Mike and Danny:
Restless Hearts
by Rock Lane Cooper
This is
a work of homoerotic fiction. If you are offended by such material or if you
are not allowed access to it under the laws where you live, please exit now. This
work is copyrighted by the author and may not be copied or distributed in any
form without the written permission of the author, who may be contacted at: rocklanecooper@yahoo.com
Note that these stories, including this
one, are not an endorsement of unsafe sex. They take place many years before
the appearance of AIDS and before it was standard practice to use condoms to
reduce the risk of infection from sexually transmitted diseases. Remember
always: that was then, this is now. Sex is precious, and so are life and
health.
Chapter 2
Rich and Ty
leave for
Mike had work to do around the place that
morning, and he was out in the shop with the Farmall
cleaning the carburetor and putting in new gaskets. Rusty was keeping him
company, lying on a piece of old carpet left over from putting down
wall-to-wall in the TV room, and the eaves under the shed roof were noisy with
the chatter of sparrows.
Mike was keeping an eye on the house for
when Rich and Ty came out to get on the motorcycle
and start their trip to
The decision had seemed to take Ty by surprise, too. He got very quiet when Rich broke the
news and looked like he hadn’t yet got used to the idea.
Mike didn’t come out and say so, but he
had his doubts from the start. Rich had come a long way from when he first
showed up at the farm, burned out and kind of shell shocked, but Mike wondered
if he was really ready to make his way back into the world.
And Ty was not
much more than a kid. He had a big, generous heart, but looking after Rich all
on his own—which he did with the patience of no ordinary man—was surely
expecting too much of him.
Besides, he had his own future to sort
out. The life he’d planned for—finishing seminary and becoming a minister—had
been taken away from him. And, as he’d explained once to Mike, there was still
his family in
“I don’t know about this,” he’d told
Danny as the two of them lay together in bed. “There’s a world of things wrong
with it.”
Danny had just pulled off his clothes and
crawled naked under the covers to stretch himself out next to Mike. He’d
pressed against Mike and put his arm across his chest to tuck one hand into his
armpit for a moment and then stroke slowly down his side. Eventually that hand
would find its way under the elastic of Mike’s boxers and search until it found
his cock.
“Sounds to me like he’s made his mind
up,” Danny said and sighed.
They were talking quietly so their voices
would not carry to the back bedroom where Rich and Ty
had gone to bed a half hour before and could still be awake.
“He’s rushing things. There’s no reason
he couldn’t just stay here.” Mike turned his head to Danny and reached to touch
his face. “I don’t care if him and Ty stay all
winter. Do you?”
“It would be nice having the place here
all to ourselves.”
“Well, yeah,” Mike said and patted
Danny’s cheek. “There’s that.”
Then he kissed Danny and hugged him. And
feeling Danny’s bare chest against him, he felt a surge of hungry desire that
rolled through his body. It had been another long week since the two of them
had made love.
“I don’t like worrying about them,” Mike
said.
“And you might be worried about nothing,”
Danny said, and he’d already found Mike’s cock, growing hard there in his hand.
The next morning, though, in the cold
light of day, Mike’s misgivings were strong as ever. He couldn’t shake the
feeling that if there was any way to keep it from happening, he should be doing
it.
He’d thought of persuading Ty to stay behind until Rich had actually got himself
settled in
Finally he realized that it was out of
his hands—and maybe not even his business. They were two grown men, and a man
has to find his own way. He may be wrong, but even wrong, he knows best what he
wants. You have to let him make his own mistakes.
Mike didn’t like this, but that’s the way
it was, like it or not.
He looked out through the shop window
when he heard voices from the house and saw Rich and Ty
walking from the side porch out to the bike. They were already climbing on as Mike
came walking across the place to them. Danny stood in the open porch door,
watching.
Rich was in his leathers, and Ty had on a bright red wool jacket Mike had given him. He’d
worn it when he used to go pheasant hunting with Don, but that was years ago,
and it had wound up in the back of a closet.
Before Rich put on his gloves, he shook
Mike’s hand and said, “Thank you, I owe you for everything.” And Ty, getting off the bike, put his arms around Mike and held
him fiercely, hardly able to speak.
“You two be careful, you hear?” Mike
said.
“Let us know when you get there,” Danny
called out from the porch step, where he stood in his stocking feet.
Rich nodded at both of them and
kick-started the bike. Ty settled in behind him and
slipped on his Easy Rider helmet, and they were already moving as Rich walked
the bike backward a few steps and then headed it toward the driveway. He gave
them a last big wave with one gloved hand and with a roar they were off.
And Mike stood watching them go,
following the bike with his eyes until it disappeared beyond the cottonwoods
that grew where the road crossed a slough. He wondered, as he often did at
times like this, whether he would see either of them again. The world was so
full of mischance and turns of fate.
He looked over to find Danny, but Danny
had gone back into the house. He’d left Mike to have this moment alone.
— § —
Ed lay in bed under the blankets, his big
bulk of a body spread out to occupy all of it. Ted had got up with almost the
first light to make himself coffee and then get to his paints. He worked only
by the sunlight pouring in through the windows on these autumn days—which were
swiftly growing shorter.
“It’s the colors,” he explained to Ed,
who had wondered why he never worked at night. “Artificial light screws ’em up.”
“Oh.”
Ed had been surprised how much labor
actually goes into painting. After all, how many painters had he known in his
forty years—none. He had always taken pictures on the wall for granted. What
were they? Just decoration. Now he knew better.
Ted was hard at work now finishing twenty
of them for a show in
Ed had been a salesman most of his
life—he’d got his start selling cigarettes to the other kids in junior high,
until a vice principal had caught him and put him on detention. After that he’d
been more careful and never got caught again. It was no use giving up a talent
he obviously had for being a middle man.
Although he’d dabbled in more serious
trafficking—like alcohol from his dad’s supply, hidden from a strict Baptist
spouse in a disused storm cellar, and marijuana, which grew wild in a far
corner of the pasture on his grandfather’s farm—he’d seldom taken money in
exchange for these. He just enjoyed the guilty pleasure of indulging in
something forbidden with a few of his closest friends.
And the guiltier the better. Along with
smoking the shriveled leaves he’d harvested from the marijuana weeds—which
mostly just gave him and his buddies a headache, though they tried their best
to believe they were high—there was, when they got in the mood for it, the fun
of a good circle jerk.
That experience had taught him the
importance of figuring out from prospective buyers what they really wanted. And
it wasn’t just the boots or saddles or cars—he’d worked for a while at a
Cadillac dealership in San Antonio—it was the warmth of his personality, the
sly jokes and winks, and, let’s be honest, the size of the bulge in the front
of his pants. It was all flirtation and seduction. It didn’t matter if it was a
man or a woman. The car or the saddle or the boots were a substitute for having
sex with him.
Knowing that what Ted needed was a good
salesman for his paintings, Ed had puzzled over how he might put his skills to
use for him. But this turned out to be more of a challenge than he’d figured
on. What made someone willing to write a four-figure check for just a picture
of something to hang on a wall? He didn’t know.
So he’d taken to simply sitting in a
creaky wooden chair with his feet up on a crate, watching Ted, trying to
concentrate on what he was doing. Ted would stand at the easel for hours, maybe
playing some of his records on an old portable stereo, floppy shirt sleeves
rolled up to the elbows, his slim hips and long legs in his paint-smeared jeans.
Ed realized he had never taken the time
to get to know another man so thoroughly before. Until now, there had been no
need for it. He was always on the road anyway and—face it—it suited him to be
constantly on the move.
For a while, he’d satisfy himself with a
cup of coffee, watching the unfolding mystery of a painting as it slowly
materialized. Then it wasn’t long before he’d become aware of Ted himself, his
butt there in the back of his jeans, the crease along the seam between his back
pockets pressing against him this way and now that as he shifted from one foot
to the other. Who’d have guessed a painter could be such a handsome man and so
damn good in bed.
Ed could get hard just letting his eyes
wander across Ted’s backside until he finally had to get up and walk over to
him, and with his big hands stroke his shoulders and his butt, caressing the
inside of his thighs, then slipping his fingers between his legs to feel the
body heat there in his crotch. Finally, both hands on Ted’s firm stomach, he would
press into him grinding his hard-on against him from behind.
But Ted would often keep on working,
saying, “Hey,” and just that and no more—like nothing was going to interrupt
him.
Somehow a lot of days had passed like
this. Ed had got to sleeping later and later in the mornings, and the sex every
night had taken the edge off his usual nervous energy. For the most part, he’d
grown calm, mellow, relaxed, and he couldn’t remember why he used to be always
rushing around.
This, of course, would last until the sun
went down, and all the way through supper he felt a growing urge to get Ted out
of those paint-smeared jeans and back into bed again. Like as not, the supper
dishes would get left on the table, Ed grinning and growling, “My turn. I wanna fuck you now.”
Then in something like a fever pitch,
they would roll and wrestle together in the sheets and have sex until they were
both exhausted, finally round about
It was the best of all possible worlds.
So Ed would often think, as he settled his head into his pillow and enjoyed the
last seconds of consciousness before drifting off to dreamland.
Finally one morning—this morning—it
dawned on him. He got out of bed and walked naked to the big empty room where
Ted was working. He was layering paint on a large canvas that Ed had recognized
as a picture of Mike’s farm. The colors were all high summer, and the sky sang
with a vibrant blue.
“I figured it out,” Ed said.
“You figured what out?”
“It’s you that’s for sale.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ed pointed to the finished paintings
lined up along the wall. “Every one of these has your name on it, down there in
the corner. When someone buys one of these, it’s not the painting they’re
buying. It’s you.”
He grinned with the satisfaction of
having finally figured this out. And he explained his philosophy of
salesmanship, that what buyers want is sex with you, and they’re willing to pay
for the next best thing—whatever you’re selling.
Ted kept on painting. “Your brains are
between your legs, you know that?”
Ed reached down with one hand to cover
his cock. “I’m serious,” he said.
“I believe you are,” Ted laughed.
“I wanna sell
your paintings,” Ed said. “I wanna sell you.”
“I dunno,” Ted
said and shook his head.
“Don’t you think I can do it?”
Ted kept busy with his brush. “I’m a
little confused. Are you talking about selling me or selling yourself?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just know it’ll
work.”
He stood there absently stroking himself
now, his brain already buzzing with ideas. He’d go looking for his old
customers—the ones with
And the moment he had the thought, he
knew he’d been itching to be on the road again.
“I’m going into town,” he said.
“Something I need to get.”
“Don’t forget to put your pants on.”
Ed hardly heard him. He was already
thinking about how soon he could get himself to
— § —
When Marty finally got up, he had stopped
wondering where Virgil was. He’d fallen asleep the night before watching an old
movie on the new TV. Now the Saturday morning cartoons were on.
The high-pitched voices and noisy racket
were enough to give a man a headache. Marty crawled to the foot of the bed and
switched it off. Then he lay there, listening to the silence in the apartment
and remembering the night before.
They were in the middle of a pizza,
sitting on the bed in their underwear and watching “The Friday Night Movie”
when they heard a commotion on the stairs outside their door. It was the
landlady from upstairs telling someone in her loud, friendly way, “Just go on
down and knock on the door. They’re home.”
“You invite somebody over?” Virgil said.
“Hell, no. Musta
been you.”
“Never told anybody I live here.”
There was now knocking on the door and
more encouragement from their landlady. “I know they’re home,” she kept saying.
“You gonna go
see who it is?” Marty said.
Virgil got up without answering and
walked out of the room, pulling on a pair of jeans as he went.
It had turned out to be an old friend of
Virgil’s. Marty had listened from the bedroom but couldn’t make out much of the
conversation over the volume of the TV. It just sounded sort of serious.
After a while Virgil had come back for
his shirt and shoes and, while he put them on, explained that he and his
friend—a guy named Brian who he played ball with—were going out for a beer. There
was something they needed to talk about.
And Virgil had never come back.
“Fuck him,” Marty said to himself as he
lay there the next morning. And he got up to go to the bathroom, where he
turned on the shower and took a long pee in the toilet while the water got hot.
Soaping his armpits and his crotch and
using Virgil’s shampoo to wash his hair, he let himself think about nothing for
a while, the steamy spray drumming onto his head and prickling his skin. And he
stood for a long time letting it fall straight into his face.
It wasn’t like he always needed to know
where Virgil was or what he’d been doing all night with his friend. But if it
had been Marty, he would have done something different. He just wasn’t sure
what. After all, what were the rules for two guys who lived and slept and had
sex with each other? He didn’t know.
What he did know was that waking up alone
in this empty apartment didn’t feel so good. It was too much like all those
years of being always on his own and having no one to share his life with—and
not even knowing why he was often so unhappy. Finally he turned the water off
and stepped out, reaching for a towel.
Then it came to him that they were more
than just buddies. Virgil had invaded his heart, and he needed to know that
Virgil felt the same way about him. Forever was a long time, but he wanted to
think they’d always be around for each other.
Feeling close to Virgil like this had not
happened all at once. For a while—a couple of weeks at least— it felt like he
had no feelings at all, nothing to give in return for Virgil’s affection, which
seemed to grow deeper every day.
Meanwhile, he doubted that Virgil meant
half of what he was saying. It seemed so unlikely that someone else could want
him the way Virgil said he did, could never seem to tire of him, could spend
every waking hour of a day with him and then cuddle together with him all
night—still there in the morning with a smile for him.
Except for this morning.
And by the size and shape of Virgil’s
absence, which Marty felt somewhere deep inside, between his heart and his gut,
he began to wonder if maybe he’d let himself fall way too far in love.
He had surrendered to it the night he
moved into the apartment. Lying there together in the dark, he had let Virgil
enter him for the first time. It had been a strange, difficult experience that
felt so awkward it seemed unnatural.
He had held himself tense for a long
time, Virgil soothing and stroking his body, talking to him gently, while the
discomfort brought tears to Marty’s eyes. Try as hard as he might, he couldn’t
get himself to calm down and just let it happen.
Finally they were lying on their sides,
his knees almost to his chest and Virgil behind him, hugging the two of them
tightly together. He could feel Virgil’s whiskery cheek against the back of his
neck and, below, the stiff pressure of his erection slowly working its way into
him.
“Do you want me to stop?” Virgil asked
him more than once, and Marty kept saying no. But not because he was enjoying
it. He simply didn’t want to disappoint Virgil.
“Maybe some other night,” Virgil said.
“No,” Marty said, “I want you to.”
That part—the wanting—was true. He just
couldn’t make it happen.
“I’m gonna
stop,” Virgil said after a while, with a kindness in his voice that could only
have come from more love and patience than Marty had ever known in another man.
Marty gripped the hand Virgil was holding
against his chest before he could pull away.
“No,” Marty said. “Please.” He wanted
Virgil to stay inside him, pressed naked against him like this. And as he
shifted his weight, pushing back against Virgil, the movement brought him a
stab of pleasure he hadn’t expected.
“Ahhh,” Virgil
had cried out. It was a quick gasp of surprise. His body went rigid, and one of
his legs made a jerking move on the bed sheet. “Ahh-hh,”
he said again, his voice rising sharply.
Marty knew from the many times it had
happened already that Virgil was coming, and as it always did, a wave of
tenderness passed through him for his new friend. Only this time it was a surge
of feeling that included each of them. Like they were being held warm and
secure in the loving arms of something greater than both of them had ever known
before.
He wasn’t much of a believer, but at that
moment he could have sworn they had been meant to find each other and be
together like this. And he wanted the feeling to never stop.
He took the towel now and wiped the steam
off the bathroom mirror, then he wrapped the towel around him and ran a comb
through his short hair. There was still the taste of sex in his mouth, from the
night before, and he got out his toothbrush to brush his teeth.
In the bedroom, he picked up the pizza
box that had spent the night on Virgil’s side of the bed, and he took a bite
out of a cold, stiff slice as he put on his levi’s
and a sweatshirt.
He was in the kitchen, searching for a
coke in the refrigerator, when he heard footsteps coming along the driveway
outside the window, and he looked up to see the bottom of Virgil’s jeans and
his sneakers pass by. Soon there was a rumbling sound as he came thundering in
his usual way down the stairs.
“Mornin’,” he
said as he walked through the door. “You’ll never believe what happened.”
“Try me.”
“That guy Brian last night? We used to be
roommates.” Virgil stood there in his denim jacket and, eying the open pizza
box now on the kitchen table, reached into it to take the last piece.
“What’s the matter with him? He looked kinda worried.”
“Oh, he thinks he’s in deep shit,” Virgil
said around a mouthful of pizza. Then he came around the table to where Marty
was standing. “Hey, pardner,” he said and gave him a
big kiss.
“Is he?” Marty said, “In deep shit?”
“He’s been shacked up with his
girlfriend. She wants to get married. He doesn’t.”
Marty shrugged. “Time comes, you gotta
pay the piper,” he said. It was something his father would have said, and
realizing that gave Marty a funny feeling. Turning out like his father was the
last thing he wanted to happen.
“She’s got him going because he doesn’t
always use a rubber, and she thinks she’s missed a period.” Virgil laughed.
“Poor sucker.”
“You don’t sound too sorry for the guy.”
“Yeah, well, I do and I don’t.” Virgil
had his head in the refrigerator now. “We got any more coke?”
“I got the last one.”
“Gonna have to
be beer then,” Virgil said and stuffed the last of the pizza into his mouth
before reaching in for one.
“So what’s he gonna
do, your friend?” Marty asked.
“Says he’s moved out.” Virgil pulled a
chair away from the kitchen table and sat down. “I coulda
told him being queer has its advantages. A queer guy doesn’t have to worry
about stuff like that.” And he laughed.
Marty walked around to him and straddling
the chair sat on Virgil’s lap.
“I shoulda
called when it started turning into an all-nighter with him,” Virgil said. “Did
you miss me?”
“What do you think?”
“I hope you did,” Virgil said and set the
bottle on the table. He leaned up to Marty’s face and gave him a wet and beery
kiss. “I was sure wishin’ the whole time I was here
with you.”
Marty put his arms around Virgil’s
shoulders, and the two of them sat together for a while not talking.
“Funny,” Virgil said. “I used to feel the
same way about him. I’d have given anything to have him hold me the way you’re
holding me now.”
Marty sat back to look Virgil in the
face.
“But he decided he didn’t want anything
to do with me anymore,” Virgil said. “Now he wants to be friends again.” He
reached for the beer and took another drink. “Ain’t
it something how things turn out.”
Continued . . .
More
stories. There are links to all the
Mike and Danny stories, plus a conversation with the author, pictures of the
characters, and some cowboy poetry at the Rock Lane Cooper home page. Click here.
© 2007 Rock Lane Cooper
rocklanecooper@yahoo.com