As I was reworking this novel, I decided to move 2 scenes from chapter 5 to chapter 1 and a scene from chapter 1 to chapter 2. Without the revised chapters, you'll be left hanging when you get to chapter 5. SOOO ... For those of you reading the story for the sake of the story, here are the revised 1^st 2 chapters.

The disclaimers and copyright notice from the original still apply.

Dave MacMillan

*******************

CHAPTER ONE

Saturday, after the initial shock had worn off, I went to the office on Peachtree for the first time since I'd heard the news. I forced myself to walk into Dad's office, knowing it was mine now. He'd had clients -- mine now -- and they had to be taken care of. No matter what some crazy Arabs had done.

When I'd driven him to the airport the week before, he'd told me that he'd gotten all of his people invested in the big funds like Dreyfus. His two week vacation to DC and then the west coast wouldn't even be noticed.

He'd deserved a vacation. I'd never known him to take one -- not once in my twenty-six years. The only time he'd ever give himself was the weekend once a month that he took off and didn't tell anybody where he was going -- mom hadn't even known when she was still alive.

He'd got in a couple of days of R & R in DC, at least. I could pictured him studying the pictures in the Smithsonian galleries. He'd go for hours like that.

Only, he'd boarded that plane at Dulles Tuesday morning. He had a schedule and neither hell nor high water would keep him from following it. He became part of the fireball that slammed into the Pentagon minutes after take-off, keeping on his fucking schedule.

A little after nine o'clock Tuesday morning, the eleventh of September, Taylor Securities became mine. I was the surviving partner. It took me until the following Saturday to drag my ass into the office and start earning my keep again.

My name's Samuel Adams Taylor, IV -- Sammy to everybody since I was born -- named after my great-grandfather. Dad had been Sam -- Samuel Adams Taylor, III.

When I started going through his files, I found the Sam Taylor Foundation folder.

His records proved to be a little strange -- beyond the fact that he was only charging the foundation a ten percent commission. Hell! That probably went out in the sixties.

The information in the file was what was strange -- or, more exactly, wasn't in it was.

Dad was one to keep meticulous records -- not just what the IRS, SEC, and Georgia's Revenuers wanted, either. With his clients, he kept up with every kid, cousin, in-law, divorce, re-marriage and death. He knew everybody. And, most of the time, they came to him when they were ready to invest. There had to be a hundred Taylor families whose investment portfolios he'd held. And their files were just as loaded with family tidbits as his other files.

He had the Sam Taylor Foundation's portfolio as well. Only, his information on it was downright bare -- its files held just enough to keep the IRS and SEC satisfied.

All those Taylors and the foundation were rich after two generations of Sam Taylors directing their portfolios -- something like a hundred million dollars combined. Even at the ten percent commission dad was charging them, that meant one very nice living for me.

Now that they were my clients, I wanted those hillbillies on Taylor Mountain to know I was going to work my butt off for them, to keep their business in the family. I started thinking about a trip to the mountain as soon as I could get away. All my cousins out there needed to be reassured that this young whippersnapper was going to treat them just as good as his daddy had. Or better.

I'd never been to Tugaloo county, Georgia. I didn't even know Taylor Mountain existed there or anywhere else, or even that it was named for my family. It bothered me that Dad hadn't mentioned any of that to me, even after I'd earned my MBA at Harvard and joined him.

Still, I'd found a key to a padlock and the deed to a cabin on the mountain in Dad's safe and, because I was his only surviving family ... I pocketed the key, figuring I'd find the padlock it fit when I got to the cabin I'd just inherited.

I called it a night around midnight. I leaned back in Dad's big swivel chair and looked around his office -- my office now. Dark mahogany paneled walls on three sides, a globe in a floor stand in the center of the office, bookcases from the floor to the ceiling surrounding the door on the interior wall. Masculine and warm. Dad had always liked the Dutch Renaissance painters, his father before him had too -- there were two Rembrandts hanging there to prove it. It felt good.

* * *

"Sammy, it's one o'clock in the morning!" Miss Georgia Peach of 1996 said, getting up from the couch and looking meaningfully at her wristwatch as I stepped into my condo. "Were you at the office all this time?" Her voice was thick and sweet like honey -- with only the hint of a south Georgia twang.

I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. She melted against me.

Brenda Reed had been my girlfriend the past year. It was almost a live-in arrangement; but, because we both knew I wasn't ready to pop the question any time soon, she maintained an efficiency out in Dekalb county so that her daddy didn't go ballistic about either me or her lack of virginity.

Her daddy was Reverend Rastus Reed, a bible-thumping televangelist out of Brunswick down on the coast. I'd only met him a couple of times and that had been enough. He'd wanted to grill me like a prisoner. I'd put up with that the couple of times it happened. When he started in on trying to convert me, though, I'd walked away. We did come to agree about one thing: we didn't like each other.

Brenda had tried to get me to pray with her -- the first couple of times we dated, usually right after we'd rutted around on my bed for a couple of hours. She soon wised up, however, and left the religious stuff back in Dekalb.

The girl fucked like a bunny rabbit. She'd been all over me before I could even shut the door the first time I took her to the condo. And her hand had keyed in on my crotch before we were even properly kissing. That and her looks were the reasons why we were still seeing each other a year after we met. There was no way, however, that I was going to get into praying after I'd just given her the best fuck I knew how.

"Brenda, I went through forty years of dad's files today," I told her after we'd broken the kiss. I headed for the liquor cabinet. I needed a good, stiff shot of Famous Grouse.

"Have you eaten?" she demanded. She didn't like me to drink when I hadn't eaten and, then, she only tolerated me having one.

"Shit!" I groaned. I'd gotten so involved in dad's files I forgot about dinner.

"Want me to fix you something?" she asked silkily.

I knew what that meant -- burnt toast, even burnt water. Brenda Reed was a lot of things, but a cook wasn't one of them.

"I'll skip dinner tonight," I answered as I poured a stiff drink.

"There's a letter to you on the table, Sammy."

"More junk mail?" I grumbled and started back toward her, glass in hand. "Why didn't you just chuck it?"

"It's from something called the Sam Taylor Foundation and addressed to Sammy Taylor." She grinned and moved into my arms. "I figured it was personal, baby."

Curiosity ballooned; I couldn't help it. I dropped my arms and slipped out of hers -- and headed for the table in the kitchenette where the mail always ended up. I could feel her eyes on my back. I picked up the letter.

"Must be important," she said finally, irritation lacing her voice.

I turned back to her and smiled. "Brenda, this foundation has a lot of investments I now handle."

She didn't say anything. We both knew that I was supposed to go back to her and plant little kisses all over her eyes and face until she accepted my unspoken apology.

I opened the letter instead. The single sheet of paper inside was thick, like parchment. There was one handwritten line on it: "Family council meeting in the longhouse at eight on the twenty-third. Be there." It was signed: S. A. Taylor. The handwriting was definitely masculine. The letterhead listed S. A. Taylor as the president of the foundation, it also gave the foundation's address as Taylor Access Road, Taylor Mountain, Georgia. No zip.

I read the line again. My presence at the family council meeting looked to be a command performance.

I had sort of been thinking of going up and visiting the kinfolk I hadn't known I had ... I guessed that I'd just decided to make my visit the upcoming weekend, a little ahead of when I'd have gotten around to it on my own.

"Looks like I'm going to be out of town this weekend," I told Brenda as I started back toward the living room and her.

"You can't." Her words left no room for discussion.

"I'm afraid I have to," I answered.

"We're going to the art auction, Sammy." Her tone of voice making it clear that she was making her stand.

"I'm not, Brenda. I'm going to Tugaloo county to meet my new clients."

She glared at me. I still didn't back down. I didn't go to her and start kissing her eyelids.

"These queer boys are your friends, Sammy. Some of them are your clients too. More of them will be if you start behaving like a man, instead of some self-centered child." She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "This is one of those times that I think daddy's right about you," she announced.

"I am being adult, Brenda," I explained, being careful that my voice was calm. "I'm going to fulfill my business obligations."

"I think I remember something at home I've got to do," she said, flipping her chestnut hair around her neck as she made a show of picking up her things.

She crossed the room; opening the door, she stopped and looked back at me. "Sammy Taylor, you'd better learn how to bend your knee like a real man and pray," she said, her voice strained. "Let God show you what you should do. You know how to reach me when you've come to your senses."

I watched her pull the door closed behind her. I downed my drink and told myself that, if this was what marriage would be like with her, I was glad I hadn't bought into it.

While I was getting ready for bed, I started to think about leaving Friday after lunch instead of waiting for Saturday morning. I put off making a decision on the off-chance Brenda got her head out of her ass before Friday.

Sunday morning, I got out the maps and found Taylor Mountain over a mug of coffee. It was up US 29 from Seneca and near Georgia's one ski resort at Sky Mountain -- nestled tight in there where South Carolina and North Carolina met the peach state.

* * *

Brenda remained an unhappy camper Sunday. The phone became an ominous presence, it was so quiet. Even the telemarketers had lost my unlisted number.

I read the Wall Street Journal and got some ideas for a few of my clients. One especially made me think of my next door neighbor -- Pink Fluff Cleaning Supplies was for the discerning clientele that wanted true clean. It was trading on the American.

Paul did operate an all-male maid service from his condo. I used him for both the office and my place. He was as flaming as a two hundred and twenty pound gym rat could get. Brenda had proved to be the final rivet in my armor as far as he was concerned. When we started dating, Paul had finally stopped trying to get me into bed and became a good friend.

I'd contracted with him after I'd learned that Brenda didn't have a domestic bone in her body. That was before I saw his ad in Southern Voice offering all-nude house cleaning -- with a smile. I tried to ignore the images of stark naked guys vacuuming my condo that sometimes popped into my head.

Pink Fluff could very well turn out to be my ticket to getting Paul to start investing in America instead of the tacky knickknacks that cluttered every inch of his condo.

I shuddered at complete set of dishes commemorating Gone With The Wind. I cringed at the set honoring Elvis. He'd spent hundreds for something that Goodwill wouldn't touch.

Brenda called me Monday morning. I'd just got through placing an order for a hundred shares of Pink Fluff for Paul.

"Have you come to your senses?" she demanded, cutting to the chase without even a neighborly "hello".

"Sure have," I answered. "I'm going to north Georgia this weekend."

There was a loud sigh on the other end of the phone. I wondered if everybody at her advertising agency had heard her.

"Well, I guess I'd better go buy some country clothes if you're going to drag me off to the mountains."

What? Me take her to the mountains for this meeting? Those cousins of mine were hillbillies -- church twice on Sunday and every Wednesday evening. Hate the sin, but love the sinner -- while you're beating him to a pulp. Or maybe they spoke in tongues while holding rattlesnakes in their hands. Either way, I didn't see them accepting my fornication with Brenda.

She'd grown up in a house full of that religious bigotry. I couldn't understand why she didn't realize that I didn't know what I was walking into up there?

"I'm going alone, Brenda. Why don't you...?"

She hung up before I could get any more out.

The way I saw it, the moment it got around that I hadn't said "I do", the Taylor Mountain rumor mill would start up for sure. All I had to do was remember the daggers in her daddy's look every time he saw me -- he didn't know that I was helping his daughter wallow in sin almost every night; but he sure did suspect it. Reverend Reed might not be a hillbilly; but he was a south Georgia redneck and that was just as bad in my book. I did not want my private life aired. Not my trawling the gay waters of Atlanta for clients and not that I was sleeping with a woman who wasn't my wife.

Life in the service industry was a bitch. No matter how good a guy was and no matter how good his service, there were going to be envious sons of bitches who'd jump on the little things he did in his life, paint a bull's eye on his back, and start shooting at him.

I only had to look at Bill Clinton. A nasty impeachment and millions of government dollars were wasted on a report that was so bad it gave porn a bad name simply because some Arkansas redneck lawyers didn't make it away from a place called Hope.

The ten percent commission for managing the investments of the hundred Taylor families was a lot more important than going to an art show or making Brenda happy every single moment of every single day. Besides, she'd get over it. She liked me having money. I'd just take her out to a swank restaurant and buy her a new outfit or something.

I checked with Paul Estes Monday after work and, with a twinkle in his eye, he promised to take good care of my pussy. Blushing, I told him I'd be leaving directly from work on Friday.

The pussy in question wasn't even my cat. Sniggums was Brenda's. The thing had just come over with Brenda one night and ended up staying. Fortunately, she tolerated me and absolutely adored Paul.

* * *

Rastus Reed slammed the door of the house and stomped out to his Lincoln.

He was mad at Troy again. The son of a bitch was always demanding money. Even with Rastus already paying the man's rent and utilities.

What did Troy want from him any way?

Rastus knew that, but it only make him angrier. He ground the car into life and whipped it out of its hiding place in the shed under the trees. He forced himself to look both ways before he pulled out on the road back to Jacksonville.

Yeah, he knew what Troy wanted. What all of them had ever wanted.

Money.

A hundred for this, two hundred for that. It never stopped. Troy was into him for almost a thousand a week. He was nothing more than a queer hooker.

He was going to have to drop Troy this time. He had to get back to that straight and narrow road to Heaven. That was all there was to it. Only, he wasn't sure he could do that. He hadn't been able to yet.

That made Rastus even madder. Troy had gotten to Rastus deeper than any boy had in the thirty years Rastus had been a minister of God.

His anger cooled as he forced himself to consider Troy -- his body and how good he felt when they were fucking. God ought to make it impossible for boys to look so good and have such big dicks.

As it was, Rastus couldn't get enough of the boy.

Boy, hell! Troy was a twenty-year-old man. He had a man's equipment and knew how to use it. Rastus could still feel Troy's thing pounding his butt last night.

He sighed as he turned onto the entrance to the bridge over the St. Johns River that would take him back to Georgia and Brunswick.

He didn't dare drop Troy.

The bastard could kill his ministry with just a hint to the media.

Wouldn't the papers or television news love that? The Reverend Rastus Reed exposed as an abomination.

The ten million dollars a year his ministry was bringing in would dry up faster than greased lightning.

Troy might be a hustler -- he advertised himself as an escort -- but he knew how to keep his mouth shut. He knew how to keep Rastus safe from prying eyes when they got together. He never once suggested they go out anywhere; they stayed at the house -- with the Lincoln hidden away in the shed Troy had built for it.

Rastus could afford the thousand a week that the boy was costing him. He was already skimming it off the top from the cash donations at church.

He actually didn't begrudge the boy the money. Not really. It just hurt that Troy still looked at Rastus as a customer, now that he'd taken over the rent and utilities. It hurt that the boy was still seeing other customers in addition to him. He wanted that body and that dick all to himself.

Rastus just wished that his wife could satisfy him like Troy did.

There had never been a more God-fearing woman than Laura Reed. But, to her, sex was a necessary evil she had to endure. In a way, Rastus was glad that she'd never demanded much of that from him. It had been enough when Laura got pregnant with Brenda. They had moved into the safe roles of a minister and his wife after that.

The ministry had been a very safe role for him. Rastus had stayed out of Vietnam. It had pulled him out of a two-bit church and having to supplement his income preaching tent revivals. It had given him his television contract.

Nobody dared to look down their nose at Rastus Reed, not once he'd started preaching. He smiled at that as he turned onto the road that circled Brunswick.

As he turned into his beachfront home, Rastus knew he was going to have to make it up to Atlanta next week. He'd sinned with Troy and he was going to have to be punished for it. Paul Estes was just going to have to fit him in.

* * *

Paul Estes grunted as he forced his body up into the ninetieth crunch in his second set of a hundred. His gut muscles were feeling it now. He was naked and following his daily exercise regimen on the leather apron he used to protect the carpet. Leather sucked at his skin now that he was sweaty. It made him feel sexy.

He had a hard six-incher throbbing between his legs. He took a deep breath, the scent of leather and sweat around him and on him making him harder. Each time he bent forward, his pole rubbed against his hard, hairy abs. His balls already rode his shaft.

As his shoulders left the apron on the ninety-first crunch, he caught sight of the scene on his television screen and he paused to watch it. Sammy Taylor's ass flexed and ground between the woman's legs as he fucked her.

Sammy had about the finest bubble-butt Paul had ever seen, and he'd seen quite a few in his twelve years on the Atlanta gay scene. Many of them he'd played with -- with a horse whip or cat-of-nine tails usually, a wood paddle occasionally. More than a few he'd also fucked.

Paul loved his mental image of Sammy's butt red from the leather straps of his favorite whip -- red and ready. And hungry. He'd wanted Sammy's ass since the guy had moved next door.

Only, Sammy was the straightest guy Paul had ever met.

To Paul, it ought to be immoral or against the law or something for a guy to have such a fuckable ass and be straight.

He did five more quick crunches before he stopped to watch the action again.

Sammy's butt on the screen had speeded up, piledriving his dick into his girlfriend Brenda. He had to be almost there. Paul could almost feel that ass flexing and grinding on his dick, his sweat oozing down into Paul's pubes. It was almost as if he could reach out and touch it. Even the grainy black and white of the video didn't distract from the beauty of that butt.

Paul rubbed his belly hard against his erection. He was almost there himself, right along with Sammy, and rubbing his dick against his gut wasn't getting him there. In frustration, he reached down and grabbed his pole. "Yeah," he breathed as he started to fist himself fast.

He watched Sammy push all the way into the woman and freeze. He pounded on his six-incher to catch up to the other man.

On the screen, Sammy collapsed on top of Brenda, his body relaxing in post-orgasmic relief, as Paul's hose began shooting.

When his pole was only dribbling jizz, Paul knocked out the last four crunches of the last set for the day. He laid back on the apron then, relishing the feel of the leather against his back, sticking to his body, and smeared his cum through the sweat on his abs and chest. The scent of it almost made him hard again.

Sitting back up, he watched as Sammy rolled off the woman on the screen. He snarled when it was just her the camera centered on, her face lax from her own orgasm, and reached for the remote. He clicked the video off and pushed himself to his feet. He didn't want to look at a nude, sweaty, sated Brenda Reed. He headed for the shower to clean up.

He didn't really have anything against Brenda; she was all right for a woman, he guessed. It was that two-faced, Bible-thumping daddy of hers that sent him up the wall.

Paul Estes knew just about everything there was to know about the fat, little peacock of a preacher.

The Reverend Rastus Reed used to be just another of the tent preachers that preached hatred throughout the rural South -- until a Brunswick television station gave him his start as a televangelist almost ten years before.

Now, he preached hatred over the airwaves and fleeced little old ladies out any extra they could spare from their social security checks -- to help save the world for God, he was always telling them.

Yeah. Sure. And Paul Estes wore tutus, too.

He wondered how many of those old ladies went without a meal to send Reed the five dollars he begged them for.

The only ministry that Rastus Reed supported was the one that fed the Lincoln dealership where he traded cars every two years. And Paul as well -- but nobody knew about that. Paul Estes was getting him for two hundred a week -- for just an hour a week helping Rastus work off his sins. Flabby old Rastus Reed on the rack, naked, and taking a dildo up his ass and the leather lashes of a cat-of-nine-tails across his legs and back.

Oh, yeah, Paul knew the Reverend Rastus Reed. He just wished he didn't.

If anything, Reed was probably why Paul had gone into the house cleaning business six years earlier when his sugar daddy died. He'd fully intended to let the business from his dungeon and toys dry up and disappear, he'd been so fed up with the likes of the preacher.

He'd felt strong feelings for most of his customers. He loved them as only a master could love his slaves.

Most of his early customers in the cleaning business had been men who paid him to punish them on a weekly basis. He'd kept his dungeon open up in Marietta for them. He hadn't been able to drop Rastus Reed, however. The man had upped his fee from the hundred an hour Paul charged everybody to the two hundred he was now paying.

Paul netted four thousand a week from the cleaning service, but he still made half that running whips over asscheeks and ramming assholes full of dildoes.

Paul stepped into the shower and surrendered himself to the tepid water.

He'd started placing the cameras so he could quickly find out if any of his cleaning boys was goofing off or holding out on him -- the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room. That'd been his rationale, at least. After all, it was dumb as shit to trust some young slave who hadn't even learned how to submit properly.

His clients who'd followed him from the dungeon were only too ready to confess to wanting one of the young guys or telling on them if they didn't do their job. And telling on them if they managed to get the kid to slack off. Paul charged an extra hundred for that kind of stuff.

By that time, however, he was beginning to pick up new cleaning clients. Good-looking hunky guys he could drool for. Like Sammy Taylor.

He'd started installing his cameras so they focused on the bed, not the room. And he'd quickly become addicted to watching his favorite hunks getting down to the nitty gritty. Like he'd been doing with Sammy.

Speaking of Sammy Taylor, Paul was beginning to wonder about him. Not about his sexuality and if he'd changed his tastes -- there were enough female hormones left in that condo that they threatened everybody who entered it.

Vids from the last three nights, however, had been just hunky Sammy Taylor stripping down and getting into bed alone. He'd been fucking Brenda Reed every night until this past week. The night before he left, though, he'd jacked off.

Paul wondered if the two of them had broken up. With his dick hard again, he allowed himself to imagine what it'd be like if they had -- and wished he could somehow step in and show his next door neighbor what he was missing. He could just imagine the lashes of his favorite whip wiggling up over Sammy's bubblebutt. He was instantly hard again.

CHAPTER TWO

Sweat glued my loose running shorts to my butt as I followed the paved path around the reservoir in Piedmont Park Friday morning. It glistened on my smooth pecs and down my ripped abs. At twenty-six, I was five eleven and weighed a hundred and sixty-eight, all of it muscle and bone. I kept myself that way with exercise.

The sun was just breaking through the trees. It was Friday morning and I was pushing myself, going for five miles because I didn't know what kind of exercise I was going to get during the weekend ahead of me.

What I might find on Taylor Mountain had grown on me to the point that I was having a hard time thinking about anything else.

Finding out that there was a family foundation that had my name on it had been what caught my interest in Taylor Mountain in the first place. Learning the people there had made both my grandfather and dad rich -- and promised to do the same for me -- jacked that interest a lot higher. Especially when I hadn't known anything about them. Being told to get my tail up there for a council meeting Saturday evening hadn't dampened my interest in the slightest. I figured a day of reconnoitering things before that little family gathering might put me in good stead with the locals.

Except for my grandmom, I'd never met a Taylor relative. My grandfather who'd started the family securities brokerage house in Atlanta back in the early fifties died before I was born. Dad hadn't talked about his family. I'd never thought about his side of the family until I was going through his files after he died. My curiosity just kept ballooning.

I had to be careful, though. Study the lay of the land before you commit yourself, dad had always said. Find out what your client's taboos are before you trigger one of them. That was the biggest reason I was going up to Taylor Mountain this weekend, not because somebody told me to be there.

I'd even started to think of looking around for a church that didn't push hellfire and brimstone too much, now that I knew about the Sam Taylor Foundation and all those Taylors on Taylor Mountain. It'd have to be something sensible -- even intelligent. Maybe the Episcopalians wouldn't be too bad. Saint Paul's Cathedral on Peachtree was an impressive church.

I left after lunch, ahead of the rush hour traffic, and started up I-85. I'd made sure I had a bottle of Famous Grouse along for the two lonely evenings I expected lay ahead of me. I was already past Gainesville and heading north, northeast by the time the rush hour hit the beltway around Atlanta.

The mountains were becoming a turn-on the longer I was in them. The leaves were just beginning to turn and I loved it. I'd been stopping at each scenic pull-over since after leaving Seneca and getting out to look out over the miles of trees changing to autumn colors and the mountains all around me. The air was cool and there was almost a nip in it -- it was downright invigorating. The air was tangy and alive it was so fresh. I could get used to all the good, clean nature stuff. I was as if I was coming home or something.

It was past five o'clock when I started up State Route 28 from Seneca toward the Chattooga River and Taylor Mountain.

Shadows were really lengthening when I turned onto the county-maintained access road that led me up onto the mountain. That was when I saw the small, inconspicuous sign: Taylor Mountain. Private Property. No Trespassing.

That didn't sound too ominous, certainly not threatening. I sure wasn't here to trespass -- I owned property up here, after all.

* * *

I figured I had less than an hour of light to find the cabin and get situated. I stopped at the first house after I'd turned onto the access road for directions.

The house surprised me. It was a brick, one-story rambler -- and spacious.

There went my idea of what hillbillies lived like. I started revising my prejudices. Maybe my long-lost cousins weren't going to be so primitive, after all.

The middle-aged man who opened the door looked me up and down and said: "Mister, you need to be getting back down to Seneca before it gets dark." There was a broad hint of threat in his voice and stance.

Hey! I'm a salesman, right? Investment portfolios and the like. I might not encounter negative vibes up close like some door-to-door insurance salesman would, but I could read body english with the best of them.

"I'm Sammy Taylor -- Sam Adams Taylor," I told the man. "My Dad left me a cabin here on the mountain."

The threat disappeared. The suspicion and curiosity did too. I was facing respect with an underlying dose of fear.

"You're Sam Taylor's boy?"

I nodded.

"You'd better get on up to the house then, Sammy. I'd stay inside after it gets dark if I were you."

"Why?" It sounded like he was some villager near Castle Frankenstein warning a chance visitor away in a bad B-movie.

His ruddy, sun-darkened skin seemed to turn alabaster at my question.

"Is there something on the mountain that I need to watch out for?" I pushed.

He smiled back at me. It seemed forced. Despite all the protocols of Southern hospitality, he wasn't making a move to invite me inside.

"There's nothing in these parts that you need to be scared of, Sammy Taylor -- that's a given. You're as safe here as anybody's ever going to be." He scratched his head. "Your being new here and all, you might -- uh -- get lost or something if you go exploring at night. You know how things sometimes look different in the dark."

What he'd said seemed reasonable. However, it didn't explain how emphatic he'd just sounded when he told me to stay inside once I got put.

"So, where's this cabin?" I asked.

He didn't move out of the door. He just told me to follow the road for five miles and I'd see the driveway -- it'd be the only one with a chain across it. It wouldn't take me but a minute to lower it, though -- if I had the key. And I didn't have to worry. Nobody ever disturbed people who lived on Taylor Mountain.

I had the key I'd found with the deed. I hoped it was the right one. I got back into my car, still wondering about the man's lack of manners.

"There's a woodpile next to the kitchen door, Sammy -- in case you want to build a fire," he called. "It gets right cool up here in the mountains at night." He stayed in the doorway as I pulled back onto the access road, watching me.

The trip meter on my odometer read exactly five miles when I reached the chained drive. I pulled the key out of my pocket and grinned when it fit. I unlocked it and let the chain down -- it was oiled and showed no sign of rust. Even the steel posts set in the drive's asphalt were freshly painted.

I guessed that Dad had one of the locals taking care of the place for him. That impression grew as I followed the drive deeper into the property. There wasn't a crack in the asphalt; it was as if the drive got paved every year. The woods on either side of the drive, however, were close-in and seemed overgrown in the fading light.

I told myself that Dad must have really liked the sense of the woods coming right up to him. Either that or he was a lot tighter with his wallet than the rest of what I'd seen of the place had shown him to be. It wasn't hard to guess that the landscaping would be expensive, even if he wasn't paying Atlanta prices.

The drive opened into a clearing and I hit the brakes.

Before me stood a log house; but there was nothing about it that harked back to the depression or earlier. Two-story, cathedral windows, covered verandah, log steps -- it looked like something straight out of Switzerland or Austria -- like an alpine ski lodge. It was bathed in the dying sunlight.

There was fifty feet of lawn between the trees and the house on each side and a graveled path up to the verandah from the small parking space just inside the trees.

This was mine? Jesus!

Dad only spent a weekend a month up here?

I was a city boy, born and raised -- but I knew where I was going to be spending a lot of my time from now on out.

I was ready to explore. I parked, got my bag, and headed up the path.

The house was unlocked and I gave it a quick look-see; after all, I had all night to check it out. As soon as I figured out that the bedrooms were on the second floor, I was up the stairs, ready to change into jeans and sneakers. I claimed the largest of the three bedrooms and changed.

I froze as I was coming back down the stairs. Beyond the twenty-five foot high windows, the sun was just beginning to ride the mountain top across the way. I just gawked at the beauty spread out before me.

"I'm home," I mumbled to myself, "at last."

I wondered where that thought had come from. I'd always been a dedicated city boy, after all -- and this was about as far from the city as I could get and still be on the same planet. Then, I just accepted that I was more comfortable than I could remember myself ever being as I stood on the staircase of my log house.

I pulled myself away from gazing out over the mountain and got my ass down the stairs and outside. I wanted to explore and only had a little more than half an hour of sunlight to do it in. I got a flashlight out of the car and started along the edge of the woods.

* * *

I kept myself to an arc around the house, holding to a perimeter of around fifty yards from the clearing as I did so.

The woods were every bit as dense as they'd looked from the drive. Only, I didn't see one dead tree or even a stump. There were no pines -- just hickory, maple, and oak. There was no underbrush, either. I could stroll between the old trees easily.

It was sliding past dusk, and I'd started back toward the house. I saw the outhouse then, standing just off the path I was following.

I approached it, surprised that it even existed. The house was modern from what I'd seen of it. The woods were closely maintained; I hadn't seen even a dead limb. So, why was there a dilapidated outhouse out here?

It was old. Weathered boards had bowed, pulling away from the frame and the rusted nails that once held them there. It swayed when I touched it. I figured it probably hadn't been used since my Dad was a kid, certainly not since the Korean War almost fifty years ago.

The door was hanging by one rusted hinge. I pulled it open and peered into the dark interior. And was hit right that instant by the intense need to feel what it was like to place my naked butt on one of the holes there. I just had to have the breeze tickle the hairs of my ass -- and I had to have it now.

It made no sense whatsoever.

I turned on the flashlight and searched for spiders and any other bugs I didn't want to meet.

I tried discussing this strange need with myself. Why does a city boy in 2001 want to drop his jeans and sit on an outdoor toilet that hadn't been used in maybe fifty years? I wasn't giving myself any answers. The need just got stronger.

It didn't make sense, but it was something I'd always wanted to do and just didn't know it. Worse. I was getting hard just thinking about it. I knew then and there that there was something else I'd always wanted to do and didn't know it.

I dropped my jeans, sat on the bench, and started to stroke. It wasn't as if there was anybody around. I owned the place -- or would as soon as Dad's will was probated. Besides, I explained to myself that I had a major case of blue balls since Brenda had been avoiding me the past several days.

I wasn't going to lose the moment.

My dick pulsed, demanding attention. I spread my legs. The seat creaked under me but held my weight.

There was a slight breeze and it did play with the hair around my hole and balls. I grinned and stroked a little faster. It felt sort of nice.

Fucking hot, actually.

I leaned back against the wall and shut my eyes. My feet used the door frame to steady me as my fist moved faster.

In my mind's eye, Brenda was under me, writhing with her own need, as I slammed my seven inches into her.

"Oh, yeah!" I groaned. I could almost taste her sweat as I saw myself sucking on her tits while I banged her. My balls climbed up to nestle my dickshaft. I was getting close, it felt so good.

Suddenly, Brenda's soft, pliable knockers became hard muscle. It was Paul I was banging and his nipples I was sucking.

My eyes flew open. What was this shit? I looked down at my dick.

One more stroke, I screamed to myself. Come on! Even this old shithouse is rocking with me. This one's going to be a real doozie.

No! Not in Paul's ass I'm not coming! I'm not queer!

|Sammy Taylor! You get your butt out of that shitter right this minute, boy!| somebody yelled at me, the words coming at me from everywhere at the same time.

I saw that the old outhouse really was rocking around me. A couple of the boards had already fallen away. Wood creaked and it sure sounded like it was complaining.

I let go of my dick and pushed off the seat.

Dust sprinkled my shoulders and a ceiling beam swung by in front of my nose. The door finished falling off. I dove through the gaping hole that was left. The roof collapsed behind me.

|That was a damnfool thing to do, Sammy. You could've got yourself killed, boy -- all for a lousy pull on the old hose.|

That voice again. Coming from everywhere at the same time. And me lying there with my pants below my knees and my butt bare-ass naked. I didn't want to think what I had to look like to whoever was talking to me.

I could just imagine what the story would be tomorrow at the family council meeting. That Sammy Taylor was ... Well, let me tell you what kind of boy he is. Shit!

I pushed up on my knees, wondering how I was going to salvage any of my dignity from this. I figured getting caught beating off was going to make keeping all those Taylor investments a whole lot tougher.

A hand cupped my right buttcheek.

|You've got yourself a real pretty fanny, Sammy,| the voice said. |Real plump to help your partner ride you.| The hand moved to the center of my butt so that its spread fingers could cup both cheeks. I couldn't believe just how smooth the skin of that hand was -- and how cool it felt. Then, I realized that it was my bare butt that hand was cupping.

"Get your fucking hand off my ass!" I snarled and started to turn around to see who was feeling me up.

I blacked out.

* * *

The bluest eyes held mine as they swam closer; full, red lips parted revealing even, white teeth. I reached up and my arm went around his neck as those lips touched mine. Cool, smooth, and gentle, they pressed against mine before they began to part. The tip of his tongue caressed my lips before burrowing behind them to lick my front teeth. I pulled him closer to me, my mouth opening and my tongue snaking out to find his. My dick was so hard it threatened to pop out of its skin, my knob happily leaking precum as it lay over my abs hot with anticipation.

Fingers caught both of my nipples, squeezing them. I kissed him harder, wanting him. Needing him. Desperate for the completeness that was his promise. Both of my hands moved to his face, holding it. My tongue hungrily exploring his mouth, marveling at the length of his canine teeth.

Cool, smooth hands moved along my flanks. Up over my pecs and down onto my washboard abs. I humped my groin toward his hand; but it ignored my dick, moving back up my body and out along my arms. I shivered at his touch. Every nerve ending in my body screamed for more. Our tongues continued to explore each other's mouths, working together in harmony.

I knew it was a dream. It couldn't be anything but a dream. I wasn't queer. I didn't get hard for men touching me. Only, I was floating on a sea of pleasure more intense than I'd ever known. My body went where those swells of pleasure took it. My mind followed numbly.

Need grew to force all thought from me -- all consciousness but my need to touch him, to possess him, to become his.

My hands moved from his face through the stubble of blond hair at his nape onto his broad shoulders. Smooth, cool skin covered the hard muscle beneath my fingers as I began to trace the top of his back.

Our faces still joined, he shifted his weight and, leaning over me, brought a hand down to my hip and cupped my buttcheek. I worked a leg under him, then lifted both of them to expose myself. I needed him inside me. I wanted to feel his hardness in me. I prayed that he would possess me.

Our lips still joined, he moved between my legs and I crossed them at the ankles over his back. His hands spread my buttcheeks. My balls rode the shaft of my dick as one of my hands went to his hip and the other found his hard pole.

My fingers encircled it. I relished the cool hardness of it, anticipating what it would do for me. I stroked it, my fist pulling skin onto the head of his dick until it was covered completely. I guided it toward me as I pulled the skin back to expose the head.

I could feel the width of the knob as it settled against my hole. He adjusted again, positioning himself to take me.

Memory flared, threatening to become a hard rain dousing all the needs coursing through me: AIDS. HIV. Buttfucking. Raincoats. My body tensed under him, my butthole closing tight.

It's only a dream, I told myself. It's not happening. It's not real.

I relaxed. My butthole opened again, ready for him. Wanting him. The rest of me needing him in me.

|Welcome home, Sammy,| he told me as he pushed his groin toward me.

He entered me. My butt muscles stretched as the head of his dick eased through them. I opened my eyes, staring into his as our tongues continued to explore each other's mouths and more of him slid into me.

My tongue dueled his, my brown eyes held his blue ones, and his pole slipped easily deeper and deeper into my gut. I felt full but complete. His knob slid over something inside me that had me nearly blowing my load. Inch after inch of his shaft rubbed across that spot and I was beyond thought and feeling. I simply was.

Nerve endings exploded at the entrance of my butthole as his pubes tickled my ball sack, sending sparks through my body.

His pubic bush pushed past my ball sack to press against the tenderest skin on me. I exploded untouched. Jizz blew everywhere.

|I knew you'd like it, Sammy,| the voice told me. |I'm going to make love to you all night long.|

He began to move in me. Inch after inch pulled out of me; the head of his dick moved back across that spot inside me. His face pulled back from mine. He licked my lips and smiled down at me.

"Fuck me!" I moaned, both hands going past my legs to find his butt and pull him back into me.

He fucked me slowly, watching me. His face dipped to let him nibble at one nipple, then the other. His neck strained to bring his lips to my ear and he ran his tongue down my jaw and back. His fingers encircled my dick and stroked it in time with his thrusts into me. I soared along currents of feelings I'd never known existed.

I shot my load again, but he didn't vary his movement in me no matter how tightly my muscles clamped down. I stayed hard. He fucked me and I dozed. I awoke as my balls again pasted themselves to my shaft and exploded.

I dozed again, my hard cock a pendulum sliding back and forth across my belly through the layers of cooling jizz I'd already left there.