Two Sides of the Same Coin

by Jake Mactire

  “Okay. So what do ya wanna do until Wayne shows up?”

  “Remember we said we was gonna write down all the stuff we know about the rustlin’ and the stuff goin’ on around here? We ain’t done that yet. I think that’d be a good project for us. A lot of that stuff just doesn’t seem to fit together. Maybe if we write it all down, it’ll start to make sense.”

  “Sounds good to me; let’s put it on your computer, Jeff. That way we can move around the data and see how it fits.”

  “Good idea, buddy.” I gave him a big kiss.

  “I’m gonna have to get lots more ideas if that’s what happens.”

  I ran upstairs to get my laptop. In a flash I had it booted up. We began to conjecture on what we knew.

  “Mike, we know there are about four guys. Three are cowboys and one rides a motorcycle. One or more of ’em is local and knows the area.”

  “Jeffy, I still think that they shot at us and killed Pedro because they were afraid of bein’ recognized.”

  “It still doesn’t add up, Mike. Murder is a lot more serious crime than rustlin’. I figure that there has to be somethin’ else there.”

  “If Porky is involved, he’s after you.”

  “Yeah, but Pedro was murdered and you were shot at and Wayne was shot before my run-in with Porky.”

  “So you think Porky is involved?”

  “My gut says yes. We don’t have proof though. I think that the rustlers were tryin’ to kill us when we were out huntin’ too.”

  “It seems we got a whole lot of circumstantial evidence, but nothin’ concrete.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” We sat and looked at each other for a while. Just then I heard the back door open and close.

  “Jeff? Mike?” It was Wayne.

  “Hey, Wayne, what you got for us to do today?”

  “I need some help roundin’ up the bull and doctorin’ him up. Looks like he’s got an infected hoof; I want to clean it out and give him some antibiotics so it don’t get no worse.” This was serious, especially the timing of it. Breeding season was almost here, and we needed the bull or there would be no beeves the next year.

  “Jeff, you also need to see about gettin’ another bull for stud. Rentin’ is fine, but we kept back a good number of female calves last year, so we’re gonna need more than the one bull.” It was pretty late in the morning, and tending to the bull would take several hours if we were lucky, more if we weren’t.

  “Thanks for lettin’ me know, Wayne. I’ll get on it today. I can always go to Wenatchee later in the week.”

  “Thanks, Jeff.” He looked at my laptop. “One of these days you guys gotta teach me how to use one of them computer things.” He stepped closer and looked at it then shook his head and smiled. “If that just don’t beat all what you can do with them machines nowadays. Let’s get goin’; I don’t wanna keep you fellers all day.”

  It took us several hours to round up the bull. It’s not easy rounding up or herding a bull. We finally got him in one of the chutes near the holding pens. Wayne was right; there was an infection on his hoof. He wasn’t too happy about us fiddling with it; it must have hurt like hell. We finally got the hoof all cleaned, some antibiotic ointment on it, and gave the bull a shot of antibiotics. We decided to leave him in the near pasture for a couple of hours to let the ointment and antibiotics do their job.

  By the time we were done, it was after three. There wasn’t any time to go into Wenatchee today. I needed to call around and find another bull for stud. We’d end up dividing up the heifers, separating them from the calves that were old enough to be on their own anyway, and leaving them in the pastures with the bulls. Then we’d round up the male calves and cut them to make steers out of them. I started making phone calls, and finally just before five I found a bull, and made arrangements to get him over here and to pay the stud fees. I then went out and threw a bale of hay in the manger in the pasture where the bull was, made sure the water tank was full, and added some oats to the hay. When I came back into the kitchen, Mike was making something that smelled great.

  “What ya cookin’?”

  “Chili; I reckon we could make some cornbread too.”

  “How long does the chili have to cook?”

  “I like to let it stew for a couple of hours.”

  “Wanna get a workout in?”

  He smiled at me. “Sure, I like workin’ out with you, Jeff.” We headed upstairs to our room and changed into workout clothes. When I was putting on my jock, Mike didn’t even try to make a pretense of not looking.

  “You look pretty hot in that, Jeffy.” The way he said it and the look in his eyes left me no doubt I would get a piece of tail tonight.

  “Thanks, buddy! I appreciate the compliment, but let’s get the workout done first.”

  “Okay.” We headed down the stairs to my little gym. We both stretched out and then began our routine. Since we’d be able to work out tomorrow, I thought just an upper body workout would be great. Mike agreed and we began the series of repetitions to work out our backs, biceps, triceps, chest, and shoulders. It was a good workout. It took a couple of hours. We both felt good and looked good, with the pumped up muscles in our upper bodies from the workout. We went back upstairs and began to undress.

  I had taken off most of my clothes and was about to step out of the jock when Mike said in a husky voice, “Come over here.” He was already bare assed and sitting on the edge of the bed. He was hard and looking at me with a hungry look on his face.

  “You reckon the chili’s gonna keep, or do we need to turn it off?”

  “It’ll keep,” he said as I moved across the room toward him. He wrapped his arms around my hips, feeling my ass and the straps framing it. He pushed his face right into the pouch and took a deep breath.

  “You smell great, Jeffy, just like clean sweat and sex, all musky.” He began chewing gently on the pouch and my cock inside it. I began to reach down to take the jock off, but he stopped me.

  “Let me enjoy this a while. Like I said, I love the way you smell, clean sweat, clean crotch, and that aroused smell.” I knew what he meant. Men just smell different when they’re aroused. I ground my cock into his face. Between the sweat I’d put out working out, the precum I was leaking, and Mike’s spit, the pouch was wet and hot. I have to admit, it wasn’t something I would have asked for, but it felt great. I reckon a big part of that was I was really turning my buddy on. Finally, he pulled the jock off and lay back on the bed. He looked incredible laying there with his hands behind his head. His legs were spread, and he was hard as rock, his dick against his furry belly. The red of the hair under his arms and around his crotch contrasted with the golden hair elsewhere really got me going. I lay down on top of him, and we began to kiss. He was rubbing his cock against the fur on my belly, and mine was down between his legs. He reached over and got out the lube and a condom. I was really raring to go by this time, so it didn’t take much time to get all lubed and suited up. He put his legs in the air, and I lubed his ass. I pushed in and he sighed.

  “Wrap your legs around me, buddy.” He did and I began moving my entire body back and forth instead of just my hips. He was using his legs around my waist as leverage and grinding his dick into my belly.

  Finally he said, “Hold off just a second, Jeffy, I got an idea.” He reached over, got the lube, and lubed up his cock and my belly. “Okay, do just what you were doin’ before.” I began moving my body again. “Jeff, that feels so fuckin’ good, so good.”

  “Like that do ya, buddy?”

  “Hell yeah!” We settled into a nice rhythm and began to kiss again. He wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me close.

  “Jeffy, this is so nice. You feel so good rubbin’ against my cock and my body. I ain’t never felt anythin’ like this before.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “You do, Jeffy, you do. I love the way you fuck, nice slow and easy, just takin’ your time, makin’ me feel good. I love havin’ you in me, Jeffy bu
ddy. I love lookin’ up at you. This is so hot.”

  “Think you could come like this?”

  “I could. I’m pretty close now.”

  “Me too. That sweet ass of yours is just too much, and that big dick of yours rubbin’ against me. Hot damn, I’m close!” I picked up the pace a bit.

  Mike began murmurin’ in my ear. “Cum for me, Jeffy, shoot that big fuckin’ dick. Unload, show me how much you like my ass.”

  “I’m comin’!” I exploded hard enough to see stars and bright colors all around. I kept moving back and forth knowing Mike liked it and was close.

  “Here it comes, Jeffy, I’m gonna shoot. Fuck yeah, oh yeah!” I felt Mike’s cock pulsing as he unloaded between us. I had pulled up a bit, and his first blast hit him in the upper chest. He continued unloading for about a minute. It was intense. I ground my chest and belly against him, smearing his musk all over us both. The scent we shared was pretty intoxicating, clean sweat, arousal and sex, and musk.

  “Thanks, Jeffy.”

  “Thank you, that was incredible.”

  “Yeah, it was wasn’t it? I really like bein’ that close to you. I never felt for anyone else what I feel for you.”

  “I think we’re in the same boat there, bud.”

  “I’ll get a towel for us, Jeff.”

  “Leave it. It’s hot havin’ this all over us both.” He grinned at me. We pulled on our long handles and socks and went down for dinner.

  We were sitting at the kitchen table with our chili. We got distracted from the cornbread, but I had a loaf of French bread in the freezer, so I made some garlic bread to go with the chili.

  “This is good chili, Mike, nice and spicy.”

  “I reckon chili should have a bit of a kick to it. Chili is based on red chile.”

  “Ain’t gonna get any arguments from me there.”

  “Thanks again, Jeffy.”

  “For what?”

  “Everything, the great roll in the hay we just had, all the great rolls in the hay, bein’ my friend, the way you look at me, workin’ out with me, lettin’ me share your bed, just everything.”

  “You’re welcome. That’s all part of bein’ in a relationship; I’m sure there’ll be some rocky times, too, but we’ll get through those. We fit together pretty well, buddy. I reckon Dad was right when he told Sandy we’re two sides of the same coin.”

  “This is all so new to me. I never reckoned that I’d even have friends, let alone a partner or boyfriend or whatever we are.”

  “I’d call us partners.”

  “I’m just afraid I don’t know what to do, how to react to you.”

  “You’re doin’ fine, buddy. I notice you’re handlin’ stuff better and better. Like when one of the ladies at karaoke asked, ‘Who’s the lucky girl, Jeff?’ and you answered, ‘That’d be me.’ I told ya that closet door would come bustin’ down.”

  “I just know I wanna be with you, Jeff, and I know I can’t do that if I’m in the closet. I reckon it’s easier and easier the more people who are acceptin’. Those that ain’t, I’m not gonna worry about ’em. They’re not worth my time.”

  “You’re spot on there.”

  “When are you gonna hear back from Mary Grace about the exhibit?”

  “She’s on duty in the co-op tomorrow, so I reckoned I’d head down there. I figured I could call the lawyer and see if we could do whatever business he has over the phone. You wanna go to Winslett with me tomorrow?”

  “Sure, it sounds like fun.”

  “Good, bein’ as you’re gonna have to drive me. I gotta call about my truck tomorrow too.”

  “I reckon you’re really jonesin’ to get it back.”

  “You can say that again, buddy. I never realized how much I depend on it. I figured we could have lunch there, and after comin’ back here, play some football and have a workout. Tomorrow will be an easy one—legs and abs.”

  Mike was staring at me grinning.

  “What?”

  “I just like lookin’ at ya.”

  “Well, that’s kind of a mutual feelin’ there.” We finished off the chili and then cleaned up. We headed into the living room. We discussed going to Phoenix for the gay rodeo in February and what other rodeos we wanted to attend. We figured on about five or six including the finals. We spent some time talking about practicing, and finally we decided to hit the hay. We got into bed and Mike cuddled up against me. Neither one of us was really sleepy, so we began to talk.

  “Jeff? Did you get picked on as a kid?”

  “Yeah, for a while. I started stickin’ up for myself, and no one would say anything to my face at least. And Sandy was always there for me to go to a dance with or whatever.”

  “How’d you stick up for yourself?”

  “In about seventh grade, I realized that guys were a lot nicer to look at for me than girls. I guess some of the bullies picked up on that. They’d call me queer, or homo, or pansy, or fag, or whatever. I began to hate to go to school. None of the ‘no bully stuff tolerated’ existed then. I tried to fight back a few times but just got the shit kicked outta me. I kept tryin’, though. Dad noticed and asked me what was wrong. I told him how the kids were pickin’ on me and I’d tried to fight back but lost. His response was ‘Okay, son, we’re gonna teach you to fight.’ So that Saturday, Sheriff Johnston came over, and he and my dad started teachin’ me. Wayne helped. It was just little stuff, like if a guy’s comin’ at you, step in to meet him, and he’ll lose any momentum he has. Or, don’t try to hit in the face, hit in the solar plexus—it’ll knock the wind outta the guy gettin’ hit. Sheriff Johnston taught me about pressure points and how to make somebody hurt like they felt they wanted to die, but not do any damage to ’em. And they taught me to wrestle. Dad also bought me my workout equipment. I began to lift weights.

  “About a month later, a bully started pickin’ on me after school. Rick Rolfson. He was a big bully, always pickin’ on younger and smaller kids. He had his own little group always following him around. Anyway, one day after school he cornered me. He said he was gonna beat the shit outta me and make me suck his dick since I was queer. I had been workin’ out for a month and been workin’ with Dad and Sheriff Johnston at least twice a week. I told him, ‘Fuck off, Dick. Your cock is probably so tiny you can’t even find it in the dark. I guess that’s why you pick on everyone, so they won’t find out you’re a pin dick.’ He got all pissed and charged me. I moved forward, blocked his punch, and hit him in the solar plexus. It knocked the wind outta him. Then I grabbed his arm and used one of the pressure points Sheriff Johnston showed me. He was screamin’, and he actually started cryin’. I kept up with the pressure point and told him I’d keep it up until he died from pain unless he apologized for being such a pin dicked little girl with no balls, and also apologized for bullying everyone. He finally started screamin’ out, ‘I’m sorry I’m a pin dick wimp! I’m sorry I don’t got no balls. I’m sorry I’m cryin’ like a little girl; I’m sorry I’m a stupid bully.’ I finally let ’em up.

  “By that time, one of the teachers was out there and grabbed me by the collar and hauled me back into the school. Next thing I know, Dad was there. The principal started tellin’ him how I picked a fight and I really hurt Rick and all this load of crap. Dad just listened real quiet like and finally asked me, ‘Jeff, did you start it?’ I answered ‘No, sir.’ Then he asked if Dick, and by then that’s what everyone was callin’ him, not Rick, was the one pickin’ on me all the time. I answered yes, and he just said ‘Well, son, I guess you finally got sick of it.’ The principal started stutterin’ somethin’ about expulsion and just then the sheriff showed up. Dad said hello and the sheriff looked at me and asked if I started it. I said ‘no sir.’ The principal started yellin’ that he was goin’ to expel me and all this bullshit. Just then the sheriff turned to him and said, ‘I’ve talked to about ten of the kids. All their stories match. Apparently that bully’s been picking on Jeff for months, and none of the teachers have done anything. Now I r
eckon in the eyes of the law, since harassment is illegal, Jeff had a right to defend himself. Now if I had to bring charges against anyone, it would be whoever didn’t prevent the situation by stopping the bullying. I don’t mean a teacher either. I mean whoever is the head of this school. Are we clear?’ The principal started stuttering again, apologized to me and to Dad, and told Sheriff Johnston he would make sure there were no bullies around. For a week or so, I was a big hero since I wasn’t the only one bullied. I got in a couple more fights, but not without reason. I always won. After that no one bothered me. I reckon maybe Dad knew about me before I came out to him. I was pretty lucky to have him. Not everyone approves of me here, but they accept me and live and let live.”

  “You are really somethin’, Jeff.” He was looking at me with something like hero-worship in his eyes.

  “Maybe so, buddy, but I’m with you ’cause you’re pretty special yourself.”

  “Like I said before, just keep tellin’ me that, and someday I might believe it.”

  “Look at it this way, Mike, I am special. I am wonderful. I’m smart, I’m good lookin’, I’ve got a great body, and I’m hung like a horse. In short, I’m irresistible. But you’re the one I couldn’t resist.”

  “I dunno if I should say thanks or you cocky bastard.”

  “How about, thanks you cocky bastard!” We both laughed at that. “You told me a bit about your gettin’ picked on. Didn’t your mom stick up for you against your dad?”

  He was silent for a while, and finally answered, “She was a good Christian housewife. You know the type—be subservient to your man in all things. When he wasn’t around, she’d tell me she loved me just the way I was. I guess that kept me goin’.”

  “You’d mentioned you have a brother and a sister. Tell me about them.”

  “One younger sister, Evangeline, and one younger brother, Guy. Eve would be about twenty-one now and Guy about nineteen.”