Cold Steel and Hot Lead [How the West Was Done 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  “When do you want me to escape?” he asked.

  Now Rudy massaged the stiff nubbin, pleased to see Derrick’s cock twitch and jump in his trousers. Here was this delicious stud literally at his fingertips, helpless in his bonds. When Rudy flicked his fingernail across the nipple, Derrick threw his head back with abandon, clearly without desire to fight against this exquisite torture. Without forethought Rudy leaped from his chair and straddled the politician, now placing his calloused thumbs against both nipples, rubbing them erotically. He plunked down on the burgeoning erection, pleased to feel it wedged between the globes of his ass.

  “You could try now,” Rudy suggested mildly. While Derrick squirmed without enthusiasm, Rudy distracted him with patter. That was the showman’s way. It was pleasing the way Derrick’s indifferent struggling only served to flex the sinews of his chest and biceps. “If you want to get out of your bonds, you’re going to have to work for it. I’ll tell you about Winnie. I did used to make love to women.”

  This was probably a good enough distraction to allow Rudy to gyrate his hips, massaging the rigid prick that was crammed against his pleasured scrotum. Derrick maintained a steady, unblinking gaze, his expressive eyes brimming with emotion of some sort—Rudy didn’t know what. “Who is Winnie?”

  “She was my beloved. We were on the Powder River in sixty-six, at Fort Phil Kearny.”

  Derrick stopped struggling, poised to hear more. Since Rudy had never talked about this event, he had no idea what he was about to say. It wasn’t like a war story one had rehearsed a hundred times. In fact, unshed tears welled up behind his eyeballs even to say her name aloud. “I was a scout for the cavalry. I never should have let her come. There was some big fuss with Chief Red Cloud.”

  He did not want to discuss this! He lowered his head and opened his mouth over Derrick’s pliant lips. Good. He sucked and nibbled at the delicious mouth. Derrick tasted like a drink of orange whiskey. The gratification of domination swelled within Rudy. Derrick’s throat was vulnerably bared with his head thrown back like this, and Rudy’s mouth slid down to take a satisfying bite from it. Rudy simultaneously bit and licked the soft, tender spot behind his ear.

  He nimbly unbuttoned the top few buttons at Derrick’s crotch. Being an escape artist often came in handy. His thumb rubbed the exquisite, soft line of hair that vanished there. He dared to plunge his hand down and grip the fine layer of fat that covered the steamy pubic bone, Derrick’s hot, glossy cock rubbing against the back of his hand. Rudy kneaded the mound while sucking on the underside of Derrick’s jaw. Derrick submitted to his power now. His writhing only stroked his erect cock against Rudy’s full balls, and his wiggling hips told Rudy that was his intention.

  Yet Derrick found the presence of mind to ask, “What happened to your beloved?” This was probably his one last effort at resistance.

  “There was a big war,” said Rudy against Derrick’s throat. His greedy hand wrapped around the impressive limb of the cock, so hot it nearly burned his palm. Scalding and glossy, with no ridge of foreskin to retract from the shiny glans, like a good Jewish boy.

  “Indians killed her?” Derrick asked. But his voice came out ragged. Rudy knew the exquisitely painful feeling, being teased to distraction while bound. It was a thin line between agony and bliss.

  “They became very irate,” Rudy murmured against Derrick’s collarbone. He slipped down so he kneeled on the carpet between Derrick’s outspread thighs, admiring the throbbing beef in his hand. His free hand grabbed the jar of grease—he wanted to see what this stupendous cock looked like all oiled up. Dear Lord. Rudy had never been this aroused. To have this nearly naked, capable stallion in his very hands, yet helplessly enslaved like this, steamed him to unbelievable heights.

  The cock squished as Rudy pumped it with the grease. “They attacked us. We had very bad leadership and stumbled right into it.”

  His distracting techniques must have been working. Suddenly Derrick didn’t want to know any more about Winnie. “Are you trying to hypnotize me with your animal magnetism?”

  The circumcised tool was fascinating in its nakedness. “Is it working?” growled Rudy before lunging for the cock and sinking it down his throat.

  Rudy sucked it like a ravenous wolf, snorting and guzzling. He greedily devoured the delicious prick while jacking it at the base with his fist. It was a delicious feast to have this helpless stud in his control. Derrick was unable to shove him away, if he was so inclined, and could only wriggle helplessly. Whether he wriggled from shame, recognition that he was being sucked by another man, or from overwhelming lust, Rudy didn’t know. But Derrick was setting up a nice rhythmic thrusting of his agile hips into Rudy’s mouth, and he hissed with the pleasure of having his cock sucked.

  Without looking, Rudy dipped his longest middle finger into the bear grease. This was one of the many talents of the showman, to do things without looking. He didn’t want to give Derrick any warning before sliding his finger up his rectum. But the result was astounding. He plunged and wiggled it like a tiny dildo, seeking that tender spot. It was like walking a tightrope, balancing perfectly to find that spot that would release the flood of warm jism down his throat. It happened instantly.

  Strangling on his own cries, Derrick bucked at his restraints. Rudy had to struggle to contain the spurting penis in his mouth. He gulped and gulped what seemed like bucketfuls of pent-up seed. Derrick pumped it down his throat with jerking hips. Rudy guzzled, moaning with contentment, gratified to be drinking his friend’s delicious semen.

  When Derrick gasped and twitched, Rudy knew he’d had enough. He released the pulsating cock, which slapped loudly against Derrick’s abdomen. Now Derrick couldn’t look him in the face. He turned his head aside with eyes squeezed shut. Rudy knew that now was the time to tread lightly.

  “I’ll be the king of all handcuff kings,” he proclaimed, his breath feathering Derrick’s balls. “You must never reveal my secrets.”

  This made Derrick chuckle. At least he was taking it lightly. “Have no fear. Your secrets are safe with me. Now let me out of these damned ropes. I give up. I don’t even know your secret, for it’s impossible to get out of these, even with the grease.”

  Regretfully, Rudy scooted behind Derrick and unknotted the reatas. “You look so beautiful all bound up like that. Prometheus chained.”

  His hands were free, but Derrick was slow in moving them to his lap. “Yes. For a moment I thought you might throw me into the abyss.” He exhaled mightily but made no move to clothe his prick. It pulsated against his hip like a giant slug.

  “No. Prometheus taught men writing, mathematics, and agriculture. Why would I throw you into the abyss?” Standing, Rudy didn’t care that his own erection tented out his pants. He grabbed the whiskey bottle and refilled Derrick’s empty glass. “I suppose that makes me Zeus.”

  Derrick had finally packed his cock away, and he accepted the glass as though Rudy were a fellow senator at a dinner table. Rudy imagined Derrick would just ignore what had transpired between them, as most “regular, normal” men attempted to do after receiving a whopping cocksucking from him. But no. Perhaps it was his political nature, but Derrick addressed it head-on. “We can’t do that anymore, Rudy.”

  Rudy took his seat and exhaled. “I expected you’d say that.”

  “Not for the reasons you probably think. I’m thinking of Alameda. If I’m to be courting her, I can’t be dallying with anyone else.”

  Rudy found it within himself to smile. “Well, that’s a new rejection. Not that you’re mortified that the best cocksucking of your life was by another man.”

  Derrick raised an eyebrow. “Who’s saying it was the best of my life?”

  “I am.” Rudy was confident. He knew that much.

  “So you don’t avoid women because you dislike them. You avoid them because the one you loved was murdered by Indians.”

  Rudy sighed. He was sorry he’d brought it up. But more than a stunning, well-hung cock, he felt Derr
ick was his friend. The subject would come up eventually. “Yes. It seems to me that women are so vulnerable and weak, they’re always the first to die. They’re the first target of anyone diabolical with evil intentions. This recent Kittie business bears witness to that. Men, especially the anonymous ones I meet for a brief fucking, aren’t going to impact me like that. I also loathe Indians, especially the Lakota. When I’d be doing a show, I always wished it were a real Indian I was shooting at, not just some joe with a painted face and feathers stuck in his head.”

  Derrick sighed, too, his whiskey glass balanced on his perfectly flat abdomen. “I’ve been in a similar position the past couple of years. Women are more susceptible to any disease that comes along, too. My Cora succumbed to cholera when it swept through our town and killed about half the population, most of them women and children. It’s very painful, allowing yourself to love the delicate and tender sex.”

  “Amen.”

  Rudy went down the hallway to the bathroom and, when he came back, was pleasantly surprised to find Derrick in bed. Rudy swiftly tossed off all his clothes and got under the sheet behind Derrick, who had his back to him. But when Rudy lifted a hand to Derrick’s naked shoulder, the senator said gruffly, “Sleep, Rudy. It’s been a long fucking day.”

  Rudy of course was disappointed, but he had to smile as he curled up behind Derrick. He knew he would beat down Derrick’s resistance. Derrick was more than just another faceless screw. They had a mission together.

  And Derrick might fall in love with Miss Alameda Hudson. But it was possible to love two people at the same time.

  Chapter Nine

  Alameda stepped out of the sleigh. She felt very conspicuous, being one of the few in town who owned a horse-drawn sleigh. But Albuquerque House was a good ten blocks from First Street, where she was to meet her two men. Her two men! Whenever did she start thinking of Derrick and Rudy in that manner? Derrick was hardly her man, much less Rudy. And Derrick would be gone once the snow melted, to his new abode in Cheyenne.

  “We borrowed these snowshoes,” Derrick explained, looking entirely strapping in a tweed hunting jacket, a sportsman’s slouch hat slapped on his head. “We tried to get to the baggage car to get my things, but last night’s storm dumped another two feet of drifts, and they can’t even get the doors open.”

  “Yes,” said Rudy. “You can stand on top of the drifts and you’re looking into the smokestack.” His silk scarf was thrown jauntily about his neck, and his derby gave him a rakish air. It was a shame he only made love to men. Both of Alameda’s sisters here in town had apparently set up congenial relations with not one but two men. These things didn’t seem to be frowned upon in the heartless prairie where there were so few luxuries. Such as women.

  In fact, she had earlier seen her sister Ivy at their father’s Vancouver House, where Alameda was gathering some clothes to take to Albuquerque House. When she pressed Ivy to divulge the gist of the message Derrick had sent to Cheyenne, Ivy had given her chilling news. Derrick’s message had gone not to the senate building but to the Dodge Hotel, where apparently a Miss Victoria Russell was employed. Oddly, Derrick requested her to send him a “clockwork-driven apparatus” that she must have known all about, since he needed to offer no more description.

  Alameda consoled herself that Miss Russell couldn’t be a prairie flower, one of the many girls in many towns Derrick had confessed to knowing. Why would a hooker be sending him an apparatus? No, this sounded more like something he might give to Rudy for a magic show.

  “He exaggerates,” said Derrick grandly, taking Alameda’s gloved hand. “You can look into the window of the first-class car, but you can’t get in the door. We saw Major Littlefinger, who of course denied having anything to do with taking Kittie. We followed Antonio Franconi to his tent but found nothing suspicious.”

  Alameda said, “I would loan you some of my father’s clothes, but he’s much too big for you. You’re rather strapping, but he’s more…corpulent. His clothes would hang on you. Perhaps the clothing of his adjutant, Ezekiel. He’s quite tall. Is this Chang’s shop? I’ve seen the petrified monkeys in the window and the jars containing organs.”

  But it was hard to even see Chang’s front door, carved with dragons and the label “C. Chang, Proprietor.” Citizens had been shoveling snow away from First Street since sunrise, piling it up against the shops for a lack of anywhere better to put it. Derrick had to clamber over a seven-foot muddy snow pile to knock on the wooden door. Luckily it opened inward, emitting a cloud of frankincense and perhaps opium, from what Alameda had seen of these ricemen and their follies. A skeletal figure wearing a round cap poked just his eyeballs over the edge of the drift, blinking at them.

  “We need whiskey root,” Derrick explained. “And some other items.”

  C. Chang frowned at Derrick. “You need ginseng!”

  Derrick looked confused, crouched atop the snow pile. “Ginseng? Whatever for?”

  Chang’s eyes flitted to Alameda, then to Rudy. “You have yin, and you have yang!” he declared. “You need ginseng root for too much yang.” His bony finger pointed over the snow directly at Rudy. “He is too much yang!’

  “Whatever is this odd fellow talking about?” Alameda murmured to Rudy. “What’s ginseng?”

  Rudy spoke from behind his hand. “It’s a root, used to increase one’s desire for sex.”

  “Oh. And you need more of that?”

  “Apparently,” said Rudy, “I need less of that.”

  Chang held his door open, and a few Laramie residents assisted in clearing his doorway so Alameda could step down into the shop without sledding. Chang went about lighting lamps, but it was dismally dark in there—the sun hadn’t come out yet, though it had stopped snowing—and Alameda found herself bumping up against a stuffed Asian tiger. The shop was creepy and enchanting at the same time. Jars with floating seahorses and other pickled monstrosities were placed next to vivid yellow powders and sticks that smelled of cinnamon. On the wall was a frightening chart of a man’s profile showing where someone should stick a hundred needles into the body—for health reasons, Alameda hoped.

  C. Chang handed Derrick a handful of roots, telling him, “You must take ginseng to keep up with those two.”

  “All right, now,” said Derrick, although he did pocket the roots. “Now what about the whiskey root?”

  C. Chang squinted at him. “Who told you to take whiskey root?”

  “It’s not for me. It’s for my associate, who is afflicted with Saint Vitus’s Dance. Someone—ah, an herbal practitioner told us it would be good for him.”

  Chang nodded, serious. “Is also good for hallucinations. He will see the fellow in the moon!” And he vanished behind the counter, as though a little trap door had dropped beneath him.

  He popped back up, hands full of the dehydrated mushrooms that apparently were the whiskey root. He pointed at a jar Derrick was touching. “Wormwood! For big balloons in anus.”

  Derrick withdrew his hand. “Just the whiskey root is fine. Oh.” He took a small jar out of his pocket and banged it on the counter. “Chang. Do you mix paints? Can you make us some more of this vermilion paint?”

  Chang uncorked the jar and sniffed the red paint. He recoiled with a sour face. “This even better for hallucinations! Cinnabar. I get from Mexico and Spain. We sometimes add red lead and dragon’s blood.”

  Alameda chortled. “Dragon’s blood? We just want to paint with it, not attract vermin.”

  But Chang was insistent on the strong properties of the vermilion paint. “You paint too much with this, you lose vision, hearing, speech. Become disturbed in the…” He gestured about his head.

  “Hallucinate?” Derrick prompted.

  “Hallucinate,” Chang agreed, shaking his hands in demonstration. “Fall down.”

  Alameda said, “Perhaps we shouldn’t ask for more paint.”

  Chang added, “Death.”

  Derrick corked the bottle and returned it to his pocket. “Never mi
nd, then. Chang, has anyone asked you to make anything with cinnabar lately?”

  “Yesterday circus fellow asked for more paint. He said his was stolen.”

  Derrick splayed his hand on his chest. “Me? Steal paint? My good fellow. I am a senator from Cheyenne. Why would I steal some circus fellow’s paint? Now, did this fellow resemble an Italian? You said you get this cinnabar from Spain. Could this fellow have been a Spaniard?”

  “Yes, could be.” Chang shrugged. “All Spaniards look the same to me.”

  Alameda asked, “Did he have big muttonchop whiskers?” Chang looked perplexed, so Alameda drew invisible side-whiskers on herself, of the sort that Antonio Franconi had.

  Chang shook his head vehemently. “None of that. Just smooth face. Older fellow. Older than you.”

  Rudy said, “Then he must be ancient. And it obviously wasn’t Antonio Franconi. You could see his side-whiskers a mile away. It looks like our culprit is the carpenter—Castillo you said his name was, Derrick?”

  “Yes, Eliazar Castillo. He’s about fifty years of age, I’d guess. We failed to look into his tent this morning.”

  Chang added helpfully, “You can tell who is using this paint. He likes to paint his nails with it.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I knew it was Castillo!” Jeremiah pointed a weak forefinger at Derrick.

  Derrick said, “You thought it was Antonio Franconi. He stole your jar of vermilion paint, remember?”‘

  “Well,” said Jeremiah. “Castillo could have easily been the thief.” He looked at the wall of Albuquerque House’s parlor. “Now, why did I accuse poor Antonio Franconi of being the culprit? Just because he was angry with me for accusing him of stealing my paint? Castillo is a much more likely culprit. He’s always stealing things from other people. He’s the knife thrower, you know. He’s constantly going on about the ‘cold steel’ of his knives.”

  “Cold steel,” Derrick grumbled. “I’d like to show him some hot lead.”