Cordell 4

“You shouldn't be doing this, not with two fingers still taped from the strain.”

Fourteen dangles from the steel joist, feeling the fingers on his left hand quiver with the tension. It is a three finger hold Keon uses to build strength. The tension transfers to his forearm, then his biceps, and finally to his back. He counts out the seconds, and then tries a one-armed pull-up like lithe-wiry Keon manages with ease. As he strains to lift his greater weight, he twists his waist and legs up towards the ceiling. One arm is too much for him, so he quickly reaches up with his right hand and adds it for support.

“Pretty good don't you think?”

A glob of plaster paints his side, right on the ribs below his quivering breast. “Stop hanging on the beam,” Inez says with exasperation. “You're going to bend it.”

“I'm not going to bend it, what do you think will happen when you and I are standing on the roof? Not to mention all of the weight of the plaster you're going to slop up there.”

“I decided not to plaster the ceiling. The planks look pretty good. You're supposed to be helping me, not getting in the way.”

Fourteen responds by dropping down to the hard packed floor with a grin on his face. Inez steps forward to kiss him on the lips and ruffle the back of his hair. Fourteen lets her because he knows she loves to do it. Fourteen is indifferent, Inez possessive. It does not recall the cock-raising, dry-humping crush on Cameron’s carpet: two constrictors coiling about, desperate to shed some superfluous layers, sink dripping fangs into throbbing flesh. The brief soft-lip-exchange fails to even echo Fiona on the before August Ferris Wheel. When Inez breaks off, Fourteen goes back to helping her plaster the corrugation-chinks of the earthbag wall. This is more interesting than the kiss.

The drone work is slow going in the January cold. Inez has the small firebox radiating heat. She is already sleeping in the beehive bedroom, unfinished as it is. Fourteen’s bare leg brushes up against the unapologetic sheet of plastic lying across her double bed. Sex in here is earthy. The fleeting instant-orgasm on an older woman was a sour beer and cigarette ash segue to John Cannon’s more memorable-satisfying fuck. Memory has its triggers. Sex in Inez’ room is Faulkner’s hierba mingled with wet adobe plaster crackling on the walls.

Sex with Inez is an inevitable masterbation for the much-handled, understimulated fourteen-year-old. Fourteen has much on his mind. He is the all too glowering-brooding, unwelcome apparition the Pueblo. He Papillion paces the Devil’s Island boundaries of the Pueblo canyon plotting escape. Malcolm King’s black melamine slatwall panels cannot warm the cold shower that is Fourteen. Keon finally does that. Keon, the box canyon, and the off-the-grid minutia of Fourteen’s day-by-day. He is tangerine-alive again. But adolescent-unpredictable, he resumes the Melancholy Prince to be, or not to be about the families. A persistent ear worm of erotic memories keeps him feverish. Angela’s cigarettes, Samuel’s rank odour, a casual touch in bed, recalls the good vibrations. Sex with Inez is the inevitable-unanticipated masturbation.

Fourteen missed the first signals from the catcher. Fourteen is a novice at flirting with someone's eyes, touching a hand, brushing against a shoulder to feel the heat. This goes on and on. Inez Montreal has to be hands on bold first time. There is no awkward teenage flirty-dance. Fourteen is tamping his porridge mixture between two dirtbag coils, precarious on the sawhorse, with nothing but a pair of cut-off black shorts.  Inez steals a base. The old pants are just tight enough to make it awkward for the nineteen-year-old fingers to slide up a silken teenage thigh and fingertip reach the sweaty ball sack.

Not flustered (much), Fourteen simply says, "I'm gay."

Inez smiles at the simplicity of this. Virgins, she concludes to herself. She is woman, and he is (innocent) boy. Inez has dealt with awkward relationships before. The Mormon thinks he's gay because he has never had a woman. The Morman thinks he is gay because he is just an excited boy confusing wrestling Keon with sex. Inez plans to fuck him straight.

The hand stays where it is as she meets his gaze. It does not matter that someone might walk by, or that below on the clay bedroom floor, Keon and Vondell are slapping mud below them. She pulls her fingers from his pants and moves them directly onto his crotch. As if to say, prove it. And Fourteen can't prove it. He grows cock hard as her hand explores his manhood. It is just a step from there to her bed.

That was then, this is now. The work is messy and consumes Fourteen’s thoughts. Something needs to. Inez fills the silence and Fourteen is content to simply slap handfuls of mud onto the wall, jamming them into the long creases, doing his best to erase the endless coil of earth-filled tube-bag. Inez new room coils about his torso like a snake. One tall window and the door mar the Boa Constrictor symbolism of his Arizona-now. Tangerine optimism sees the door, clear enough. For now, Fourteen runs his clotted fingers over the constricting walls, making them as smooth as he can. The story of Kale Euller, better known as Fourteen (or The Morman) is still the polite plaster finish on rough circumstances. Kale Euller to everyone except Malcolm King.

Jeremy Gates lies easily to smooth things over. Fourteen is an inconvenient-necessary truth to take back to Chillicothe, Ohio. Being Fourteen-ish compounds the inconvenient truths about his lingering absence. Fourteen-feelings are in his nature, but about the Pueblo, he is cautious, oh so cautious. “I’m gay” he blurted-flustered out to Inez. That confession was not considered. There is no Luxor Winnebago to whisk him away, no bedrock-sure Levi to smile, if he is rebuffed, no Levi to hold him in accepting arms. This is a box canyon, so Fourteen rides the Fiona-Ferris-Wheel lie with Inez. Fourteen makes do with the handy masterbation.

For the rest, the Morman avoids Ruby-Leigh, shrinks his cuckoo-in-the-nest footprint to the boy-bedroom shed. He pays the King’s back with food and his absence. He prepares Tex-Mex-organic with cheery Angela Montreal. Fourteen roams the chapperalle, grows past fifteen, endures Asher Montreal’s bickering (there will be blood). Fourteen looks to the door. Jeremy plasters over his Fourteen-coils, sleeps agitated beside (untouchable) Keon King, and there is sex with Inez Montreal.

Inez and Fourteen wash up in the solar shower together. “Hot water is for tea.” Roman Montreal claims. The cool water reminds Fourteen of Bull Shoals, waterboarding, and boys. Inez is casual in her nakedness. She luxuriates in the intimacy of bathing with a fresh male. It is one more way to touch Fourteen. She runs her palms over his strong back, across his flat chest and even down to his flaccid penis. It responds, because of course, it will. He is fifteen and this is how his body worked since he was twelve. She doesn't move him much. His mind drifts, as does her hand.

Men, Fourteen has learned, are handy. Fourteen’s mind (cock and ass) cannot keep from weighing the men about the Pueblo, and when he is honest with himself, to the eleven-year-old untouchable he shares a room with. Keon is one extended double entendre, unconscious of himself (the little flirt). There are percussive resonances. Keon vibrates with the proximity of Fourteen’s (soon fifteen) libido. John and Levi set Jeremy Gates quivering this way. Fourteen and Keon handle this attraction with humor, basketball, and a shit-load of mutual rock climbing.

A hand is on his scrotum, weighing the package, stretching his maleness. Hard nipples and the yielding flesh of heavy breasts slip-soapy about his shoulder blade. The water drips parsimoniously on their heads. Fourteen closes his eyes, closes his mind to his female partner. Pueblo men … Asher Montreal and Samuel Faulkner catch his roving eye. It might have been Asher Montreal ….

Fourteen is naturally inclined to Asher because he is sixteen. A likely lust-love interest. Share tastes, perhaps (perhaps not). Roman Montreal in the now is Gerard Depardieu.  Asher is the sort-of-sexy before look. The big nose is forgivable. Fourteen has learned to look past such things. Patrick was beautiful, Patrick was poison. John had a rugged, no second-glance face. Levi might have been Statue-of-David beautiful in his youth but time wore that to a fine-boned, mishandled parchment-paper finish. Asher was Fourteen’s first thought (Keon aside).

Fourteen took that fancy to bed with him the first few weeks. Sleepover furtive, like being at Shane’s, Fourteen used the crystal dildo to persuade himself that Asher shared the sly-shy glances. He imagines Asher in control, John-Levi sure of what he wants from Fourteen’s flesh, how he is going to take it. Where, and how, and when, the possibilities seem endless about the Pueblo. Force me down while my tongue slides past Keon's lips and white teeth. I'll cum against a smooth rock climber's thigh, sweat-smear myself on him while Asher grinds deeper… The three-way works its way into his self-abuse nicely.

This furtive fantasizing satisfies until Keon (drat him) announces Vondell is a pain. Keon repels onto the lower bunk beside him. Well, the bottom mattress was bigger. It was all very Shane-like sleepovers after that, Keon’s boy-heat too present beside him (sigh). The nights bring a certain amount of friction between the boys. There would be something very Levi Fisher about nocturnal finger perambulations, nocturnal emissions. Fourteen stops touching himself (mostly).

It might have been Asher Montreal ….

Asher has a grudge against the new boy. It leaves likeable Fourteen confused-cautious. There was a certain John-Cannon-bricklayer attraction to Asher that Fourteen lusts after. John and Asher share a Saturday-Night-Special glower Fourteen recognizes as John-foreplay: rough looks, rough sex.

Fourteen decides Asher is another Ruby Leigh King hating on the stranger. Kale Euller is the square-peg boy inserting himself uncomfortably into the round-hole Montreal family. Only, he seems to fit with mother Angela just fine. Angela Montreal actually took first interest in him. The shared cooking, Barbacoa Goat, then other treats. Mom winks at Inez, at him. The closer Inez gets to Fourteen, the more belligerent Asher gets. His reasons are not apparent.

Roman Montreal does not like Fourteen in a lazy way. Like father, like son, maybe that is all it is. Angela and Inez May think his fourteen-year-old cock is convenient; not so the men. The pair pretend Fourteen is not fucking his daughter. It may not be the fucking, Fourteen decides. He was not welcome here at the Pueblo long before Inez took him to bed. He cannot read the man, cannot untie the angry knot.  Fourteen is like the bolder Malcolm King’s Bollinger must creep over cautiously. He is blocking the man’s road in some way. Fourteen does not trust Roman Montreal.

Inez rubs her body soap-scent body along his flank. Levi stropped him like this in the tiny Luxor Winnebago shower. Very cosy, he used to think, shower sexy. Fourteen can remember his old man without the stab of pain.  A weeks since King fessed up that Levi is gone, and Fourteen is still trapped. Fourteen rubs soap on his shoulder. Missed signals, always mixed signals with Inez. Fourteen thinks maybe she wants him to touch her. Levi, promise-heavy in my hands, he remembers. Maybe Inez is just content to pet him, coax-tease his cock to passion.

Samuel Faulkner interests him. Samuel Faulkner also draws-frightens him. Fourteen knows men, in a Zen-biblical sense. Fourteen has been thrust rudely out of his naivety-nest, Jeremy Gates before musings on school boy crushes, media idols, and a few well-chosen anonymous pornstars. After August, he knows the variety of man. After August he has been flexing his wings, fluttering about. Fourteen has hands-on experience with the self-absorbed, self-loathing Patrick masturbating on his open body. Barry was not much better. Scott reamed him out well with a bite and a cuff, very nice. Admittedly, the complexities of John confuse him still. Mostly, he felt safe-satiated in Levi’s arms. Samuel Faulkner interests him (dangerously).

Friction with men has sandpapered his nerve endings down to a safecracker's light touch. Fourteen can fingertip-feel sexual tumblers turn and click inside the men around him. It is a sliding spectrum from asexual Malcom King indifference to the voyeuristic lust that men like Ian Holland try to hide. Something about Samuel Faulkner’s Iggy-Pop, weather-blasted features conjures up John's stone-cold and Patrick's disposable-kleenex (dirty-sock) attitude. All in all, Faulkner is not to be trusted, but Samuel Faulkner interests him.

The Ménage à trois shifts dangerously in Fourteen’s mind as Angela’s warmth sidles close against his back. She thinks one teasing finger probing his cleavage is daring-unthinkable to his young masculinity. Her plan is to leave the novice unsatisfied, craving release. Inez does not understand. Her captive is flying free now. Someone will cover Fourteen in this promise-moment, someone will take his cum, someone else is kissing his cheek as the water flows. Fear, relief, lust and joy; they are all bundled into the same network of nerves deep in Fourteen’s amygdalae. Levi taught him that. Shadow men and boys touch-take him, even Samuel Faulkner. Fear and desire, sometimes they mingle. It does not matter now as Fourteen cums.

Clean and a little too horny still, Fourteen returns to the room he shares with the brothers, thoughts on men. It takes a moment to register Keon, black bag open, damning dildo in his palm. Fourteen casts the soiled shorts aside and hauls on Cordell Faulkner’s cast off jeans. They sit loose on his hips. He wants a shirt from the black bag, but Keon owns it for the moment. Nothing to do but slip nervous fingers into pockets. Fourteen waits Keon out.

“Is this what I think it is?”

“That depends, what do you think it is?” There is eye contact going on.

“Thought it was a bong. No bowl. It looks like a penis.”

“It is what you think it is.” Fourteen replies quietly.  

“Do you like, stick it in girls? Do you like, stick it in Inez?”

Fourteen thinks about that. Finally, with hesitation, he answers. "And other places." Circumspection, Keon looks at him boy-curious. Fourteen has his back against the wall (so to speak), makes a decision and offers further explanation. “I'm gay.”

Keon's dark eyes shift between the spiral glass and Fourteen's face. There are questions there, but they seem to be harmless, as if the teenager had said that he really was a Mormon. Unimportant details,  but Keon is cusp-of-horny physical, theoretical male, not hands on practical (yet). It might be only that the young boy does not understand.

“Can we keep this between ourselves?”

Keon considers the shaft of glass, runs a thumb along it like he is testing the edge of a deadly Hikari Blade, looks again at the teenager and nods his head slowly.

Keon sets the dildo aside. He reaches back into Fourteen's black bag and pulls the ziplock filled with documents and the Beretta Nano. “Vondell found this,” Keon continues with an edge in his voice. “Do you know what would have happened if my little brother decided to play with it?”

“I didn't think of that,” replies Fourteen, abashed.

“This is fucking dangerous.”

“I know it is.” Fourteen could tell stories.

“You can't keep this ‘matic here.”

It is not as if there weren't any guns around the Pueblo. Malcolm King has a rifle that he claims is for the casual predator. Bandits raid the kitchen gardens. Keon pops away sometimes. Since he arrived, Fourteen has been out twice with the men to a makeshift rifle range. Samuel Faulkner brandishes his personal phallus with arrogance. My Shield is bigger than your teenage Nano, girly boy. Seems like he could stuff his Smith & Wesson between Fourteen’s lips. It is all so familiar. Fourteen shrugs and tries Malcolm’s Marlin. He kept the hidden Beretta Nano to himself.

This is fucking dangerous, Keon big-brother-rasps. No Shit, Fourteen agrees. He came so close to using it on Grandpa Malcolm and the after-possibilities scare him. Being without the gun scares him too. The weapon gives him control.

“You can't keep this here.” Keon repeats. He fingers the weapon through the plastic. “Give it to Grandpa, he will put it in the gun locker.”

“I can't do that,” Fourteen exclaims.

Kean's eyes ask the question, Why not? Fourteen does not try to give an explanation. He does not trust these Pueblo people. The Beretta Nano offers the illusion of control in a situation he cannot control.

“You can get it from Grandpa anytime you ask.”

Sure kid, trust another Vietnam War veteran. “I need to be able to have it close. It’s a grandpa Levi thing, you get it, things from your dad. No offense.”

“You fixing to do yourself?”

“Fuck no.”

Keon sits silently thinking. Fourteen leans against the door, puts his back to the courtyard, waiting. The gun is his secret. He worries that the boy will tell his grandfather and that this last security will be stripped away.

“If I had someplace where I could hide it.” Fourteen lets the thought hang out there, hoping young boy will become an ally.

Keon considers the plea with a crease on his forehead. “There are a few places where you might put it. Places I don't think Vondell knows about yet. If we put it there, it might be okay.”

He weighs the young boy and his words. It would be best if he found his own spot. Keep your secrets, experience warns him. Keon is just a kid. Keon will talk tell Malcolm, tell Ruby-Leigh. Fourteen lives fucked over all too often. It seems obvious now. It hurts. It hurts so bad that Fourteen needs another North Platte Cameron-bedroom moment. He needs trust. If you are going to screw me over, take the gun out and end me now. Keon is just a kid. You cannot say that to an eleven-year-old. “Thanks Keon.”

Fourteen moves to the bed to sit beside Keon. He takes the ziplock bag from the boy's hands. Everything Levi Fisher left him is inside. “Did you look at these too?”

“What? The passports and the cards?”

“Yeah those.”

“Yeah, I looked at them.”

Again, Fourteen wants to give no explanation. He hopes the boy will not ask for one. He shuffles through the documents putting them into two piles. The Kale Euller pile gets dropped back in the black bag. The oh-so-precious Jeremy Gates documents, the ones that tell him who he is, he puts carefully back in the Ziplock bag with the Beretta Nano and a box of shells. Oh, they’re real, Levi assured him.

The Japanese clasp knife lies deadly beside them. It is not the sort of thing Fourteen thinks to slip into his pocket. Use it to cut some string, not hardly. The Hikari Blade is a weapon in his mind, just like the Beretta Nano. He remembers North Platte and carries the scar from Levi’s brief insanity. The knife seems more deadly than the tiny automatic. So despite the fact that this bone handled, artful steel would be a useful tool about the Pueblo, Fourteen leaves it in the Ziplock bag. It is a Levi thing too. It is a thing he cannot use to cut a simple string.

“Maybe the glass thing too.” Keon suggests. “Vondell, mom.”

Fourteen sighs, and nods. Levi put it in his bag. Packed everything he thought his young friend might need. Best put that aside for now.

The two boys walk into the desert, Fourteen following Keon past the pool to a tumble of rocks against the rise of the floodplain. They walk along the ridge in silence, questions being thought, answers never given. There is a cleft in the rocks deep enough to leave a well of darkness. Keon points to it. Fourteen stoops down, scoops some snow away, and tucks the Ziplock bag as far back as he can reach. When he turns around, Keon offers him a pale rock. Fourteen fits it in the hole. A dead Mesquite tree stands Sentinel nearby to mark the place. Fourteen memorized the spot. In a few weeks, he will roll the rock back. In a few weeks, maybe a month, Fourteen will take the first steps towards the March after.

“You will keep my secrets?”

“Sure,” replies the boy.

“If I need it, you will bring it to me?” Fourteen looks past the boy toward some hazy after that the deck of cards will deal Jeremy Gates.

“Why would you need a gun?” Franklin King had a gun. Keon is no stranger to them. Keon wants to ask about the double names. Life is secrets. Life is hiding in plain sight. Keon’s dad taught him that. Don’t you talk about it, Ruby Lee used to warn the boys. “Tell me one thing that is true.” Keon challenges the teenager.

Fourteen meets his eyes. “I need a friend.”

“What’s the name your mama calls you?”

“Jem,” and the tears tell Keon this is true. “If I need it, will you bring it to me?”

Keon nods his head thoughtfully. Almost twelve, he knows what he knows. Malcolm King cannot erase it all, cannot amnesia the life-strife of being Franklin King’s oldest boy. Listening to Franklin King with his friends, all about how real it was. Fourteen fist bumps like a white boy. It does not bother Keon. Fourteen, other name, Jem, respects. Not like that douchebag drug dealer wannabe Asher.

They walk slowly back towards the Pueblo, Three vast years apart, but shoulders brushing close. “You use that piece of glass on yourself?”

“It is a thing,” Fourteen concedes. The rest goes unsaid.

Malcolm King is a contrast to Levi Fisher. One is motion. That comes from driving halfway across the country, and the old man's insatiable appetite for Fourteen's pliable flesh. No matter how apocalyptic it was, Levi was going somewhere with determination. One is rooted. Malcolm King Lives Levi Fisher’s grumpy newspaper-coffee time all day long.

How many teenagers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Perhaps only one, with that Id-Ego centric joke holding some validity. Truth is, Fourteen is more aware than that. The teenager knows Levi Fisher is/was a surgeon with some indeterminate wealth. Ian Holland has explained this with a simper-sneer. Can I have my (pitiful) allowance mom? The (LED) lightbulb in Fourteen’s agile brain is always on. Life costs. Vacations with Remy and Greyson Gates are an ever-anxious siphoning of hard earned wages that even young Jeremy Gates notices. The Tuan-regret-Hajj in the Luxor Winnebago, not so much. Levi Fisher cared less about the final bill, spent freely on the road.

Malcolm King cares more. Life in the King's home is vocally scrutinized. It is a parsimonious, virtue-signalling, low carbon footprint crusade to reduce, reuse, recycle, and regret. Old as the Hills, Levi's comrade is retired. The teenager knows retirement (sort of). Fourteen just assumes there is a pension. Save your money for later, Malcolm tells his daughter-in-law. Malcolm King pays bills. People do.

Fourteen is curious about Roman Montreal and Samuel Faulkner. They are past Greyson Gates’ age, but pension short (he is sure). They are employable for something. Roman and Angela Montreal seem to share Malcolm King’s passion for the Hermit life and lying on the land as lightly as they can. The energy they spent to not expend energy on Inez’ new room, impresses.

Samuel Faulkner seems more sardonic. He points out flaws for fun, not climate action. In this respect, Samuel is not a serious person. Nobody seems to work beyond some animals and a summer garden. Fourteen wonders how the three other adults pay bills.

Since he was drafted into the Pueblo, Fourteen has seen Roman Montreal drive out alone or with the family multiple times. First time, after Malcolm screws him over with his bogus family excuse, the confusing King David story, Fourteen tried to hitch a ride. “Sorry Fourteen, Malcolm says no way, no how can you come with me. We can’t have the government poking into our business. Sitting in the truck is not going to change my mind. I’m not leaving till lunchtime anyway. You want to sit there, suit yourself.” Fourteen hardly thought it would work. He did not bother to bring the black bag. Quick check, Roman took the keys. Fourteen sulked a while with his feet on the dirty dash.

Samuel hikes away from time to time into the Highlands above the pool. The brothers say he is prospecting, hoping for gold or silver. Perhaps he's looking for dinosaur bones or the remains of some First Nation’s Pueblo. Occasionally he seems to hunt because he takes a weapon. Samuel hikes before Roman drives, always.

Fourteen climb rocks with the brothers, and hikes around himself. He spirals outward learning the lay of the land. He has tried the road out once, perhaps there is a road not taken that will make all the difference. Maybe there's an interstate, a 7-Eleven just over the next pile of rocks. He quizzes Angela Montreal and Malcolm about the plants and animals about the place. They know what he is doing. How knowing that is Mesquite and this is scrub oak will help him find his way home, Fourteen can't say. Even Inez Montreal has probably figured it out. Fourteen is in training for his next escape attempt. So Samuel Faulkner's wanderings interest him.

Something about Samuel Faulkner conjures up secrets. Fourteen follows this worn out shoe of a man as Samuel heads out, pack on back, and rifle dangling loosely from one hand.

Fourteen is all unobtrusive, innocent, rock-hounding. It is not like Fourteen can turn and look into a storefront, hide behind a Levi Fisher, old time newspaper (New York Times, of course). The teen falls back, using trees and rocks to keep the game in sight.

Samuel Faulkner travels a non-trail along the icy pool and into the snow-heavy box canyon beyond. Keon would think the sun-dried, wind blast sedimentation looming over him would be a good climbing. Fourteen thinks about his skills, and files the plan away.

This is no Noir Mystere he is living. Fourteen is mostly bored-curious about the happenings about him. He moves easily over the rocks and grass dodging trees and northern Arizona snowpack melting into memory. Half keeping the third Pueblo man in view, half treating this now as a simple walk along some Chillicothe boy-safe street (only, not so safe it turned out).

Angela Montreal keeps-kills rabbits. Fourteen can make Latino hasenpfeffer. Asher knows the Ohio boy is useless, does not have the balls to kill a bunny. I might have to shoot the goat when the moment comes, Fourteen has not decided on that. He watches nauseated as Asher demonstrates he is the John and Fourteen is the pussy. The lesson is obvious to Fourteen, Jackrabbit runs fast-free or goes fat bunny doe-eyed into a pot, man-used.

Samuel’s eyes are on the non-trail before him. Fourteen stops to piss. He pressure washes a Grand Canyon with his Colorado River. More ephemeral snow seeps yellow into the desert. He idly wonders what Samuel thinks he can bag out here.

Samuel is lost for a moment against the rocky cliff they have been shouldering. Then, Fourteen sees him scramble up a fan of broken rock. There is another exit, just as Fourteen hopes. Too much to ask that this hike ends with a Super 8 Motel, just beside the police station, and an Orange Julius. Fourteen waits until Samuel has disappeared into a cleft promising access to the plateau above.

He continues on, self-conscious of the noise his feet make on the loose rocks; conscious of the snow-ice treachery winter melting beneath his feet. Somewhere warmer, Levi Fisher’s voice reminds him. How far south does he have to go? The fan spills out from a water scoured axe bite cleaving the cliff. Fourteen touches the shade cool rock as he steps in Samuel's footsteps. Some twists and turns to this new path. Snow has not found its way down here. Samuel Faulkner might confront him. He thinks he's ready. Just an innocent curiosity from a bored boy.

Something about Samuel Faulkner’s bar room brawl face conjures up Saturday-Night-Special hostility. Some tripwire warning stops Fourteen in his tracks just as he begins to see sunlight on the rocks ahead. This is a sixth-sense warning he could have used bike riding past the Bronco in the before. Fourteen holds his breath, listening carefully.

The hair stands straight on his neck and his belly is corset-tight. This is the jackrabbit sensitivity, this is a clawless Bobcat whisker warning. This is a Beretta-Nano-fisted now moment (remember to, snick, load a round). He does not know why it is so, but he gut-churning, piss-again knows it is so. This is the end of the trail (for today).  Fourteen takes a heavy work boot step back along the trail pretending that he is the bobcat, silent and alert. He is jackrabbit-ready to bolt back down the trail. Fuck doe-eyed cage-bunny waiting for the man. Caution, caution something whisper-warns him.

Fourteen retreats with dignity. Samuel Faulkner has opened up a path for him that he can follow sometime safer. He's curious as to where the man was going, but that will have to wait. The police station, Super-8 Queen bed, phone call home (sipping an Orange Julius) will have to wait. Fourteen waits, he always waits.

This is one of those moments when Fourteen wishes he had not executed the SmartWatch with a rock beside the road. He's curious about the Fitbit time Faulkner will take. He sits in sun-warmth beside a tree, discreetly hidden, unobserved until Samuel Faulkner finds this way back through the cleft and down the snowy scree. Nothing seems different. And if he's caught game Fourteen cannot see it. Satisfied that Samuel Faulkner is going back to the Pueblo, Fourteen walks slowly along the cliffs judging places to climb. Before the day is out, Roman Montreal climbs in his battered truck and disappears down the road with bunny-killing Asher by his side.

Fourteen could remind himself, the casual disrobe is not an easy exposure for other boys his age. Vondell will stand and boy-chatter, flashing the room unaware. He even pokes a boyish erection towards his older brother, as if it was an insignificant fart. Keon, edging adolescence, is more aware. Even before Fourteen's closet-blasting confession, Keon boy-strategized polite underexposure. Everyone’s automatic, arm-reach, urinal calculation: maximum distance from the next dangling cock. Fourteen watches Keon askance. Change the top first, then pull your pants off, keep your back turned. Young males social-learn this once they hear their body-whispers. Fourteen appreciates a tight ass, firm thighs, so this is no biggie.

Keon is perhaps bolder since they cemented their friendship with his secrets. Fourteen can sexy-bobcat-whiskers feel the not yet (damnit!) adolescence brushing up against his body. The eleven-year-old is testing him with some provocative body moves. Ruby Lee shunts the boys to bed blackout-virtue early, mother careful. The Mormon keeps his own time, and she dismisses this disdainfully. Fourteen wonders-wistfully where he will find the young boy.

First night, post confession, Keon is in the lower bunk. He only growls, “Vondell keeps me awake.” Then he rolls away waiting for the gay cock to get in bed with him. Getting into a narrow bunk with a cute boy down to tight briefs, is a pervie now. Young-muscle back radiates pure heat, clean-scent invitations.

The pair are fortunately-unfortunately mutually ticklish. Keon is ticklish sliding fingers towards Second Base (First Base sadly skipped). Fourteen bites his lip, one hand brushing cotton-clad boy-buns (stealing a base), the other resting on a Levi-echo cock (edging towards a Third Base tag). Later, while Keon sleeps, fitful fingers uncurl against an untouchable thigh. Frustrated fingers stroke pulsing shaft. If you can't have the one you love, [have] the one you're with.

Keon is a fever, So not surprising that Fourteen is easily lured into Inez Montreal's bed. This is not the kiss-a-girl on the Ferris Wheel because Shane wants it so much for you. Being Shane takes his mind off the untouchable innocent, touch-inviting, prepubescent Keon.

Inez Montreal is not the bedsheet artist Fourteen has become, but Fourteen is willing to be schooled between the sheets. Curiosity is there. Walking in Shane’s shoes as it were. He thinks of his best friend. He becomes Shane. Not to be confused, never be confused about the Fourteen before-now-after of Jeremy Gates. This is sexual voyeurism. Fourteen has stripped Shane bare in all his glory. Set Shane sweat-lusting on a woman so shy Jeremy can watch-feel the hetero passion of Shane’s now. This is the bitter-brackish pool of water in Death Valley. Jeremy Gates is all in on man-on-man sex. As he explains to Keon, it's a thing with him.

Pueblo is a joke, Inez is sure. It is a joke she has endured since she was five. Three households tenaciously clinging to the delusion that they can live free of the world, while shopping for millennial essentials once a month (or more). Three men who argue incessantly about erasing themselves from modern life, but still addicted to technology. Three women who, for their different reasons put up with it all.

Inez lets her mind range the Pueblo. Ruby-Leigh stays with old man King so she can raise her brats. She cares less about the eco-friendly compound her father-in-law established seventeen years ago. Her mother, Angela is partner to her father. She was raised dirt-poor farmers in Chihuahua, loves Roman’s life. Samuel Faulkner’s wife escaped years ago. Inez left once like Cordell did. That was a disappointment. Inez finds it is lazy-easy to stay and build a beehive room. Inez thinks about Cordell. It is Kay’s turn to distract her. Unfortunately, Kay reminds her of Cordell.

Kay is fifteen and winsome-weedy, much like Cordell was at thirteen. Cordell will end up like his old man, Inez thinks. Faulkners bulk up tall and beaten-iron hard. Life’s blows stay hammered on their bodies like scars. Samuel Faulkner would be interesting. Inez imagines Cordell’s father would know her better than the earnest, pliable Kay Euller.

Samuel Faulkner has his house well away from the Montreal and King collection. It is somewhat closer to the barn and garden. Somewhat nicer than the beehive coils of dirtbag construction, or the double adobe of Malcolm King’s small place. It is double adobe like the Kings, but Samuel has some money. It shows about his place. If he showed an interest, Inez might have joined him. Samuel Faulkner goes nowhere, ever, and he is Cordell’s father. Inez is not sure how she feels about that. Inez looks elsewhere.

Fourteen, The Morman, this Kale boy, comes at her call (Yes). Call me Fourteen, the boy insists in his raspy voice. This is a stupid nickname. Kale is fourteen it seems. Inez settles on Kay, which brings a very attractive frown to the boy’s face. Angela Montreal likes the name, likes the frown, starts using Kay all the time.

Kay comes at her call. Inez finds this convenient-frustrating. Puppy dogs (men) can be embarrassing. Show them too much attention and you have to kick them, send them tail-between-the-legs to the corner or they get too big for their pricks. This Kale Euler is too complacent. Comes at a whistle, but romps the rest of the time with the little King pest. Inez would not mind a little whimper-beg now and then. It is her due, she thinks.

The whole “I’m gay,” line, Inez does not believe in homosexuality. It is not The Pueblo thing. Inez believes homosexuality is simply virginity, something to fix. Being gay is boys romping with each other. Basketball, climbing cliffs, wrestling in the dirt. Kat cums when she calls.

Inez gives Kay the latest come hither look while he is reading some boring Malcolm King book in the boy-shack. The two King pest-brothers are cat-draped over him like he is furniture. Keon gives her a knowing look, then slides his legs off. Inez spears him with a glare. Cordell was thirteen, Keon is only eleven.

Now Kay is hither, in the mud-straw, ever-musty bedroom he has helped to plaster-paint. No rushing, no words, the boy slips free of Cordell Faulkner’s cast off clothes as if he owns the room. Faded jeans and sloppy T-shirt do not do justice as they would on Cordell. Kay is what he is, young.

Kay is a conundrum to her. The first time she took him to her bed, he came virgin quick (adagio), like a sensible virgin. She knew this fever since it caught her at fifteen. The first time with Kay, the boy left in silent confusion. She let his hormones stew just to entertain herself. Kay was twitchy-bobcat ready for her next come hither invitation. Just a boy, a funny boy with that lame, “I’m gay,” excuse to cover virgin shyness.

Kay gay? Be serious, Inez snorts softly. Kay comes back from a dangerous ice-rock climb with that pesky Keon King. Kay alley cat sniffs his way over to her privacy, sprays the door with his stink (so to speak), sniffs out her nineteen-year old heat once the pointless pests are tossing in their beds. Rock-climb, bed-time, Kay is desperate-horny. Gay? Not much!

Kay always folds his raggedy ass clothes and sets them somewhere, no rush. He talks easily about his day, not shy, no compliments for Angela Montreal’s Rubenesque pulchritude. Then, Kay turns virgin-tongue-tied as he comes to sex. Her brothers, Marco and Asher, are one yard stick on young males; very different from this quiet Kay. Cordell was very different too.  Kay is just a boy, colting it up with Keon, very frisky, sort of noisy. With Inez, his hunger is silent, watchful. There is no love lost, she reflects, missing it not at all.

The boy might begin with a kiss. He might come to her snake-like, snake-uncoiled from the foot of her bed up past her waiting wetness, her nipple-hard breasts and tongue-wet lips. Kay might draw his washboard hardness across her skin, absorb the friction-heat connection between them. Kay never does that for her.

Inez cannot know that Levi Fisher played Fourteen like a symphony in four movements. His young flesh opened allegro (first) cum hard. That opening behind them, Levi played percussion and strings adagio, a long, slow trek  up and down Fourteen’s body to the final (never final) scherzo. Somehow, Levi squeezed in a closing rondo. Sex as music made sense to Levi. Fourteen picked up the coda and the other subtleties, played the happy instrument to the old man’s endless compositions. That was Levi Fisher, this is Inez Montreal.

Kay comes to her promising, not hard, not quite ready. Mutual petting is required. As his hands roam, lips too if she reminds him, Inez strokes the young boy’s flanks, nails-tickle the inner thighs, on her way to the tender junk hanging hairy-heavy between smooth thighs. Once told, not forgotten, Kay’s finger finds her soft sex, follows whispered directions as she continues  to school him. She has mapped out her body for the virgin. He follows the trails, faithfully. Inez praised him for this once. Kay shrugged it off. “You should know your partner.?”

His lips come down to suckle on a nipple. A busy hand travels blindly between her thighs. Levi would call this Lento, starting slowly. It suits them both. Inez thinks young men rut too quickly. “You should know your partner,” Kay explained. They both need foreplay. Inez is not impatient. Let the music lie. Kay is like some stud she is breading on herself. She strokes his shaft, cups the silk purse, coaxes the colt to salivate for her. Push the pinkness out. By accident, Inez discovered Kay hardens when she slips her thumb behind his scrotum and rubs it across his anus.

Kay begins too schoolboy gentle. Hard knocks come from his adolescent ineptness, not hard intention. Inez has captured his mindless cock now. It is a pretty thing, knows its business. She has coaxed technique out of Kay. Her young stud will pant out his passion, eyes everywhere but on her, unless she captures his weaving head for a Montreal-French kiss. They do not make love. Inez tried that with Cordell. They were Romeo and Juliet. Her Romeo was thirteen when they first fucked, and Juliet was fifteen. They fucked angry. They fucked with attitude. Sex with Cordell was an Arizona monsoon sweating the dry desert in a flood.

Pretty boy, Inez thinks to herself, studying the muscle shimmers, the building tension in Kay’s face. She feels the tension in his back, the plank-tension in his flexing glutei. Tight ass, immature flat tummy, just a boy with attitude and a hard cock dripping behind safe latex. Kay shakes his head at her as if to free his mind. She feels his body gather attitude, his frustration, and he centers it on some point between his thrusting shaft and his firm nads snugged streamlined-ready for the afterburn-overdrive. Inez curlers into his thrusts, sensing the angry climax punching into her hungry sex.

Everyone knows Kay wants out. Kay cannot stop talking about it. Everyone knows his every move is practice for his next walk out into the cold desert. Kay is not subtle like Cordell. This is the rebellion that draws Inez to the boy. As if his unformed tangerine accoutrements would be enough. Kay is a ready (young) cock. He wants out, but he is lazy-here at The Pueblo instead of walking out. He is an angry boy. Inez can use that, drink it in like salty-cum tears. Fingers dip into the trickling aquifer of male sweat. Kay-lube to anoint the hairless chest, coax an angry bull out of the soft (not soft) schoolboy.

The boy is going to cum. She lets him hook her knees up into her shoulders. Open like this, Kay is driving adolescent anger deeper. Inez reaches up to choke his throat, hoping to throttle the oxygen, make him harder. It has been tried on her. Their coupling is a frenzy now.

Shane likes to bowl. God knows why. It was probably a family thing, certainly not a Gates Family thing. So Jeremy Gates bowls, because he really likes Shane. Jeremy can even fake enthusiastic. Shane really liked girls. Shane taught him how to bowl, and because Jeremy Gates really wanted to suck Shane’s cock, and it would be a bad idea to let him know that, Jeremy let Shane teach him how to like girls. Fiona, on the August Ferris Wheel, was not half bad. Her teenage breasts were not intimidating as they swelled across her athletic chest. He slid into Third base, just like Shane told him to. If her crotch was wrong, Fiona’s hips were nice as they rocked gently together on the Ferris wheel. It was Shane-like, any-boy-like. Jeremy Gates could play all sorts of games convincingly. Fourteen knows he likes bowling more than he likes girls. Fourteen likes to fuck.

Fourteen does not think of Shane (much). Well before the Fiona-kissed hot August night, Jeremy Gates moved on. He really liked Shane, wanted their close friendship, so no perving anymore (much). It is the streetcar thing, another comes along. There were other boys, other men. Before Patrick picked him up, other men meant older teenagers out and about. Some sixteen-year-old was a daring thought. Jeremy Gates, seduced by an older teen, bread by the quarterback, just bedsheet thoughts to spatter across his heaving chest. Asked-answered, Inez is nineteen-adult. This now feels so wrong, but Fourteen is a little desperate. Fourteen needs to fuck.

Fucking with Inez is natural-unnatural to Fourteen. So are his thoughts here at the Pueblo. The musty-fresh-mud earthiness of the beehive room mingles with Inez’ cloying female allness. Fiona in his nostrils was interesting but inaccessible to his maleness. Fourteen has the same pheromone disconnect with Inez, but (oh God!) he needs this. Fourteen is spoiled-experienced by the men. His flesh needs bruising as much as Inez’ does.  Every mindful thrust into the muscular-liquid depths coaxes him onward. If he fisted out his frustration in masterbation, he would be too close to the problem.

He feels the young woman’s boy-wet nails beetle-scuttle across his back, around his throat. Inez wants more. She has a hunger for a man-sized weight pressing down on her. Fourteen is too wispy-weedy-wiry for that. He is a Fiona-fit, not Inez-satisfying. He is not even high school linebacker hard enough for a sophomore cheerleader. Fourteen is the fag, not Samual Faulkner strong. He knows this as he plies into the young woman. Samuel Faulkner, bad idea, even if it makes you fuck harder. The strapping man screams danger. John screamed danger too. Fourteen uses this to keep him hard. Inez is rippling beneath him, convulsing around his shaft. Fourteen has learned enough of Inez’ body to tell there is an orgasm ready that will come with Hikari-sharp nails on his back.

John took his body like this, folded like a cheap whore. John was bad-boy, angry-hot. Imagine for a minute Samuel Faulkner catches him snooping. What would it be like, eviscerated by his ropy-muscle cock? Fourteen wonders. Faulkner would use him like an old tube sock, pure evil-delicious. Some snow-smeared rocky outcrop, or on a water-wind sculpted mattress along that cleft in the rock. Fourteen’s naked skin would be pumiced-punished for being caught snooping in the man’s business. Fuck the life out of me, fuck the life into me. Sometimes you just need to be taken.

Fourteen’s heart is finely tuned-tender, more to it than a hard-fuck fantasy. Still, thoughts of being splayed open on a cold rock stir his blood.  Some man-stick pounding out the war drum percussion on an Arizona bolder. Wispy-weed-wiry scraping skin on cold Arizona rock while Faulkner digs for paydirt, that stirs the blood. Maybe, brother Asher Montreal taking a vengeful turn, an erotic possibility.

Also possible to get the gay crap kicked out of him by the pair of them. Steel toes sinking into his solar plexus harder than a cock up his ass. There is always that. Life is a caution. Life is an education. Shane would suckle on those breasts, kiss those open lips. Shane’s hips thrusting, thrusting, John again, Scott cuffing him, being taken, taking Keon.These errant lust-thoughts pass the time with Inez. The daydreams keep him rock hard, ready to cum. Inez is speaking to him in tongues.

Jeremy Gates is passing-competitive. He likes to bowl a strike. If it is worth doing, do it well, Remy Gates reminds her son. Fourteen can cook a mean dish now. He will cook this hetero-dish. Fourteen pulls out because he needs to cum badly. Inez looks sloe-eyed at him. She lets him roll her over with a pillow at her hips. Soft mounds, wrong shaped, but inviting. Fourteen runs stiff fingers up her back, down to her hips. Plank-hard, Fourteen takes her from behind. Tense muscles meet voluptuous cushion. The liquid heat so different than his own tight flesh. He pauses on the sensation.

“Oh God,” Fourteen finally breaks his silence. His hips need to move again. Put a candy in your mouth, try just to suck it. You cannot. You have to bite down, nibble, crunch, take it fast. Levi taught Fourteen to suck slowly, control himself. He is winsome-weedy on a woman, and his hips are going to move. It is all there in the burning prick and drenched manhood. Inez mingles with his own sweat, everything impregnated with the clay-straw-paint odour of the Pueblo. “Oh fuck.”

This fresh callousness turns Inez on. Her own fingers are doing his work. She likes this sudden selfishness. It conjures other partners. Face down on the bed, she is not the black widow consuming her mate. Sometimes you just need to be taken. Cordell offered that promise in San Diego and she ran from that. Not ready, too smart, Inez knows. So she came back to the high desert somewhere on or off the Havasupai Indian Reserve. Fourteen’s man-hands have found her shoulders. The boy won’t talk during sex. Words just punch out in his tremulous-alto-rasp like precum cock-spasms. She wants the latex off. She wants to feel the boy’s bare cock, the flood coating them both when he cums. “Harder,” she murmurs.

Fourteen does not understand that. He only understands that he is going to cum soon, and (not quite mindlessly enough) he is going to cum badly. Fourteen is past partner etiquette. Fourteen’s primal-lizard-brain now, is narrowed down to this tube of flesh shrink wrapped in ribbed latex. Fourteen’s now is aNirvana oneness with his erection. Anticipate the body-electric disgorgement flowing past the tip of your cock.

The mind goes where it wants-needs to go. Fourteen should throw himself at Samuel Faulkner, make a pass at Asher Montreal. Suck Roman’s dick below the fat paunch. Find some man to use him, distract him better than Inez Montreal. Walk into the desert to fuck a tree. I’m surprised you didn’t pick Dan Gordon, Levi echoes teasingly. “I’m going to be twelve on March 3rd,” Keon shyly mentions.

Fourteen’s pelvis is slamming into Inez’ soft behind. He is between her thighs, arms clutching her shoulders. The ebony Keon is here in the room with him. He is present now, not across the trodden way, snuggled Jeremy Gates innocent in his before safe bed. Fourteen groans deep in Inez. He is one battered-Bronco short of a terrible after impulse with the young boy. One Luxor Winnebago away from seducing Eleven (almost twelve).

Inez and Fourteen climax, maybe not with each other. You don’t always get what you want… Fourteen needs more. He is not ready to let go. Inez will kick him out soon enough, but for now she is in the same afterglow. Inez keeps him hard, although the semen-soaked condom slips dangerous on his satiated cock. Fourteen reeks of sex and the rank-sweat fury for more. He knows he will need to clean himself before he joins Keon in the bed. Can’t go back yet, he knows. The first orgasm came and went in the heat of their joined bodies. If he keeps this steady stroke, and Inez’ sharp fingernails scraping at his balls suggest her invitation, he can cum again.

Thick dirt walls coil around them. On the other side of the wall, Roman and Angela Montreal might sleep untroubled by the animal noise of their coupling. Fourteen is past worrying. Live and let live, is the Pueblo way. He can cum again. He will. He can drain himself into this body, but it will just end badly, once again. He might have kept his mind on svelte Fiona. Sweet-kissable Cameron might do the trick. So many joyful memories of Levi to keep his cock hard.

Inez is tired of the pose. She dislodges Fourteen, twists and pulls him down. She takes his willing cock back inside her. First time with young Cordell, first time with Asher. Rock, paper, scissors: paper covers rock. Inez consumes Kay. Rides the shaft. Kay rises up beneath her, boy-muscles tensing like a second erection. He scrapes her back with blunted nails, ending on her hips. He falls back, pinned at the hips. She starts choking him again. Just the light pressure, a little more masterly, Inez likes this. She likes the boy’s submissive attitude. She likes control. 

Fourteen gives himself over to a funny daydream, where Levi sips a glass of wine with enigmatic Tuan by his side. They offer sage advice to supine Fourteen and rampant Cameron riding his hips. Some French kissing as his captured cock slips on the once-used condom: how to include young Keon, dusky-hard young cock straining just above his eyes. It is a gentle, erotic dream of three boys entwined. He knows Keon’s skin, Keon’s innocent eleven-to-twelve maleness too well. I’m surprised you didn’t pick Dan Gordon, Levi reminds Fourteen from his place beside Nguyen Huu Tuan.  

The mind goes where it needs to go. The ebony boy is there now, young curves and furnace heat, snuggled innocent like a Jeremy Gates in his bike-ride-home before. The fingers at his neck leave Fourteen head-heavy. He is lips-part voiceless when his second cum lubricates the condom right off his cock. Inez claws eight grooves down his convulsing chest.

She begins pleasuring herself. Nails scrape the root of the boy’s cock. If she reaches around, milks the aching scrotum, hooks a finger in the boy’s anus, she can keep him going. Just a boy, they cum so quick. The Pueblo nights are long and tomorrow will just be more of the same. Cordell was Cordell, even at thirteen. Kay and Asher are easy to manipulate, so transparent. Inez arches her back, her muscles keep Kay captive-hard. Fingers test his thickness as she strokes herself. She puts the spur to her pony.

The finger inching down Fourteen’s drenched perineum collects fluids as it goes. Fourteen has to let his thighs part, lifts his body onto his elbows, waits for the finger to remind him who he really is. Eyes close to where the mind needs to go. She has him hooked, undulating across his narrow hips. The finger in his ass turns Inez into a seductive bull rider coaxing him slow motion to stretch eight seconds to an hour. Keep the coupling going because it is the Pueblo and there is nothing else for it.

Kay wants out, everyone knows it. Inez knows the young boy will leave like Cordell did. Leave her for the city. Leave her like Marco did. Leave her like Asher will. San Diego was not for her, not even when Cordell begged her to stay. Kay wants out and Inez wants something out of Kay, the Morman, Fourteen. He is thrusting up into her like he has not cum twice already. She feels the muscles on her finger, watches the boy’s body slaved to the cock she wrapped herself around. Papa says he is going nowhere, has to stay. Just a runaway the desert wind blew into our Pueblo like Samuel Faulkner. She digs the spur deeper into Kay’s flesh just to watch him flinch. His face contorts interestingly-enchantingly. He would take two fingers if she had a mind. She tries it.

Fourteen needs this. He needs the third cum. His body gifts them to him so easily. This one hurts. The painful fingers come free as Inez rewards herself for his efforts. He will fade now. He is spent. It ends deliciously badly, but Fourteen can face the warmth of Keon in the boy’s shed-bedroom. Fourteen needs to clean himself. Third time’s the charm. It is not really, Levi taught him that in the Luxor Winnebago.