This is the second of five chapters of a new Absolute Convergence sequel.

While this story is being added to the existing Absolute Convergence file, it constitutes an independent, self-contained narrative. I've given this sequel the subtitle Alvarado Court for reasons which will become obvious as the story unfolds. While it will be helpful for readers to know the original Absolute Convergence series, in which all the principal characters were introduced, this story should stand alone.

Absolute Convergence made its first appearance in January, 2002, as a series which eventually ran to a total of eighty chapters, the last of which was posted in January, 2004. I never anticipated the series continuing for so long and I am still amazed by the incredible loyalty of readers who stayed with me from the beginning.  I am also sincerely appreciative for those newer readers who have contacted me from time to time to say that they've discovered the series and ventured through the collected chapters.

I'm always glad to receive comments, questions, criticism and encouragement and hope to continue hearing from you. I try to answer all messages promptly. If I'm slow at times it's only because of the pressures of work.

Andrew continues to give me much needed proofing and editorial help for which I am sincerely grateful.

The author holds exclusive copyright (© 2004) to this story. It may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written permission of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archive under the terms of their submission agreement but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the written permission of the author.

All the stories I've posted on NIFTY can be found by looking under my name in the NIFTY Prolific Authors lists. If you'd like to receive e-mail notification of subsequent postings, previews of upcoming stories, and other bits and pieces, please let me know by sending your request to the e-mail address below.

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It was eleven o'clock on Saturday morning, August 10, 1985, and I'd been up most of the previous night. I'd poured over the file Nita Ball had sent me on the William Desmond Taylor murder. By 1:00 a.m. I was worn out. It was my second night of reading and I needed sleep, yet I'd been unable to stop.

It was strange that an event that had taken place over sixty years before, on February 1, 1922, still held such fascination. Even the most minor points of the murder investigation intrigued me. Perhaps it was because the case had never been solved that I was so caught up in it. I knew it would be the basis of a writing project and I was more and more convinced that I wanted to use it as the starting point for a novel.

My partner, William, got home later that day. I'd managed to get a little sleep but was still so tired that I could hardly give him a proper welcome.

I picked William up at LAX and insisted he drive my Porsche back to our house in Pacific Palisades. In my exhausted state I was dangerous on the highway but I also wanted to tell him about the files I'd been reading, and began the tale as we made our slow exit from the busy airport.

"Do the files Nita gave you contain copies of the police reports?" he asked.

"No, nothing that official. It's just photocopies of newspaper pieces and some other information on Taylor."

"I'd think if you are as interested as you say you are, Robert," William said as we stood idling in traffic, "that you could get copies of official reports. After all these years there are probably no rules about public disclosure."

"Yes," I agreed. It was typical of us that William would jump to such an obvious and potentially helpful suggestion. "There was a lot written about him at the time of the murder, just in the press reports."

"Well, a look at the official record might be interesting."

"Oh, yes," I agreed quickly, not wanting him to think I was minimizing the importance of his suggestion.

"What about other sources?" William asked as we finally began to move again.

"There are few books that have been written in the years since the murder. So far as I can tell, they are all straightforward nonfiction accounts. I think they all deal with the case and were written from the point of view of one theory of the murder or another. Everyone who's studied Taylor seems to think they know who killed him."

"Do the theories stand up?" William asked as we made a left onto Sepulveda and headed north.

"I've just read excerpts so far," I said, "but from what I can tell, a couple of them must be very convincing, but also completely contradictory."

"So what are you thinking?"

"Well, there has been so much written about Taylor and the murder, but all of it non-fiction. I'm thinking about a novel, based on the case, but not using the actual names of the people involved. What I really want to deal with are the lifestyles of gay and bisexual men in Hollywood in the 1920s."

"Hasn't that been done?"

"Yes, there are books and even a couple of film documentaries, but they seem to be little more than exposés. You know, the 'Who Was and Who Wasn't'  sort of thing. I've not found anything really exploring the way gay men and women were actually living in Hollywood during that era."

"It sounds like a lot of research," William said, giving me a quick sideways glance.

"It will take a bit of digging, but I can get help. And I don't intend to try to write a factual study. It will be a novel and if I get some background wrong I can just say 'hey, it's fiction.'"

"Well, Lover," he smiled as he reached across to stroke my thigh, "it sounds good to me, and if anyone can do it justice, it's you."

"Thank you," I said, placing my hand over his.

We talked about work and the comings and goings at NSB. William caught me up on developments with the new Starmark contracts and then described a side chair he'd found for the flat in London.

"How's Peter?" I asked.

"His usual energetic self," William said. "I didn't see him again after you left but we talked by telephone yesterday. He and Charlotte were leaving today for a fortnight in Switzerland."

We arrived home a little after four o'clock. The sky had turned gray with that metallic haze which so often blows in from the Pacific during LA summers. I carried in William's one bag and we went on through the house to stand for a moment on the deck, looking out over the vast sea.
"We might just as well relax and not leave for Tahoe until tomorrow," he said as he put his arm around my waist and drew me to him.

"That's what I was thinking," I agreed. I was worn out and William was a bit jet lagged, even though he managed to sleep a little on the plane.

We showered together, lovingly lathering and washing each other's body, then, naked, we went do bed.

When you've lived with a man for over a decade, when you've loved him and made love with him in almost every way and in almost every circumstance in which two men can join, an ease, a contentment, comes into your relationship which is unattainable by any other means. Time together is the only means by which such union can be achieved.

William and I are one; one in spirit, often one in body, the boundaries between what is him and what is me, dispelled, dissolved. Like any couple who love deeply, our emotions and our thoughts seem linked. Our likes and dislikes are so joined that we rarely have to consider consciously what the other would do, or say, or think in any particular situation.

Often in a restaurant we'd look over the menu and, when the waiter came, one of us would order. The other would just smile and say, "the same." Nothing would have been said verbally, but our likes were one. There was no need to communicate such inclinations.

 
 

I woke slowly, a warm, loved feeling spreading through my body.

Naps were not my usual style, and long ones were even more unusual. I guess I'd really worn myself out reading through the file on the Taylor murder. I'd certainly not gotten much sleep over the previous two nights.

William was looking down at me, a loving smile on his handsome face. He lay beside me in our big bed and had propped himself up on one arm. His free hand gently stroked my chest. I knew without looking that I was erect, fully erect.

"Hello, Lover," he whispered as I opened my eyes.

"Hello," I whispered back.

We'd been apart for over a week and we both had needs, urgent needs.

William rolled over onto me, letting my body take the weight of his. It felt so good to have him with me. I tingled in anticipation of what we'd soon be doing.

"Yes," I purred, "I want you in me."

"No sooner said than done," he teased as the wet head of his cock pressed against my willing hole, then slid down along my crack, leaving a wet trail of his sap.

He brought his lips to mine and placed his hands on each side of my head, holding me, as if I might try to escape. Little chance, I was a willing captive. I opened my lips to the prodding of his tongue, willing every part of my being to be open, accessible to him.

With one free hand I stroked his back as I reached out with the other to fumble in the bed stand for lube. I couldn't negotiate the drawer from my position, let alone reach into it.

William sensed my problem and rolled slightly to his left, pushed my hand away and did what I'd been unable to do.

Our kiss was broken and he rose up, kneeling between my splayed legs, taking the cap off the tube and squeezing a dollop of the clear gel onto his finger tips.

I lifted my legs to his shoulders and moaned as he spread the cool lubricant over and around my ass. One finger pressed in, setting my nerves ajangle.

"Ah," I groaned. "It's been too long."

"Seven days, fourteen hours," William smiled.

"Did you figure the difference in time zones?" We'd last fucked in London.

"Yes, when I couldn't sleep on the plane."

"Always my precise lover."

"When it comes to what's important, yes," he whispered, smiling down at me.

"Important things like planting your cock in my ass."

"Yes, or yours in mine."

"Do you know how much I love you, William?"

"No more than I love you," he smiled as he withdrew one finger and gently replaced it with two.

I sighed again as he twisted his fingers, spreading the lube, gently opening me to him.

"Now, please," I moaned when I felt my muscles relax.

"You're still tight. Let me work in three fingers."

"No, I like it when you have to come in by force."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't, but even if it's a little uncomfortable at first, I love feeling your cock stretching my ass."

"Okay, Tiger," he smiled, withdrawing his fingers and moving the head of his dick to my pulsing port.

I moaned again as he gained entry.

"Yes, Will, yes."

He slid in slowly, letting me feel every precious inch of his manhood.

"Yes," I sighed when he was fully in me, "yes, yes." I was complete again.

He hovered over me, the weight of his magnificent body pressing ever so lightly on mine, his eyes fixed on my eyes, those little telepathic sparks passing between us as my body relaxed, accepting his.

"Oh, Will," I sighed.

"Yes," he whispered. "I know."

He withdrew a little and then, ever so gently, pressed in again. I put my arms around his torso and drew him down, wanting his weight, all of the hard, muscular mass of his body pressing against mine.

I lifted my legs, locked them around his buttocks, imprisoning him, making him a hostage of my love.

"Yes, yes," one of us moaned, maybe both.

"Yes."

The rhythm began, the slow, easy, got all night cadence of our love; the steady thrusting, pulling back; the been there many times, know the way, taking it slow, loving every step, every mile of the journey from just being ordinary, being two to so unique, being one; joined, fused, not in any rush; letting nature take its course; letting the tides come in; sense the planets as they align themselves for our pleasure; looking forward to that moment down the road, way down the road, not in any rush to get there; loving the journey, loving every little step, every pause; loving William, knowing he loves me.

"Yes."

The sky outside our bedroom window had changed from gray to indigo. The night was clear. The lights of the whole sweep of the city ran along the coast, sparkling like a million jewels; no, a billion. It struck me, not for the first time, that the city stirred the ocean with its pulsing life and was roused by the ocean in return. The city and the sea, were they lovers, like William and me?

We lay fused in our big bed, our happy corner of heaven, William in me, my body singing, his eyes telling me such truths, such ways of love, telling me secrets no words convey, the ways of lovers who know each other well.

A skeptic could say that what Will and I experience at such moments is nothing more than a physiological response. My body, his body, giving pleasure, eliciting predictable response, the pressure of his cock on my prostate, making sparks. We know all that, but this is more. It's not just our physical selves which merge. It's a meeting of souls, the sort of bonding and renewal of bonds which only two people who are truly in love can share.

My mind went back to others whom I'd loved. Was it perverted to think of someone else while William and I made love? I don't think it was. I thought of course of Rick. He was my first love, we were just kids, still discovering ourselves, discovering each other. I'd felt that bond with him, the bond of more than bodies, the coming together of souls.

With William, though, the bond was deeper, not in kind, but in magnitude. I'd loved Rick with my entire being and a part of my heart would always be his. But Rick had taken other paths, ones where I couldn't follow.

Now, after almost thirteen years with William, he and I shared a richness of love which only time can engender. We were lovers, but we were also companions and loyal friends.

"Yes," we moaned again. A minute or an hour had passed and we were one, complete in each other, fused into such a being, such a whole, something bigger, grander, than we could ever be apart.

But there was a secret that we shared. It was bigger than the two of us. It was impossible to state in simple words. It was only known in the merging of our bodies, the fusion of our souls. It could be expressed as an equation, a simple statement of two halves which make one whole, but the logic couldn't stand the words.

The truth is this; we become one when our bodies join, but after the years spent together, the oneness doesn't stop when our bodies part. The oneness survives the separation, spans space, makes a mockery of time.

Seven days and fourteen hours were nothing in the mathematics of our love.

I felt our climax building in our blood, the amalgamated pulsing of our hearts, one rhythm, one pulse. One atom at a time, our beings are aligned, the ultimate harmony of all we are, the climax, the beginning and the end.

"Oh, yes, Will, yes."

To be continued.