As you know, the legend tells that the forth "found again" brother, was in Bisbee. What the official story doesn't tell is that his real name was Lao King, and that King is a Chinese last name meaning "gold" and not "king". In fact, if there was a king was among the brothers, it was Mel, who was understood by all to be the head of the family. The story, which in one way or an other explains all the nicknames, is silent on this one - the editor wasn't able to invent a reason for this one, as he didn't want to say that Leo was in reality "half Chink" as they said in his time.
Lao King was a son of a Chinese man and an American woman. The girl had been ostracized by her family because she had fallen in love, and wanted to marry him. Lao's mother died when Lao, the second of five children, was seven years old. Their father, surviving many hardships and privations, reared his five children; but when Lao was fifteen, he too died. The oldest brother continued their father's work and raised his little brothers. They owned a laundry in Bisbee. All four children, in some ways, helped him with the work.
When Lao first met the four Baxter brothers, he was twenty one years old. Like all Orientals, or even half-breeds, he looked much younger. He had a hairless body, like most Chinese, but his skin was fair like that of a white man, his eyes were just slightly almond-shaped, his hair was smooth and black, but soft. Before meeting the Baxter brothers, he had his hair braided in the classical Chinese pigtail and dressed in Chinese clothes. His father taught him to use a strange weapon, made of two short wooden rods with an iron tip, connected by a short small chain. The two rods could be made to whirl at high speed and become a deadly weapon in a hand-to-hand struggle or thrown. Another thing that his father taught him, besides washing and ironing clothes, was an unusual massage made with his fingertips, with which he could heal many aches and pains.
When Mel and his three brothers reached Bisbee to escort to a gold shipment, just the day before their departure, a balcony collapsed and clipped Mel. He was not seriously hurt, but he was so dazed, and hurting that, he gave the lead to Rufus. He had to stay in bed in the hotel.
The hotel owner's wife, after the three brothers' departure, when went to see if Mel needed anything. Telling him about the "little Chinese healer", as he was known in town, she suggested Mel call him. Mel accepted. That afternoon, someone knocked at his door. It was Lao King. The young man approached the bed and, when the woman left, asked if he could undress Mel to allow him to check thoroughly his body and to give him a healing massage.
Lao, with his skilled and gentle hands, removed one by one Mel's garments. Then he started to gently and methodically finger the various parts of Mel's body, asking him to tell where and how much he felt pain.
When the careful checking was over, Lao said: "Sir, you will need several days of massages. I will come three times a day, but in the end you will be like new."
"How much will it cost?"
"Half a dollar a day, sir."
"If I really recover, I'm game. Will you start now?"
"Certainly, sir. Lay back, and relax, sir."
Lao started his massage. His fingers moved confident, with small calculated movements, applying pressure just with his fingertips. At times very gentle, at times strongly and Mel was amazed that he didn't feel any pain at those pressures.
"I already feel better..."
"Yes, sir. But the pain will return. Less stronger, but it will come back. Please, sir, try not to move. It will be better."
After a while, Lao stopped. Covering Mel's body with a soft warm blanket, he smiled and said: "Here! now stay warm, sir. The less you move, the better it is. I'll be back before supper time, sir."
"Excuse me, may I ask you something?"
"Certainly, sir."
"What's your name?"
"Lao King, sir."
"Listen, Lao, couldn't you stop calling me sir, and just call me by my name?"
"It's an honor, for me. May I know your name?"
"Mel Baxter."
"Mel Baxter!? I heard you are the best gunman in all Arizona..."
"I'm rather good, when I have to be."
"You must be bored All alone here, from morning to night, without moving."
"I can endure it. And I need to heal fast."
"Yes, you are very wise. Have a good rest now, Mel Baxter."
"Thank you. See you soon. And... if you are not too busy, stay sometimes to chat with me. Can you?"
"I'll stay tonight. Now I have to go help my brothers in our shop. See ya later."
Mel was fascinated by the young man's smile. He felt in it a great freshness and gentleness. The young man's wide Chinese style clothing hid his body, so that it was hard to guess what was under it. Mel thought that it was not fair that Lao saw and touched his naked body; but he could not even see what the boy looked like. He dozed off and woke up several times, until the lady brought him his meal. He had just finished eating, when Lao arrived.
He uncovered Mel's body and started his strange but beneficial massages. Meanwhile they chatted.
At one point, Mel asked: "Do you have a girlfriend?"
"No, Mel. If I was in China, I would already have a wife at my age. But here, no girl wants to go with a Chinese, because she doesn't want to be isolated from her family and her friends as happened to my mother."
"And yet, you are a handsome boy, it seems to me. Sooner or later you'll find a girl."
"I don't think so."
"And... if I'm not to nosy... how do you manage?"
"No, it's OK. I do nothing."
"Nothing? But when desire comes? It must happens, at times, I think."
"Certainly. But the kind of massage I'm giving you, can also be used to have a calming effect on the sexual stimuli, or even to awaken them. So, when I feel a need, I just calm myself down."
"I too know a... massage to give a dick to calm him down!" Mel said laughing.
Lao too laughed and said: "I was not referring to that massage. The massage I was referring to, doesn't even touch the... dick."
"Really? Not even the one to arouse?"
"Not even."
"I would like to try it..."
"Which one?"
"The one to arouse, of course!"
"But since you don't have a girl, and even if you had one here; it would be better you did nothing. And then, how could you give vent to your desire?"
"Bah... missing something better, with my kind of massage." Mel answered laughing.
"I think it would be better to avoid doing it to you, in your current state."
"But I would like to see how you do it. If not on me... you could do it on yourself, just to show me..."
"On myself? I would be ashamed to be seen by you."
"But you've seen me completely naked, and still I'm not ashamed with you."
"Of course, like one is not ashamed of a doctor. But the doctor doesn't strip naked to be seen by his patient, right?"
"But, tell me Lao, you really never made love with a woman? How old are you?"
"Twenty one. Yes, once I made love with a woman. I was fourteen and she was sixteen."
"And... did you like it?"
"Not a yes, not a no..."
"And... with a man, have you ever made love?"
"No, never. But I know there are those who do."
"For instance, I do."
"Did you already have sex with a man?"
"Sure."
"And did you enjoy it?"
"A lot."
"Interesting..."
They changed subject. But now the pang of curiosity gnawed at him. Who knows if he could not try it with Lao?
Lao returned the following morning.
"Do you have to hurry back to your shop?" Mel asked him.
"No, not really in hurry. There is not too much work, today."
"Then, can you stay a while with me?"
"Sure, willingly. It's easy to talk with you."
"Ah really? And why?"
"Because you don't treat me as a strange being, inferior, but as your peer."
"That's natural, you are my equal!"
"People here don't seem to think so."
"It must be difficult for you living here..."
"At times... a little. They mock me for my pigtail, for my clothing."
"They are just stupid. Anyway... why don't you dress like everybody else? If you cut your hair and wore clothes like everybody, you could almost seem like any American..."
"My brother is very much of a traditionalist."
"But you are free to do as you like, aren't you?"
"In the Chinese families, the family head must be obeyed and respected. And my oldest brother is our family head."
"But you, how would you like to dress?"
"To me, it is absolutely not important. It is OK like it is now, it would be OK in your fashion. What's inside the clothes, that is me. It doesn't change at all."
"I would like to see you dressed like us. Who knows how you would look? And your hair cropped short..."
"I have no idea. Possibly good, possibly bad..."
"You know, I was thinking about that massage you said, to arouse..."
"Those who normally needs it, are old men when they can't succeed in making it rise, or some ill people. I don't really think you need it, you seem perfectly all right."
"Yes, I am. But... you also know massages to increase the pleasure, I think, correct?"
"Yes, also. And massages to make one sleep, or to make him well awake... It is an ancient art."
"Yes, but... It seems sad, to me, thinking you don't have sex. Only once in your life... and seven years ago..."
"One gets used to this too."
"I wouldn't like to."
"Do you miss your woman that much?"
"I don't have a woman."
"Ah, then... you do it alone?"
"No."
"I don't understand... do you mean, perhaps... if you have no women and neither do it alone... whores?"
"Never."
"But then... you do..."
"Yes, I thought you understood. I like doing it with men. And I would like trying it with you... I'm thinking about it from the first moment I saw you. But it seems that you are not interested in it..."
"I think that, even if I tried... I wouldn't like it, nor dislike it."
"But possibly, I could make you enjoy it, even without knowing your special massages..."
"Why would you like to try it with me? Do you miss a man? It's too much that you can't have sex?"
"No, not so much. I don't know if your body is beautiful or not, but what attracts me to you are three things - your face, your smile, and the gentleness I can feel in you."
Lao nodded then, almost unexpectedly he stood up an said: "Now I have to go. We will meet after lunch. Probably I will not have time to stay."
"But will you stay a while after supper?"
"I will."
Mel was more and more attracted to the young man. He was asking himself if he could persuade him to try it. He asked himself how it could be. He was aroused by these thoughts, but he didn't want to jack off, to have all his energies untouched in the case that Lao King answered his courting, his desires.
That evening, after the massage (and Mel was astonished not to became aroused by it), Leo covered him and sat on the edge of the bed. They chatted a while about various matters, and Mel told Lao the truth about him and his "brothers". He felt that he could trust Lao.
Then, suddenly, Mel said: "Do you know, Lao? I feel like kissing you!"
"It seems to me a weird custom you Westerners have to touch each other with your lips and tongue."
"Do you mean that your father never kissed your mother?"
"This, I don't know, I can't remember, but I don't think they did. In my father's land, it is not the custom to kiss."
"And yet, it is so beautiful! Wouldn't you try it with me?"
"I don't know... I don't think. I like you very much, but I don't think. Just thinking of doing it, makes me laugh..."
"I feel I desire you more and more, Lao..."
"I am your friend, and would like to make you happy. So, I tell you - when you are healed, if you want it, I will do it with you once."
"You really will? Or will you give me a massage to calm my desires?"
"My massage can stop an erection, that is a physical thing, not the desire, that is a spiritual thing."
"So then, you'll come in bed with me, let me kiss you and do all the other things that two men do to make love?"
"When you are healed, I will, I promised you."
"So then, see that you heal me soon... But... do you know what two men do to make love?"
"I can guess it, as I know the parts of a male's body where more intense pleasures could be felt. And anyway, you'll teach me anything I don't know."
"And you will do everything, with me?"
"Of course. I told you that I am your friend, and that I want to satisfy your desires. I'll do everything."
"You might not like something..."
"What gives pleasure to the body, will be liked by the mind, if it is receptive and open."
Mel was fascinated by the extreme simplicity and naturalness with which Lao faced the subject. He would never have thought it could be so easy making him consent. It had been enough to express to him his desire and Lao, just out of friendship, accepted. How much better this world would be if everything were that way, Mel told himself.
About a week had passed and Mel was improving rapidly.
So, one evening, after the usual massage, Lao said: "Mel, if you wish, we can try to make love."
"Oh yes, sure... lock the door..."
Lao locked the door, then approaching the bed, started to unbutton his tunic. He pulled it off and underneath he wore a half sleeve collarless shirt and soft spacious trousers. Pulling off the shirt, the boy stood bare-chested. Mel lightly caressed it.
"You have a fine chest, so hairless, wide, your skin soft like silk... covering firm muscles. I like what I'm beginning to see..."
Lao untied the drawstring holding his trousers to his waist and loosened it. His trousers glided down around his ankles with a soft rustle. Underneath, he wore nothing. The young man stood next to the bed, now completely naked.
Mel caressed him with his eyes and dreamily said: "You have a beautiful body, Lao, I really like you. Your soft dick, is a beauty to behold..."
"Would you like to have an erogenous massage?"
"I don't think I need it. Look how the blanket is tenting, at the center of my body..."
"I see... You are aroused just by looking at me. Your imagination is already doing pleasurable things with my body, right?"
"That's right, Lao, and I desire you even more than before."
"I like how your eyes caress my body, do you know? It's really pleasant feeling desired. For the first time I can see my virility reflected in the smile of another person. This is a completely new experience, for me, very pleasurable. Do you see how my dick is starting to answer to your desire?"
Lao took a corner of the blanket and slowly slid it down Mel's body, uncovering it little by little, from the chest down. The blanket gliding away was like the caress of a feather on Mel's skin, and he imperceptibly quivered. When Lao had completely uncovered Mel, looked at him from head to toe.
Then he said with a smile: "Do you know that your body seems more beautiful now that an erection blossomed at its center? This also is a new experience to me."
"Do you like my body? You saw it naked a thousand times, you must be used to it."
"But for the first time your body is telling me its desire for mine. It is a really pleasurable sensation."
"Lao... my hands desire your body..."
"And my body is hungry for your hands..."
Mel was fascinated by the unusual sensations that arose from the naturalness with which the young Chinese was offering him his virginity. He didn't feel lust, lechery, and yet his desire was intense. They drew nearer, brushed, searched and they found each other. Hands, lips, skin, explored skin, lips, hands. They suck each other, slipped into each other, they opened to each other. Their bodies were uniting, penetrating, melding. Mel felt overcome by pleasure, a sweet, tender pleasure, and yet intense like never before. At last they spread their seed, each one in the other's garden, placating its thirst and desire. Each of them felt, in the symphony of their final ecstasy, he had received a precious and spirited part of the other. And then they lay down again, lightly caressing each other like in the beginning, conscious that their bodies were parting and that yet, something new was now uniting them.
"Mel, I didn't know it could be so majestic making love between men. Thank you." Lao said with a dreaming smile.
"Thanks to you, Lao. I too didn't know it could be so... sublime. Please... join me and my brothers! Now that I know you so intimately, I can't lose you again. And I would like my brothers too to discover this new wonderful dimension of love. You are a rare pearl, a precious gem. You radiate a beauty that surpasses that of your body, which is also so beautiful..."
"Only one who has beauty in his soul can recognize beauty. If you find me beautiful, it means that also in your heart and your soul, beauty is there. My father once told me: "One day you will find a light that makes your light shine. Follow it." I tell you, you are my light. Yes, I want to stay with you and your brothers. If you wish it, this is also my desire."
"Will your oldest brother allow you to join us?"
"I will explain to him what I have found. He will not deny me what I need. And you will be my new oldest brother. Consider me as already yours. Just let me go bid farewell to my old family."
"Yes, of course. And tomorrow you will have your hair cut, dress like us, wear our hat, have your horse and your name will be... Leo Baxter. A new life is starting for you."
"Yes, I'm starting a new life."
They kissed again and Mel, caressing his soft member, asked with a smile: "Does it still seem to you funny, the custom of kissing?"
"No. All you taught me this evening, now seems to me the most logical and natural thing to do. You opened my eyes, my brother."
"I didn't hurt you when I entered in you, right?"
"No, it has been so wonderful welcoming you inside me. As it has been wonderful when you welcomed me inside you. Wonderful because it is right, and necessary doing it. Wonderful because now I feel to really be a man, really a male, really alive... really myself."
Leo returned the following morning, with the small bundle of his belongings. Mel at once took him to buy western clothes, and all the rest of the things that he needed. Then he took him to a barber shop to cut his hair short. Finally they went back in Mel's room.
Mel admired him and said: "You seem even more beautiful, now that you are Leo Baxter!"
"Yes, you made me beautiful. Let's make love again, please. My soul is thirsty for you..."
Mel opened his arms and welcomed Leo. They slowly started to undress each other, savoring the joy of unveiling little by little the other's body. To expose it to their caresses, exploring each other with hands quivering with emotion, lips boiling with passion. To do it in full daylight, their bodies flooded by the sunlight entering the open windows, barely veiled by light curtains, standing one in front of the other, added something magic to the already magic atmosphere that enclosed them. It was like a rite, slow, solemn, where each one praised with his body the other's beauty. Where the fire of desire burned the incense of passion. Like two artists, each one was molding with skilled touches the other's body, molding his friend's pleasure. They were competing to give each other enjoyment, to make excitation bloom, in making it ripen and then tasting it deeply.
"Oh Mel, tonight I thought I'd discovered paradise, but I now see that I've only tasted a little bit of it, that there is still so much to discover. Take my hand and guide me into this marvelous garden..."
"Leo, I thought to be the gardener who knows each flower bed of his garden, that knows it inch by inch, flower by flower, but you are showing me that in reality it is of an unsuspected wideness, and it is you who are guiding me to become aware of that. I thought it was beautiful to assail the fortress of the friend and to storm it, but you are making me understand that the conqueror is captured. I take you, and in the same act, I'm won. I let you take me and at the same moment you are all mine! With you, I feel king and subject at the same time."
The fire of their senses was vividly burning their passions. They listened to each other, smelled, admired, savored, they touched each other in a concert of emotions played by all their five senses. And they again discovered that the ecstasy of orgasm could also not be an explosion, an eruption, an earthquake full of force and energy, but a flowing, a spreading, a gushing full of gentleness and tenderness. And they also understood that energy and sweetness, strength and tenderness are but the two sides of a same coin - that of love.
They lay down, tenderly embraced, cuddling each other and whispering sweet love words.
And Mel, for the first time, felt spouting from his heart new words: "I love you." and understood that what united him to his brothers was surely desire, passion, pleasure, but also much more, and that all was summed up with that short word - love.
Leo dozed off, his face suffused with bliss. Mel watched him, feeling happy.
When he recognized the footsteps and voices of his other brothers returning, he carefully unwound himself from Leo's embrace, careful not to wake him. Leaving the bed, he went to open the door for the others, giving them a sign to keep silent. They entered, happily surprised to see Mel completely healed, and also completely naked, but, while he was closing the door, noticed Leo's body languidly lying on Mel's bed.
"Who's that splendid boy?" Red asked in a whisper.
"Our new brother, Leo Baxter."
"Isn't he beautiful! Look how he smiles in his sleep." Rufus said.
"We just made love..." Mel murmured.
"Is he skilled in making love?" Peter asked with interest.
"It is the first time in his life, and yet it seems that he did nothing else in his twenty one years of life!"
Leo opened his eyes and saw the four faces bending over him. He broke into a wide smile and said: "So, you are my other brothers! I'm happy to meet you. Mel told me so much about you. I really wanted to meet you."
"I feel like making your acquaintance at once..." Peter said with a cunning smile.
"No, let's go get something to eat. We'll have time for that later, right, Leo?"
"Surely, Mel. Now that I've found my family, who could ever separate us?"