Mike and Danny: Dog Days
by Rock Lane Cooper


This is a work of homoerotic fiction. If you are offended by such material or if you are not allowed access to it under the laws where you live, please exit now. This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be copied or distributed in any form without the written permission of the author, who may be contacted at: rocklanecooper@yahoo.com

Note that these stories, including this one, are not an endorsement of unsafe sex. They take place many years before the appearance of AIDS and before it was standard practice to use condoms to reduce the risk of infection from sexually transmitted diseases. Remember always: that was then, this is now. Sex is precious, and so are life and health.


Chapter 3

Ed

"Forty is a dangerous age," she had said. It was a woman at a bar in a hotel, in some city he'd forgotten—maybe Amarillo. He'd been on the road selling custom made saddles, fifteen years ago at least. She was the wife of a prospective client, well into her second martini.

He'd been no more than twenty-three at the time, dressed for success, wearing a brand new bone-gray Stetson, just drinking a Lone Star and minding his own business.

"They turn forty, and you realize they're out screwing around with somebody else," she said, referring grimly to her absent husband.

He looked at her warmly. "I don't see's how that could possibly be the case, ma'am," he said, choosing his words carefully. No mistake, she'd set her eye on him for the evening, and while he could probably discourage her gracefully—she was nearly twice his age—he didn't want to lose the sale either. Her husband had been in the market for enough saddle to bring in a nice commission.

"Man knows what's good for him don't go lookin' for what he's already got right at home," Ed said. "That's what my daddy used to say."

"You wait and see," she said, and she said it like she knew damn well Ed's daddy never said any such thing. She drained her glass and glanced over at the barman, who brought her another one.

With that, by some small miracle, her husband had shown up, and with his arm around Ed's shoulder steered him away to where they could talk saddles, horses, and the trucking business that paid for both of them.

The rest of the evening was only a vague memory, but the woman's remark about turning forty had stuck with him over the years, and now that he was less than six months away from it, he found himself like those critters on the ranch where he grew up that refused to go up a cattle chute into a stock truck without needing several jolts of an electric prod.

They'd just stop wild-eyed, legs braced and tail bent up, like as not shit flying, and not budge a fucking inch. You could cuss and yell and kick them, and it didn't make a goddam bit of difference. They weren't going nowhere, least of all into a truck that, if they could read, had "To the sale barn" written all over it, and in small letters under that, "then straight to the packing plant."

Forty, dammit, was a little too much like gettin' old.

He'd been having these thoughts since his last birthday, and they finally came to a head when he quit his job and took to, as he put it, just driftin' for a spell.

"Ed, you can't do this," the regional sales manager had said. "You want a raise, I'll get you a raise."

But he'd already made up his mind. Life was getting too goddam short. He'd been crisscrossing the country, staying with old friends and acquaintances who'd mostly settled in various parts of the back country wherever they could find it, staying up late drinking with them, and getting laid when and if he could.

"What are you gonna do with yourself now?" was the usual question.

"Fucked if I know," he'd say. "Opportunity could be done knockin'."

He'd arrived at Mike's after all day and all night driving from some godforsaken place outside Kemmerer, Wyoming. Not to speak ill of it, of course. If you wanted to get away from it all, this was where you'd want to be. It was a two-room log cabin full of guns and, without a sign of life but coyotes and jackrabbits in every direction, you could easily imagine the West had yet to be won.

He left when the guy's teenage daughter put the moves on him—tried sharing his sleeping bag.

"Honey, you don't want to be doin' this," he whispered to her in the darkness.

"Oh, that's so sad," she'd said when she finally grabbed for his unresponsive dick and he'd had to make reference to an old rodeo injury. "At least take me with you when you go," she pleaded. "I'm going crazy out here."

The next morning he'd been up before anyone and on the road again by dawn.

At a roadside diner where he stopped for breakfast, the waitress looked him over and told him she'd be getting off work by the time he finished his steak and eggs.

He glanced up to meet her eyes, gave her a warm Texas smile and said, "Can you gimme a rain check on that, sweetheart, till next time I'm in town."

"May not be a next time," she said, topping up his coffee.

"Gonna have to take my chances then," he said.

He couldn't explain for the life of him why this was always happening. The older he got, the worse it got. Was that what the woman in Amarillo had been trying to tell him, he wondered.

After crossing into Nebraska, he would have stopped to see an old buddy who worked for the railroad in North Platte and lived in a little hamlet called Hershey (pop. 633), in a strip of tableland between the north and south forks of the river.

But when he called from a rest area on the interstate, there was no answer for a long time, and finally the gruff voice of a man who said, "No, he ain't here." And it was so much like the growl of an unfriendly guard dog that he hung up without finding out where his friend was or when he'd be back, if ever.

He went into the men's room to take a leak, and as he stood there a young guy in cowboy hat and boots came in, unzipping his fly and pulling out his dick before he got to the urinal. "Aw, sweet Jesus," he sighed as he aimed what sounded like a high-pressure stream directly into the water. "I been holdin' onto that since Ogallala," he laughed, like he needed to tell someone.

When he was done, Ed was at the sink splashing water on his face. As he dried himself with a handful of paper towels, the guy was still talking. He'd turned toward Ed and had opened his jeans, a big old rodeo buckle swinging at the end of his belt, and he was shoving his shirt tail in around the back and sides, leaving the front to last, where his dick hung kind of half in and half out.

"Gotta get my ass to Cozad," he was saying.

Ed glanced down at the guy's zipper and felt the urge to chew all the teeth off of it. Just chew them up like grape nuts. He could feel them crushing between his molars, and the taste of salt and sweat and something sweet like sugar.

Zipped up and buckled again, the guy checked himself in the mirror and squared his hat.

"What's in Cozad?" Ed asked.

"Girlfriend. She's one hot mamma," the guy said, eyes popping wide. "Don't like to keep her waitin'. No, sir." He turned and strode from the room, hitting the swinging door with the side of both fists. Thump. And he was gone.

When Ed got back to his car, he realized he was feeling sorry for himself, which was not like him at all. Normally, he could live and let live, but this boy-girl stuff was beginning to aggravate him. What he wanted was some R&R with another guy, just good old plain sex, the straight stuff, no bullshit—a full night of it, till he was limp and drained and empty. And then another night, and another, until he was exhausted or dead, whichever came first.

One guy used to be real good for that was Mike. Judging by the road signs, Ed figured he still had 150 miles to get there. He could make that in two hours easy.

He got back in his car and kept driving east thinking all the way that the only problem with what he was doing was Danny. All he could do, unless something changed, was to show up at their door and hope for the best.

He'd taken on two guys more than a few times, but never before with these two. Still, he was getting desperate—a desperado—and there was maybe a chance they'd take mercy.

— § —

When he got to the farm, it was late afternoon, and there was no one around but the dog. He could see someone mowing hay in a field down along the river, and he figured it must be Mike. There was no sign of Danny or Danny's car, and he let himself entertain the possibility that Mike was living alone again. It was the first good sign of the day.

"Bingo," he said to himself and whistled.

Sweaty and road-weary, he took his clothes off right there in the yard and soaked in the pool for a while before looking in the house for beer. He'd come back out with a six-pack in the cooler and some cold fried chicken and hard-boiled eggs he'd found in the refrigerator.

A half hour later, when Ted's station wagon pulled onto the place and parked out front, he wasn't sure what to make of this new development. But he liked the looks of it. Ted was lean and handsome, with a smile that broke slow and easy across his face, and he looked straight in your eyes when he talked to you, like a regular guy.

His was, Ed saw, a hungry look. And as they got the feel of each other there in the pool, Ed grew sure that he'd found himself another desperado.

They talked for a while, about what they did for a living, about Mike and Danny, and finally about sex, until gradually inching toward each other—his dick hard and throbbing in the water—they'd come together in a full body hug, kissing with tongues almost down the other's throat, cocks lurching and bumping.

He'd pushed Ted against the side of the pool, the water lapping around them, and they had stayed there for a long time, pressed together, still kissing, not saying anything for a while, just making hungry noises as they sucked on each other's ears, eyes, nose, and throat.

Under the water, Ed was stroking Ted's body, reaching down his sides and slipping his hands around his hips to feel his ass. The muscles under the skin were firm, and as he found the little indented gap where his butt cheeks met at the small of his back, he slid his fingers down between them, stroking there as Ted shuddered and squirmed against him.

Ed put his lips to Ted's ear. "Got your spot?" he finally said in a rough whisper.

Ted nodded against his cheek. "Bingo."

Ed laughed and pulled away, looking into Ed's eyes. "Bingo?"

"Yeah, what?"

Ed grinned at him and shook his head. "Nothin'." And he hugged Ted to him tight again.

"I'm getting this feeling it's been as long for you as it has for me," Ted said.

"Not all that long," Ed said. "Just not anywhere near often enough."

Ted's hands were all over his back now, fingers thrubbing along his spine then gripping his shoulder blades, hips grinding into him.

"We gonna have to flip for who goes first?" Ed said.

"It's OK, I'll flip," Ted said, grinning at his own joke, and turned in Ed's arms to face the side of the pool. He put his elbows up on the deck and bent forward, his butt pressing back against Ed.

Ed slipped his hands around him and stroked his chest, feeling for his nipples and then rubbing them with his thumbs as Ted sighed and shuddered again, like his knees were giving out from under him.

He slid one hand down now to Ted's belly, catching one finger in his navel and wiggling it there as Ted's stomach muscles tightened.

His erection pressed against him, Ed bent over him till the side of his face touched the wet hair that lay in curls on his neck. And he reached further down to find his cock, hard and warm with the blood pumping from his heart.

"I'm kinda big," Ed said. "You may not be used to this."

"Take your time, if you have to," Ted said and laughed. "But don't take all day."

"How long has it been?" Ed said, taking his hand from Ted's chest to grab his own cock and put it between Ted's butt cheeks.

"Wouldn't care to say." He sighed mightily as Ed pushed to enter him.

"That long," Ed said. "I hope this makes up for the wait."

Normally, he wouldn't be talking like this during sex. He'd be all for getting on with the business. But a few guys he met—just a few – teased him with what he took to be their intelligence, and talking somehow raised the measure of whatever feelings he felt with them. Unsettling as this might be, it ramped up the intensity. And he'd learned to like that.

"So far you're doing just fine," Ted said, and Ed could feel him sucking in his gut as he pushed into him a little farther.

Ed stopped talking then and concentrated on what he was doing, easing himself in deeper. The warmth there was a pleasant shock after the cool water, but what he was becoming more aware of were the sensations of urgency building up along the length of his cock—already—quick as it used to when he was seventeen and fooling around in a Hill Country swimming hole with a cousin from Oklahoma. Skinny dipping after dark, they'd sit facing each other on a fallen tree trunk and milk each other's cocks while heat lightning flashed without a sound in the distance.

"You still with me?" he said, when he was all the way in.

Ted took a deep breath and nodded. "Yup."

With that, Mike's dog who'd been lying in the bald spot under a rusty swing set, jumped up and ran to the front gate, barking. A car passing on the road had slowed down and was driving onto the place.

"What the fuck?" Ed said.

They both froze in the water and ducked down enough to watch over the edge of the decking. The car—an old Nash Rambler—parked beside Ted's station wagon, and a guy got out, looking around the place and finally spying them in the pool.

"Hello," he called out, "is Mike around?" He stayed on the other side of the fence from the dog, who had stopped barking but looked ready to snap if he did anything foolish like reach down to pet him.

"No, he ain't," Ed called back, not moving from where he stood behind Ted. He lifted a dripping hand from Ted's hip and pointed into the distance behind the guy. "He's working in that field way over there."

The guy turned to look over his shoulder. He was wearing a white shirt and tie and dark suit pants.                                           

As he looked away, Ted moved his body, like he was shifting the weight on his feet. The movement sent a charge through Ed's groin that he felt all the way to the bottom of his balls.

"Think he'd mind if I drove out there?" the guy said.

"I reckon not," Ed said, eager to see the guy gone.

"Thanks," the guy was saying and getting back into the car to drive off, probably wondering why two men with a whole pool between them were standing together in the same spot.

When he was gone, Ted put his head down on the deck and started laughing, and Ed felt a quivering squeeze around his dick.

"Aw, why'd you have to go and do that," Ed said.

He'd been able to keep himself from shooting his load, but now he was past the point of no return. After a split-second pause, in which everything came to a stop—the leaves stirring in the trees, the birds singing—the hot jets of cum came surging out of him.

Ted just laughed some more.

Continued . . .


More stories. There are links to all the Mike and Danny stories, plus a conversation with the author, pictures of the characters, and some cowboy poetry at the Rock Lane Cooper home page. Click here.

© 2006 Rock Lane Cooper
rocklanecooper@yahoo.com