When I felt his finger slide the length of my crack, whisking over the rim of my anus, I gasped—not out of fear or surprise, but as an involuntary reflex of pleasure. Suddenly fingers were at play around and in me, with my penis and testicles getting the full treatment as well. It seemed he had acquired an extra pair of hands, but I dismissed any curiosity about the dextrous mechanics Neil was employing to accomplish this feat—I was too swept away to care, lost in a warm, slippery ecstasy. Bleary-eyed, I gazed at the midsummer night. Under the moonlight, mushrooms danced in rings around the base of every tree. They chattered and giggled, playing leapfrog. I moaned loudly, transported to a fantasy world rooted in Neil’s fingers.
Then I saw his face. Neil had moved around the bench, and his smile was aimed squarely at my eyes. With a blink of recognition, I smiled back, and he nodded, once. I knew his meaning. We weren’t finished. Hardly. It was time for me to roll over onto my back.
As I had relaxed to the point of weakness, he helped lift and turn me, settling my head in the towel nest he plumped for me. With eyes now aimed straight up, I saw the angled ceiling of the porch. Then I saw Neil lean over my head as he began to oil my shoulders and my chest. I didn’t know how many minutes had passed since I’d first lain down, but Neil had been working hard, and I saw that he had worked up a sweat. His T-shirt, which clung so beautifully to the body I worshiped, was wet, and even in the semidarkness, I could easily distinguish the brown circles of his nipples beneath the white cotton. As he began to work the oil farther down my chest, his crotch began to nudge the top of my head. I was looking right into the radiating wrinkles of his shorts; his bulge grazed my forehead.
I begged softly, “Please.”
He stopped, looking down at me with a questioning gaze.
“Take off those shorts.”
He smiled—my wish was his command. With a single, sure gesture, he unsnapped and unzipped his skimpy white uniform. Leaning back for a moment, he let the shorts drop and kicked them from his feet. Then he was back, assuming his previous position, leaning forward over me as his hands swirled oil around my belly. This time, however, his cock hung in my face, bobbing with his every move.
Is it possible to explain the goofy rapture of such a sight, the unexpected breathlessness of such a moment? In the telling, it sounds so silly or dirty. But the moment—and all it represented—was exquisite. He stood there sweating, busy at a task he loved, and my only role that night was to remain purely passive, to allow him the pleasure of creating pleasure for me. I could not resist, of course, taking a slurp or two at the meaty fruit that swung above me, but that was gratuitous, and I understood that my instincts were at odds with the slow, disciplined ritual Neil was performing for me. So I relaxed, watched, and left him in command.
He proceeded as before, when I had lain facedown. Moving around the table, he massaged my chest, stomach, thighs, legs, and feet. Then, getting up on the bench, kneeling between my legs, he again moved steadily toward my groin. The sight of him at work on me was in itself enough to induce another trance of dancing mushrooms, but by now my arousal was so extreme, the room’s entire energy was focused in a searing pinpoint between my legs—no nodding off now.
Neil placed my ankles on his shoulders and bent forward; the finale had begun. With hands and mouth, he manipulated and probed me, front and back. Groaning, sensing something powerful building within me, I let my head fall back, needing air.
“Watch this,” he told me in an urgent whisper, the first words he’d uttered since announcing his surprise payback.
I lifted my head in time to lock eyes with him. We both broke into wide smiles as my orgasm ripped through his hand and arched above us, barely missing his face. It came in three pulses, the last being the strongest, shooting higher than a foot, maybe two—though it felt like yards.
Before I could catch my breath or utter a sound, Neil drew one foot onto the bench and shifted his oily ministrations to himself. He was ready. Within mere seconds, his body convulsed. From deep within, a guttural sound escaped his mouth; his fist sprayed a thick backlog of hot semen. It landed on my chest, mingling with my own.
I held out my arms for him—the first voluntary movement I had made since lying down. He stretched out on top of me, his wet T-shirt spreading the gobs of our mixed orgasms against my bare skin. It leaked from the sides, trickling cold against my ribs. I laughed as our lips met.
“I love you,” we said.
He asked, “It was adequate, then?”
“Paid in full.”
He pulled back an inch or two. “It doesn’t have to be over, you know.”
“You bet, kiddo.” We had managed to rekindle something we had lost, and I knew that neither one of us would let go of it again.
He rolled off me and stood. “God, what a mess.” He laughed, peeling the sweaty, cum-smeared T-shirt from his chest.
Standing, I told him, “Look at me.” I gestured at my entire body, greased and oiled from hair to toenails.
He raised a hand to his mouth, suppressing a laugh. “Sorry ’bout that.” And he grabbed two of the oversize bath towels, handing me one. “Let me help swab you down, matey.” And we went to work, trying to get the oil off me, but without much success.
“I think we both need a quick, soapy shower.”
“Care to share?” he asked as he pried his shoes off. I wrapped an arm around him as we walked toward the bedroom. “Good idea.”
We were running late for breakfast Tuesday morning. Monday night’s dinner party at the Geldens’ country home, topped off by Neil’s inventive frolic on the sunporch, had kept us up till the not-so-wee hours. Although we greeted dawn with less than enthusiasm, switching off the clock radio for another half hour, we both savored an unmistakable afterglow that would fuel our day more efficiently than sleep or coffee could. After showering again (by my count, we had done this three times within the last twelve hours, excessive even for us obsessive types) and dressing, we headed downstairs together, hungry from the rigors of our nocturnal workout.
Arriving in the kitchen, we were surprised to find not Barb, the housekeeper, but Pierce, the sheriff, rummaging for a carton of milk in the refrigerator. “Morning, Doug,” I told him. “Make yourself at home.”
He turned to us. “Oh—hi, guys. Where have you been? It’s late.”
Neil simply explained, “Late night last night.” He winked at me while carrying the full pot of coffee from the counter to the table, where mugs were set out with Barb’s bagels and Pierce’s kringle.
“Where’s Barb?” I asked, sitting.
Pierce shrugged. “She said she had some ‘chores’ to get busy with.” He sat and cut large wedges of kringle for the three of us.
Pouring coffee, Neil asked, “She said ‘chores’?”
Pierce nodded while feeding himself.
I mentioned to Neil, “We need to tell her there’ll be a dinner guest Thursday.”
Neil nodded, taking his first sip of coffee.
Pierce swallowed. “Anyone I know?”
I laughed. “Join us, Doug—no need for subtlety.”
He shook his head, also laughing. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I’ve got a public-safety committee meeting that night, but thanks for the invitation.”
Neil told him, “Frank Gelden is coming over. His wife will be out of town again this week. There’s a rehearsal on Wednesday night, but Thursday is quiet for all of us.”
Pierce recalled, “Oh, yeah—you were out at their place last night. How was it?”
I asked, “You mean, dinner?”
“Well, sure—but everything. Wasn’t he going to research mushroom toxins?”
“Correct. He found the coroner’s mushroom theory plausible, but not airtight. He identified fly agaric as being the likely culprit—if mushrooms poisoned Jason—but those toxins act very quickly, so the mushrooms themselves should have been found in Jason’s stomach.”
“And they weren’t,” added Pierce.
“Right. So that whole angle is chancy at best.”
He reminded me, “The whole ‘unnatural causes’ angle is still chancy. The coroner hasn’t issued his final report yet.”
Neil asked, “Do you know when to expect it?”
“Soon. Formhals managed to get a rush on the toxicology tests; the DA has started pressuring him as well. Results normally take weeks, but he expects to have them anytime now.”
“Well,” I said, after swallowing coffee, “at least we’re seeing some progress.”
Pierce continued, “Depending on the results, if Jason died of natural causes, the case will be closed; if not, I’ll be launching a murder investigation.” A sobering comment, it produced a lull in our conversation. Pierce poured a glass of milk, then drank some.
Neil leaned back in his chair. “Suppose Formhals does determine that the death was a homicide. Where do you start, Doug?”
“We’ll review the possible suspects.”
“Okay.” I leaned forward. “Let’s do a dry run.”
Pierce chuckled, telling me, “You seem to have a few ideas already, Mark. Who’s on your list?”
I ticked off, “Mica and Burton Thrush, Tommy Morales, and Denny Diggins. And—” I was about to add Nancy Sanderson to my list when Neil interrupted.
“I hate to mention the unthinkable, but what about Thad?”
Good question. Recalling the stash of fly agaric in Thad’s room, I forced myself to wonder if his involvement was still unthinkable. I waited to see how Pierce would react.
He told us offhandedly, “Sure, Thad’s on my list—I have to keep an open mind about this. But aside from the threat, which was purely coincidental, what could link him to the murder of Jason Thrush?”
Dryly, I mentioned, “Mushrooms. And the starring role on opening night. Sorry to say, a lot of people think it adds up.” I pushed away my half-eaten pastry.
“Okay,” Pierce conceded, “the threat has a logical link to opening night, but still, that’s sheer coincidence. As far as mushrooms are concerned, that angle isn’t public knowledge yet. Thad may be headed for an emotional crisis with all this, but we’d need a lot more evidence before he faced arrest.”
God. We were actually discussing the possibility of arrest. What, I wondered, would Pierce consider sufficient “evidence”—the stash of fly agaric? I’d lost any taste for my coffee—there was a knot in my stomach.
Neil leaned into the conversation. “As long as we’re exploring the mushroom angle, let’s not forget Tommy Morales.”
Pierce asked, “The little kid in the play with Thad?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know what to make of him. He’s seemingly nice enough. But”—I raised a finger—“he stepped into a major role in Teen Play because of Jason’s demise. Frank told me that Tommy wanted the Dawson role all along and was resentful of Jason’s wealth. Plus, I myself heard him express his ambitions at the party last Saturday night.”
“But the corker,” added Neil, “is the fact that Tommy is the only member of Fungus Amongus who’s also involved in the play—other than Thad, of course.”
To make sure Pierce was connecting the dots, I explained, “Frank is fairly certain that any member of the mushroom club would be savvy enough to identify and harvest the deadly fly agaric.”
“Wow.” Pierce shook his head, pulling a pad from the inside pocket of his summer-weight linen blazer. “I’d better start taking notes.” He clicked a ballpoint pen and began writing.
We’d all stopped eating, so Neil rose from his chair and carried the pastry and bagels to the counter. Over his shoulder, he said, “Whether mushrooms were involved or not, Mark thinks that both Mica Thrush and her father make appealing suspects.”
“I agree,” said Pierce. “They’re at the top of my list.” Proving his point, he flashed us the list. “Burton Thrush had a ten-million-dollar life-insurance policy on his son, and his business is on the skids—enough said. As for Mica, well…”
“As for Mica,” I finished his thought, “she is one spooky girl. I don’t know where she’s coming from, but her bizarre behavior with her brother’s corpse on Friday night gave me the chills. She’s obviously into the whole ‘gothic’ mind-set, fascinated by death.” Recalling the grisly fate of her neighbor’s cat, I concluded, “When it comes to Mica, nothing would surprise me.”
Neil returned to the table and sat, grinning. “She surprised you with that bombshell about Jason being gay.”
“That she did.” Fingering my coffee cup, I told Pierce. “Like you, Doug, I was inclined not to believe her. But Neil thinks it might be an important lead.”
Neil asked, “Didn’t she suggest that Jason was having a lovers’ spat?”
Pierce nodded. “In so many words, yes. She also suggested that the ‘other man’ was none other than Denny Diggins.”
I asked Pierce, “Did you ever get the computer log of Jason’s phone records?”
“Late yesterday. Unfortunately, it gives us too much information—every call in or out of the Thrush residence during the week prior to Jason’s death. They have several lines, and there were hundreds of calls, but I saw no discernible pattern. Sure, there were conversations here and there with other people involved with the play; you’d expect that. But there was no preponderance of calls to or from any one person, and—get this—there wasn’t a single call we could trace to Denny Diggins.”
“Hmm.” I drummed my fingers on the table. “Mica suggested that Jason had something going on with Denny, and Denny himself told me he’d phoned Jason repeatedly on Friday. Where was he calling from—a phone booth?”
Pierce shook his head. “First thing we checked. No pay-phone calls.”
“It just doesn’t make sense. I could understand if Denny had been phoning Jason and lied about not making the calls, but why would he say he had called when he hadn’t?”
“Hey,” said Neil, enlightened. “He might have told everyone that he’d been desperately trying to reach Jason in order to establish how ‘worried’ he was, when in fact, he knew all along that Jason was at home, in his bedroom, dying.”
Pierce and I glanced at each other. Pierce said the very words I was thinking: “That would fit.”
I asked anyone, “What do we really know about Denny Diggins?”
Neil shrugged. “Local radio host. Phony accent. Highly conceited. Bachelor.”
Pierce nodded. “That sums him up pretty well.” He paused before adding, “I hate to sound stupid, but do we actually know that Denny is gay?”
Neil glibly answered, “I’ve never slept with him.”
I laughed. “Denny’s fruity as they come, and it’s a reasonable assumption, but I have no direct knowledge that he’s gay. Maybe he’s closeted. Or just plain affected.” Turning to Pierce, I noted, “You’ve lived here far longer than we have. What’s the scuttlebutt?”
“I was deep in the closet myself till last year. If Denny’s had an active sexual history in this town, I was never privy to it.”
I thought for a moment, then told Pierce, “I’m beginning to feel we should talk to Denny sooner rather than later. This confusion over the phone calls is troubling; it lends a shred of credibility to Mica’s offbeat story.”
“I agree,” said Pierce, “but remember, I’m not investigating a murder yet. If I haul him in and think he’s guilty, I’ve got nothing to book him on. Maybe you could devise some reason to question him.”
I nodded, pondering this—it wouldn’t be the first time I’d called someone down to the newspaper on a spurious pretext.
Neil snapped his fingers. “Glee Savage. Teen Play will be running for another weekend; assign Glee to write a follow-up feature on the play and its director. Denny is such a publicity hound, he could easily be lured down to the Register for an interview. Once you’ve got him, ask him anything you want.”
Standing, I kissed Neil’s forehead. “Thanks, kiddo. You’re brilliant as well as beautiful.”
He told Pierce under his breath,
“Mark married me for my brains, you know.”
“I believe it,” said Pierce with a laugh, throwing his hands in the air, recognizing a no-win debate. He stood and carried his cup and a plate to the sink. “That’s the plan, Mark?”
“That’s the plan. I’ll discuss it with Glee as soon as I get downtown. And you’ll let me know if you hear anything from Formhals?”
“Absolutely.” Pierce moved to the back door. “I thought I’d drop by the paper later this morning anyway. You’ll be around?”
“All morning. See you later, Doug.”
“Bye, Doug,” Neil told him as he left the house with a wave.
I began rinsing a few things, putting them in the dishwasher. Neil cleared the table, returning the milk to the refrigerator. I asked him, “Want more coffee?”
“No, thanks—all tanked up.” He brought the pot from the table and dumped it in the sink, then handed it to me.
While giving the glass pot a good rinse, I said, “It seems the mystery of Jason’s death has been as heavily on your mind as on mine.”
“Well, sure. This isn’t ‘just another news story’—it hits pretty close to home.”
I nodded. “Did you notice? When we discussed Thad with Doug, he dismissed the likelihood of ‘arrest’—but he did broach the subject, and he did say the word.”
“Yeah, I caught that. Thank God Thad didn’t surprise us with another early mushroom hunt. If he’d popped into the kitchen and heard that, he’d have been devastated.”
I walked back to the table, looking toward the hall doorway, hoping Thad slept soundly upstairs. “I’m afraid he’s already on shaky ground, emotionally I mean. We’ve got to put this behind him.” Turning to Neil, I said, “That was a great suggestion, by the way, about Denny’s follow-up interview.”
He crossed to me from the sink. “Just doing my bit.”
I put my hands on his shoulders. Softly I told him, “In case I neglected to mention it, you were spectacular last night.”
Grinning, he repeated, “Just doing my bit.”
Boy Toy Page 21
