Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 20:17:57 -0700 (PDT) From: R. V. Picard Subject: Pud Four This story has a degree of sexually-explicit behaviour between men. If you are offended by such powerfully emotional things, aren't at least 18, are from a locality proscribing such material, please don't read any further. This is totally a product of my fevered brain, so please don't think you recognise someone as a real person, cause you'd be wrong. The same goes for the places. In this story, you'll find smart people practicing safer sex and some not. The author recommends that you always make the smart choice and use a condom. Eroticize it. The author retains all rights. No reproductions or links to other sites are allowed without the author's consent. Note: This story is not intended to be the lube merchant's best friend. It may take some getting used to, but if you stay with me, you may get a bit of the 'bodice ripper' and a bit of the 'storke story' to boot. I just hope it's different enough from other things you've read to give you at least a modicum of amusement. Almost any writer wants to know that people are affected in some way by his work. Please send any comments you may have to R. V. Picard at corbin75408@earthlink.net Special thanks go the three mentors who's encouragement and empowerment have allowed me to share this with you by sharing themselves. Thank you Sara, Tim and Patrick! Chapter Four Joe draped his arm over my shoulder as we turned to go inside. With that single gesture, all the tension, angst and embarrassment of the escape from our rather too public first meeting was assuaged. A restorative current flowed from him and calmed and soothed me. Joe possesses a remarkable quality. It's an emanation of some sort, an `aura' we would have called it in psychic parlance. In earlier years I had succumb to a brief flirtation with all things psychic until I had a `not so pleasant' experience involving a Ouija Board, a box of Pearfield's Domestic Water Crackers and a long deceased water buffalo Enchantress with a jones for Camembert cheese! Let me draw the curtain on further discussion of that event except to say that it put me right off the psychic realm, Ouija Boards, midgets from Brooklyn hiding in closets and spray cheese. My passion for Edgar Cayce notwithstanding, I've never looked back. Joe could influence a roomful of people or a stadium crammed with crazed sport fans in ill-advised makeup. How `do' those dudes sit there shirtless in subzero weather? My nipples can cut glass at 45 degrees Fahrenheit not to mention that my balls would absolutely refuse decent from my armpits until the warmest day in June! It was his influence that made everyone laugh at my pitifully told little joke. If not for him, we could well still be sitting there waiting for a response. I know. I've been in that position frequently enough to know what to expect. I don't know what that power is, but I do know that time has shown that he uses it only for good. Somewhere at some time in my life, I must have performed a major mitzvah, because here he was by my side. We were about to enter into a life together. That had to mean that as true partners we would give to each other by taking what the other gave. I was to live in this aura of his and be the beneficiary of its effect. I expect that my aura must look very like a tin of Prang Ovals water colors after Mrs. Biminy's kindergarten tots finally became disgusted with it for not obeying their pudgy little sausage fingers and chucked it into their child-sized waste can. In any case Joe was to benefit from that rainbow which is me. I looked at Joe as he beheld the edifice of the four story French chateau in which I made my home. "Struth! Where did this beauty come from?!" he enthused. "From Betty and Tony down at Mons Realty. They're the realtor couple who own that business and the Dike Lumber Company. Yes they are lesbians but Tony's family name is Dike (yet another of our immigrant settlers) and they left the business to her when they expired." I explained hoping to forestall the inevitable questions that any mention of Mons and Dike in the same breath usually necessitates. "No Pete. That's extremely interesting info, but what I meant was, this building is the real thing. Just look at the construction and the materials. Look at that beauty of a design. The roofline alone is making me drip." I looked at him. He didn't even realize what he'd said. "No kidding babe, I know about this stuff. What are the rooms like? Are we going in? Oh fuck, I can't wait to inspect the foundations! I can't believe you own all this." "Whoa! Down Ballsaver!" I said in my most commanding tones. "Let me clear up some confusion and championship conclusion jumping before it gets out of hand. Firstly, the only construction and materials I'm interested in discovering belong to you and, one hopes, you are equally as interested in uncovering mine. Secondly, I don't own the whole thing, just a piece of it, a condominium in fact. And C, why are you so interested in the roofline and the foundations? Are you a building superintendent or something?" I asked, not having any clue what might be his occupation . . . not that it mattered. Unless of course, he were a clown. I abominate clowns and am terrified of them. Always have been. Yes, I know its immoral not to like those odious demons from the deepest, darkest sulphur pits of hell, but there it is. Live with it. I have to. Just imagine the heart break my mother felt as her darling little tow headed five year old ran shrieking like a banshee out the garden gate. Running as fast as his clumsy, pudgy little legs would carry him, he passed the neighbors house, passed the church on the corner, ran across traffic and into the arms of the county sheriff from whence commeth his salvation. The sheriff looked at the pointy hat on his head and the cake icing on his mouth, hands, shirt, knees, shoes, eyes and ears and said, "Clowns, birthday parties, bad business. You wanna stay here while I call yer mom?" I didn't answer. I was attached to his upper body and not about to relinquish my hold on his epaulets. I'm sure as he walked into the courthouse to call me mum, anyone passing would have thought he had me strapped to his front in a baby sling. Nope. Just me and my decision not to release him until I was positive every clown in the world had been incarcerated, tried, convicted and burned at the stake. I of course would have been in Cleveland, not wishing to be anywhere near those freaks. Joe apologized, "Oh sorry baby, my architect's heart just goes freaky when I see such craftsmanship. I suppose if you did own the whole thing you'd have to be as rich as a . . . as a . . . as a Duckwall, I suppose." "You're an architect? Really? Oh God. Does this mean that we're to have a tragic love like in Ayn Rand's the Fountainhead with me in the Patricia Neal role, directed by King Vidor and with a score by Max Steiner and you in the Gary Cooper role suffering horribly through wooden dialogue just to defend your sense of integrity?" I asked tying to add a little levity to the moment. "Ah good. You `are' gay. Finally some proof other than your tongue and your hand prints all over my body." he quipped. "Smart ass." I said. "Indubitably." he answered. "Now please feed me. I'm starving and I want to see the inside of this place. Oh yeah, I suppose we should discuss the fact that I love you unaccountably strongly given the amount of time we've actually been together and we also might need to talk about the next fifty or hundred years of our life together." Prince Charming took me by the hand and led me up the castle stairs, for so they seemed to me now, and through the oak doors into the lobby. Our steps echoed along the celadon green slate floor and bounced off the crystal and gilt wall decoration. It was so loud I was afraid it would wake the concierge. I shouldn't have worried. Nothing short of an explosion or the smell of cookies could wake him once he was out. He was of no earthly use to anyone but did look quaint in his bell boy costume with the little round hat. As we entered the mirrored elevator, Joe asked, "What floor?" "Top, please." During the short rise, he asked, "What's the number on your door?" I started to answer him and had just said, "Well you see . . ." when the elevator stopped, the doors opened and we were standing in the vestibule to my top floor unit. I decided not to finish the answer since there was only one door so that limited his choices quite a lot. I unlocked the door and flipped the switch to illuminate the entry hall. "You mean you have the entire floor?" "Clever boy. Yes, I need it frequently for work. It's a lot to be responsible for but after all we're all only stewards for what we own. Yais?" I ask in my best Pepe Le Pew voice. I must admit that I was showing off just a tiny bit. I do love this place and am completely cognizant of how fortunate I am to live here. "Baby! You mean you're both rich and hung like a horse?" he asked even though from our time in the back seat of the taxi he had at least a working knowledge that one of those two statements didn't quite measure up to the truth of the matter. "Heaven has blessed me with an optimist as my future husband." I denied, sweeping both accusations away with haste. "No, I'm not rich. I make a very nice living, a good deal of which is used for the maintenance of this wonderful dump along with an annual stipend from the Opera Guild toward the upkeep of Chez Dorn, because as their public relations director, I entertain here several times a year. I'm afraid that I impoverished myself in the purchase of this home. Once I saw it, it was unthinkable to let it go so I used three quarters of my birthright to buy it outright since I knew the monthly payment on a mortgage for such digs (if I could qualify) would be more than I could handle at the time. So, disregarding what my father begged me on his death bed. I spent most of the principal. It's proven to be the best investment of my life since it's quintupled in value and continues to escalate." "Wow. When can I have the tour?" he asked with obvious excitement. "Later, if you please me greatly between now and then, I'll provide you a basket full of bread crumbs so you won't lose your way and you can explore for yourself." I snickered. "Nothing doing handsome. Come to daddy." he said spinning me into an embrace. With one arm around my waist, for the purpose of assuring our dicks were in contact and his left hand playing glissandos up and down my spine, grazing my neck and then mussing my crew cut head, he bored his gaze into mine saying, "So, I get to marry an opera queen who loves me more than breath and who just happens to have a very manly and ravishing ass, sufficient dick to keep the franchise and a condo out of my wet dreams? Thank you Jesus! Now I can play my Mado Robin records whilst working out in nothing but a jock and shoulder pads and no one will call me weird. I've died and gone to heaven." "First of all, we are not a queen. We have moments of being arch and commanding, it cannot be denied, but we are NEVER a queen. A term that fits better might be `aggressive bottom' but I assure you that we're very, very butch indeed. Secondly, the shoulder pads would be overkill and as a card carrying gay guy, I'd be forced to comment derisively . . . strictly for your own good you understand." Picking up where he left off, Joe intoned, "Now listen. There will be no bread crumbs. I intend to see each room of our home for the first time with you. Furthermore, I intend to make love to you in each of them on that occasion. Do we have a terrace?" "Um hmm." I affirmed, "But only one . . . but it does continue unbroken all the way round the building so we can get to it from any room. Why? Is it important?" "Yes. It is very important because I love you so much I want to make a public show of it and make love to you out there." "Um . . . could we negotia . . . bughmgfflmup. . ." I was unable to finish the question because of the second tongue in my mouth and the steel hard cock poking me insistently in the balls and an ass cheek in danger of strangulation from the vice-like grip of Joe's hand. I couldn't quip anymore because the intensity of the emotion Joe was feeding me and getting from me finally battered down my glib defenses. I rushed head long across the lowered undefended drawbridge of my self-sustaining indestructible castle. Besieged by love, I surrendered willingly into the arms of my black-haired knight.