are my responsibility. How would I answer to your father if you’d died?” He shook his head. “Sleep. You’re exhausted, and the rain is too bad to ride home in, not in this darkness.”
I curled up, but although I closed my eyes, I couldn’t sleep. After a while, I raised my head to see that Santiago had taken his own advice. Head pillowed on his saddlebag, a blanket draped over his waist and legs, his breathing was light and even. To my delight, his pants had joined his shirt and boots by the fire, meaning he wore nothing beneath that blanket.
Rain pattered gently on the roof as I crawled over to him, naked and uncaring of what he might think. For a long while I admired the way the firelight played over his skin. Then, ever so carefully, I slipped my hand beneath the blanket, searching for the organ I’d been longing to see.
I shivered when I found his cock, warm, thick and flaccid. I curled my fingers around it, feeling it quickly harden. Santiago let out a soft moan and shifted. Unable to resist, I leaned down and kissed him.
Santiago’s eyes snapped open. For a moment, he was disoriented; then he focused on me. “Fernando.” The low, raspy voice kindled a new tingling in my belly. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t know. Instinct took hold. I tossed the blanket to the side and straddled him so that our cocks rubbed against each other. He grabbed my waist, possibly meaning to throw me off, but instead his grip tightened as he silently urged me to keep riding.
The water’s chill faded from memory as heat flooded my body. He cupped my face and drew me down for a kiss, invading my mouth with his tongue. I tasted salt and tobacco as I breathed in his rough masculine scent.
Embracing, we rolled so that I was pinned to the floor atop the blanket. I’d expected him to be rough, but he wasn’t. He kissed me, gazing at my flesh, at my neck and shoulders, pausi
ng to nip each nipple as if he were nibbling cactus fruit, then he continued down my belly until he reached my cock. I pushed myself onto my elbows just enough to meet his gaze as he licked the droplets from the tip, then took them into his mouth.
I’d never imagined such bliss. He raked the underside of my prick with his tongue while circling the base with his hand. My balls were tight and aching as he twisted, drawing something out from deep inside me.
I was a raw, green youth, just entering my eighteenth year. Nothing had prepared me for the ripple of pleasure that spread and built until it burst with such force that I dug my fingers into Santiago’s damp hair, clinging to him while my body convulsed and expelled its hot seed into his ready mouth.
For a long time I lay there, breathing hard, trying to understand what had happened. I was sweaty and satiated, but he wasn’t done. Uncomprehending, I watched as he slid the trunk from the wall and lay a blanket atop it. Then he pulled me to my feet and situated me over the trunk so that my head was supported and my legs dangled over the sides.
I lay there, breathing in the damp wool. Fire crackled and threw strange shadows onto the walls. Santiago ran a hand down my bare back, causing me to shiver. He rummaged in his saddlebag, and a few moments later he spread something slick and cool between my buttocks. I could barely think. The trunk kept my thighs spread, leaving my ass vulnerable to whatever he might do.
I found out a moment later when he slipped a finger inside and wiggled it around. It was both strange and welcoming. A second finger joined the first. I squirmed at the discomfort, but Santiago put his free hand against the small of my back, forcing me to be still.