This is the sixth chapter of a series.  Please see the introduction to chapter 1 for other information and background.

This work has been copyrighted by the author, who can be contacted at:

jvoyager@hotmail.com

When Bill began to stir and I woke up his head was still on my shoulder and my right arm felt like it had been turned into a pin cushion.

"Um," he moaned.

"Um," I moaned back. I rolled him over a little and extracted my arm from under his body. Then the pin attack really hit. "Oh, shit," I belly ached and he rose up a little and looked down at me with a concerned expression on his face.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, my arm just feels like I was doing one of those Hindu Fakir things."

"Let's take a shower."

"That was sudden," I whined. "Do I really stink?"

"Yeah, we both do. It must be a hundred in here. But the shower's to help your arm."

"Oh," I said as we rolled out of bed, "so you don't really mind the body odor."

"Actually, it kind of turns me on."

"I always knew you Yankee boys were a bunch of perverts," I grinned.

It had gotten darker, almost totally dark, and I stumbled into the living room and felt around on the table for the candles and matches the hotel staff had left. There was no candlestick but I found a saucer in the kitchen cupboard, let a little wax drip onto it and stuck the candle to it so it was upright and maybe a little safer. Then, still naked of course, I shielded the flame with my hand and walked back to the bathroom. My right arm had moved beyond the pin prick stage and into the crawling ant phase.

I put the saucer of light on the counter and the room took an a gentle glow as the single candle flame became a dozen, reflected in the opposing mirrors.

Bill had managed to feel his way around and had the water running. It was warm and comforting and without a word we both stepped into the shower.

I lathered him as he just stood there giving me free access to his body. Nice. He was darker than me but with a very pale ass that looked as if it had been shielded from the summer sun. He obviously wore boxer style swimming trunks. Where I was smooth, he was hairy. A generous mat of brown curly hair spread over his well developed chest and a narrow trail ran down from it, widening a bit around his innie and then on to a thick, matted pubic bush. I was really getting off on washing him, fascinated at the way the soap lathered so quickly in this thick body hair. When I got down to his crotch he stopped me.

"Enough," he growled, taking the soap.

"Ah," I whined, but he took over and did me. That, I must admit, was nice as well.

"Turn around," he ordered when he'd washed my front. I wished I'd thought of that.

He spread the thick lather over my shoulders and then down my back. When he got to my ass he was merciless, probing, fingering, making me wiggle and twitch.

"You like that," he laughed.

"Oh, yeah."

"Well, well. You're giving me some ideas of what we might do later."

I couldn't imagine.

A few minutes later, clean, cool, and still buck naked, we sat at the little table in the living room and had our simple, late supper. If you're into the romantic stuff, it was a candlelit supper.

"Tell me about Martin and Tim," I said as we each finished off a second beer.

"What do you want to know?"

"Well, Martin said everyone around the office knew they were a couple and had no problem with it. Do you think that's really true, that they have no problem with it, I mean?"

"It's not a problem," Bill said in a matter of fact way. "You must have seen what a close-knit bunch we all are."

"Yeah, I thought it was great the way Martin was so clearly looking out for everyone. Not many bosses would be so concerned."

"It's not a pretense, either. He's just that way. The entire staff is incredibly loyal to him and we all really love Tim as well."

"The boy is obviously a lot younger than Martin and he said they'd been together for five years. The kid must have been a minor when they started living together. Didn't that cause some concern?"

"Well, sure, Tim was only sixteen when they got married, so he had to have his parents' permission."

"Married? Is that legal in New York?"

"Well, no, not officially, but they did have a real ceremony, conducted by a real pastor and everything."

"And Tim's folks were okay with it?"

"Yeah, I don't know all the details, but they gave their permission. I was there and the service was very moving."

"So you've worked with Martin for several years."

"I'd finished law school then and was getting ready to take my bar exams. Actually, I was working at the firm Martin was with then, but when he left it to start his own office, he asked me to come along."

"So he and Tim really see themselves as a married couple."

"Absolutely."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Oh, I think it's great. They have the kind of relationship I want for myself. I just haven't found the right guy yet, but I'm looking."

"It must be nice to have a partner like that."

"Yeah," he said, his eyes moving down to look at the table.

"And the rest of the staff at Cutler's firm are really okay with him being with Tim, and having the kid around the office all the time?"

"Yes, absolutely. Everybody accepts Tim as a member of the firm. I don't think Martin would have hired anyone who'd have a problem with that."

"It's certainly a close knit group."

"It's great for all of us. You may not have realized it, but there are three other same-sex couples on the staff in addition to Martin and Tim, but of course working in the particular area of law we practice, almost everyone we deal with is very gay friendly.

"There are three other couples in the firm?"

"Yes," he smiled, "but I think I'll leave it to you to figure out who they are on your own."

I tried to think back to the members of Cutler's staff whom I'd met. It would take some careful observation, I thought, to figure it out.

"How did you get into intellectual property, Bill? It must not be a common area of law."

"Well, actually, I more or less grew up with it. My mother was a literary agent and she often worked with attorneys at the firm I was at first, the firm Martin left to form Cutler and Associates."

"Your mother was an agent?"

"Yes, she was my father's executor and I guess one thing just led to another. She ended up representing some fairly important writers." He paused for a second but before I could ask the question which was forming in my mind, he went on. "But I have a question for you, Sandy."

"Sure, Bill, shoot."

He grinned and said, "well, around the office we joke a lot about Martin's Gay Mississippi Mafia. It seems as if a lot of our best clients belong to that club. I just wondered if you all know one another and how you all ended up being our clients in the first place."

"I guess it's natural, really. Martin is one of us 'Ole Boys,' although he's been in New York so long you wouldn't know it. But his roots are there and the word just gets around. One friend tells another and recommendations get passed along. If writers or artists become fairly successful, they get to the point where they need the kind of services a firm like Cutler and Associates provides. You've certainly done good work for all your clients I've talked with so one of us recommends you to another friend and on it goes."

"Would you mind telling me who recommended us to you?"

"No, certainly not. Martin knows and it's no secret. The firm was recommended to me by Roger Bardwell at Ole Miss. Have you met him?"

"No, actually, I haven't," Bill said, "but his name often comes up. I guess a lot of his former students have been fairly successful and a lot of them end up coming to us."

"Robert Ballinger is one of your clients, isn't he?"

"Yes, I guess he was also sent our way by Bardwell. Have you met him?"

"Ballinger? No, I've not actually met him," I said, "but I heard him speak at Ole Miss a few years ago. He was being given an honorary degree, and by the way, I just remembered, it was Bardwell who introduced him. I guess Ballinger is one of the university's most famous alumni but he was there as a student long before my time, in the late sixties or early seventies, I think. I know he and Bardwell certainly go way back."

"Well, Ballinger is certainly one of our best known clients. The guy's won four Oscars and a Pulitzer, for heaven's sake."

"He's a legend around Oxford." I paused thinking about what Bill had said. "There certainly is a sort of informal Mississippi network and Bardwell is at the center of it. I guess a lot of us were his former students, but it goes beyond just that."

"I guess if Bardwell was on the faculty when Ballinger was a student he must be getting on in years."

"Well, I graduated from Ole Miss in ‘91, and I think he was in his late thirties then. I suppose he might be fifty but he sure doesn't look it."

"I'd love to meet the guy," Bill said. I keep running into people who were his students and they all say he is a phenomenal teacher."

"Yeah, probably the best professor I ever had. I guess it was Bardwell, more than anyone else who made me want to be a writer."

"I remember Rob Ballinger saying the same thing."

"Yeah? Interesting," I said, "so you've actually met Ballinger."

"Yes, I worked on the contracts for British rights to one of his books."

We sat facing each other for a few more minutes and then I got up and cleared the sandwich wrappers and empty beer cans away. Still naked, I went to the open window and looked out. It was so dark I knew I couldn't be seen and didn't really worry about our privacy anyway.

Bill came up behind me and put his arm around my shoulders. Looking across the street, the vast mass of Lincoln Center loomed beyond the dark grove which was Damrosch Park. For a few moments I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing, then the continual movement under the trees came into focus. Dozens of people were wandering around the dark park. At the same instant I understood what I was seeing, Bill understood as well.

"Sandy," he whispered as he nuzzled my ear, "If you hadn't been so hospitable, I'd be down there, too."

"One hell of a way to spend the night," I said, stroking his hand, which rested on my shoulder. "I bet a lot of New Yorkers have a little more sympathy for street people after tonight."

Beyond the dark park, the mass of the Metropolitan Opera was perceivable as a black hulk against an almost equally dark sky. I'd never seen New York deprived of its lights. It was a sight, I realized, few people had seen.

"It looks pretty strange," Bill said, his voice low, little more than a whisper in my ear.

"Yeah," I agreed, "really strange."

The breeze blowing in the window was a little cooler and we stood there for a while, letting it play over our bodies.

The room was hot; I don't mean to suggest that it wasn't. For a city dependent on air conditioning from mid-April to mid-September, it was a typical night with the temperatures eventually dropping to the seventies after midnight, although I don't think it ever got below eighty in the room. The humidity was also high and there was no way we were going to be really comfortable until the power came back on.

Eventually I turned slightly and we kissed, our lips meshing and our damp bodies pressing together. It was a gentle kiss, the urgency of our lust having been diminished a little by the sex we'd already shared.

I felt my cock hardening between us and Bill's cock pressing against my thigh. I knew we'd end up in bed again but for now it was nice to just stand there, pressed together, our tongues exploring as our hands roamed over each other's back.

"Um," I moaned. I could just discern a little smile on Bill's handsome face. There was a little light coming through the window, from where I wasn't sure. Behind us on the table, the candle, melted into a puddle of hot wax in the saucer, sputtered and died.

"Would you like to go back to bed," he whispered.

"Yeah, but it's going to be even hotter in there."

"I don't mind. I like hot, sweaty sex."

"I remember," I grinned. "You got a hard-on just smelling my stench."

"Well, you were getting into it, too."

"Yeah, come on."

"I guess you get a lot of hot, sultry nights in Mississippi," he teased as we stumbled back across the dark living room and into the bed; the blind leading the blind.

"Yes, indeed, good ole Mississippi, hot, sticky and raunchy. You'd love it."

"Maybe I can figure out a reason why I need to visit you," he chuckled. "Strictly business, you understand."

"Do you want me to light another candle?"

"No, save them. We may need them later, and for what I want to do right now, I don't need much light."

"And what, Mr. Hastings, do you have in mind?" Suddenly, for some odd reason, it was then that the proverbial coin dropped. "My god, Bill!"

"What"

"W. K. Hastings!"

"He was my dad."

"Holy . . . "

"Yeah?"

"Man, he's one of my literary heroes. It never occurred to me before that you were his son."

"Yeah, but as I told you, I never knew him. He died before I was born."

We stood there in the near dark, my hand on his shoulder, looking into his shadowy face. Minutes went by.

"But as I was about to say . . . "

"Oh, yeah?" I muttered, coming out of my trance.

"You asked me what I had in mind."

"I did, didn't I?"

"Yeah, and I was about to tell you."

"Okay?"

"I want to fuck your ass."

To be continued.