Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 19:05:12 -0800
From: Michael Moran <MICHAELM6@comcast.net>
Subject: An Idol of Millions

  The following is a work of fiction involving consensual sex between two
men. If you are under age or such material is illegal where you live,
please do not continue. If you don't wish to read about Gay male sex, stop
now.

  Most of the characters are products of my imagination, but some actually
existed. References to their moral character are based on non substantiated
rumors that were widely circulated (and printed) at the time. Keep in mind
that "yellow journalism" has been around for a long time. An element of
fact exists. I leave it to the reader to decide where the fantasy ends and
the truth begins.

  This story is the registered property of the author and may not be
reproduced or linked to any other site without my consent.

  The sex described in this story is not safe. Please do not think of this
as an endorsement of such practices. Take care of yourself and others.

  AN IDOL OF MILLIONS started out more than ten years ago as a one page
dream sequence in a book that I was writing. Although it fell victim to the
editing process, there were parts of it that lent themselves to further
development. What you see here is the end product of a very long writing
process.

  As is the case with all of my stories, don't expect it to unfold in the
traditional manner. Hell. It took ten years to get it this far.

  I can be reached at MICHAELM6@comcast.net. I welcome constructive
feedback. Enjoy.

  AN IDOL OF MILLIONS
  By
  MICHAEL MORAN

  AN INTRODUCTION

  Once upon a time, in a once magical place called Hollywood, there lived a
young man by the name of Archille Williams. He was a movie star, but not
just your average run of the mill movie star. He was a big-time, name above
the title movie star who burst on the scene right around the time that
Valentino's reign as the undisputed king of the silver screen was coming to
a tragic and untimely end.

  To dismiss Archille as being merely handsome was to commit the sin of
understatement. His looks, so dark, exotic and mysterious, were legendary:
the kind that could send even a seasoned writer like Robert Benchley
scrambling for just the right glowing adjective or complimentary turn of a
phrase to describe them.



  It was at the Monmarte Cafe on Hollywood Blvd that a group of admirers
asked Benchley, who was no stranger to neither the written, nor the spoken,
word to comment on the rising young star. He thought about it for a minute
and then shook his head in dismay.

  "That's a tough one," he answered and took a swallow from his
martini. "I've always prided myself on being able to describe any man in
three words. You want a description of Archille Williams? Very well; he
defies description."

  Many people laughed. A few just nodded but not a single person; male or
female, within earshot asked him to elaborate. They all knew exactly what
he meant.

  Perhaps his flawless olive complexion first caught your attention. It
could have been his dark hypnotic eyes that made you go weak in the knees
or the soft mass of curls covering his head like a crown of gleaming black
rings of obsidian that captured your fancy. It didn't matter because the
end result was always the same. You fell in love with Archille Williams the
moment you saw him.

  Like so many others of his time, he believed in living his life to the
fullest. Everything had to be done to the extreme or it wasn't worth
doing. Things happened to Archille in a big way. Standards of beauty change
and, in hindsight, some might even balk at the use of the word legendary
when describing Archille but there was no denying that his storied life was
the stuff from which legends were born.

  One such story relates the time when he brought a well-known cowboy star
to his knees: literally. The cowboy's real name was William Holman but
millions of loyal fans knew him as Panhandle Pete the Desert Defender.
Unlike your typical back lot buckaroo, he actually knew his way around a
horse.

  William grew up on a ranch in Texas and could rope, ride and brand with
the best of them. He could also take a sock in the jaw without swallowing
his chaw or blinking an eye. It was a talent frequently put to the test by
his long suffering, exasperated wife. She had grown tired of his wanton
ways early in the marriage and often expressed her anger with a wicked left
hook.

  Along with being ostensibly the most rabidly heterosexual man in town,
Panhandle Pete had an insatiable appetite for flappers, floozies with big
knockers and bathtub gin: in that order. That was why it came as such a
shock when he cornered the young Archille Williams at a Fourth of July
party in 1926.

 "What could he have been thinking?" his friends asked while his defenders
claimed that he'd been so plowed that he had "accidentally" shoved him into
that hall closet.

  His legendary appendage, the real reason why he was called Panhandle
Pete, just "happened" to work its way out of his pants in the struggle to
get to his feet.

  "Hell," commented one doubter after the story began to make the
rounds. "My Johnson must fall out twice, maybe three, times a day. Of
course my secretary is usually there to catch it."

  Why Pete was on his knees begging a dumbfounded Archille for the honor of
sucking his cock was never explained.

  "C'mon amigo," he was heard to say from between the folds of the host's
winter wardrobe. "Haul out that great big pinga of your'n and let ol' Pete
show ya how a real man sucks a cock."

  It was at the point when Pete's legendary wife blundered on to the scene
that details became sketchy. To this day what she said, what Pete said and
what, if he said anything at all, Archille said in his own defense remains
a mystery.

  Pete and his wife left: he on horseback and she in her beloved
Duesenberg. They left without saying goodbye and without coming to
blows. While the party was considered an unqualified success, it didn't
take a genius to figure out that the real Fourth of July fireworks would
take place once they got home to their gated Italianate-Neo-Tudor-Deco
ranch house in Beverly Hills.

  Any time the name of Archille Williams comes up, the above said incident
is dragged out as an example of how easily he attracted people. Females of
all ages found him irresistible. Little boys idolized him and wanted to be
him when they grew up. Even men like "old Pete" who regarded their
sexuality as inalienable as their right to bear arms fell like pick-up
sticks before him.

  On the silver screen, he seldom played the bad guy. When he did
audiences, male and female cheered for him. He could be a bounder and a cad
of the worse kind but let him flash his million-watt smile or bat his long
eye lashes before the fade out and they would give, and forgive, him
everything.

  Yes, Archille had it all, yet as charming and beautiful as he was he had
two significant faults that were hard to overlook. One was spending money
as fast as he could make it. So excessive was his spending that his pal
Doug Fairbanks, who really wasn't one to be giving advice on spending, once
took him aside with a stern warning.

  "See here, Willie," Doug said because Doug always called him Willie
whenever they were talking man to man. "You'd better wise up and start
saving for a rainy day or you'll be the best looking bum on Hollywood
Boulevard. This golden life won't last forever."

  Doug's concern so touched the young star that he had a solid gold
cigarette case, with matching lighter, delivered to Picfair the next
day. He didn't have to follow Doug's sage advice to appreciate the motive
behind the admonition.

  The other, more serious, character flaw was harder to ignore because it
involved other people. His habit of losing interest the moment something
started to come too easily had gained him a reputation in certain circles
as a trifler. When he first came to Hollywood it affected only his personal
relationships as he bounced from bed to bed, leaving a trail of heartbroken
and disappointed lovers each of whom had assumed he'd be "the one" to land
Archille.

  Then one day the magic began to fade. The flaw that had reduced his
personal life a shambles began to show in his performances. He wasn't
connecting with his characters and the spark began to fade.

  The green leaves of Archille William's spring were turning brown around
the edges. Given the astronomical salary he was pulling down every week, it
was only natural that someone took notice and reacted: strongly. This
brings us to the next part of the story.

  PART 1

  Alfredo Chabez yawned and stretched as he awoke from his nap refreshed
and ready for the long night ahead. He swung his long muscular legs over
the side of the bed, pulled a blanket across his broad shoulders and
sauntered to the window of his Montecello penthouse.

  Raindrops the size of 40-carat diamonds pelted the thick plate glass
window as he looked down at the rain slicked street. A party of early
revelers dashed from the safety of the portico to their waiting car: a
mammoth, outrageously pricey Duesenberg J.

  A faint smile lifted the corners of his full sensuous mouth.

  "Can't say you weren't warned," he wanted to call out through the heavy
plate glass.

  He shivered and pulled the blanket tighter as the tumult of swampy satin
brocade and waterlogged tuxedos struggled to keep their umbrellas from
turning inside out in the gusting wind. For some reason he found it amusing
to see their carefully cultivated veneer of sophistication blowing askew
while they noisily clamored into the sumptuous leather upholstered
interior.

  Teak paneled doors slammed in pantomime against the elements and the
long, sleek behemoth that had set its proud owner back a cool twenty-five
grand merged into the eastbound traffic along Franklin Avenue. Archille
wondered how many times that the same little drama was playing out as the
decade came to a wet end.

  "People never learn," he sighed as he turned his attention toward the
churning black sky.

  It was a slow moving winter storm that descended on the City of Angels:
larger, wetter and decidedly noisier than expected. It had been working its
way down the coast for the last few days, wreaking havoc wherever it
stopped. It clobbered Frisco so badly that a big premiere at the Fox
Theater had to be cancelled and the damage toll from its pass over Santa
Barbara was estimated to be almost ten million. Naturally, people were
taken by surprise when it hit the Los Angeles Basin in time to see in the
New Year.

  Archille had paid close attention to its arrival since the first bank of
cumulonimbus clouds appeared early that afternoon. Several times, over the
course of the day, he'd put his script aside and step on to the awning
covered patio overlooking Hollywood. Each time a few more clouds had moved
in and the sky was a little more crowded: a little darker.

  By four that afternoon the sun washed azure blue sky that everyone moved
to California for had turned the color of wet concrete. It was just after
six when far to the south, beyond the Baldwin Hills, the first knife of
blue-white lightning sliced across the sky.

  A bone jarring clap of thunder, as loud as cannon fire, rattled the
Steuben crystal cats on the Bauhaus table. It was followed by two more, and
two more after that, until it seemed as if the walls would shake apart and
fall into a pile of concrete rubble.

  He thought of his parents little farm on the outskirts of the city. No
doubt his father was trying to herd the animals into the barn: yelling and
cursing as each explosion of light sent them all running in a blind panic
again.

  While his sister and brother cowered under the bed, his mother would be
standing at the back door laughing with childlike glee each time her
husband slipped in the mud. She'd be keeping track of each blasphemous word
and oath. Then she'd spend the better part New Year's Eve on her knees
praying for his immortal soul.

  "Sorry I can't be there to help Papa," he said quietly, then added "Like
hell I am."

  He loved his father but the days of Alfredo Chabez chasing barnyard
animals in the pouring rain were behind him. Now it was Archille Williams,
and not Alfredo Chabez, who turned his back to the wind and lightning. The
studio publicity department had waged a mighty battle to vanquish Alfredo
to the Island of Lost Identities.

  Archille told himself that it was just a matter of time until Alfredo was
gone forever. Perhaps that was true, but he wasn't going without a
fight. Why didn't the man he used to be didn't just stay where he belonged:
safely and respectably in the past? What was it that made him show up at
the door in the middle of the night with huge bundles of the past lashed to
his back?

  What made him enter without being invited and unceremoniously deposit his
burden in a big pile in the middle of the room? What drove him to stretch
out on the black leather sofa and clean his dirty broken finger nails while
Archille sorted through old memories?

 "Go away Alfredo," he'd mutter. "Stay out of my dreams. Don't make me kill
you."

  Alfredo had been there that evening while Archille slept and left a
souvenir: the memory of a ticket stub from Grauman's Million Dollar Theater
dated February 18, 1918.

  Archille's hand lingered above the light switch. He recalled the magical
day when he and his two best friends, Ramon Castro and Vivian White-Eagle,
hitched a ride in to town on old Mister Chang's jitney. Each of them had
just enough money for a matinee balcony seat in the brand new theater.

  Poor Alfredo. The moment the crimson and cream colored curtain parted his
days were numbered. By the time William S. Hart rode off into the sunset
and the lights came up he knew that he wanted to be a star and would do
anything to achieve that goal.

  All he could talk about on the long ride home was how some day he'd be up
on that screen. Maybe he wouldn't be as big as Charlie Chaplin, but he'd be
sure to leave the likes of Creighton Hale and Elmo Lincoln in the dust.

  "Okay. Everybody clear out," Archille announced as his hand completed its
upward swipe across the face of the light switch. "The biggest damned star
in the universe has to shit, shower and shave."

  He dropped the vicuna blanket to the floor and for a moment stood, naked
and half-blind, at the threshold of the blue and green tiled room. He'd
come a long way since the days of taking a bath behind the barn.

  Archille emerged from the shower and dried himself before the gleaming
full length mirror. Droplets of water clung to his long thick eyelashes as
he stopped to admire his reflection. While they no longer existed in his
studio biography, his childhood years spent working in the fields had paid
off in spades.

  The hot summers spent guiding a plow through the sandy loam had given him
big muscular arms that women craved to enfold them. Pitching hay under the
autumn sun left him with the sculpted chest that was the envy of all the
men at the Hollywood Athletic Club.

  He turned and glanced approvingly over his right shoulder and liked what
he saw. Twelve years of walking five miles a day to and from the tiny one
room school on the outskirts of Inglewood had blessed him with a small,
firmly rounded butt worthy of a god.

  Not to be forgotten was the face that made millions of hearts
flutter. His mother, and her insistence that he always wear a wide brimmed
hat, could take credit for his smooth unlined complexion.

  "You'll look like a sun dried tomato by the time you're twenty," she'd
say whenever he started out the door.

  While protest was futile, he had only to look at his father to know she
was right. His father, who was not yet fifty, had a face like an old
leather boot.

  Now it was all paying off: the years in the fields wearing his
grandfather's old Stetson hat, the walking to and from school when all of
his friends rode horses. They'd all come together as if by magic to produce
this man in the mirror: this man of exceptional beauty and
refinement. Archille was a photographer's dream: an object of lust and
desire who couldn't take a bad picture if his life depended on it.

  His eyes traveled downward to his growing erection and he liked what he
saw. He could thank his father for that as well. The Chabez men tended to
be on the large side.

  "Not now," he whispered to his now fully erect penis. "You're going to
need all of your strength for later," he added.

  He thought of how nice a good jack off would have been. Back in the old
days, before sex partners were as plentiful as strawberries in spring, he'd
have made time for "Big Al".

  Archille gave his growing dick a couple of languid strokes for old time's
sake. He watched intently, legs spread, as a single drop of clear seminal
fluid appeared on its perfect mushroom shaped tip. It lingered for an
instant and fell to the floor in a glistening strand that stretched and
stretched and finally broke.

  Archille took a deep breath, shuddered and proceeded to the bedroom where
he would dress with the precision of a doctor preparing for surgery. First
came the socks: the foundation upon which everything else was to be
built. At fifty dollars a pair, they cost more per running foot than the
acres of poured concrete and steel that kept his penthouse from crashing to
the ground.

  Next came the underwear. He disliked underwear, routinely dismissing it
as being too restrictive. Tonight was anything but routine. He chose a pair
of white Chinese silk boxers from a drawer filled with the despised
garments.

  He'd taken inventory once and figured that, at sixty five dollars a pair,
they represented enough money to feed 7, 767 families, at $2.39 per
household, for a week. A head for figures and a social conscience that not
many knew existed, kept him from going on. He didn't have to like them to
appreciate how good it felt as the smooth fabric glided up his muscular
legs and across the pink head of his not quite flaccid penis.

  Nearly half an hour went by before he was dressed and ready to go. His
black tailcoat and trousers were pressed to perfection. The pique waistcoat
and wing-collared shirt were as blindingly white as the bow
tie. Everything, from his recently cut hair to the gleam on his shoes, was
perfect with not a spot or fray or pimple to be found. It had to be that
way.

  Archille, the most popular, adored and admired star in Hollywood slid the
engraved invitation into the pocket of a black cashmere Chesterfield coat
and pocketed a fully stocked money clip. He carefully locked the door to
his obscenely expensive castle and started for the garage. It was there
that his steed, a $20,000 custom built Peerless Salon-Sedan, awaited.

  He'd no sooner pushed the call button than the chrome and wood elevator
car arrived with a quiet rush of air. Doors inlayed with rare woods slid
open on well lubricated tracks and Archille stepped inside. He faced the
front, acknowledging the operator only when he caught the man staring at
his perfect reflection.

  "Happy New Year Robert," Archille said as he adjusted his tie in the
chrome panel.

  "The same to you, Mister Williams. You sure look dapper tonight."

  Archille regretted having acknowledged him. He wondered why people always
took a simple greeting as an invitation to talk.

  "Thanks," he said hoping the conversation would end there.

  "Big party, huh?" the elevator operator asked as the car glided to a
stop.

  Three people got on before Archille could answer. As if his celebrity
entitled him to more floor space, they all crowded to one side and watched
the indicator as it sped toward the numeral 5.

  The youngest of the three, a fresh faced kid of about eighteen or
nineteen, with blue eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of
his nose, watched Archille with a sidelong glance. Their eyes met and the
boy smiled shyly and quickly looked away.



  The doors opened to the sounds of a party raging down the hall.

  "Watch your step please," the operator intoned as casually as if he was
calling the house wares floor at Macy's.

  The three got off without a word. The boy looked back at the very last
moment before they closed again.

  "Must be a big party you're going to, huh Mister Williams?" Robert asked
again once the two men were alone and the car had continued its descent.

  "Not too big I hope," Archille replied while thinking "Please don't tell
me how much you liked my last film."

  "I've...I've been meaning to tell you how much I appreciated your last
film," he stammered as if looking for something to say.

  He didn't sound very convincing and didn't elaborate. Archille noticed
that he didn't say he liked it and didn't press the subject. His last two
films had been almost identical: the reviews lukewarm.

  "Thanks," he said as the elevator came to a stop. "It was a piece of
crap," he added to himself.

  The studio brass wouldn't have approved. They frowned on its actors
speaking ill of their own films.

  A gust of cool damp air lifted the hem of Archille's coat as the doors
opened. He stepped into the elevator lobby and reached for his keys.

  "That's for me,' Robert said cheerfully as the call bell sounded. "You
have yourself a good one, Mister..."

  The doors slid shut. Archille was alone before Robert could finish.

  "The same to you Robert," he replied anyway.

  The heavy rain had little effect on the amount of traffic and the number
of people out for a good time. It was the darkness before the dawn of what
promised to be a gloomy new decade. The recent events on Wall Street and a
sense of impending doom seemed to bring them out in droves for one last
hurrah.

  Archille's long fingers tapped a scattershot rhythm on the steering
wheel. He waited patiently at the end of the driveway for a break in the
steady flow of cars. He glanced at the dashboard clock. It was ten fifteen:
more than enough time. Without the usual coterie of love sick fans pressing
themselves against his car, he could spring forth at the first sign of a
break in the traffic along the normally quiet Avenue.

  Five minutes passed before a convenient fender bender at the intersection
of Las Palmas and Franklin brought east bound traffic to a halt. He put his
foot on the clutch and threw the transmission into gear. The giant car
grunted in response and lumbered out on to the rain slicked street for the
short drive from the Montecito to Hollywood and Vine.

  "Wall Street continues its long torturous climb back amid rumors that the
damages inflicted by the October plunge are more far reaching than
previously thought. Not even J.P. Morgan could have foreseen the..." Click.

  Archille switched off the radio. He hummed a few bars of a tune he'd
heard somewhere to break the silence.

  It was ten thirty three when he pulled up to the curb, put the car into
neutral and set the parking brake. The doorman; an aspiring actor with
crossed eyes and gray teeth was standing in the street with a big umbrella
and a lopsided smile.

  "Happy...Happy New Year Mister Williams," he gushed.

  Archille smiled and handed him the keys once they'd reached the safety of
the copper dome awning.

  "Thanks. How's the turnout? Like last year?"

  "More than that," the attendant yelled over a sudden burst of intense
rain pounding on the metal shelter. "I guess the word's gotten out that
this is the place to be. You gonna be in there for the rest of the evening,
Mister Williams?"

  Archille averted his face as a pair of well dressed young men approached
the entrance. They walked by without recognizing him. Once they'd gone he
gazed almost longingly at the rain soaked street and the freedom it held.

  "Only for as long as it takes," he replied, his voice just barely above a
whisper.

  Archille pushed through the brushed steel door. He looked across the
crowded room and shook his head.

  "Has it really been a year since the last one?" he wondered aloud.

  The memory of another New Years Eve nudged its way into his thoughts like
a rude party guest trying to get to the open bar. He closed his eyes and
tried to visualize the last one. It wasn't difficult.

  If, as the doorman suggested, the crowd was bigger this year it still
looked the same. The beaded gowns were cut a little lower in front and
stretched a little tighter in back but it was the same room with the same
wool tuxes. The same diamonds glittered under the same gently swirling
lights and flickering candles.

  As always, Clara Bow and her husband, Rex, were sitting at their special
table on the edge of the dance floor. She recognized him right away and
waved him over.

  Archille left the safety of the inner vestibule and started toward them,
sensing that anxious eyes were watching him. Clara smiled tentatively and
warily glanced at the revelers.

  "Two years in a row? Someone's really got it in for you."

  "You think so?" he asked sarcastically. "Look at the invitation,"
Archille muttered pointing to the off color drawing inside the gilt edge
cover. "They outdid themselves this year, don't you think?"

  Rex leaned across the table, studied the cartoon depiction of what was
without a doubt Archille in a lewd homosexual act and frowned.

 "I've gotta say I don't much approve of the humor," he muttered shaking
his head disapprovingly. "If it's a joke I ain't laughin'."

  "That's real cute," Clara muttered.

  Clara handed the invitation back across the table. Archille noticed a
slight tremble in her hand.

"You're not expected to laugh," Archille answered flatly. "It's no joke,
Rex. Look out there."

  All three turned their eyes toward the crowded dance floor as the
orchestra played a medley of` "Do Do Do What Ya Done Done Done Before" and
You Do Something To Me".

  For a split second, it seemed as if the eyes of just about every man in
the room were on Archille: smiling knowingly at what was supposed to be a
secret.

  "Hey! Wait just a minute. Who's da joik leading da band?" Clara demanded
sounding, as Rex aptly described it, like she'd just fallen off da foist
ice truck outta da Bronx by way of Brooklyn. "I want his butt outta here,"
she said through gritted teeth.

  Knowing how protective she was of people she cared about, her husband
placed a restraining hand on her shoulder.

  "Don't get sore, honey. It was just a bad choice of music. I'm sure he
didn't mean nothin'," Rex whispered.

  "Like hell he didn't," she declared as she got to her feet. "I'm gonna
give dat palooka a piece-a my mind."

  "He's right," Archille added. "They're both popular songs. He couldn't
possibly know. Anyway, where would you get a replacement at this hour?

  The little redhead, who was known as much for the size of her heart as
she was for her temper and short fuse, began to calm down. Clara squinted
at the stage.

  "Next year I wanna see a list before dey set foot on dat stage,
Unnerstand? A list damn it and... and no friggin' requests," she fumed at
the slight against her friend. "Now if you two gents will excuse me, I
gotta hit da little goil's room while I can," she announced.

  Clara bulldozed a path through the milling crowd. Archille couldn't shake
the feeling that there'd be a new orchestra next New Year's Eve. Rex slid a
coffee cup filled almost to the top with gin across the table.

  "Here. Drink this. You're gonna need it."

  Archille took a long swallow and savored the taste even as it burned his
throat. For what they called "bathtub hooch" it wasn't half bad. He began
to relax and even spoke to a couple of people he recognized from the
studio.

  "Mind if I get something off my chest?" Rex asked, dragging his chair
closer.

  "If it isn't too personal," Archille replied warily.

  "I'm gonna say it anyway. You're a damned good looking guy. Next to
Clara, you're about the best looking star in Hollywood...maybe the world. "

  "Thanks Rex, but you're not my type and I don't fuck with friend's
husbands."

  Rex ignored the joke and continued. He was determined to have his say.

  "Why do you let them do this to you?"

  "My looks have nothing to do with it."

  "But you got talent, fer God's sake. You don't need to subject yourself
to... to that."

  Archille could see where the conversation was headed, but it was too
late.

  "It's not about being able to act either," Archille explained patiently.

  "Now you've lost me. It has to be one or the other."

  "Two words: John... Gilbert."

  "Huh? What about him?" Rex asked scratching his head.

  "A few years ago he was the biggest thing in Hollywood...next to
Valentino. Now he's as good as finished."

  "Now you're shittin' me. There's nothin' wrong with his career."


  "Not if you consider dead in the water as nothing wrong. The fact remains
that John stayed at the top until he turned them down flat. Some bad
reviews and a couple of stinkers you couldn't get people to see if you
threatened their mothers, and it was adios to all of that. All they had to
do was to keep the rumors about his having a squeaky voice alive and his
career was over. There are no second chances in this business and once it's
gone, it's gone forever. Ask Clara if you don't believe me. Ask her how
many of her leading men have fallen from grace since she started in the
business."

  "I don't need to," Rex replied softly.

  Rex sensed that a reference to his wife's foundering career was just
around the bend. He appreciated the fact that Archille had avoided
mentioning it until now.

  "I just don't understand how a guy can let himself be... I mean just the
thought of it..."

  Archille signaled for the waiter to bring two more cups. If he listened
to Rex for much longer, he'd need them both.

  "Listen, Rex. It isn't about "letting" anyone do anything I consider
being morally repugnant. I'd be doing the same thing if I were back on my
father's farm picking berries. I agreed to their terms."

  "Dammit. You're sayin' blackmail's okay. We ain't talkin about getting
sucked off by one of yer daddy's farmhands."

  Seeing an opportunity to use the devoutly heterosexual former cowboy
star's outrage as a way of shutting him up, Archille's enormous brown eyes
flashed as he leaned across the table.

  "What do you know about getting your tool worked over by a farmhand,
Rex?"

  "Huh? Oh hell. I don't mean I know from personal experience, but it would
seem like havin' a total stranger swingin' on yer pecker would be
like... Shit! I'm drunk. I don't know what the hell I'm talkin' about."

  "That's right: you don't," Archille snapped. "So keep your fucking
sermonizing to yourself."

  Realizing how harsh his reply had been, he was about to add a few
softening words of thanks for his concern when he saw Clara making her way
through the crowd. He signaled for another round.

  "So, what did I miss?" she asked brightly.

  She'd seemingly forgotten the band leader. The problem with Clara was
that you could never be sure.

  "Nothing worth mentioning," Archille said with a shrug.

  Rex drained his cup and signaled for another. He wanted to be drunk.

  "Yeah. Gettin' gang banged like a two dollar whore is nothin' worth
mentioning."

  Clara patted her husband's knee. She did that a lot.

  "You're so out of touch Rexie. The going rate for a gang fuck is ten. I
should know."

  Rex jerked his knee away and glared at his wife.

  "That was all a bald face lie. It never happened!"

  "So that's it. Yer damned right it didn't. I refused the offer and the
next thing you know I'm bein' accused of taking on the entire USC football
team. My mistake was thinkin' I could get around them with my looks and my
sparklin' poisonality. Archille has to go along with this. One word
from...from them and his penthouse apartment and fancy car will both be a
thing of da past."

  "Don't forget the sixty five dollar underwear," Archille added.

  He wasn't sure whether or not he'd meant it jokingly. The trappings of
success were hard to ignore.

  Clara nervously rearranged the lamp and the ash tray. She tended to get
uneasy when the subject came up. Some day she would have to tell Rex the
real reason why the "It" Cafe' was so wildly successful from the
start. While she was at it, maybe she'd tell him why "they" never had to
pay for the use of the club's vast storeroom on these "special occasions".

  Archille leaned back in his chair and stared at the mirrored ceiling...at
a reflection that was as distorted as the conversations swirling around
him. He wondered, as he listened to the innumerable exchanges that he
imagined to be, in one way or another, about him. He wondered if he'd been
as horrified as Rex was when it was first proposed.

  At the time, he'd been in movies for only two years. Flush with success
and his rising popularity, he was no longer just another pretty face in a
town where pretty faces were as common as butterflies in the bean fields on
the eastern edge of Hollywood. He was the man of the hour, touted as the
successor to the throne of Ramon Navarro: as if Ramon was on the way
out. The critics loved him... the public adored him... and life at the top of
the world was good.

  Then came the one review that opened the door to Clara's back room. While
praising the film and its stars, the critic found parts of Archille's
performance to be just slightly distant.

  It was a point that the reviewer went to great lengths to acknowledge had
in no way detracted from the film or from Archille's overall contribution
to its success. Then, as if reluctant to burn his bridges prematurely, he
added that it had been a difficult part to play and that the appraisal was
"based on...blah-blah-blah" as if anyone with a brain didn't already know
that.

  It was the word "distant" that "they" used in their pitch.

  "That's how it begins," the tallest one said. "Things start to heat up
the next time you fall and the criticism gets to be less constructive in
its nature...more personal...until it becomes downright vindictive. If you
think that's bad, just wait. It's like Mister Jolson says; you ain't seen
nothin' yet. Critics are like sheep with typewriters; they're easily led."

  The middle sized man stepped forward. He cleared his throat as if he
wasn't used to talking.

  "Once someone like Walter Winchell starts taking pot shots at you," he
began. "Denouncing you as just another hack actor will make even your most
ardent supporters fall in line. Assuming you've been foolish enough to turn
us down, that's when we get to work. Once we do, there's nothing on God's
green earth that will save what's left of your career. The rumors will have
started. Whether it's Pedophilia, Necrophilia, or just a shady aspect of an
alleged sordid past, the stories will be repeated often enough until even
the big wigs in the head office can't ignore them. You'll be an overnight
has been doing one reel donkey films just to pay the rent on your one room
hovel."

  Archille was horrified and repulsed at the thought. He ordered them out
of his house...never to darken his door again...or something along those
lines.

  "I won't give my life over to such depravity" he announced with a line
taken from a melodrama he'd done earlier that year. "It's just one review,"
he added as he escorted them to the door "and I have nothing to hide."

  "Of course you don't, Mister Chabez... I mean Williams," the slimiest
looking one said with a sneer and a raised eyebrow as he pulled on his
coat. "We'll be in touch after your next film opens."

  The strange visit was immediately consigned to the ranks of past
misdeeds, nightmares and killer rot gut hangovers that nobody in their
right mind would want to remember. By the time his next film premiered at
Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Archille was ready to face the movie going
public with a performance worthy of the world's greatest movie star.

  There were personal appearances and interviews to do. There were
elaborate studio parties to be talked about by gushing columnists and
affairs with other beautiful stars to be covered up. With so much to be
thankful for, the first reviews came as a shock to everyone: from Archille
all the way down to the head of the studio.

  With words like `apathetic', `indifferent' and `cold' were used to
describe his performance. It would have been hard not to be at least a
little shaken.

  Coincidentally a viciously worded rumor began making the rounds, thanks
largely to a sleazy local gossip columnists not known for checking out her
sources. The result was a slight drop in the opening week's West Coast
grosses: cause for alarm in a town where you were only as big as your last
picture.

  "Now you see how it works, right Mister Williams?" the oldest man asked
when the same trio appeared at his doorstep a week later. "Each time you
get a negative review, we add another stick to the fire and the overall
effects more far reaching. You'll be awash in innuendo and bile."

  "Meaning what?" Archille demanded.

  "Meaning, Mister Williams, that with surprisingly little prodding a rumor
can float harmlessly around Hollywood and still have far reaching effects
in the Bible belt. Surely you can imagine the sort of damage a well placed
item in the Kansas City Star can do. People get so darned provincial when
it comes to idle gossip about young boys and romantic leading men. Do you
think your career can take such a direct hit?"

  Archille slumped in his chair and buried his face in his hands.

  "He told me he was 18. How was I to know?"

  "Ain't it the truth? Children grow up so fast. Sometimes it's just so
darned hard to tell," the spokesman said from the far end of the room.

  "The fact remains," added the second man "that he was only 16. If the
whole episode isn't dropped...soon...the next unsubstantiated rumor will be
fatal to your career. Then it won't matter to anyone but you, his parents
if they decide to prosecute and, of course, your cellmate."

  "Prosecute? Cellmate?" Archille gasped. Then it hit him. "Oh...shit."

  "That's right: and it's going to hit the fan in a very big way. Now;
would you care to discuss our proposal?"

  "I don't have a choice, do I?"

  "If it'll help, it's not just you. You're only one of an ever increasing
number of spoiled, self indulgent "actors" who give themselves far more
credit than they deserve. You make your money by pandering to your fan's
base instincts."

  "I give them their money's worth," Archille muttered, albeit lamely. "I
give my best."

  "That's just the point," the spokesman replied sharply. "You've become a
prick tease. You're giving them absolutely nothing."

  Now they had him surrounded; there was no escape.

  "You've locked yourself in an ivory tower with a direct phone line to the
Hollywood police station," added the one to his right.

  "That woman was deranged!" Archille shouted. "She showed up at my door
with a kid she said was mine. She was a complete stranger."

  "Calm down. We know the child isn't yours but really, Mister
Williams. Wasn't calling the police on your own private phone line a bit
excessive? She was only acting out a fantasy you helped to create. Now even
that's lost to her."

  "Next time I'll drop them a card and ask that they stop by around tea
time."

  "Now, now. There's no call for getting testy."

 "Okay. How about I send her a note of apology and ten bucks?" he replied
sullenly.

  "The woman is getting the help she needs," replied the one to his
left. "We're only pointing out what should be the obvious."

  "The obvious being that I owe every one of my fans a big fat smooch and a
free ride on the roller coaster?"

 "Considering your most ardent fans are homosexuals and love struck young
women..."

  Archille sank a little farther down in his chair.

  "That's flattering," he grumbled.

  Archille wondered where they got their information. He'd be damned if he
was going to give them the satisfaction of asking.

  "It wasn't meant to be flattering," said one.

  "Nor was it an insult," added the second.

  "Everyone needs a fantasy," replied the third.

  "Why not put me in a room full of spinster school teachers? I could just
as easily do...uh...do that with a room full of women...if I had to,"
Archille insisted.

  "Sadly, you're not that good of an actor to pull off that caliber of
performance, Mister Williams."

  The comment made him wince, but in his heart he couldn't disagree. In the
excitement of being a celebrity, he'd forgotten his vow to be a great
actor. There was still a lot he had to learn.

  Archille caught his breath, held it, and let it out with a long sigh of
resignation.

  "So the idea is that for one night I'm to allow a bunch of total
strangers to get close enough to touch me..."

  "Not just touch. They can do anything they want: within reasonable limits
of course."

  "Of course," Archille replied. "I suppose you'll set these limits."

  "Yes."

  "What happens if one of them forgets the limits...or gets carried away?
What about disease? Suppose one of them has something?"

  "That won't happen. Participants will be carefully screened and there
will be someone around to keep an eye on things. We want to keep you
healthy for the rest of your fans."

  "Of course you do. And in return for doing this..."

  "In return you get to remain successful for another year."

  "Only a year? That's not much time at all," Archille replied.

  "I can name a few who wish they'd had that much time at the top."

  "But a year?" Archille persisted.

  The oldest looking of the three patted the young actor's shoulder in a
fatherly way that belied the purpose of their being there.

  "It's more than enough time to slip back into old habits. For the sake of
your sixty five dollar BVDs, see that you don't get lazy. Now, if there are
no other questions..."

  Archille tried to sound disinterested but he was becoming intrigued.

  "Just one. If you dislike me so much and think I'm so untalented, why go
to all of this trouble? If I'm as bad as you seem to think, why not just
wait for the public to get tired of me?"

  "We don't dislike you, and you have the potential for being a great actor
who can do a lot of good. We want you to succeed...beyond your wildest
dreams, but the free ride is over. The public deserves better than they're
getting from you."

  "Why should I take all of the heat?" the young actor whined. "Why am I
taking all of the heat?"

  "You're not," replied the man with hair the color of his expensively cut
suit.

  "There aren't more than two or three who have achieved their present
level of success without engaging in some degree of corporate cock
sucking. Decorum prevents us from divulging names, but I can assure you
that you're not alone in this."

  "Haven't you ever wondered why some of these studio heads aren't booted
out on their asses?" asked, presumably, the second in command. "They'd be
out digging storm drains down Hollywood Boulevard, along with some hack
directors I could name, if it wasn't for our service. Of course not all of
them do...what you'll be doing."

  Archille smiled at the thought of Louis B. Mayer standing naked in a
circle of groping hands. "God I hope not," he mumbled.

  Only one of them laughed with him as he got to his feet.

  "The penance, if you will, must be unique to the individual according to
his or her weakness. Your weakness is sex. Someone else might falter when
it comes to..."

  Archille's mind raced. He thought of Directors and studio heads that had
been on top since movies began.

  "So even if I backslide, I can still remain on top as long as I play
along once a year?" he asked hopefully.

  "No. The way we handle executives differs from the way we handle
Directors and actors such as yourself. You'll figure out the system as time
goes by."

  The man in the black overcoat raised a well manicured hand.

  "We have other calls to make. We're just a small part of a much larger
group of people who know things. In less than two years this country is
going to go into a financial tailspin. People will be out of work in record
numbers and will be turning to movies as a way of escaping their
misery. They'll need all the fantasy they can get: fantasy that you'll
provide."

  Archille stared at his feet in stunned silence: stunned at the
realization that he was considering going along with something so
bizarre. True, it could just as easily have been a sleazy well orchestrated
attempt to coerce him into a kind of prostitution but he had to admit that
there was a kind of justice at work. Weren't they all whores in one sense
of the word or another?

  Whether the benefits came in the form of a check, two bills on the side
stand or rousing success it was all a matter of semantics. It wasn't like
he was being ordered to the pillory for fifty lashes. So what if someone he
wouldn't look at twice blew him? It was a small price to pay: especially
when he thought of that handsome boy in the elevator. Paupers didn't have
neighbors like that.

  "Should we take your silence as acceptance?" asked the one who hadn't
said more than two or three words in the whole time they'd been there.

  "I'll let you know," Archille replied as he crossed his leg to hide an
unexpected boner.
 The spokesman glanced at the rise in Archille's tailored pants and smiled.

  "You'll be hearing from us. Don't get up; we'll find our own way out."

  His next film, a big budget extravaganza co-starring Eleanor Boardman and
Billy Haines, opened without the usual fanfare normally associated with an
Archille Williams film. The critics were as unanimously hostile as the
movie going public was disinterested. It sank without a ripple in a sea of
red ink while, on the East Coast, executives on five different floors of
the studio's corporate offices asked to see copies of Archille's contract.

  Bad news travels fast and once word got back to Hollywood that the men
with the money might be searching for a loophole, Archille knew they
weren't fooling around.

  Once they had made the point that the big black hole at the next corner
just might be his career, Archille dialed the number on the business card
they'd left on the table.

  His next picture opened to rave reviews: and not just for the
production. The same critics who'd panned him in his last film were falling
all over themselves to find just the right glowing adjectives to describe
his performance. It was back to business as usual.

  If two or three reviews appeared a little too fast, as if prepared weeks
in advance, no one cared. All that mattered was that he was back from the
brink of disaster. The grosses were through the roof. Most importantly, the
blind items about the underage boy and the unnamed handsome Hollywood
heartthrob stopped. Clearly, they were living up to their part of the
bargain. Archille had no choice but to live up to his.

  A big stud lighted sign dropped from the ceiling over the dance floor
hypnotically flashing `THE "IT" CAFE WELCOMES 1930'. Streamers and confetti
fell on the hysterical crowd. Archille tossed back another swallow as the
band played Auld Lang Syne.

 "Happy New Year, one and all. Time to pay the piper," Archille said
looking around the room. There were with men of every type and description:
none of them paying even the slightest bit of attention to him.

  Clara reached across the table as he got to his feet.

  "Be careful," she said patting his well manicured hand.

  Rex glared from behind his tea cup but said nothing. Archille glanced
fondly at the pretty little redhead and grinned.

  "This is my second one," he said as calmly as if he was going to a tea
dance. "I'm an old hand at it. If I don't see you later, thanks for a great
evening."

  He turned and began the long trek around the edge of the dance floor. It
made him ill at ease to think that the hundreds of eyes that had been
studiously ignoring him now seemed to watch his every move. There was no
way of knowing how many of them were watching just because he was who he
was. He wondered, as he made his way around the outer edge of the dance
floor, which of them would leave their dates and join him in the big room
at the back: the room boldly marked "NO ADMITTANCE."

  Archille stood motionless in the doorway while his eyes adjusted to the
gloom. Only two lights burned: one above the full length mirror in the far
corner, the other directly over the platform in the center of the room.

  "Maybe Rex is right," he thought to himself as he eyed the shifting
darkness. "Maybe I'm fucking crazy to be doing this."

  Archille's heart pounded wildly once he saw that he wasn't alone. The
moving shadows were those lucky individuals who'd been chosen to spend time
with the impossibly handsome young movie star.

  He was pretty sure that he counted a total of seven. From what little he
could see two were fully dressed and two were down to their underwear. The
remaining three men were completely naked. The thought that he'd know them
intimately before the night was over made his cock swell.

  He had no way of knowing how well connected they were. Presumably, one or
two had the ear of influential people whose word could break a career:
which was what brought him there in the first place. If the "hosts" were to
be believed, most of them were just everyday guys: the kind you'd see
sitting at the Owl Drugs lunch counter across the street or selling `almost
new' automobiles at Sunset and Vine. He tended to doubt their word on that
point but he never voiced it.

  "Nice to see all of you again," Archille whispered softly as he stepped
into his rightful place in the spotlight.

  He brushed his hand over his crotch and waited for the first lucky man to
approach, without fear of rejection, to fulfill his wildest dreams.

AN IDOL OF MILLIONS PART 2

  It was half way between two and three, on the first day of the New Year,
when Archille emerged from the room into the service corridor. A parade of
exhausted busboys and waiters raced by with rattling trays and overloaded
service carts. He was grateful not to be among them. Making movies was hard
work. In its own way, so was staying at the top but it was nothing like
what they had to endure day after day just to keep a roof over their
heads. Life behind the scenes in the flatlands was difficult and, from what
he could see and remember, monotonous.

  They were completely oblivious to him but that could change if any one of
them happened to look up. Archille stood patiently by while a wiry little
Mexican busboy wrestled an empty food cart down the center of the corridor
toward the kitchen.

  "That could have been me," he sighed, grateful that royalty didn't have
to pick up other people's dirty dishes.

  Archille straightened his tie and glanced down at the crusty white spray
of semen across his left leg. Hopefully it would be less noticeable in the
dim rose colored light of the It Cafe than it was in the harsh white light
of reality.

  The celebration, which had been going for hours, showed no signs of
letting up. He slipped between the curtains into the foyer outside of the
men's lounge. Everywhere he looked there were people doing their best to
forget how they celebrated the dawn of the New Year. Some laughed
hysterically as they wandered, arm in arm, around the dance floor. A few
sat quietly, cradling their empty tea cups like treasured mementos of a
time that was lost forever. Others routinely smashed theirs on the floor
the instant they were emptied.

  In the middle of it all Clara, now sans Rex, held court from her ringside
table. She hadn't seen him yet but it was just a matter of time. If there
was anyone present who'd notice the stains and comment on them it was
Clara. He turned his back to the crowd and started for the room marked
Gentlemen to find a damp towel.

  He averted his face as he pushed past an expensively dressed and sloppily
drunk young woman standing outside the door. She was calling to someone
named Charlie. Once inside, he snatched a hand towel from the sink, over
tipped the attendant and looked around for a place to sit.

  The only seat not already occupied by someone sleeping it off was at the
end of a long couch. At the other end a young man, dressed to the nines,
was curled up around a bottle of champagne. A lock of blonde hair, heavy
with Pomade, fell stiffly over his left eye.

  Archille sank into the down cushion and observed that he might be quite
handsome when sober. He returned to dabbing at his pant leg with the
intention of not giving him further thought.

  "I know what you've been doing," the inebriated man slurred.

  "Really?" Archille replied, not looking away from the spots that weren't
giving up without a fight.

  "Uh huh... You've been... drinking."

  "Have I? How can you tell?" Archille asked.

  The blonde man opened one eye and held the champagne bottle to it like a
spyglass. Enough remained inside that it spilled down his face and on to
his shirt. He seemed neither bothered nor surprised.

  "I could tell by the way you walked in."

  "I didn't realize I was staggering. I'll have to watch how I..."

  The drunk tucked the bottle between the cushion and the back of the sofa
and struggled to more of a sitting position.

  "Not everybody staggers when they're blotto. Take you for example."

  "Okay," Archille replied as he scrubbed at the remnant of a white glob
about the size of a pea. "Let's take me for an example."

  "You walk with your butt cheeks all tight and clenched together."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah... like you're about to take a dump... or like someone just shot a
big load of jizz up your ass."

  The stranger's bluntness caught Archille by surprise.

  "It sounds to me like I'm not the only one here that's had a few too
many. You should be more careful of what you accuse people of doing."

  "I'm not... accusing anybody of anything. I'm jus... making an
observation."

  Archille was aware of a moist spot growing on the seat of his pants. The
fact was he'd taken not one but seven loads up his ass that night: seven
loads delivered by seven cocks of all different sizes. It would have been
more but three had chosen to pull out at the last minute: which was the
reason why he was sitting there with a damp towel being analyzed by a
complete stranger. He got to his feet and started for the toilets.

  "That kind of... observation... is going to get you a sock in the nose,"
Archille muttered.

  "Aw, I don't say that kinda thing to just anybody... just to..."

  "Just to... what?" Archille asked defensively.

  "Just to those that I think would know what I was talking about," the
stranger replied with a bleary-eyed, yet knowing, wink.

  "What makes you think I'd know?"

  "I know who you are and everybody's heard the stories. I put one and one
together and got three. I'm not implying anything. You're a class act. I
just made a commentary on how you walk when you've had a few too many."

  He pulled the bottle from its cozy little spot and took a long swallow.

  "Want some?" he asked though not proffering the bottle.

  "I think not," Archille replied shaking his head, taking another step
toward the inner sanctum of the urinals. "I've had enough for tonight and
I've got to..."

He finished the sentence by jerking his head toward the sound of flushing.

  "See? I was right. Go on and dump. I'll prob-bly be here when you're
done."

  Archille headed for the swinging doors without comment. Once inside he
breathed a sigh of relief. The room was blissfully empty except for one
celebrant who'd passed out while standing in front of a urinal. His
forehead was pressed to the gleaming black and white ceramic tile and his
dick hung limply down the front of his trousers.

  "Too bad Clara can't see this," Archille thought to himself as he crept
past the snoring man. "She'd get a bang out of it."

  There'd been a story going around Hollywood, back when Clara's star was
just beginning to flicker and fade, about this policeman who'd supposedly
found her big red roadster parked on Sunset Boulevard with the engine
running. Upon closer examination, he discovered Clara and a male companion
passed out, naked, in the back seat. As the story went, he decided to leave
them there to sleep it off.

  Clara swore the story wasn't true and even if it was, why should it
matter? She hadn't done anything that the average schmoe on the street
wouldn't do if he had the nerve, a couple million bucks and a "fuck 'em if
they don't like it" attitude.

  Perhaps this was just the sort of predicament the strange man would
someday look upon with fondness when he was old and stiff with the gout
rather than excess. Archille left him where he stood and quietly slipped
into the stall at the far end of the room. He dropped his pants and sat
down.

  A dollop of semen emerged from his stinging rectum and splattered loudly
on the water. It was followed by three more: loudly farted out in wet rapid
succession until the water was coated with an off-white slime. The sound
made him smile and gave him an instant rock hard erection. He hawked a gob
of spit on to his hand and gently wrapped it around the part of his
equipment that wasn't scraped raw by careless teeth. In spite of all it'd
been through that night it was ready for more.

  "Yessir," he laughed bitterly. "I'm about the classiest slab of fuck
flesh in Hollywood."

  Images from the darkened room, snippets of erotic excess floated to the
surface of his memory. They floated like dollops of cum on the water.

  Some were hazy and out of focus. Others came through with crystal clarity
like the dirty movies Billy Haynes showed for special friends on special
occasions. The more he remembered, the faster his hand traveled up and down
the length of his swollen rod until he couldn't have stopped even if he
wanted to. He had to cum again.

  "Hey Davey boy," a voice called from outside the door. "You in there
Dave?"

  "Fuck 'em," Archille muttered to himself. He pulled his legs up close to
the commode, never missing a stroke even when someone who sounded like a
college boy not long out of his teens burst through the swinging doors.

  "Oh Daaa-vid... David Kander" the young man called out drunkenly. "Come
out... come out wherever you... Oh shit!"

  He broke into uproarious laughter and fell hard against the door to
Archille's stall, not realizing it was occupied.

  "Hey fellows. Come in and take a look at how the president of the USC
Class of 1930 spent his New Year's Eve."

  More young voices piled through the doors into the tile encrusted cave
until the room was filled with boisterous laughter and the smell of sweat,
cigarettes and champagne. It made Archille just that much harder.

  Each time someone entered to view the humiliating sight the stall would
tremble and groan in protest as another shoulder stumbled into it. Archille
kept flogging away: always aware of the constant threat of the door giving
way.

  Only a few minutes had gone by and Archille was already close to shooting
his load. Perhaps it was the sexual tension that filled the air as a dozen,
presumably heterosexual; men got a good long uninterrupted, guilt free look
at their friend's cock. He thought of his first time seeing another man's
penis, in circumstances that didn't dictate that he avert his gaze out of
fear of being thought of as queer.

  He wondered how many were tempted to reach out and touch it. Who among
them wondered what it would be like to hold it: perhaps even fondle it?

  "Looks like old Davey isn't just tooting his own horn when he brags about
how big he is," someone observed.

  "How much bigger do you suppose it gets?" someone else asked.

  "There's never someone from the Drama Department around when you need
one."

  "Who needs a drama major? Isn't your brother around somewhere?"

  "Listen you. Just lay off my brother. He's no fruiter. He's just never
found the right girl," someone replied defensively.

  "And he never will as long as having a big juicy dick is a job
requirement," another faintly drunken voice added.

  "Fuck you Campbell!"

  "Step into the stall and we'll discuss it," the other voice shot back.

  Up to that moment, the conversation had been convivial and laced with
jovial and good natured, though rude, commentary. An eternity passed before
someone spoke up from a distant corner of the room.

  "You guys can plan your weekend rendezvous later. Right now we have to
decide what to do about David."

  "I'm not going to touch that thing. Who knows where it's been?"

  "Well we can't just leave him like this can we? What if he falls down?"

  "Hey! Let's not spend all night in here discussing it. Since none of us
wants to be the one to put the horse back in the barn I say we put him in
one of the stalls just as he is and let him sleep it off."

  A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd as the drunken man was
half carried and half dragged across the white hexagonal tile floor. While
he was being arranged, someone banged on Archille's stall.

  "Hey you in there," he called out above the din of raucous laughter.

  Archille stopped mid flog. He didn't want to arouse suspicion.

  "Yes?" he replied still gripping his swollen dick.

  "Sorry to disturb you but you might have noticed our friend when you came
in."

  "It was hard to miss him. Is he all right?"

  "It's nothing that a good hangover won't cure. We're going to put him in
the next stall to sleep it off."

  "Why are you telling me? He's not going to die is he?"

  "I don't think so, but he'll want to when he comes to and sees what
condition he's in."

  He'd returned to his furtive stroking and was getting close again.

  "That's very civil of you, but I'm almost finished. I'll have the Maitre
d' look in on him if you'd like."

  "That won't be necessary. We just thought we should... Hey, you've been
in there a long time. Are you okay?"

  Archille's balls ached and the steady throbbing at the base of his penis
made it difficult to hold up his end of the conversation.

  "Just a little... too much celebrating I guess," he replied haltingly.

  He wished they'd just leave their friend to sleep it off.

  "Suit yourself," the stranger responded as he joined the rest of the
horny college boys filing from the room.

  It was no secret that among the invited guests were a number of young
women who could be had for the price of a room on the third floor. With the
dicey matter of what to do with their friend resolved, they could
concentrate on seeing in the first day of 1930 with a bang.

  "What if the guy's a fag?" a slightly slurred voice asked.

  "Then at least one of us will get lucky tonight."

  They were both laughing as the leather and brushed steel door swung
closed. Archille breathed a sigh of relief and adjusted his position on the
toilet seat. He spread his long muscular legs, spit in his hand and got to
work before there were any more interruptions.

  His free hand strayed downward: exploring everything it came in contact
with until his middle finger found what it was looking for.

  "Time for some ass action," he whispered as it slid easily into his
twitching cum slimed sphincter.

  Two and a half hours of almost non stop sex had loosened his rectum
enough that he was free to explore and probe it with no discomfort.

  "Oh damn... That feels so good," he moaned as he tightened his grip.

  He thought of the cocks, big and small, that had been inside of him
within the last couple of hours.

  Tiny drops of seminal fluid scattered like shooting stars as he furiously
pounded his prodigious pud.

  "Almost there," he gasped. "Just a little bit more."

  He wanted to cry out as he bent forward and aimed at the black tiled
floor. He wanted to roar with pleasure as his load erupted and sprayed
across the stall in a wide arc that began at the wall and ended at the
partition.

  His right leg shook violently as the splat of milky white semen
reverberated in the cramped little enclosure. Between the stimulation his
prostate had received over the course of the evening and the knowledge that
there was someone nearby it seemed as if he could go on forever. Even when
the ejaculations stopped, and there was no more cum to be spilled, the
waves of animal pleasure continued.

  Archille shook his head in an effort to clear it and in doing so noticed
something on the floor near his right foot. It was the outstretched arm of
the unconscious man in the next stall. He studied it carefully, fearful
that the worst had happened and the man had fallen off the toilet and
injured himself.

  "Shit," he grumbled as he reached for a wad of toilet paper. "That's all
I need."

  He could see his career going down in flames while banner headlines
screamed; "New Years Reveler Dies On Toilet While Archille Williams,
Popular Film Actor, Masturbates Self In Adjacent Stall. Police Seek
Witnesses."

  Should worse come to worse, he didn't think even "they" could cover it
up.

  He wiped up as many incriminating cum spots as he could find before
pulling up his pants and repeating the search process on the walls. It was
during his frantic search of the partition separating the two stalls that
his foot nudged the here-to-fore motionless arm.

  "Please don't be dead," he whispered as he dropped another wad of tissue
into the gleaming white commode flushed, twice for good luck, and threw the
latch.

  Archille emerged into the now empty room, cautiously opened the door of
the adjacent stall and sighed with relief as he peered inside. His friends
may have been boorish and crude in their drunkenness, but at least they had
the good sense to leave him on the floor. He lay, arms outstretched like a
giant rag doll, propped up against the toilet bowl where he wouldn't fall
and hurt himself.

  Archille liked to think of himself as an observant man and carefully
studied the sleeping form at his feet. He was taller than most men: easily
six foot or more. The sweaty hair plastered to his forehead was either
light brown or blonde and recently cut.

  The tux, saturated with booze from the waist up, piss from the waist down
and reeking of both, was well tailored and worth the expense of having it
cleaned.

  The shoes, scuffed from being dragged across the floor, were Italian and
expensive and led Archille to conclude that the stranger was a meticulous
dresser: a regular Joe Brooks as the college crowd like to call them.

  Archille crouched down to study the hand up close. It was a hand that,
like his own, was unaccustomed to hard work. It lay palm up: spread wide
like an animal about to be dissected in a Biology class and pale against
the dark floor. The soft gleam of a gold ring caught Archille's eye as the
ring finger moved.

  In the matter of "equipment" there was no comparison. While the genitals
hanging limply from the open fly were large, in the world of men's genitals
there were no guarantees. He could be a creeper and the five soft inches
would expand several times over... or not at all. Of course none of that
mattered because Archille couldn't have been less interested in finding out
first hand. He'd seen just about all the strange cock he could take for the
night. His libido had officially called it a wrap and had gone home to
sleep off a night of excesses.

  Something in the middle of the stranger's open palm caught his eye. He
bent over for a closer look and laughed. It was a dollop of cum: his cum.

  He considered wiping it off in the name of propriety but changed his mind
when he thought of everything else the man and his suit had absorbed over
the course of the evening. How much could a quarter sized glob of jizz,
from no less than Archille Williams, matter? Satisfied that the unfortunate
young man on the floor was in no danger Archille walked to the mirror to
straighten his tie and comb his hair.

  Archille emerged into an almost deserted anteroom. The inebriated blonde
was still on the sofa as promised but the Attendant had gone. Nobody waited
to see who emerged from the toilet stall and for that he was grateful.

  "My name's Charlie: Charles Randall Campbell... the turd... I mean the
third," a voice called out as Archille reached the second set of doors.

  The young actor stopped, turned and walked back to the sofa. He sat on
the arm, patiently waiting for the still shit faced man to arrange himself
into a sitting position.

  "Still celebrating, huh?" Archille asked.

  "You were only in there ten minutes. I plan to cel'brate 'til the sun
comes up. So... how's old David holding up?"

  "Oh... you know Mister Kander?"

  "Mister Kander... Davey's 'bout my bestest... best friend," Charlie
replied between swigs of warm champagne. "How'd you know his name?"

  "I heard your other friends talking about him."

  "Old Davey's my best... Oh, I already said that."

  "Yes. You leave your "bestest" friend alone in that condition?"

  "He's a big boy. He can take care of himself," Charlie grumbled, then
added. "He's okay isn't he?"

  "If you think passing out with the family jewels hanging out of the vault
is okay, then I guess so."

  "Good. See, he's not taking this too well."

  "Not taking what too well?"

  "You heard the young lady outside?"

  Archille smiled a dazzling smile.

  "It was impossible to not notice."

  "She's Miss Delia Fallon and by this time tomorrow... I mean
today... later... she'll be Mrs. Charles Campbell."

  "You're getting married today? Congratulations."

  Charlie shrugged and took another long drink from the seemingly
bottomless bottle: a point Archille was about to comment on when he noticed
the twelve empties on the floor between the sofa and the wall.

  "It was her idea," Charlie snarled. "Personally I think it's pretty
fucking... dumb but Delia always gets what she wants."

  "Why's it dumb? At least you know you'll never forget your Anniversary."

  Archille didn't know why, but he was being drawn into this stranger's
problems and needed to listen as much as Charlie needed to unload.

  "I didn't say it was dumb. I said it was fucking dumb."

  "Suit yourself. Why's it... fucking... dumb?"

  "Two reasons... a guy like me's got no fucking business getting married
and it won't last and I don't want to be married."

  "That was three reasons," Archille corrected.

  "A wise guy, huh? Okay. Make that three reasons; I can't fucking count
either."

  Archille smiled and stared at the door where, just outside, Miss Delia
Fallon, soon to be Mrs. Charles Campbell the turd, pleaded for his
return. He wanted to fling the door open and reunite the lovers just as
he'd done in "Cupid's Broken Arrow".

  He got to thinking about it and realized that if the ploy had failed in
the movie there was no reason to expect thing to turn out differently in
real life.

  "Why get married if you don't think it'll work?"

  Charlie belched loudly and groped for another bottle.

  "Survival."

  Archille looked at him quizzically.

  "I don't follow you."

  "Maybe not, but Delia will: to the ends of the earth. Her whole family's
in the movies. They've got the whole Warner and Metro Legal Departments in
their pockets... with room for Universal and United Artists. Hell, they
probably wrote up your contract."

  "I still don't..."

  "The movies are immune to the whims of the economy. S'long as they make
'em people will go. This time next year, unless Delia wises up to me first,
I plan to be firmly entrenched in one of those bullet proof movie jobs."

  "That sounds depressing," Archille mumbled.

  Charlie shrugged.

  "Call it shitty timing. This isn't the time for someone with a degree in
Economics to expect open arms and a welcome mat."

  Archille glanced at his watch. "Well it's getting late and I should go. I
have..."

  "Know what I'll miss the most?" Charlie asked, ignoring Archille's
intentions. "I'm going to miss taking it up the ass."

  Archille felt sorry for him, but this was more than he was comfortable
knowing.

  "I'm sure it'll all work out. Now I really have to be..."

  "David's a great fuck. Got nice equipment too... but you already know
that."

  "I didn't pay much attention to it," Archille replied.

  "Bullshit. You paid plenty of attention to it. All guys do... 'cuz they
have to. Hell, a guy can have a cock the size of a baseball bat but if
there's a naked guy standing next to him he'll still look... jus' to make
sure there's not someone bigger 'n him."

  Archille had to laugh when he thought of their friends standing around
the urinal and wondering how big it got. From there it seemed to be a
natural progression to wonder why they'd wished for a Drama Major, as
opposed to a woman, to come along and solve the mystery. After that it
didn't take much to figure out that Charlie and David's secret wasn't a
secret at all.

  "All right," he admitted. "I looked and... yes. It looks promising."

  A twitch at the corners of his mouth belied Charlie's attempt at keeping
a straight face.

  "It looks promising," he repeated mockingly. "That's an understatement if
I've ever heard one. Hell, I thought he would split me in two the first
time he put it in me but it was good after that. God it was good."

  "Well it's late and..."

  "That was four years ago I think. Yeah that's right. It was New Years
Day, 1925 that I lost my virginity to that... that guy in there."

  He wiped his nose on a meticulously tailored shoulder pad.

  "Ya hear that David? I haven't forgotten," he shouted to the closed
door. "Hey. You wanna hear a story? I promise it's dirty."

  "Not particularly," Archille replied. "I'm not comfortable with
profanities unless..."

  Charles chose to ignore the response. He took a deep breath and let it
out slowly.

  "It was after the Rose Bowl game, and we were on our way back from
Pasadena. Notre Dame had just done a 27 to 10 Charleston all over
Stanford's butt."

  "I'm not much of a football fan," Archille interrupted with an
unintentional yawn.

  The cloud of alcohol was lifting and Charles forged on.

  "We lost the toss. David and I were banished to the rumble seat of Perry
Mile's brand new Studebaker roadster for the ride home. I'll bet you've
never ridden in a rumble seat have you?"

  Archille shook his head and thought of asking Charles if he'd ever
hitched a ride on a hay wagon the way he had.

  "Can't say that I have."

  "Didn't think so," Charles replied somewhat disdainfully. "Let me tell
you there's not a lot of room back there, so if you're sharing it with
someone you'd better be really close friends."

  He took another long swallow, grimaced and sat the bottle on the floor.

  "I think I'm losing my taste for this stuff," Charlie slurred. "Guess
it's true when they say that familiarity breeds contempt."

  Archille glanced at his watch, then longingly at the door. He wished
Charles' friends would burst in and carry the groom-to-be away before he
could divulge any more secrets. The door remained shut. Archille remained a
prisoner of his own courtliness as the story of Charlie and David unfolded.

  Charles and David weren't close friends in 1925. They were buddies more
than friends. They ran with the same people and if someone organized a game
of touch football on the quad, they were usually on the same team but that
was about the extent of it.

  When David suggested that they might need the time to sleep it off before
facing their families, David thought nothing of it and agreed. They'd been
sharing a flask most of the day as the favored team went down to bloody
defeat. They were pretty tipsy by the time they reached the car.

  They hadn't so much as gotten out of the parking lot when David found a
big Tartan plaid blanket under the seat. He shook out the dust.

  "Ah. Just what the doctor ordered: Jason's dusty Golden Fleece."

  He wrapped it around Charlie's shoulders, vanished beneath the folds of
the blanket and rested his head on his friend's lap.

  Suddenly Charlie was wide-awake and stone cold sober. As a guy who'd
never been at ease with familiarity, he'd been known to shy away from
something as innocent as a friendly arm across his back. In fact, he was
mortified. One would never have known by looking at him in his drunken and
disheveled state how firm he was about rules of etiquette. There were lines
that even drinking buddies didn't cross.

  They were speeding down Orange Grove Boulevard when Charlie noticed how
much the oranges looked like Christmas tree lights when the headlights
struck them in just the right way.

  More importantly, he was trying to think of a way to get David off of his
lap without making a scene. Then he felt the warmth of David's hand as it
slid up and down his calf and everything else was left in a pile in the
middle of the road.

  He'd always been a freethinking kind of guy: to each his own and all of
that crap. His parents were heavily into the arts and he'd grown up
surrounded by just about every detour from the middle of the road
imaginable.

  By the time he started U.S.C., he was sure there was nothing out there
that could surprise him. Then he felt David's warm breath on his crotch,
and felt himself rising in response, and he knew how wrong he'd been.

  His heart pounded wildly as David: his friend and drinking buddy, a guy
who he'd never even seen naked in the showers, chewed at his flannel
slacks. If the car hadn't hit a bump in the road he'd have hyperventilated
himself into an early demise.

  Charlie gazed into the haggard reflection of the 1930 version of himself
staring back from across the room. He paused in his narrative to reposition
himself and to push a lock of hair from his forehead. He moaned and buried
his face in his hands.

  "Christ, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be telling you all of this."

  Archille gritted his teeth and slid from the rounded, heavily padded arm
of the sofa. The stinging in his anus had subsided a bit but it hadn't gone
away. He settled into the down filled cushion and heaved a sigh of
relief. With the urge to run no longer of the utmost importance in his
mind, he was free to appreciate the sad stranger's predicament.

  Fear and self doubt were things he'd never experienced until recently. He
had to admit it was strange that someone he didn't know should feel
compelled to divulge such intimate secrets.

  "They say that alcohol loosens the inhibitions," Archille replied after a
moment of quiet reflection. "It makes you say and do things you wouldn't
ordinarily do."

  Charlie laughed half-heartedly.

  "I'm so splifficated you probably think I'm a real hip hound."

  "That never occurred to me."

  "I'm not, you know."

  Charlie was determined to set the record straight: that he wasn't a heavy
drinker and that his present condition wasn't typical."

  "I believe you," Archille replied. "Why didn't you stop him?"

  "Like I said; I was terrified. I didn't know what to expect."

  "The first time is either the best or the absolute worst moment in your
life."

  "Shit," Charlie snorted. "Your first time was probably on satin
sheets... in a castle somewhere on the French Riviera."

  "I don't know if they have castles on the French Riviera. It just so
happens that I lost my virginity..."

  Archille stopped himself before he could reveal too much. He was still
Archille Williams: the biggest fucking star in Hollywood and the studio had
gone to such lengths to reinvent his past. He doubted that they'd
appreciate it if the story got around that their number one box office draw
had his dick sucked for the first time by Juan Carlos Montoya, his second
cousin, on the sandy banks of the Los Angeles River.

  Of course, it was different with him than it was with Charlie. Not only
did he want to do it, but he would have initiated it if he'd only known
what to do first. That wasn't in the official studio biography either.

  "Let's just say it was close to the water and get back to you. Obviously
you didn't tell him to stop."

  "How could I when I wasn't entirely sure of what he was doing? What if he
didn't know? People do things in their sleep that they wouldn't do while
awake don't they?"

  "I can't say. I've never portrayed a Psychiatrist. So you did nothing?"

  Charlie was becoming aroused by the memory of his first time at bat. That
much was obvious from the way he pulled his knees to his chest. A long time
went by before he nodded and replied in a half whisper.

  "If doing nothing is the same as not stopping him, yes... I mean no."

  Charlie had been just as confused back in 1925. Even when David pulled
down the zipper and his fingers slipped through the opening, Charlie's
hands wouldn't budge from their death grip on the blanket. He liked what
David was doing to him. He liked it a lot and he didn't want him to stop:
not even when the car slowed down and Perry leaned out the driver's side
window.

  "You guys okay back there? I don't see David. He isn't puking all over my
car is he?"

  Charlie assured him that David wasn't puking on the floor and that
everything was ducky.

  There was an instant when he thought that Perry was going to stop and see
for himself. He couldn't imagine what he'd have done if he had. David had
used the distraction to his advantage and had freed Charlie's appendage its
prison. If Perry hadn't taken him at his word and had checked under the
blanket, he'd have gotten quite an eye full.



  "Atta boy, Chuck," David murmured as they sped off.

  Archille eyed the younger man with suspicion. He'd seen a lot of drunks,
but never one quite like Charlie. Forget being able to recount, in graphic
detail, something that happened four years earlier. Most were lucky just to
remember where they left their last drink.

  "I can't help noticing that your story is a little too rich in detail:
especially when you were dead drunk not more than half an hour ago."

  Charlie looked up from the floor and his eyes filled with tears. "That's
because I've thought about it every day for the last 1,460 days. If it all
sounds like a dirty book it's because I've read the manuscript. I know the
story by heart. I swear I've never told another person what I'm telling
you. I..."

  A middle-aged man, dressed to the nines and dripping with sweat, was the
first to enter the lounge since Charlie began his story. He nodded to the
men sitting at opposite ends of the overstuffed sofa and snatched a face
cloth from the neat pile at the end of the counter.

  He headed for the sink at the far end of the row where the light wasn't
quite so harsh and the mirror a dash more flattering.

  "Nice and quiet in here. You boys having a good time?"

  Charlie assumed the older man was watching them through the mirror and
shifted his knee to conceal his erection.

  "Couldn't be better," he replied softly.

  "And you?" Archille added.

  The man turned on the water and left it running as he dampened the wash
rag and buried his face in it.

  "Top of the world," he said from the folds of the wet cloth. "My wife is
spending money on expensive champagne like she doesn't know how broke we
are. My business partner, who does know, is about to jump ship. He's spent
the whole evening acting like a three dollar whore: offering himself to
anyone who might give him a job once the creditors show up. I've just spent
the last two hours dancing with a voracious but sweet little dimwit who
thinks I'm Carl Laemmle and I know for a fact that my car was repossessed
from the parking lot not more than three hours ago."

  He dropped the cloth on the edge of the sink and started for the
lavatory. He stopped in front of the sofa, regarding the two men with
appraising eyes.

  "You boys shouldn't be wasting your time in here."

  Archille returned his steady gaze.

  "He's waiting for his friend to come out and I'm keeping him company."

  "I'll tell him you're waiting for him."

  "Yeah. You do that," Charlie muttered as the man disappeared through the
double doors. He waited for the doors to stop moving to take up where he
left off. "Like I was about to say..."

  "You don't have to finish the story," Archille interrupted with an
upraised hand. "I'm sorry I doubted you, but I really have to go."

  "Atta boy, Chuck," Charlie muttered.

  The memory of David's muffled words of encouragement recalled the scene
and he went on as if he had to finish the story at any cost. He was back in
1925.

  Just before the last street lamp whizzed by, and the car sped into a long
stretch of unlighted road, Charlie lifted the corner of the blanket. He saw
his cock disappearing into David's mouth. He couldn't swear that it wasn't
his own voice that sighed with contentment. Something clicked and he wasn't
afraid.

  "Oh God, David. Please don't stop."

  Not that there was any danger of that happening. David was like a man
possessed with but one mission in life and that was to pleasure his
friend. Charlie watched the stars race across a sky that was as black as
pitch and wished he could what was happening.

  If someone had told him after the fact that David was the best cocksucker
in the world, he'd have had no reason to doubt him. No less impressive was
David's ability to push him to the brink, only to gently pull him away at
the last imaginable instant.

  David was inexhaustible: never coming up for air. When his tongue wasn't
sliding up and down the length of Charlie's rod, it was probing the little
stretch of paradise behind his testicles. A fellow can go for a whole
lifetime and never give that part of his anatomy a second thought until he
discovers it. Then it becomes the center of his universe. That's how it was
for Charlie.

  In 1930, Archille thought of the first time that he felt someone putting
his tongue "down there" and nodded in agreement. He'd thought sure that his
brain would explode from pleasure. He was fourteen at the time he
discovered his or, to be more accurate, someone showed him where it was. Of
course everything was more intense then. A well administered hand job could
send him spiraling into an erotic frenzy back in those days.

  Charles took a deep breath. He groped at his swollen crotch as if he was
alone in his bedroom.

  "David made me come just before the car reached the spot where Orange
Grove dog legs at Mission Street. I know how strange that sounds... to
remember the exact spot... but it was as if he'd timed it that way. A few
more seconds and we'd have been back in the light.

  It happened so unexpectedly that there was scarcely enough time for him
to do anything other than to bite down hard on a corner of the blanket to
muffle his scream of ecstasy. It was beyond anything he could have
imagined.

  David, knowing what was about to happen, redoubled his efforts, locking
his lips so tightly around Charlie's appendage that not a single drop
escaped as he erupted into his mouth. It was a throbbing orgasm that defied
logic: one that went on longer than he'd ever have thought possible?

  Then it was over and Charlie sagged into the warm leather upholstery to
collect his wits. He was physically spent, teetering on the brink of
emotional stupefaction and incapable of anything more involved than lifting
his butt while David slipped his pants back on.

  A glitter flecked sign reading Happy 1930 pulled away from the tacks
holding it in place and drifted to the floor just as the middle aged man
returned. He wiped his hands and looked much more comfortable.

  "There's nothing like a satisfying dump and a good piss to put everything
in its proper perspective," he announced loudly. "Oh, by the way. Your
friend is sound asleep and wrapped around a toilet bowl in the center
stall."

  "I'll let him stay there awhile longer," Charles answered flatly. "He's
had a bad night."

  "Suit yourself, but they'll be closing up soon and there's a lot of
fellas out there who haven't used the John all night... if you catch my
drift. Well, the world's gonna end in about fifteen minutes. Guess I'd
better say my good-byes."

  He seemed almost jovial as he started toward the door. Then he paused as
if to muster up his courage.

  "Cheers," Charlie offered.

 "Here goes nothing," the middle aged man whispered as he dove into the
pool of loud music and louder voices.

  It wasn't his parting words that made Archille shift uncomfortably in his
seat. Another wet spot had formed on the seat of his underwear as his poor
throbbing rectum continued to discharge the immoderations of the
evening. He desperately wanted to go home and immerse himself in a hot bath
tub.

  Charlie reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an elegant gold
case. He stared at it for a long time without opening it. "You don't smoke,
do you?"

  "No," Archille replied, hoping the new topic would lead to a dead end and
he could excuse himself gracefully.

  "Good. It's a dirty habit. Delia says I have to quit. Might as well start
now," he mumbled as he put the case away. "Damn. I don't feel drunk any
more. Delia says I have to give that up too."

  Archille gritted his teeth as another twinge of pain made his balls
contract.

  "It seems to me as if you're giving up a lot for her."

  "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

  Back in 1925, David emerged from under the blanket, looking none the
worse for wear. The car rolled to a stop. Perry slid the window aside and
locked him in his intense gaze.

  "Don't tell me you're just now coming up for air," he said brightly.

  David appeared calm and unfazed by what had just happened: like he'd
really just awakened from a short nap feeling revived and ready to go. He
smoothed his hair back, spit over the side and returned Perry's gaze with
equal intensity.

  "That flask of bath tub hooch you slipped me really knocked me for a row
of carrots."

  "I didn't see anyone holding you down and pouring it down your throat."

  "Your heartfelt concern is touching. Thanks for asking."

  David furtively grabbed Charlie's hand and placed it on his crotch. Perry
laughed and glanced at the blanket.

  "Spoken like a true Sheik. Listen, there's a party at Leslie Roderick's
place. Care to tag along?"

  "I hate to sound like a wet blanket but I think I've had an
earful. You'll have to disgrace yourselves without my help."

  Perry looked over at Charlie.

  "How about you Charlie? You up for some flappers and fun?"

  He didn't dare look to David for a response and relied on the lurching of
the warm penis in his hand as a signal.

  "I guess I'm going to call it a day."

  "A couple of ground grippers, huh? Oh well. It's your loss."

  It was David who decided that since Charlie lived closer, he should be
dropped off first. Perry made a sudden right turn on to Mission Street that
sent David sliding across the seat and into his lap. They'd both laughed
but the close proximity of their bodies added to his quandary. What, if
anything, was he expected to do next? Thankfully, he didn't have to
struggle with the question for long.

  "You don't have to do anything in return," David said just loud enough to
be heard over the roar of the wind. He leaned closer. "I realize that what
just happened... That was my idea. It'd be presumptuous of me to expect you
to..."

  "I want to," Charlie interrupted. "It's scary but I really do. It's just
that I don't... I don't know how."

  David placed his hand over that of his friend and guided it up and back
over his crotch. It was so hard that Charlie was taken by surprise.

  "Holy smokes!" Charlie exclaimed disbelievingly as he wrapped my fingers
around it through the expensive fabric of David's pants. "Did I do that?"

  David smiled broadly and moved to the other end of the seat. They'd known
each other for the better part of two years. In that time, Charlie had
never once seen him smile like that. Sometimes he'd grin and, if he found
something especially funny, he'd raise an eyebrow but he never saw him
actually smile. He was as dazzled by his dimples as he was confused by his
abrupt retreat.

  "You're going to do just fine," David shouted. "You're a natural. That's
why I pulled away. I'm about three strokes away from really calling it a
night."

  It wasn't long before they caught up with a caravan of roadsters and
flivvers on their way back to town after a long day of celebration. There
was a lot of horn honking, shouting and friendly name-calling.

  It seemed as though Perry knew just about everyone. Those that he didn't
know, David did. It was a good way to break the sexual tension that
threatened to send them flying into each other's arms: something that
couldn't be blamed on Perry's bathtub gin.

  In the middle of all the commotion, David appraised Charlie of his
plan. Once they'd dropped me off in Silverlake they'd drive him home. He'd
change clothes, get his car, and be back at his house in two shakes of a
lamb's tail.

  "Sounds pretty involved, doesn't it? Charlie asked, glancing at the 1930
sign on the floor.

  Archille nodded: grateful that he didn't have to be the one to point out
the obvious.

  "Yes it does."

  "It was for my benefit," he quickly added though not as to sound
defensive. "I never did, but our friends suspected that David might be a
little light in the wrist. Fortunately, his family's rich. People will
usually overlook what they might consider to be "defects" when there's old
money clouding their vision. My old man has dough, but it's new so it
doesn't carry the same impact."

  The first day of 1925 was drawing to an end. It was getting close to ten
before Charlie heard David's car pull up in front of the house. He was
sitting on the arm of the sofa in the living room and was nervous as
hell. He thought of not answering the door. He remembered how David's mouth
felt as it enveloped him: how it felt to shoot his load down his friend's
throat. He'd almost fallen and broken his neck racing across the room.

  "I thought maybe you'd changed your mind," Charlie said before he'd even
opened the door.

  A gust of winter wind preceded him as David crossed the threshold to
stand in the yellow light of the tiny entry hall.

  "Great minds run on parallel tracks. It took you so long to answer the
door that I thought you'd had a change of heart."

  "I was at... at the back of the house when you rang," Charlie lied as he
fell headlong into David's eyes. They were mesmerizing.

  A picture clattered noisily on the wall behind him as the wind swirled
around us and he glanced at the open door.

  "Maybe you should just leave it ajar. Perry and the gang will be here any
minute."

  Charlie stared at him in horror.

  "They're c... coming here? B...but I thought that we..."

  David just laughed and casually reached back to steady the photograph.

  "No, but I'll say anything to get you away from the damned door."

  Charlie pushed it shut and, just for good measure, threw the bolt in the
chance that David was being serious. He could never be sure if David is
giving him the raspberries.

  "Nice dump you've got here, Chuck old boy. Mind if I look around?"

  "I guess so but I'm afraid..."

  David stopped at the door leading to the living room. He looked back over
his shoulder.

  "You're afraid of what?"

  "I'm... I'm afraid it's nothing like what you're accustomed t...to,"
Charlie stammered.

  David's family lived in one of the big mansions on West Adams. Fifty
rooms: all decorated expensively and tastefully.

  David fumbled for the wall switch.

  "Uh-uh. They'll be no bragging tonight."

  He turned and surveyed the room with a low whistle of admiration before
entering.

  "What's the rent on a dump like this?"

  It's... uh..."

  "Your old man foots the bill, huh?"

  "As a matter of fact... Yes he does."

  "I thought so. Hmm. Looking around, I'll say that your mother decorated
it."

  "Maybe she did."

  David lifted the edge of the 19th Century Turkish Bergama rug. He nodded
appreciatively and carefully smoothed it out again.

  "No maybe about it Chuck," he replied while continuing his journey along
the outer perimeters. "That carpet cost more than most people make in two
years of overtime and you sure as shit didn't get that Gustav Stickley
table by the window with an employee discount from Barker Brothers. You've
got a Dirk Van Erp lamp sitting between a pair of Walter Teague chairs and
unless I'm losing my knack for this, those are Ernest Batchelder tiles on
your fireplace surround."

  "I don't know. They came with the house. Okay; what's your point?"

  "None at all. I'm just making conversation. I just don't understand why
your parents would go to all of this trouble and expense to set you up in
what I'm guessing is a smaller version of the old family homestead when
they could have set you up in the dorms?"

  "There's not much to understand. If I was old enough to be in college, I
reasoned that I was old enough to live by myself. They weren't happy about
it: especially after they saw that stupid Buster Keaton film.

  "Huh?"

  "It was just a lot of hooey about what goes on in an Ivy League
school. They were afraid I'd be associating with the wrong kind of people."

  "You mean the sort who suck cock in the rumble seat of a Studebaker?"

  Charlie burst out laughing in spite of his nervousmess.

  "They weren't specific but I don't think that would ever occur to either
of them. Damn! Now that you mention it and the more I look around, the more
this place looks like Dad's library."

  David grinned knowingly and started back to where Charlie was holding up
the walnut doorframe. He moved with such easy grace and assurance that his
friend couldn't help but to think of a jungle cat approaching his prey head
on.

  "That's how it works," David whispered. "Sometimes it's right there in
front of you and you don't see it... not until someone... opens your eyes."

  How could he begin to describe what he was feeling at the moment when
David closed the gap? Lust? That was a given. So was fear: both of what was
about to happen and what would come after that. His heart pounded with such
force that he was sure it would burst through his chest and land,
quivering, at David's feet. Would he kick it under one of the chairs he'd
so admired and leave it to die once he'd gotten what he came for? Would he
leave it pinned to wall above the bedstead like a specimen on a slab of
cork?

  Gathering up all of the courage he could muster, Charlie took a gulp of
air and pressed his erection tightly against that of his friend.

  "Do you want to fuck... or talk about... about my parents... and their
motives?"

  "I'll be damned: a dirty word. There might be hope for you yet," David
replied.

  "Please... I just..."

  "Neither," David whispered as he unbuttoned Charlie's shirt with a
deliberateness that was both maddening and thrilling. "I want to make love
to you."

  "Ever notice how a few well placed words can have such a profound and
long lasting effect?" Charlie asked flatly.

  "Yes," Archille answered after a moment.

  "They can forever change the course of events. Want to know what I was
thinking just before you walked through the door just now?" Charlie asked.

  Archille had come too far in the story to walk away and leave it
unresolved.

  "No. What were you thinking?"

  "I was thinking how much differently things would have turned out if
David hadn't chosen those exact words. Maybe cold feet would have prevailed
over a stiff dick and my friend wouldn't be spending tonight in a drunken
stupor... if he'd only taken them lightly.

  "I'm sorry. You've lost me. If he'd taken what lightly?" Archille asked.

  "My doubts... and fears," Charlie answered distantly. "They were pretty
obvious. If only he'd treated them with his usual cavalier disregard for
what he liked to call petty travails I might have found the wherewithal to
respond in kind: to treat what happened after the game as a fluke.

  "I understand."

  "You'd never know by looking at him right now, but David's the most
self-assured son of a bitch you'd ever want to meet: at least he is when
I'm not around. God, I hope I'm not totally resp...responsible for... Aw,
you don't care about that. All you want to hear is the juicy stuff. You
guys are all the same."

  Charlies' mood had shifted again.

  "Nobody's forcing you to spill your guts," Archille countered
stiffly. "This little heart to heart was your doing."

  Charlie nodded in agreement.

  "Of course you're right. It's just that I've never been able to talk to
anyone else about this. How about you? Who did you tell after the first
time?"

  Archille had to think about it for a minute before responding. When he
did, it was still a lie.

  "I don't remember."

  Charlie studied the young actor's face and looked skeptical.

  "Really?" As spoken, the word sounded more accusatory than he'd
intended. "Did I mention that David's a great kisser? He really is one of
the best." He paused, then added; "Of course I don't have anything to
compare him to. He's the only man I've ever been with so I guess I have to
take him at his word."

  The first day of 1925 found Charlie standing at the edge of a precipice
with his shirt hanging open and his heart on his sleeve. If not for David's
softly spoken words of encouragement he was sure that he'd have died from
the sheer unimaginable joy he felt at that moment.

  "I've wanted to do this since the first time I saw you," David
whispered. "Let me make it the most memorable night of your life, Charlie."

  David placed his hands flat against Charlie's bare chest. They were hot
but not sweaty: not like the dripping mitts hanging at his new lover's
sides like two wet face cloths.

  "I don't know what to do," Charlie rasped as David gently manipulated his
sensitive nipples between his thumb and forefinger.

  David pushed his collar aside and buried his face in the crook of his
neck. He grazed his lips lightly across Charlie's shoulder.

  "You're a college man. You'll catch on."

  In light of what was already taking place place, the next step was the
only logical one. David led his novice friend to the picture window at the
far end of the room. It was there that their lips met in Charlie's first
real kiss.

  Beyond the plate glass Hollywood, Griffith Park and Glendale stretched
out to the horizon: a vast black carpet dotted with tiny flickering
lights. Charlie was hesitant, even shocked at first.

  "Not here David," he said trying to draw away.

  David wouldn't budge and gripped his hand tightly.

  "Who's going to see? A coyote? Maybe a bunny rabbit or two?"

  "That's not it. I... I just can't."

  David was insistent.

  "Sure you can. Come on, Chuckie. Relax and enjoy yourself. Let's give the
wildlife a show."

  While David was loosening his belt, Charlie was pondering the question of
why he'd given in so easily. The answers that came to mind were useless.

  He could have taken the easy way out and blamed it on a long afternoon of
too much celebration and bootleg hooch, but that would've been a
lie. Charlie was stone cold sober and he didn't want to lie to David: not
ever. He knew that he was about to do anything his friend asked of him and
to blazes with convention.

  "We can at least turn off the lights," he whispered as he reached for the
switch. The agonizing wait for David to make the next move was agonizing.

  He didn't have long to wait. David was pushing at the waistband of his
underwear even as his flannel trousers came to rest around his
ankles. David's voice was smooth and insinuating: like a greased finger
probing the innermost recesses of his soul.

  "I want to see you naked," he growled. "I want to be naked with you in
the moonlight."

  Charlie wasn't an exhibitionist by nature but he wanted very much to
accommodate his friend and allowed just his shirt to fall to the floor. It
wasn't much but he was new to this and was going entirely by instinct.

  "What should I do now?" he asked.

  David pulled him into a deep, soulfull kiss. It left Charlie breathless
and wanting more.

  "There are no rules here," he replied, running his finger along the
underside of Charlie's cock. "Do what feels right."

  As instructions went, his words didn't give him much to go on. Everything
they did felt right but there had to be a difference between doing and
being done to. Surely, David must have thought of that before turning
himself over to the ministrations of someone so untested.

  Charlie searched the darkness for prying eyes and saw only storm clouds
coming in from the north. Then he happened to notice an alabaster light box
on the table in front of the window. He'd picked it up in a bazaar on the
outskirts of Cairo back in 1922.

  He thought of the beautiful Egyptian boy who'd sold it to him. He had the
most amazing eyes. One was so dark that even in the bright sun it was
almost black. The other was just a shade or two away from gold.

  Charlie thought of the peculiar way the boy's fingers grazed the palm of
his hand when he returned his change. He never thought of the incident as a
missed opportunity until he was standing with David in the semi darkness.

  If he was looking for duplicity, Charlie found only honesty as he
searched David's eyes in the lamp's amber glow.

  "What're you looking at?" David asked.

  "Never mind," he whispered as he sank to his knees. "I found what I was
looking for."

  The sight of David's erect cock no more than a couple of inches from his
nose was nothing less than a revelation: a magical meeting of form and
function. His standards might change as he gained experience, but at the
time Charlie thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

  Not only was it large but it had none of the little haphazard
peculiarities that often intrude on perfection. Its helmet shaped head was
just slightly darker in color than the shaft and was neither too large nor
too small. Even the veins ran in perfectly straight lines as if plotted
with the precision of a draftsman. Charlie was in awe of it.

  "Go ahead and touch it Chuckie," David whispered.

  "I've never seen another man's cock from this vantage point. It's
beautiful."

  "I've seen better."

  "Well I haven't," Charlie replied as he wrapped his hand around it and
gave it a couple of tentative strokes. "I can't imagine such a thing
existing."

  "Trust me; you will. There'll be plenty of them."

  David sounded so serious. It was all he could do to keep from laughing.

  "Let me get through my first one before you start me down the road toward
wantonness," Charlie replied as he planted a brazen kiss on the underside
of the shaft.

  "Charlie my friend, you began that journey when you climbed into Perry's
rumble seat."

  He felt the urge to laugh, but there was a basic truth behind what David
was saying. He was right of course, and Charlie had become a willing
participant by not stopping him when he had the chance. As he looked up
into David's face, while still clutching his dick, he realized that nothing
was going to be quite the same... ever again.

  Some things come easy once you've cleared the first hurdle. For Charlie,
the first hurdle wasn't the planting of a smooch on David's erection. It
was the moment when he started to kiss it a second time and licked it
instead.

  An outlandish thought crossed his mind as I knelt at David's feet,
preparing for the next step. He thought of the first time that he
masturbated. He was about thirteen at the time and most of his friends were
already doing it. Charlie was just a late bloomer.

  He remembered being awakened in the middle of the night by something hard
and warm pressing against his stomach. He'd rolled over and thrown off the
covers. Jutting out from between his skinny little legs was his first
honest-to-God erection. It was standing straight up daring him to ignore
it.

  He tried hard to pretend it wasn't there: naively thinking of it as an
autonomous being that could be fooled into going away if he just kept his
eyes shut. When that didn't work he walked out to the balcony hoping the
cold night air would make it go away. Kids can be so stupid.

  They were living near the top of Whitley Heights in the hills on the
northwest edge of Hollywood. Sometimes on hot nights when there was no moon
and the air was still, Charlie would stand on the balcony and pretend he
was the lord and master of all he surveyed. If he turned a certain way he
could look across the Cahuenga Pass and not see another house or sign of
life.

  There'd been a full moon that night and seeing his cock bathed in its
cold blue light as it rested on the balustrade only made his condition
worse. Suddenly his eyesight and his sanity: even his smooth hairless palms
were all in dire jeopardy and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it.

  The giddy feeling in his stomach as he lifted David's cock out of the way
and buried his nose in his balls brought it all back. Once again, he was
that adolescent with pimples on his butt furiously beating his meat for the
first time in the cool night air above a sleeping city. He was the kid
laughing with breathless delight as white globs of jizz sailed over the
railing in graceful arcs.

  They didn't spend much time on preliminaries. The incident in the rumble
seat had filled Charlie's mind with just one thought: reciprocation. Beyond
that, everything was a blur of sensations and emotions that drove him to
the brink of madness.

  It was nothing less than lust pushed to the breaking point by the smell
of fresh talc. It was the way David tasted: like the salty sweat that runs
down your face after an afternoon of sculling down the Los Angeles
River. It stings your eyes and gets in your mouth as you gasp for
air... and the taste makes you thirst for more.

  He was about to draw the beckoning cock into his mouth when David stopped
him.

  "Go easy there, sport. Watch the choppers."

  Charlie nodded, not really comprehending what he was talking about. He'd
have gone along with just about anything at that point: as if his sole
reason for being was to have David's prong fill his mouth.

  He plunged forward with reckless abandon until he could go no
farther. Over and over... up and down... back and forth... using the head
of David's cock as a battering ram against the back of his
throat... emulating what David had done to him.

  A long time passed before Charlie came up for air and saw David's pained
expression. He used his friend's strong legs to steady himself as he sat
back on his haunches.

  "Poor David," he said running his sweaty hands along his smooth inner
thighs.

  "Was I really that bad at it?"

  David gently pulled him to his feet and into another soul-wrenching kiss.

  "Only at first," he replied, casually leading the novice cocksucker
toward the sofa. "You're a quick study, though. I'll have you performing
like a five dollar whore in no time."

  Charlie winced at the reference. He pulled back for a fraction of a
second as the words hit home.

  "A five dollar whore, huh?"

  "Don't be such a droop, Chuckie. Most of the guys I've known don't rate
more than a dollar and streetcar fare the first time at bat. Now you just
stretch out and let a confessed six dollar hooker give you a quick course
in the proper care of a big dick."

  Charlie had never cared for school but that was one class he wasn't about
to miss because of a little wounded pride. There'd be plenty of time for
that later on. He threw himself on to the leather cushions and sighed with
anticipation as David positioned his legs... and himself between them.

  "Keep your eyes open," he whispered as he grasped the base of Charlie's
tool. "You can't take notes if you're falling asleep."

  Charlie couldn't help but to smile as he watched his penis disappear into
the warm confines of David's mouth.

  "Sleeping is the last thing I had on my mind, "Charlie replied
unsteadily.

  Charlie could remember, practically word for word, verbal exchanges as
clearly as if they'd just taken place. What he couldn't recall was what had
been going through his head during those times when the only thing he had
to do was to lay back, watch, and pay attention.

  He was concentrating on not ejaculating too soon. The feel of David's
lips clamped tightly around his cock was more mind-numbingly powerful than
it'd been in the rumble seat. It was like the first time all over again...
except that he could see everything that was happening.

  It seemed like no time at all had passed before his cock emerged
glistening with saliva, impossibly hard and showing no signs of abating at
any time in the near future. Even David noticed it.

  "Fuck! If I'd known I was going to have to work this hard I'd have taken
more vitamins this morning."

  "I just... don't want it to end," Charlie croaked.

  He marveled at his own seemingly permanent state of arousal. He was
mystified by this new found self-control.

  David had wonderful hands: big and strong, yet capable of such
tenderness. He wrapped the left one around Charlie's cock and balls and
squeezed gently.

  "It won't end," he replied as casually as if it'd already been discussed
and decided upon. "We have all night and all of tomorrow."

  David once said that Charlie didn't have the biggest cock he'd ever
sucked: just the most dangerous. When asked what he meant by "dangerous" he
said it was the perfect size for doing anything that came to mind. It
wasn't so fat that he couldn't get his mouth around it or so long that it
made him choke.

  "If I spent as much time being your personal stump sucker as I'd like,
I'd never do anything else."

  Charlie made light of it and reminded him that they were part of the idle
rich and could do anything they damned well pleased. Now he wished that he
hadn't been so glib.

  Charles brought the narrative to a brief pause and took one deep breath
after another. Each one was held like it was happening for the first time
and let out slowly like it was never going to happen again once it was
gone.

  "So," he continued. "There I was with one leg draped over the back of the
sofa, one foot planted on the floor and David furiously bobbing up and down
on my dick..."

  "God, David," he'd cried out. "I just can't get enough of you sucking my
cock."

  Charlie laced his fingers behind David's head, thrusting his prick in and
out of his hot mouth as each downward stroke brought him closer to release.

  His earlier inhibitions had vanished and he was a man with just one thing
on his mind: to blow his load as far down David's throat as humanly
possible.

  "Suck it harder, David. I'm almost there," he shouted.

  David had something else in mind and without missing a beat, maneuvered
himself around until his erection was practically slapping Charlie in the
face. Charlie opened his mouth to receive it without hesitation.

  It didn't take long for them to fall into a natural syncopation that
afforded Charlie access to the sensory orgy that was David. The exploration
of his body was as frenzied as his first attempt at sucking his cock had
been.

  When he thought of that first night, he thought of the joy he felt each
time David moaned or shuddered. It meant that he'd been successful in his
endeavor to give to David the same pleasure as he was getting. Each time
David's cock hit the back of his throat he'd make this odd little sound
that was half way between a grunt and a groan that would eventually lead to
a gasp of delight.

  "Atta boy, Chuck," he'd said. "Don't be afraid of it. Chow down on my
big, fat cock. Suck it hard. Oh yes...that's the way Chuck. Wrap your hot
lips around it."

  He went on like that: letting Charlie know exactly what he was to
do. Sometimes he shouted instructions like a Drill Sargent. Other times he
whispered urgently, as if afraid of breaking the spell. Through it all, his
hand would be exploring his body: inspiring him to follow his lead.

  Charlie would never forget the way he looked, with his black hair
plastered to his forehead and the sweat pouring down the chiseled planes of
his face. He would always remember David's expression as he forced his legs
back and pried his butt cheeks apart. It would always make him hard.

  "What're you doing?" Charlie asked suspiciously as a breeze from an open
window at the back of the house wafted across his exposed and vulnerable
butt hole.

  David wet his finger and gently inserted it up to the first knuckle.

  "I'm going to make you see stars, Chuckie," he replied.

  Although David had taken it slowly, Charlie hadn't liked it... not at
all... not at first. Five years had passed and he still grimaced when he
thought of that first time.

  "Do you remember what it was like the first time someone stuck a finger
up your butt?"

  Archille nodded. He'd been fifteen at the time and the man doing it had
thick, stubby fingers with calluses that scraped the sensitive pink skin
like a dried out corncob.

  "Yes. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch."

  "Exactly, Charles replied with a shudder. "The only one who'd ever put a
finger up there had an "M.D." after his name. It was scary."

  "But you didn't stop him," Archille said with a knowing smile.

  "The discomfort vanished once he worked his way deeper...past the second
knuckle. He began working on my prostate. After that I became a mass of
conflicting emotions. In the end, being impaled on David's index finger was
all the incentive I needed to overcome my reluctance."

  Neither of them was paying much attention to the passage of time and
after the first five minutes it was no longer a matter of Charlie "letting"
David do anything. He'd have paid him to do it: even begged him to continue
if he'd threatened to stop. Never having been finger fucked before, it was
all just one surprise after another.

  "You're all mine, Chuck," David whispered from between his legs. "Your
cock is mine. Your balls...your hot little ass... They're all mine."

  David pressed down firmly on Charlie's prostate. He smiled as his
friend's erection jump in his hand: as if acknowledging David's ownership
claim.

  "Oh fuck... yes. They're all yours."

  "You like my finger up your ass, don't you?"

  "Yes," Charles sighed. It feels sooo good."

  "Ready for something else?"

  "Anything... anything you want to do."

  "Just sit back and relax," David murmured as his strong hands pried
Charlie's butt cheeks apart.

  Charlie felt something soft and wet enter his butt hole and the room
exploded in a galaxy of shooting stars. Charlie found himself bucking and
squirming as David lapped noisily at the soft, tender walls of his fuck
chute.

  "Oh fuck!" he screamed, not caring whether or not the neighbors could
hear. "God, David. You're eating my fucking ass. That's your tongue in my
hole."

  An expertly wielded tongue can do strange things to a man. It can reduce
the most judiciously cultivated facade of civility to rubble. Put it where
it's not expected, and the walls come tumbling down. Charlie felt his grasp
on what he'd perceived to be morally and socially acceptable behavior
loosening. He fell forward on to his knees and spread his butt wide open.

  "Lick my hole, you cock sucker!" he commanded.

  David was happy to oblige and pulled him back to a squatting
position. Charlie caught his breath as his friend went back to making
magic.

  Charlie's thoughts became like a swarm of bees flying around inside his
head: barely touching on a rational thought before going on to something
else. He saw David's cock swaying back and forth, untouched, and it seemed
like such a waste.

  He saw his own hands: one wrapped around his own appendage...the other
gently fondling his aching balls. He looked back and saw David's chest
rising and falling in the dim light. It was so beautiful...so perfect...so
broad and manly. His nipples were perfectly round and begging to be played
with.

  He wanted to touch them but his hands refused to acknowledge his best
intentions. They stubbornly remained at their own tasks and wouldn't budge.

  Charlie sighed wistfully as the haze of five years and half of a case of
champagne drifted over the scene.

  "You wanna know something funny? Once we did it during one of your
films. It was at the Orpheum. We were in the very top row of the balcony
just below the projection booth. It was a matinee and there was hardly
anyone else in the theatre."

  "I'll try not to take that personally," Archille replied.

  "You shouldn't. It was the middle of the week...a Wednesday. We started
just fooling around like a couple of school kids. The next thing I knew
David was on the floor and my pants were down around my ankles and I was
bent over the seat getting reamed. Knowing him was quite an adventure."

  It was especially so for a young man who, as of the night of January 1,
1925, had absolutely no sexual experience other than with his right
hand. The fact that neither he nor David could remember who'd made the
suggestion that David fuck him made it that much more exciting. Charlie
wanted it no matter whose idea it was.

  "Fuck me," he commanded loudly. "Put that big fucking cock in my tight
hole and fuck the hell out of me."

  They were his words and it was his voice but he couldn't believe that he
was hearing them coming from his mouth. He wanted...needed...craved David's
nine-inch dick inside him. He wanted something that, until that night, he
had scarcely given a moment's thought to. A whole new Charlie was coming to
the surface.

  David remained calm and collected in the wake of his desperate
pleas. That's not to imply that he was anything less than enthusiastic. It
was just a matter of style and pacing. He'd been down that road before and
knew what waited around the bend.

  "Slow down, Chuck," he laughed. "You're going to explode before I get it
in you."

  Charlie shook my head, prying his ass cheeks wider.

  "Then what are you waiting for? I want you to bang me. Fuck my butt..now!
Corn-hole me. Do it...cocksucker."

  "Okay, Chuck," he said, suddenly cold. "How do you want it?"

  "What?"

  "Doggie style? On your back? On your stomach? You on top...me on top?
Hanging from the rafters? It's your call so think it over. They're all fine
with me."

  "I don't know," he mumbled uncertainly. "I suppose..."

  "You think about it while I get the Vaseline. Bathroom's down the hall,
right?"

  The realization that he might have gone too far by calling David a
cocksucker caught up with him as his friend got to his feet and left the
room without waiting for a reply. He could only surmise that some people
didn't like being called names, even in the heat of passion, and vowed
never to make the same mistake next time: assuming there was to be a next
time.

  David returned from his quest holding the jar like a priceless relic, his
enormous prick, still hard, bouncing like a divining rod as he crossed the
living room with long confident strides. Charlie's enthusiasm waned when he
saw the look in David's eyes.

  "I'm sorry, David."

  "For what?"

  "For calling you a cocksucker."

  "It's okay," David said with a shrug.

  "No. It isn't. I got carried away. I won't do it again."

  "No harm done, I guess. Well? What have you decided?"

  Seeing it from below made Charlie's throat go dry. He swallowed hard,
made some quick on the spot calculations and decided there was no way it
was going to go in without doing a whole lot of damage. Doggie style? On
top? Hanging from the rafters? Who knew there were so many choices? The
only thing that he knew for certain was that he had an itch that had to be
scratched.

  "Surprise me," he said after a long pause.

  David's expression had softened, which was more than could be said for
his cock. He unscrewed the top and scooped out a huge gob of petroleum
jelly.

  "That's the ticket, Chuck," he said forcing a finger into his fuck
chute. "You just relax that hot ass of yours and let me do the work."

  A second and then a third finger joined the party inside Charlie's butt
hole and things really began to heat up and get messy. The friction of his
digits sliding in and out had turned the thick paste-like substance into
warm slimy goo that ran from his stretched hole and on to the leather
cushions.

  "You've got me so fucking hot," Charlie gasped. "Let me feel your cock
inside me."

  The air was heavy with anticipation. The smell of the oily lubricant that
David slathered on his prick was oppressive.

  "I think we'll start out with you on your knees," he replied
thoughtfully. "You're sure this is what you want? It might hurt at first."

  Charlie nodded and braced himself against the arm of the sofa.

  "Do it. Fuck me."

   Two things would forever stand out in Charlie's mind when he thought of
that first time with David. There was the shudder that raced through his
body like a convulsion when David kissed the back of his neck. He'd never
felt anything like that.

  The other was the moment that he felt his sphincter give way. He thought
he was going to split in two. He wasn't sure what he'd expected but it sure
as hell wasn't that and buried his face in the pillow trying to keep from
crying out.

  David's breath grazed the skin between his shoulder blades. It was like a
spring breeze.

  "It's going to be okay Chuck," he whispered. "It hurts like blazes at
first but you'll get over it. Just ride it out. Try to relax. Good. That's
the way. Think of how great it'll feel when I'm deep inside you...fucking
your hot ass with my big, fat cock."

  David's words of encouragement were having precious little effect on the
pain. In fact being on the receiving end of such an enormous tool made
Charlie liken the experience to what he thought it would be like to be
corn-holed by a flagpole. He tried to think ahead but the pain kept
dragging him back to the inescapable fact that he was more miserable than
he'd ever been in his life.

  Convinced that he was on the verge of passing out from the pain, Charlie
was about to call it off when something remarkable happened. He looked down
between his legs and realized that he was as hard as a rock. Obviously,
there was a part of his being that was having a grand time and the expense
of his poor abused butt hole. Moreover, his boner seemed to grow each time
David advanced another inch.

  "Damn!" Charlie exclaimed through gritted teeth. "It's so fucking hard."

  "I told you to relax," David whispered urgently. "It helps if you..."

  "I meant my cock," Charlie interrupted. "It's...so...hard."

  David tightened his grip on Charlie's shoulders.

  "Hang on pal. We've got just another inch to go and we'll be home
free. Easy does it. We're almost there. Voila'. I'm in."

  The rest of it had gone in so fast and with so little fanfare that there
was no time for Charlie to give further consideration to being split down
the middle. He didn't even notice how abruptly the pain had subsided.

  That realization came with the gentle cuff of David's nuts against
his. They were warm and his pubic hair tickled the sensitive skin around
his anus.

  "Oh fuck. You're all the way inside of me," he gasped.

  Charlie felt full... like he had to take a dump. He was afraid that he'd
do something loutish like taking a fart.

  "Don't move...please," he whispered between shallow breaths.

  David kept his sword buried to the hilt while Charlie's rectum adjusted
to the intruder.

  "Not a muscle. Take your time, Charlie."



  Being a man of his word, David spent the next several minutes gently
kneading Charlie's tense shoulder muscles. Once in awhile his hand would
slide down the length of his lean torso and along the flat planes of his
stomach. He always stopped short of his crotch and Charlie would always be
grateful for David's thoughtfulness. He was such a solicitous lover. It was
like he knew how close he was.

  The unrelenting, thoroughly pleasurable, throbbing at the base of his
spine told Charlie that it was time to proceed. He gritted his teeth, still
unsure of what to expect.

  "I'm ready."

  David tightened his grip on my shoulders and inhaled sharply as he began
to push and pull his prick back and forth: pushing aside the hot moist
walls of Charlie's fuck chute.

  "Oh shit," he exclaimed under his breath.

  Each time he'd pull back a little farther until Charlie was sure that he
would pull out. He'd always stop just in the nick of time and push it back
in.

  It was wonderful: feeling every inch of his glorious prick rubbing his
prostate until he was about to burst with pleasure. In and out...back and
forth...harder and harder. Damn it was good.

  "That's what I want," Charlie cried out. "Slam that big fucking tool in
me. Fuck me... hard. Use my hole."

  David draped himself across his sweaty back, wrapping his arms so tightly
around his chest that the pounding of his heart sounded along the full
length of his spine.

  "I'll do more than that," he growled. "You won't look twice at another
man after I'm done fucking you. This virgin ass is mine...forever."

  "It's already yours, David," he panted. "I want to feel you deep of
inside me."

  The walls of his rectum caught and held the invader, sending wave after
wave of pleasure rippling through Charlie's body in perfect counterpoint to
his heartbeat. He'd been reduced to the level of a simple organism: a hole
with nerve-endings with only one thought: how he could take him farther
inside than he already was.

  David's warm lips grazed the back of his neck again and he changed his
position. He grasped Charlie's hips and adjusted himself amid the jumble of
cushions and pillows. Only a tremendous effort kept him from coming right
then and there. The feel of David's cock poking around inside of him...his
manhood randomly prodding...exploring the innermost regions of his
soul... was almost more than he could bear.

  "That's what I wanted to hear," David said quietly.

  David slowly withdrew his ramrod until only the head was trapped inside
his sphincter. Then, after taking a moment to change both of their
positions, he drove it home with such force that Charlie swore that it came
up through his gullet.

  Charlie truly believed that if it hadn't been for David's strong hands to
hold him back he might have been propelled right over the arm of the sofa.

  "Oh fucking shit! That feels so good," he yelled.

  "You like that? You want more of my big dick?"

  "Yes," he croaked. "Do that again."

  David slapped his left butt cheek.

  "Then tell me, Chuck. Tell me what you want me to do to you."

  "I want you to fuck the shit of me! Fuck me 'till I can't walk. Fuck the
jizz out of my balls," he shouted.

  The truth was out and there was no taking it back. Never, even in his
wildest dreams, would he have thought it possible.

  David turned him on to his back and Charlie was looking up at him from
between his spread legs. The lustful, intense gleam in David's eyes was as
exciting as it was fearful.

  Once again, he was completely at his mercy. For the second time that day
he was subject to whatever perversion should cross his mind. Maybe
perversion wasn't the right word. Variation might have been a better
fit. No matter. It didn't change the fact that his attack on his senses had
been relentless and so all encompassing as to border on the surreal.

  His own cock hung just a few inches from his face: its swollen knob close
enough for him to taste. Charlie wondered if he could do it and extended
his tongue. David's hand appeared and milked it gently until a single drop
of fluid emerged. It lingered, gleaming in the dim light like a tiny
diamond, and fell away into his mouth.

  David spat a glob of warm saliva on Charlie's abused butt hole. It
puddled around the outer walls of his rectum: soothing the tiny pinpricks
of discomfort before sliding down between his butt cheeks to the cushion.

  "That'll take some of the sting out," David whispered. "You getting
tired?"

  Thinking only of how incredibly handsome and masculine he was at that
moment, Charlie shook his head.

  "No. I'm fine."

  David was nothing like what he'd come to believe was the typical
homosexual man. He'd known him to be a cut up and a little flighty but this
was a facet he'd never seen before: exuding a straightforward confidence
that aroused him almost as much as it put him at ease.

  "You want some more of this?" David asked, grasping the base of his
swollen and greasy cock.

  "Yes."

  "Tell me how much you want it."

  Charlie closed his eyes and imagined how it was going to feel when David
entered him for the second time that evening: or maybe it was the
third. He'd lost count of how many times that his virgin hole had been
invaded...as if it mattered.



  "Do it to me," he pleaded. "I can't wait to feel your big cock inside me
again."

  David smiled enigmatically, gently tapping his fat, glossy cock head
against the tender flesh of his bunghole as he adjusted his position.

  "Here it is... take it all."

  Charlie responded by grasping his butt and pulling both halves apart.

  "I'm ready."

  "That's what I want," David growled as he plunged it in. "Open it wide
for me."

  Charlie cried out as their balls slammed together. His hands flailed
wildly and came to rest on the back of David's thighs.

  "Oh fuck! Shove it deeper...harder. Pound my butt," he called out as he
pulled him closer.

  "God, Chuck. I'm really inside you. Your hole...it's so fucking hot."

  "Stretch it wide open, stud. Open me up with that big greasy tool. I can
take it."

  Their lips grazed briefly. David gradually worked his way down the side
of his neck to his throat and back up the other side. Unlike the fierce
hammering he was giving Charlie's rectum, his kisses were gentle. He ground
his crotch against his friend's sweaty ass.

  "Sure you can take it, Chuck. You can do anything."

  After awhile Charlie's legs began to cramp. He remembered something he'd
heard about, though he couldn't remember where.

  "I want to get on top for awhile," he whispered while withdrawing his
legs from David's shoulders. He winced a little as the blood returned to
his feet. It wasn't just a lot of hot air when he said that he wanted to
try everything.

  David was at first shocked that he even knew about such things. With
shock came doubt and a subtle diminishment in his fervor.

  "I'm afraid I'll cum if I try to put it back in. Can't we just rest for a
minute?"

  "Who said you had to take it out? If you can find a way to suck me off in
a rumble seat you can find a way to change positions."

  Whether it was the result of his perverse sense of adventure, or simply
being up for a challenge, David's reticence was short lived. Charlie only
knew that whatever it was that changed his mind resulted in a comical
interlude of twisting and maneuvering within the narrow confines of the
sofa.

  The end result was worth it. His lubricant slicked prong advanced what
felt like another inch...but probably wasn't. Once the initial shock of
penetration wore off Charlie began to rock back and forth: tightening and
loosening his grip. He was determined to milk David dry while making him
beg for more. Charlie was relentless, leaving no doubt as to which one was
really in charge.

  Verbal exchanges stopped. The only sounds that either of them made were
those of heavy breathing. Charlie rode David's pole like a crazy man on a
merry-go-round built for one.

  "That's it, David. Jam your hot cock in my virgin ass," Charlie
panted. "You're not getting tired, are you? I don't want this to end."

  David looked into his eyes and pinched his nipples. "If you can ride it I
can abide it."

  "Your cock...it feels so fucking good," Charlie groaned.

  Each stroke brought another wave of pleasure as its fleshy head battered
his prostate. Neither of them would be able to withstand much more.

  David's grip on his waist had tightened. Charlie resumed stroking his own
dripping erection without realizing he was doing it. They were both getting
close.

  "I'm almost there," David whispered. "Should I pull out?"

  Charlie shook his head emphatically.

  "No," he shouted. "Go ahead and shoot your wad."

  "You want me to cum in your ass?"

  Charlie forgot all about his own impending orgasm to concentrate on
David. He didn't want to miss a thing. That included feeling David pump his
load in his fuck chute.

  "Do it in my ass. Give it to me," Charlie growled.

  David's face contorted as he arched his back.

  "I'm going to cum in your ass. Oh fucking shit! Here it is! Take it!"

  Charlie instinctively tightened his ass around David's cock as it swelled
up and began to pump out the contents of his balls. He shuddered and pushed
it all of the way in with such force that he almost threw his friend to the
floor.

  "Give me your cum. Fucking shoot your hot cum up my ass," Charlie called
out as David's crotch slammed into his butt again and again...faster and
faster with each thrust as strong as the one before it. He was almost
convinced that he could actually feel David's semen running down the walls
of his rectum. He'd have to be content with the sensation of something warm
filling his gut.

  Charlie's ears were still ringing with his cries of pleasure when he fell
back laughing and dripping with sweat. David's rapid fire lunges slowed to
long in and out strokes but he wasn't finished: not by a long shot.

  "Now it's your turn," David whispered.

  Still dazed, Charlie automatically reached for his cock.

  "What should I do? Should I get off?"

  David laughed and pushed his hand away.

  "That's the general idea, Chuck. Stay right where you are and prepare
yourself to be dazzled, my man," he replied.

  He was so cocky and sure of himself that Charlie had no choice but to
comply. David's power over him was as strong as his grip on his cock. He'd
have done anything he asked.

  Charlie knew the moment when David coated his hand with saliva and took
his first stroke that he wasn't going to last long. His nuts ached and his
cock dripped with pre cum that flew in every direction as the relentless
assault on his prostate intensified.

  "I...can't...hold it much longer," he panted.

  "Hold it just a little while longer, Chuck. I'm almost ready. Play with
my balls."

  Charlie couldn't believe what he was hearing. David had just emptied
himself into his bowels and was about to have his second orgasm in less
than a couple of minutes. He wondered what he'd gotten himself into.

  He reached behind and groped around between David's legs until he found
his balls. His finger brushed against the moving cock and followed it up to
where it disappeared inside his puckered hole. It swelled and strained as
it slid between his fingers. There was something magical about exploring
the point where their bodies came together.

  "Squeeze my nuts," David whispered through the haze that'd enveloped
Charlie's mind.

  "I can feel your cock going inside me," Charlie gasped as he continued to
explore David's hairy ball sack with trembling fingers. "I can feel my hole
stretching. It's so warm. God your cock is so warm and...and. Oh hell,
David. I can't hold it any more."

  "Go ahead and come. I'm ready," David replied breathlessly.

  A shudder ran through his body. He arched his back and drove his cock
into Charlie's prostate. His hand became a blur.

  "Faster! That's the way. Jack me off...hard," Charlie screamed. "Here it
is!"

  The night exploded in a shower of cum and a million stars that sprayed
all over the room. Long ropes of gooey jizz clung to Charlie's chest
hairs. He'd never had an orgasm that was as intense and had to close his
eyes to keep from passing out.

  When, at last, Charlie opened his eyes he saw David's smiling face
looking up at him. It was covered with his semen. It ran down his forehead
and into his hair.

  "You want to get cleaned up?" Charlie asked as another shudder of
pleasure wracked his aching body.

  "What's the big hurry? We've got all night," David replied while a big
glob of white goo slid down the side of his nose.

  "Don't you have to be somewhere or do something with your parents?"

  "So that's your game, huh? You get me into bed, have your way with me and
throw me out into the cold night. Well I'll have none of that. I'm staying
right here."

  "You've been spending too much time around the Drama Department. I just
thought..."

  "Stop thinking, Chuckie. Actually, the more I look around the more I
realize that someone has to protect you and your parents from over priced
interior decorators."

  Charlie laughed and then David laughed and it was a truly wonderful
moment that not even the embarrassing "pop" when he pulled his deflated
dick from his butt could alter.

  They lay on the leather Teague sofa for a long time before going to the
bedroom where they fucked two more times before the sun came up. Then they
slept through the first of many mornings wrapped in each other's arms until
late in the afternoon of the second day of 1925.

  The five years that had passed since that night had gone by too
fast. Charles sighed as he thought of the little house in Silverlake and
the boxes sitting in the middle of the room waiting for the movers. He
unfolded his long legs and swung them over the edge of the sofa with the
clear intention of getting to his feet. He pressed down on Archille's wide
shoulder to steady himself.

  "I've been sitting here so long that I can't remember how to walk. Get
ready to catch me," Charlie mumbled.

  Archille was much too tired to be coming to anybody's rescue. He glanced
around the room hoping to be looking the other way when Charlie fell on his
butt.

  "I hear it's like riding a bicycle. Once you learn, you never forget."

  "I suppose it is," Charlie replied softly.

  Charlie stopped swaying like a palm tree in the wind. After a tense
moment, he took a step. Archille saw this as a sign and started to his
feet.

  "What happens now?" Archille wondered aloud.

  "Happens? I told you. I'm getting hitched to the most wonderful girl in
the world."

  "And David?"

  "I'll make sure he gets home safely."

  "I mean what happens to David?"

  "I suppose he'll live to find somebody else."

  It occurred to Archille that in spite of all that'd just been said they
were still strangers. The prudent thing to do was not to ask any more
questions.

  "I want to talk with Clara before I leave."

  "How do you do it?" Charlie asked as if unaware of Archille's stated
intention.

  "How do I do what?"

  "Everyone's heard the stories about you and the endless conquests. How do
you put them behind you and still manage to always come out on top?"

  "Who said that I always come out on top?"

  "Everyone. Haven't you ever done something that turned out to be a
colossal mistake?"

  "I've made my share of mistakes."

  "Yet you always end up smelling like a rose?"

  "I'll tell you a secret that I learned from my father, Charles. You have
to shovel a lot of fertilizer to get the best the plant has to offer."

  "Forgive me if I find it hard to imagine you shoveling shit," Charlie
said with a laugh.

  Archille glanced at the faint cum stain on his pant leg.

  "Believe it. I've been ankle deep in shit more times than you can
imagine. Now I really have to be going."

  He extended a well manicured hand.

  "Good luck to you, Charles. Thanks for the story. It might make a hell of
a movie."

  Charles gripped his hand tightly, hoping that a bit of the handsome young
movie star's good luck would somehow be passed to him.

  "Thanks for being such a compassionate ear," he breathed and dropped his
hand limply to his side. "Oh... If you happen to see Delia out there..."

  "I'll tell her you'll be along shortly."

  "Yeah. Tell her I'll be along...shortly," Charlie replied flatly.

  He staggered a little as he turned and started for the swinging
doors. According to the silver and brass wall clock, it was just a few
minutes after four in the morning.

  Archille emerged from the anteroom with a throbbing headache. His eyes
burned from all the cigarette smoke in the air and the strange taste in his
mouth was going to make him sick if he didn't wash it away with a stiff
drink of anything containing alcohol.

  He found the main room not significantly less crowded than when he last
saw it. Aside from a few party goers being a bit closer to falling down
drunk, it was as if he'd never left the party. Clara, who always stopped
drinking early in the evening, graced him with a dazzling smile as he
approached her table.

  "Honey, you look like shit the morning after," she chirped brightly.

  "That's better than I feel. Anything left in the cellar?"

  "Pretty rough?" she asked signaling a waiter for another cup of
tea. "Worse than usual?"

  "That part wasn't bad. In fact it wasn't bad at all. Better than last
year's group."

  "Oh...you mean Charles. Yeah. That's rough."

  "How'd you know I was...?"

  "Honey, it's the owner's job to know everything that goes on."

  "You know about Charles?"

  "I know more about David."

  "Good. There's no need to fill you in on the details," David answered.

  "Uh-uh. Charlie's gonna be plenty sorry this time next year."

  "He's already sorry. Next year he'll be miserable."

  "Did you tell him that?"

  "I left him to make up his own mind."

  Clara nodded thoughtfully and signaled for the maitre d' to remove the
"Out Of Order" sign from the Men's Lounge the instant Archille looked the
other way.

  "Most of dese jokers would see that as a reason to put in their two cents
woith," she said not missing a beat.

  "I don't even know him."

  "It's never stopped me."

  "I beg your pardon."

  "It's four in the morning. You can drop the politeness and refinement
shit. I mean I've never let not knowing somebody get in the way of tellin'
'em what's on my mind. Still, it's a good thing you didn't."

  "Good?"

  "Sure! You ain't exactly the one to be askin' for directions but at least
you know it."

  "Ain't that the truth?" Archille replied with a yawn. "I also know that,
between earning my stardom and Charlie, I'm dead on my feet. Thanks for a
wonderful New Years."

  "Don't mention it, toots. Say... You want me to get someone to drive ya
home?"

  Archille shook his head.

  "I'm fine. By the time they bring my car around the cold will have
revived me."

  Clara leaned across the table and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  "In that case I'll say good night here. I've got a feelin' about dose
palookas at the corner table."

  Archille didn't bother to look. If Clara had a bad feeling about somebody
it was always right. He looked around the room one last time.

  "I don't see Delia."

  "Charlie's friends took her to the coffee shop to sober up. They'll be
back. You'd better vamoose before Charlie and David come out of there."

  A short while later Archille was standing beneath the copper canopy. He
was preparing to make a run for his car. The sound of pouring rain on metal
was deafening and he was looking forward to the blissful silence of his
apartment.

  "You sure I can't bring it around for you Mister Williams?" the attendant
asked, anxious to drive the big, sleek behemoth one last time.

  "There's no need," Archille replied absently.

  The attendant, having grabbed the wrong keys in the first place dashed
back inside and Archille found himself in the company of three men he'd
come to know all too well.

  "We just happened to be passing by and thought we'd stop to say hello."

  "At this time? In this weather?" Archille asked suspiciously.

  "There's a lot of ground we have to cover," one of them replied from
beneath the folds of a thick wool overcoat. "You did an admirable job
tonight."

  "It's not all that difficult...mostly dropping my pants," Archille
sighed. "So, do I get to stay famous for another year?"

  "That was the agreement."

  "Just checking. See you next year."

  The three men nodded in unison and started north on Vine Street.

  "By the way. They'll be fine. No need to worry."

  "Worry? Worry about whom?"

  "Charlie and David, of course."

  "That was a setup?" Archille demanded sharply.



  "No. It was just a happy coincidence. We had nothing to do with it."

  "Admirable job you did, Mister Williams," the shortest one added. "There
may be hope for you after all."

  "So how do you know they'll be all right?" Archille asked.

  "Leave that to us. Charlie will get his cushy job without marrying
Delia. The wheels are already in motion."

  If it didn't give him a creepy feeling to know they'd somehow been
watching, Archille would have smiled. "You're not going to do anything..."

  "To Miss Fallon? No. She's not as dumb as some people think. She already
suspects. Well, you have scripts to read tomorrow so we'll say good
night. Drive carefully."

  The three strange men started toward Hollywood Boulevard. Archille
grinned and snatched his keys from the attendant and headed for the parking
lot on the south side of the building.

  "What a strange night," he thought out loud as he opened the door and
tossed his hat on the passenger seat. The key slid easily into the ignition
and the mighty beast roared to life.

  He thought of Charlie and how much they had in common. They'd both agreed
to the unthinkable, but for very different reasons. One did it to avoid
that which he feared: the other to keep that which he cherished above
everything else.

  He watched the rain sluice down the windshield for a second or two and
threw the mighty transmission into gear. The car leaped forward and
galloped out on to Vine Street in a squeal of tires. It whisked him past a
tiny knot of guests who were just emerging from Clara's big New Year's
bash.

  A movement in the back seat caught his eye as the mammoth car rolled up
to the silent intersection of Hollywood and Vine. With one hand gripping
the steering wheel, he reached under the seat for his Derringer.

To be continued

  If you liked this one, look for "John", "Jury Duty", "Saturday Night
Stakeout" and "The Armored Car Guard" elsewhere on this site.