by MJ Lyons
The worst nights at the Empress’ were little more than pitiable flesh markets, boys desperately looking for a scrap of affection while the heartbroken men of Little Hope drowned their sorrows in bad whiskey and worse soliloquies from the Empress. The best nights were when a couple of the ranchers brought their fiddles, and Doc Poppy could be coaxed out of hiding to tickle the ivories of the dusty old upright, and a couple of the Empress’ boys’d get to singing and stripping and the place was bawdy as a Shrove Tuesday whorehouse.
A week or so after we’d got back from Last Ditch I dropped in on the Empress’. I convinced myself it was to check in on little Narciso, make sure he was getting on, but if I was being honest I found my bed too cold that night, and longed for a little company.
I’d picked a good one for it. An old soldier-turned-homesteader name of Cree Johnston and his husband had come into town for the night, and sure enough Cree had his harmonica and his man had a fiddle. It weren’t too long after sundown so most of the Empress’ boys still had their clothes on. Narciso waved at me from the far side of the “parlor”, the Empress’ name for a saloon as nauseatingly tarted up as she was.
“My dear Mr. Devil,” the Empress intoned as she swept up to me, her bustle practically knocking over one of her boys, a cloud of wig powder following behind her. “I thought I had made myself most clear that there are to be no weapons within this establishment.”
“You made an exception when I killed that big, scabby rat in your cellar last year,” I growled, pushing past her.
She sighed, straightening her wig. “My dear departed husband, how I miss him.”
We pretended we were each others’ nemesis. When you stepped through the doors of Empress Haddock’s you became part of the show.
I sat at the bar and flipped an eagle at Narciso, who filled my glass half with whiskey. I glared at him until he filled it up to the brim. “How’re you gettin’ on?” I grumbled as I downed the first half.
“This place is amazing,” Narciso said, a smile like sunshine, “Except . . . ”
We both glanced over at the Empress, who had thrown herself at Cree Johnston’s feet, confessing her love to him for the millionth time. Eventually two of her boys came and dragged her away, garnering raucous laughter from the rest.
“She’s an acquired taste,” I admitted, “I’m still working on acquiring it.”
“If you want we could head upstairs to my room . . . ” Narciso offered, but I waved him off. The night was young and I didn’t want him getting any ideas.
The Empress’ filled up with a few dozen men, boys like Narciso barely man enough to have a little wispy hair on their chins to men as old as Mr. Oldman what ran the brewery down near the river. Once Johnston’s man got to fiddling, the boys began dancing and cavorting in the most lascivious manner, and I didn’t mind the sight. An old flame of mine, a handsome half-Navajo, half-Mexican boy by name of Diego, pulled up a stool and we got to talking about my next run to Albuquerque. Diego was apprenticing with a couple of the town’s carpenters, and they were in need of the essentials. I caught him and Narciso making eyes at one another, although the little molly tried to hide it, for my sake, I suppose.
I didn’t like to drink beyond moderation, but it helped loosen the inhibitions and soon my head was swimming enough that I bade little Narciso around the bar and into my lap. He climbed up and soon had me pressed up against the bar and our tongues got to duelling, and our cocks as well even with the fabric between them. Still I caught Narciso glancing over at Diego, who pretended not to watch. In the state I was I decided to put on a bit of a show. First I worked Narciso’s shirt off and we suddenly had the attention of every man present. I made sure Narciso’s back was to the crowd as I reached down, grabbed the material of his tight little trousers between my hands and pulled, tearing the material straight down his backside. I was glad to find not a stitch of underclothes beneath, just the way I liked it. Narciso gasped and melted against me as the warm saloon air hit his fundament, purring in appreciation.
“I’ll be adding the seamstress’ fees to your tab, Mr. Devil!” the Empress Haddock cried out across the room, though her eyes were just as fixed on what I’m sure was a comely sight.
I began to tease Narciso’s hole with my fingers as a crowd gathered around us. Some kept up a pretence of polite, academic interest, while others were stroking themselves, some pairing up with partners or some of the other boys. My cock strained against my trousers as I lifted Narciso off me. “Looks like the bar’s getting a little busy, you should go help.” He pouted but strode back around flashes of his tight little backside visible from the split in his clothing.
“He’s sweet on you,” Diego whispered to me.
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” I replied.
After getting roundly booed off the stage for an off tune rendition of “The Queen of Louverture”, the Empress pushed a couple of boys up to entertain the swelling crowd, a strapping black boy named John, the blacksmith’s apprentice, and skinny little twig of a former ranch-hand by name of Jesús. To a lively waltz, the boys began to dance in a most carnal manner, unbuttoning each others clothing as they went. John’s vest went first, next Jesús’ breeches leaving in him in nothing more than his small clothes and a thin cotton shirt. After not too long John shucked his trousers revealing his considerable length.
“That thing looks dangerous,” Diego intoned. I glanced over and saw he was hard as anything, massaging himself idly in between sips of his beer.
“Only if you don’t know how to use it,” I replied.
I turned back around and Narciso rushed over to serve me. I flipped him another eagle. “You ain’t to shy. There’s another in it for you if you get rid of those ruined trousers and serve in just your boots for the rest of the night.”
“Si señor,” Narcisso stepped back and let me watch as he unbuttoned what was left of his trousers and let them fall away, stepping out of it. There were a couple of whistles down the bar as he poured my drink, then padded off to serve another. I watched as men practically threw their entire worldly wealth at him to get him to stay in front of them. It wasn’t too long before his cock was standing at attention.
I turned back around to see little Jesús’ little mouth engulf John in its entirety to the cheers of the crowd. A good thing it was the day afore the sabbath, there’d be plenty of sins that’d need confessing before the night was out.
After my fourth drink time slipped away, and several hands soon had me out of my own trousers and stroked me to my full length. I found Narciso on his knees between my legs, his tongue running up and down my member. I turned and pulled Diego into a deep kiss, his surprise turning to pleasure as I groaned into his mouth, feeling my cock hit the back of Narciso’s throat. I reached down and guided Narciso off my length and over to Diego’s, who had pulled it out to stroke himself, but I figured he could use a hand or mouth. I stood up, kicking off my trousers but buckling the Iron Queen back to my bare hip and heading out back to relief myself.
I was just shaking off the last of my offerings to the shrubs behind the Empress’ when I heard someone walking up behind me. I turned and found handsome John approaching, naked as I was, muscles rippling in the pearlescent light of the half-moon.
“Quite the show,” I intoned as I shook off the last of my watering. “They must miss you in there.”
He took up where I left off, reaching down and, when I didn’t stop him, began to stroke me. “That lot wanted to see me take Jesús, but I was thinking maybe I wanted to be taken.”
I didn’t need to be asked twice. I done spun him around and had him pressed up against the side of the gentleman’s club before he could get in another breath. Spit ain’t the best way into a boy, but a backside as practiced as John’s didn’t need much more.
As my cock hit him deepest he got a carrying on like a Baptist on Sunday, probably waking the cottages nearb
y, but nothing they weren’t used to. Soon I had my thick cock pounding his beautiful hole, a fucking made all the more exciting because we were bare beneath the stars and God and anyone could be watching. I swung him around so’s to have him leaning over an empty beer cask and was swishing my dick into him in just the way he loved, getting him sobbing in pleasure.
Maybe I should’a thought more about who might be watching. I saw the backdoor to the gentleman’s club crack open and thought perhaps we might have a third join us, but I noticed little Narciso standing in the doorway, barely covering his length with his hands, just as naked us we were. Only instead’a looking interested he looked hurt. We locked eyes and I grunted once, then again, before a, “I’m gonna . . . fill you up.” I fell on top of John, two more thrusts and my seed was dripping out of his hole. We were panting together, the cool evening air helping us along. When I glanced back up Narciso was gone.
Perhaps I shouldn’t’ve been too surprised when I found out a couple of days after that little Narciso had taken up with Diego. I’m sure learned through gossip of the boys at the club that I’d had other sparks, but never shacked up with anyone like the others. Probably the best for him. Diego was a kind, gentle young man. A better man than I.
The peace was broken a couple of weeks after we’d returned from Last Ditch. Irish brought news that a man by the name of Félix Madriz had identified himself as an associate of Slick Sam Butler’s. He was seeking reparations for the loss of Last Ditch’s commerce, and would exact those reparations from our abomination of a town. The sort of charming thing you expect of degenerate, outlaw breeders. A single bullet kicked up a bit of dirt and spooked the horse enough that the crook took off, though promised he’d be back.
Dalia called together a town meeting right quick, so there I found myself in the uncomfortable position of town elder in front of half of Little Hope alongside Mother Josie, Dalia, Doc Poppy, and an old soldier-turned-homesteader name of Cree Johnston.
Irish came up to testify as to this Félix Madriz’s dimensions and comportment. I noticed little Narciso was sitting next to the girls from Last Ditch right up front, and he looked white as a sheet, rubbing his right eye to calm his nerves.
This kind of meeting was predictable in its proceedings. Dalia and Johnston were calling for an increase in patrols, Dalia even wanted to take a few of her girls and root out wherever these crooks were holed up. Mother Josie was calling for peace and love and other such Christian nonsense, though a keen eye could tell she was rattled. This was the first time a threat had come right up to Little Hope’s doorstep. Doc Poppy seemed confused as to why we didn’t just pay them off. We had a little extra gold in the town coffers.
“They ain’t after our gold, Doc,” I grumbled, and the room fell silent. “Slavers are only interested in one thing.”
We went away from the meeting with a decision to double patrols and with calls for vigilance, a fat lot of good that would do. I followed Johnston over to the Empress’ where one of the virile young ranch hands would be performing some burlesque tunes with only his boots and the sheet music as costume. I didn’t mind the sight, but truth be told I was getting the feel of the settlers, who covered their nerves with an excess of drink and debauchery. I noticed Narciso was not present, but neither was Diego, so I didn’t think too much of it. A night off, maybe.
More patrols, more long, lonely lookout shifts. Little enough action other than scaring off coyotes. Only other trouble was Sally Lou at the trading post misplacing a couple boxes of canned food, but that old drunk would lose her tits if they weren’t dangling off her front. There was talk of outsiders thieving, but not a soul could get past Dalia’s girls. After a week the town had quieted enough that I was planning another run up to Albuquerque.
On that temperate night I was unshucked and washing myself in the Sweet Lickings just down from my cabin when I looked up and saw Narciso peering on.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he called out, nervous. “I asked Dalia where you lived.”
“I ain’t that hard to find,” I admitted, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. Then I noticed the black eye flowering on the right side of his face, and I stepped out of the water, not bothering with my clothes. “Diego do that to you?”
“’Course not,” Narciso grumbled, pulling some of his long hair over the swollen eye. I walked up the embankment, dripping wet.
“What is it, Narciso?” I asked, trying for a tenderness I wasn’t much practiced at. The boy looked at me as if a ponderous thought was on the tip of his tongue, but instead he pressed his mouth against mine and used that same tongue to get me going. I heard a catcall from ’cross the stream, so I figured we’d take our tumble inside so as not to give my neighbors a free show.
Little Miss wasn’t much used to sharing the bed, even with me, and so when I had Narciso stripped and we got down to our pirooting she weren’t pleased, and made herself as inconvenient as possible before flicking her little bob in annoyance and prancing out the door. I could tell that Narciso was feeling a touch aggressive, and so after freeing his length I pushed him back on my bed and got myself ready, then mounted him, sliding down onto him and giving myself the pleasure shivers. A nancy boy he might be, but give yourself up to a nancy boy and they’ll go to with their manhood right quick.
Still, as I was riding him I couldn’t help but look down at the black eye. Little Hope weren’t perfect, we had no shortage of folks who get in a mood and rough up their lovers, and we’d even had the occasional monster who’d go a step further, but we dealt with those types quick enough. I knew he wasn’t lying about Diego, and I’d’a heard if he’d gotten into a scrape elsewhere . . .
After exacerbating my bathing we collapsed in a mess, and I nodded off only to be awoken after dark with Little Miss swatting at my dangly bits for fun. Narciso was gone, which struck me as mighty odd after pestering me to get access to my humble cot. I figured he’d felt guilty and run home to Diego, but I was proved wrong when the very same man showed up at my door the next morning.
I hurried him in and pulled on some clothes, the mess of sex still smattering my body, although Diego didn’t comment on it. “Narciso didn’t come home last night,” the boy said, his brow knitted up something fierce. “He’s been disappearing every couple of nights for the past week. First I thought he was sneaking out for another man, maybe you, Ezekiel . . . ” He didn’t sound too bitter about it, so I didn’t apologize. Most of us young men in Little Hope weren’t too particular about who ended up warming whose bed, ‘long as it was all above-board.
Diego continued, “Then I heard about the missing goods at Sally Lou’s, and I asked around. Turns out—”
I glanced out the window and saw Little Miss strutting down to the river for a sip of water. She pawed at the edge of the water, shot a look back at the house, then went to sipping. “They went missing the same nights as Narciso did,” I grumbled, and Diego nodded.
I already had Haughty Shade’s saddle in hand and the Iron Queen strapped to my side before Diego had stood up. “Should I get Dalia?” he asked, anxious.
“I’ll fetch that addle-headed boy myself,” I hitched up Haughty Shade and threw my leg over her saddle, muttering, “These crooks want redress, I’ll pay ’em in kind.”
As I was riding down the path to the main road, I called back over my shoulder to Diego: “I don’t come back, you best take care of my cat.”
Ain’t no way out of Little Hope save the main road to the east and west, the latter is what we’d come through last month, and where that crook Félix Madriz done shown up. That is, if you’re traveling by road. Otherwise it’d take a skilled climber a day to get down the valley’s sheer cliffs, or else they could float down the Sweet Lickings towards the Rio Grande. A touch choppy in places, but not impossible.
As soon as Diego mentioned Narciso’s disappearing acts and Sally Lou’s I figured out his game. I peered at the traders on my way
westward, the store was a few steps up from the stream. A decent swimmer could float a couple boxes down the shallow stream and do the same himself. It’d be tough slog working against the current on the way back, but the Sweet Lickings dipped into a gully near the western lookout, so under the cover of darkness none would be the wiser.
I hailed Irish from her lookout, spun a yarn about scouting the site of a wolf attack. I came and went as I pleased so she didn’t pay it much mind.
I followed the Sweet Lickings about a half hour afore I spotted a smudge of smoke down by the water, then sure as dusk two riders came thundering toward me, six-guns drawn. I sat and calmed Haughty Shade as they approached and asked me my name and intentions.
“Obsidian Devil is about the most polite thing folks ’round these parts call me,” I replied. “I believe a friend of mine paid you a visit and he’s missed, so I’ve come to escort him home.”
One of the boys, a chinless southerner with a face like a horse’s ass guffawed, “More like a bum chum as I heard it.”
The other man flinched, but I sat there and took the mild abuse. I’d taken worse from worse sorts of people. “Jealous that no one’ll stick your pock-marked ass?” I called back.
The southerner cussed me up a storm, and I repeated my usual threat about a cracker using a certain word. Luckily his companion, better mannered than the hillbilly, cut in afore things could go south: “Madriz wants a word with you, Mister Devil.” I bade him lead on else I be forced to exchange more pleasantries with his inbred cohort. The very same rode up to disarm me, but I told him I’d take his hand afore he took my gun.
