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Silver Heat Ch. 01

By: robertreams



Lance had not left the house in three weeks. Even so, the freezer remained stocked to overflowing with those thrown-together concoctions that, in other parts of the country were called casseroles, but here were called "Minnesota hot dishes". There was one, he knew, that contained soggy tater tots. Well meaning friends had dropped by for the first three days, bearing food and flowers and condolences. Several of the women, Martha's friends, had even proffered more intimate consolations, but he had declined graciously. In his younger days, Lance would have welcomed advances from many women, but now, the way things were, he had scarcely any interest in things sexual. Even though this six week period of Martha's final illness and death, was the longest he had been without sex for more than 30 years. For sure he was still desirable, even though he was past sixty. He was fit and trim. His graying hair still held a hint of the fiery red it had once been. And he had the biggest cock he himself had ever seen, or heard of. And it would still rise when called upon, sometimes with the help of a little blue friend. Actually, he wasn't sure how easily it would rise any more. Martha had always been able to get him up, keep him up, but Martha, dear, dear, Martha had practiced for over thirty years at ways to arouse him. And he had learned, too, over the years, how to please her soundly, even quickly. Sometimes she had been the one in a hurry. But love, practice, arousal, all was gone now, gone with everything Martha. Gone forever. God, how would he make it? 

Sooner or later, he knew, he was going to have to get it together, move on. But not right now. People: family, friends, associates, editors, publishers, kept asking the same rotten question. "Are you all right?" He badly wanted to scream, "NO I AM NOT ALL RIGHT!" His Martha was gone, dead. Passed on, passed over, gone to her fucking reward. He sometimes wondered what would happen if he merely decided to be 'not all right', to just collapse and let someone take care of him. But, in truth, quitting was not his style. He would go on. What choice did he really have? His piddling comforts were too important to him. What would anyone do; what could anyone do but park him in some nursing home where he would have to wear clothes all the time? Where he would probably have to hide in the bathroom to masturbate, like an eleven year old.

Oh Shit! Oh Fuck! Martha. Marthamarthamartha. Fuck! If he didn't get up, get moving, he would slip into an enormous black hole waiting to suck him in, suck him down, down, down.

Fucking Minnesota winter was really killing him this year. "Ha, listen to me 'killing me' hmm do I wish it were me instead of my Martha? Sorry dear, dear Martha. What good would that do? I still wouldn't have her, be with her."

Everything he did, every move he made, only intensified the bleakness of his loss. Their big Tempurpedic still smelled deeply of her. In her chair beside his, the cat now sat alone instead of curled on her legs. "Oh damn it Martha!" For perhaps the fortieth time since that awful day, tears streamed down his face. After about fifteen minutes, he rose and wiped his face. Where could he go? Was there a place, someplace warm, but where he and Martha had never been, some place where the only reminders of Martha would be in his heart and in his head?

He crossed the room to the phone. Dialed. "Anderson and Smyth, literary agents. How may I direct your call?" 

"Hi Jacklyn, it's Lance."

"Lance, how are you? Are you all right? I was so sorry to hear about Martha."

"Thanks Jackie, I appreciate it. The flowers you guys sent were lovely. I know Martha would have appreciated them, mums were always her favorites. Tell Ed and Larry thanks for me too, would you Jackie? Listen, Jackie, I need you to do me a favor."

"Sure Lance, anything. What can I do for you?"

"I need to get away from here. Could you book me on a plane as soon as possible to someplace in Florida. Any place warm will do. Small, out of the way. Use the company account, I'll expense it to a novel, maybe Uncertain Seasons. Oh and I'll need a car, too okay? I'll find a place to stay after I get there. You won't be able to reach me for a while, then I'll get in touch with you. I guess I will stay at least two weeks. There should be a jillion miles in the account from all those book signings. If there is a problem with Ed or Larry, just tell them I'll reimburse from my account if necessary. I just thought this would be the quickest easiest way."

"No problem Lance, I'll do that right away. Are you at home?"

"Yeah. Thanks Jackie, I owe ya one."

"Nonsense, Lance, I owe you a lot. Just the pleasure I got from your last book is worth it."

"Thanks for sayin' that Jackie. You are a world class liar. Call me when you've got it set up, okay."

"Will do, Lance."

He tried to watch TV, but he was too restless. He considered going for a walk, but was reminded of their long walks together. Exhausted, but unable to sleep, he stopped off at the bathroom for a sleeping pill. He eyed the bottle, thought of taking the whole thing, but was not really tempted. He still would not be with Martha. He left a trail of clothes on the way to the spare bedroom and fell naked on the bed. He used the old trick of not closing his eyes until the pill took effect but he didn't think it would work. 

"Lance, look honey, it's that pileated woodpecker. I just know he's nesting around here somewhere. Isn't he great." Lately he and Martha had taken to birding. It had just sort of flowed naturally from their daily walks and longer hikes. They took photos sometimes, but mostly enjoyed seeing the various thrushes, pine siskins, warblers and finches. She had given him a bird identification book for Christmas, but he thought she was more interested than he, especially since she had seen that giant woodpecker a few months earlier.

As she spoke to him, she touched him often, as was her custom: a short pat on the shoulder, a lingering caress on his back, or her hand resting lightly on his thigh. Her delight was child-like, endearing and contagious and reminded him why he had married her thirty-five years earlier. He grinned at her like the fool he always became when she touched him. He wondered if he should kiss her. After all, it was Saturday! Just the idea made the old monster start to twitch in his shorts, and he marveled at the utter femininity that washed out from her to engulf him. He reached. . . 

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring Ring Ring Ring. Lance crawled across the spare room bed and picked up the receiver, glad he had installed the phone in this room a few months ago, even though anyone who stayed probably had a cell. 

"Hello? Hello?"

"Hello Lance? It's Jackie. I got that flight for you."

"Wait, what? You did that so fast, I just spoke to you."

"Are you sure you're okay, Lance, It has been six hours since I talked to you."

"I'll be fine, Jackie, I just fell asleep."

"Well, anyway, I got the first flight with space available. It leaves at 8:30 in the morning for Daytona Beach. Now I know Daytona in the spring is probably not the place you had in mind. But, I also ordered you a rental and didn't book a hotel. I thought you could drive from Daytona, south would probably just get more and more crowded, but you could drive north along the coast there until you found someplace small and quiet, it's beautiful country there. Anyway, I am faxing you the e-tickets. That's United flight 205 non-stop to Daytona. 8:30 A. M. tomorrow. I know it is a bit early in the morning, but you said as soon as possible. The next opening wasn't for two more days, except for that stand-by shit, and I couldn't see you sitting in an airport for hours and hours. Did I do good?"

"You did great, Jackie. Do me one more favor and don't tell anyone where I am until I contact you. If one more person asks me if I am all right, I think I will just fall to the floor and let everyone take care of me. Or I will shoot them and be taken away to a nice prison."

"Oops, sorry Lance, I said that twice."

"It's okay Jackie, you couldn't know. Thanks again for your help."

"No sweat Lance, anytime."

The flight south in the morning was uneventful and boring beyond belief. By ten A.M. Lance's arthritis was acting up in every joint in his body and his restless leg syndrome was driving him crazy. Does medication ever help? The only thing medication ever did was kill a good hard-on. He remembered when his beloved first born, his ici ban, had killed herself. His doctor had said he was situationally depressed and prescribed pills. The pills had further depressed him by killing his ability to orgasm for over three years. 

During the flight, the stewardess had wheeled up in her clattering cart and offered drinks. He almost started, but knew if he did, especially now, he might never stop. How much alcohol is enough? Pints? Liters? Gallons? Oceans? No amount mankind could ferment, would ease this pain. Lance knew only time would ease this one, lots and lots of time. But he sure hated flying. Collecting the rental car was a hassle as usual, but soon he was pulling out of the airport.

He was very happy to be driving. Using all the miles in his account, he had upgraded to a powder blue Volvo C-70 convertible. He took the turn-off for the A1A. The little car jumped as he floored it; his long gray hair billowed out behind him. Would his search lead him to serenity? What was he was doing? Was it an escape or a quest? What was that saying? 'Reality is what happens to us while we are busy planning something else?' Perhaps that was what he was hoping for, for something to happen.

He made a resolution, a promise to himself, then and there. Whatever happened on this trip, however unplanned, however spontaneous, he would go with the flow. What is it they say in Dead Poets? Carpe diem! That is exactly it. He would seize the day. What did he have to lose? At that moment he said a secret prayer. (secret because he didn't believe in the power of prayer, only in the power of action). He prayed whatever happened, something would. The one thing he could not, would not stand for, was nothing happening. He was terrified of being bored, because he would have too much time to think, to wallow.

He took the turn toward the coast and, after some confusion, wound up on the A1A headed north. He was not far out of town when he began to notice some heavily wooded areas and signs for state parks. "Wow forests and coastline." He had not expected that. "Good old Jacklyn. She knew what he liked." As he drove farther north, the flavor of things still held a touristy touch, but became decidedly more down home. Down home was all right, but..... "Oh shit," Lance thought, "I hope I am not going to have to put up with a bunch of red neck, racist bullshit! I made a vow when I was in this part of the country years and years ago that I would never abide that bullshit without speaking out. It will be such a chore if I have to deal with that shit now among all the other stuff. Could I just keep my mouth shut and let it go? Well, maybe I could put up with a rebel flag or two, but not much else. "Okay Lance Hunter," he said to himself, " judging before you even get there? That's prejudice you know!" 

Tooling along with the top down, he decided that, while he probably wouldn't need sun block, he had better purchase a pair of sunglasses pretty quick. He saw a sign for a place called Ormond Beach, then immediately a large billboard advertising GIANT RV WORLD, Ormand Beach. "Wow, what a great idea," he thought. He didn't have too much trouble finding the right place, even though it seemed half the world here consisted of trailers and RVs. 

"May I help you sir?" the salesman asked, almost before Lance could get out of the car.

"I want to rent an RV for a couple of weeks, right away if possible."

"What did you have in mind, sir?"

"Nothing fancy, there's just me, but it would help if the bed were somewhat spacious and I could cook and wash and pee and all that."

"Follow me sir."

The first "Camper" the salesman showed him was one of those houses on wheels with a sales price of more than six figures. "Uh, What's your name," Lance asked, "I hate saying 'sir' or 'hey you' or 'mister' all the time."

"Hi. I should have introduced myself right off. The name is Greg." Shaking hands.

"Well Greg, how about we skip about thirty or forty trailers here and you show me something way down the line, something small."

"You know what sir? I think I have just the thing. In fact you may not believe it. I have this little trailer, uh, over this way. . . .was used, made for, I think, a movie production company for one of their stars to use on location. There! There it is!"

Lance had to laugh when he looked at it, it was the oddest looking trailer he had ever seen. It was a little like an airstream, but white, and it had this square looking box on the end. Lance was about to turn away, but Greg was already standing with the door open, motioning him in. Two steps later, lance was convinced. He noticed that the total asking price was $2,500. "Say Greg, how much would it cost to rent this thing for a week?"

"Let me see," calculating. "Eight fifty a week, everything included."

'Well Greg, here's my problem. I'm down here, don't know anyone. Maybe I'll do some fishin', some camping. But I don't know how long I'll be stayin'. Say I rented this monstrosity for three weeks. That would come to $2,550. But you are only asking $2,500 for the whole thing. So suppose I just offer you two grand cash, we'll go back to the office and fill out the paperwork and I'll pull that little piece of crap off your lot this morning?"

"How about $2,300 plus tax and license."

"And I'll bet that takes me up to $2,500 which is what you were asking to begin with. Twenty-one fifty, you pay the tax and license and we'll close the deal right now." Lance held his hand out for Greg to shake.

"Okay, okay you got me you dirty crook, twenty-one fifty it is!"

They shook hands on the deal, but Greg didn't let go immediately. The Young man stepped back and Lance could swear the salesman was checking him out. He had to admit that Greg did not look bad. Lance guessed he was around thirty-five, an aging surfer perhaps, deeply tanned, as Lance suspected everyone around here would be, with longish blonde hair made almost white by the sun. He had tight tight pecs and abs and, as the salesman turned and walked to the front, Lance noticed a pair of nice tight buns moving gracefully around in faded jeans. "What are you doing?" his conscience asked. "You haven't looked at a man that way in thirty-five years."

It took a little time to finish the deal. The dealership wasn't so keen on a cash and carry for that kind of money, but a bank transfer would take quite a bit of time and Lance was in a hurry to get on. Finally he suggested that the manager Google his name and, after a few minutes, the sale was approved. In another fifteen minutes, Lance was on his way, towing the weird looking trailer behind the convertible. He made his way to the coastal highway again and headed north. He drove through several national and state parks, all without losing sight of the sea. Soon the area began to take on almost the look of Fort Walton Beach on the gulf, where he had spent three years in the military. The sand here, though, was a deeper hue, not the startling white of gulf beach sand. As he drove along, his mind began to fantasize about Greg, the RV salesman. "Even at my age, I must still have it," he said to himself. "I'm sure Greg was checking me out." Lance surprised himself by getting the beginnings of an erection. He shook the daydreams out of his head, pushed down on the center of his crotch, put the pedal to the metal and roared up the coast highway toward his future, laughing for the first time in a month.

Driving was good, driving was healthy. While he was driving he could not break out in tears. He knew in his heart it would take much, much longer for the pain to lessen, but he thought, hoped, it had now lessened enough to allow a semblance of normal activity. On his phone he did a search of places to park the silly little trailer and found a place called Bull Creek Campground that claimed it had the best fresh-water fishing in the state. Bass it said. "Well, there is plenty of ocean to fish in if that doesn't work. Sounds like only about thirty miles from the coast. Anyway," he told himself. "The idea is not necessarily in catching fish, but in trying to catch them." 

Lance suddenly realized he was starving. Breakfast had been coffee and a banana. He didn't, wouldn't, eat airline food, so he had munched the free cookies and downed a diet 7up. That was it. And now it was almost three in the afternoon. Some of the beachfront places reminded him a little of the places where he had danced and tried to meet girls in the 60s in Fort Walton. That made him think of Neal Bradley, his best friend in the Air Force. His "good buddy". That's what they had always called one another, "good buddy". He and Neal, still underage at nineteen, had found a liquor store that would sell to them. A couple of times a week, he and Neal would buy a bottle of vodka and pass it back and forth on the beach, gulping it warm, right out of the bottle, swimming and splashing in the surf, listening to the eerie sounds beneath the sea, and kicking up luminescent trails as they ran up and down the beach. Their play had been gay only in a very distant sense. It was sexual to some degree, that is, they always swam naked together, and there was a good deal of grabbing and fooling around, but it had all seemed perfectly normal and natural. He vaguely remembered, that. despite the liquor, they had both been erect much of the time. They also had spent hours lying on Neal's bed, listening to Brubeck, and Ahmad Jamal, and Jimmy Smith, and about a thousand other greats of progressive jazz. Sometimes, when no others were around, they would touch one another, but only in those asexual, punching pushing, male "acceptable" ways. One day Neal, while they were listening to some jams, Neal had said to him, "Hey Hunter, Check this out!" The music he put on had sounded to Lance like sick caterwauling, but it was Neal asking, so he had stayed and listened to a young folk singer. After that, they had spent many more hours, stopping and rewinding Neal's Sony 500 Reel to Reel, to pry out the meaningful words behind the wailing voice and sharp blues harmonica of Bob Dylan, Lance's favorite artist ever since.

The whole thing had come to an abrupt end one hot summer night on the beach. He and Neal had been passing the bottle back and forth for about two hours, talking about all those subjects that seem so important in youth, but go unremembered later. One common subject, Lance remembered, was sex. Both he and Neal had been virgins, so most of their waking hours had been spent trying, or thinking about trying, or planning to try, to 'get laid'. Anyway, all the talk of sex, the camaraderie, the semi-intimate touching, had always caused both he and Neal to experience major erections. They did not go unnoticed: even at nineteen, Lance had been very well endowed. On all their beach "outings", Lance had noticed Neal constantly looking at it, at 'him', at his very large penis, until one night, Neal had reached out and touched 'him', had very briefly caressed Lance's raging erection teasingly, then run off down the beach. Lance had pursued, laughing, finally catching up and tackling Neal playfully to the sand, landing full on top of his back, Lance's hardness nested between Neal's taut buttocks. They both held their breath for almost a minute. It seemed that time and space had stopped. The gentle sussh, sussh of the gulf waves breaking on the shore was the only sound other than the roaring of Lance's pulse in his ears. Lance had impulsively pressed forward, downward, pressed hard; his large cock had begun to penetrate his "good buddy", but fear had stopped him. He had chickened out, pulled out, run and plunged into the sea. After that night, their friendship had remained intact, but they made no more nighttime trips to the beach, shared no more bottles of vodka, and never touched one another again Lance remembered that time of tight male bonding with great awe and reverence. Never before or since, had he been so close, so intimate with another male. Lance had regretted for more than forty years, that fear had kept him from consummating his love for Neal, for in retrospect, he had recognized what he had felt for Neal as love.


Silver Heat Ch. 02



"Whatdya say now?, Neal chuckles, "ready to go fishin?"

"Right this minute?"

Neal chuckled, "Well, no, not until morning."

a

"Really?"

"If you want."

"Can we catch really big fish?"

"How big?"

"Well, I've caught a forty-two inch northern. That's long, but not heavy. "

"Well a forty two-inch ocean fish is gonna be a whole lot heavier, at least what we catch around here. You understand that nobody guarantees a catch any more. Anyway if you are interested we would have to leave here about six or six thirty in the morning, drive up to St Augustine, and take an eight A.M. Charter. I figure we don't want to be out there all day. So eight to noon would be he best I guess. Cost seniors like us sixty bucks apiece, maybe plus a gas fee, these days ya never know. Anyway, if ya really wanna go, I can set it all up. You take a nap. I'll set it all up, wake you in a few hours, and we'll go out for dinner, get a good night's sleep and go out in the morning. That okay?"

"Sure, fine I guess."

"Now really, you okay?"

"Argggh. Are you back to askin' me that again? Yeah, I'm fine now, mostly cuz of you. Thanks for takin' care of me by the way."

"No sweat, anytime you feel like being 'not okay' I'll take care of you. So are we a go for fishin'?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Okay. Here take this sleeping pill and I'll wake you about five and we'll go down to the Golden Lion. Okay?"

"You gonna tuck me in?"

"Behave!"

*** *** ***

"Lance, Lance, wake up." 

"Huh? Wha?" Lance glanced around the room, uncertain at first of his surroundings. "Oh. Hi Neal. Is it morning?"

Chuckling, Neal responds, "No, it's not morning. Take a sec to wake up. How are you feeling? Well enough to go out?"

"Seriously, what time is it?"

"It's about four fifteen. Remember, I said I'd wake you for dinner?"

"Oh yeah, well, uh. . ." 

"No sweat. I'll leave you now. Take your time, relax, clean up, I called the Golden Lion. Mitch, the bartender, will make sure we have a couple of places to sit, whenever we get there. So take your time, get woke up, I've got coffee brewing. Want me to bring ya a cup?"

"Naw. I'll come out."

"Okay, see ya in a bit." Neal lays his hand on Lance's cheek with obvious affection. "Lance? Look at me." His deep dark eyes send a caring message. "You will let me know if you need anything. Anything at all? It's, uh. . . safe here for you to say, do, anything you want. Okay?"

"Okay, good buddy." The familiar sobriquet causes both men to smile broadly.

Later, as Neal drives them both to the Golden Lion in his four-year-old silver Buick Park Avenue, the topic of conversation turns to fishing. Neither man has made further mention of Neal's impulsive blow job of the previous night.

"Well, buddy, I've got it all set up. A good friend from St. Augustine has got us two places on a forty-footer The Love Life II that belongs to a friend of his. Chairs, tackle, bait, the works. I hate to ask this, but can you afford a hundred bucks?" 

"Not only can I afford it, but I can and will easily and gladly pick up the tab for both of us."

"Naw, you don't have ta do that."

"Listen, you don't know me that well. If I thought I had to, I probably wouldn't. Now I ain't rich, but my last two novels did incredibly well. So lemme pay, okay, it's no big deal."

"Okay, buddy, you got it."

"Yet, I should have said yet."

"Whatdya mean? Yet what?"

"You don't know me that well, yet!"

"Yup, uh huh, you got it. Yet. And Lance?"

"Huh?"

"I'm hopin' there's a lot of yet, yet to come."

"Me too, good buddy."

Neal takes his hand from the wheel for a moment to lightly touch the back of Lance's hand where it rests on the seat beside him.

"Well, here we are, the good old Golden Lion."

Inside, it is cool and dry, a welcome contrast to the hot damp Florida air. The two settle in on side-by-side bar stools, elbows bumping, just as they had the night they met. "You must be hungry, you haven't eaten all day," Neal says. "How about a huge bucket of crab legs?"

"Sounds good. You're right, I'm starved. My stomach thinks my throat's cut."

"Mitch!" Neal called out, "couple a buckets of crab, some of those great bleu cheese fries and a couple a mai tais."

"Uh, diet Dew for me,' Lance asserts, "if you've got it. No booze. And thank you Mitch. Uh. . . Neal, I'll tell ya all about it later, OK?"

They eat mostly in silence, enjoying their repast, but Neal fills in the details of the next day's excursion. About forty minutes later, Lance leans back on the bar stool, satiated, and pats his somewhat rounded tummy. "Now that's what I call a meal! It's a good thing I don't have to walk home, I'd hafta do a crab crawl."

"Yeah, me too," Neal says. "Want some coffee?"

"That would be good."

The two men sit and drank coffee. Lance tells Neal about the other Neal, including their sexual attraction for one another and their nude, alcohol induced romps on the beach. "So you see, Lance says, "The more we met, the more we talked, the more I learned about you, the more it seemed like some not so simple twist of fate. And that's another thing: the old jazz, Bob Dylan, Florida, it was all freakin' me out for a while there. But a few days ago, when I started drivin' that convertible down the A1A, I made a vow to myself to go with the flow, seize the day. Within five minutes of meetin' you you said "carpe diem", reminding me of that vow."

"That's kinda freaky."

"You're tellin' me?"

"Kinda cool in a way, though, too." Neal is about to speak further, but notices that Lance is hesitating, searching for the right words. He waits.

Finally Lance breaks the silence. "Listen, Neal, I, that is. . . I don't want to sound creepy or come off way gay or anything, but I hafta tell you. I sorta don't believe in fate, but something, call it luck or intuition or kismet, led me here to you. And. . . w, well. You are the best thing that's happened to me since my Martha died."

"I don't want to sound maudlin or anything either, but you know. I am mighty glad I met you too Lance, I needed someone to care about again, and here you are, needing someone to care for you. It was, er. . .is, a nice fit."

No invitation is offered and none accepted; both men assume Lance will be staying in Neal's guest room, at least for the near future. Back at Neal's place, they sit and talk and listen to progressive jazz and old Bob Dylan recordings. Eventually, inevitably, Lance comes to the subject of Neal's act of the previous night. Interrupting Neal in the middle of a comment about Coltraine's dissonance, Lance suddenly says: "Before this goes on too long, before it gets away, slips away, I need to tell you. I really, er l, l appreciate last night. I. . . I was, am tremendously moved by, by what you did for me. . . "

"Wait, stop!" Neal almost screams "Really, stop. You are over-thinking things. It wasn't from some altruistic motive. I wasn't feeling pity. I wasn't in love. I . . . Jeez, let's just say it: I sucked your cock, at least sort of. I saw it. There it was. Stickin' up there. Huge. I was interested, excited. Who gives a shit what my motives were? I liked it too, ya know."

"Okay I'll let it go. But methinks thou dost protest too much."

Talk about jazz and the poetry of Dylan seemed inconsequential after talk about blow jobs, so conversation wound down to a standstill. "Well. I'll tell ya what, good buddy, I'm beat," Neal said. "Five thirty comes awful early in the morning, and if we are still going out after those big ones, I better get my beauty sleep."

They trundled off to bed. As Lance turned right toward the guest room, Neal tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. Neal kissed him quickly, lightly on the lips. "Good night, buddy. Sleep well," he said, "Call me if you need me. I mean it."

"Good night, my friend," Lance replied.

Neal drops off to sleep almost at once; Lance hears him snoring at the other end of the short hallway. Lance's mind is so full it takes him somewhat longer, but he too is snoring before long.

The little beach house is quiet beyond silence. It seems to Lance that he can hear his own heartbeat. He has awakened in the middle of the night with the first spontaneous nocturnal hard-on he can remember in years. With one single, simple, unselfish act, Neal has given him, perhaps inadvertently, a rebirth of sexual feeling. He grasps his aching penis with both hands, in the oh so familiar way he has learned to pleasure himself through six decades of practice. In his mind's eye, he sees Neal's gentle, caring face, cheeks and throat bulging around his massive cock. He remembers times when he, too has enjoyed a cock. Suddenly a huge grin comes to his face. He has an idea.

It is not from a sense of gratitude or indebtedness that he steals softly down the hall to Neal's room, but of curiosity. It has been over thirty years since he has held a cock other than his own; three decades since he has enjoyed the savory smell and taste of a hot man. He wonders to himself if he still likes it as much as he had before giving it all up for Martha. The thought of Martha causes a sharp pain, he waivers, clears his mind. Cautiously, quietly, he creeps into Neal's room and slides beneath the sheets, grinning madly. The ocean-side room is filed with the pewter light of a full moon and its refection off the sea. Slowly, quietly, carefully, he draws down the sheet to reveal Neal's sleeping form. Normally, sex is a serious thing for him, (Martha had patiently taught him over the years that laughter was an acceptable part of intercourse) but tonight he cannot stop smiling. Neal is neat and trim and surprisingly muscular for a man his age. The cock curled softly on his thigh reminds Lance of the small but perfectly formed penis on Michelangelo's David. And also of that other Lance, so many years ago. Its foreskin, though long enough to cover the head completely, is smooth and pink and unwrinkled, just as was the penis of that other Neal.

Captivated, Lance reaches out gently to lay his open palm over Neal's genitals. With effort he restrains himself, for the time being, from burying his face there. His other palm settles lightly on Neal's cheek. With a great deal of trepidation, he leans, tentatively brushing Neal's lips softly with his. Neal's eyes pop open. For a moment his face holds confusion, uncertainty. Then, smiling, he puts his hand at the back of Lance's head, pulling his face down, deepening the kiss. This is no peck of friendship, but a real lover's kiss. Though dry and tongueless, it is deep and heartfelt and passionate. Both men respond. Neal's other arm clutches Lance's waist, urging him closer. Lance curls his fingers, enclosing Neal's penis tightly. The head of his own cock stretches across the bed to touch Neal's thigh.

Lance breaks the kiss first, moving back a few inches to more clearly see the face of his friend. Neal looks back at him, in his eyes a burning question. Lance gazes back, passion, need, love answering. They kiss again, longingly, lovingly, tongues searching, twining. The stubble on Neal's face feels rough and strange against Lance's face, but achingly exciting, forbidden. Their kiss becomes rougher, harder, more insistent. Lance releases Neal's cock and rolls to kneel astride him, still holding the feverish kiss. They break for air, aging lungs not all they had once been. Lance scoots down, his kisses lowering. Neal throws his head back, offering his sensitive neck as if to a vampire's bite. Lance responds, covering his neck with nips and kisses and tiny bites. Neal shrugs his shoulder, involuntarily, tightening his neck and reducing access. Lance bores in, forcing his lips and teeth deeper. Neal squirms on the bed beneath him, his body covered with goose-bumps. His small cock jumps up, stiffening against Lance's lower back, the top of his buttocks. Lance's now hardening cock lays heavy along Neal's chest, its dripping head touching the collarbone. As Lance moves farther down, Neal's engorged manhood drags along his ass crack, pokes at his balls and pops free to nestle alongside the larger cock.

For a long moment, everything stops. The light of the full moon, mirrored off the sea, casts a soft diffused, platinum light over Neal's body. Its delicate beauty belies time and age. Something in his shinning beauty makes Lance's heart and cock go thump. Lance thinks Neal's body looks as if it might be a computer-enhanced run-up of Michelangelo's David, fifty years later. 

Neal groans with pleasure, fighting to maintain control, nearly losing. He manages enough coherence to reach Lance's hip, clawing with his fingertips, struggling to bring Lance's body within reach. Finally Lance gets the message. He turns his body, keeping contact with Neal's cock, but placing his knees on either side of Neal's head. When Lance kneels on all fours, his long cock hangs down the side of Neal's face, touching the bed covers. Neal turns his head to the side, to take the shaft of Lance's cock between his lips. His upper lip encloses the fat pulsing vein on the underside; his lower lip makes it barely half way around the top. In their present position, Neal can only move his head from left to right and back, sucking the side of Lance's massive dick, balls hanging just above his nose. He pushes hard on Lance's hips, turning them both on their sides, allowing him more freedom of motion and easier access to Lance's huge cock.

Lance's penis, is of truly immense proportions, the largest Neal has ever seen or heard of, dark brown and covered from its base to well past its tip with a very loose, wrinkled foreskin. Dense dark red hair, streaked with gray surrounds this massive organ and grows nearly half way up its shaft. To deal with it in any fashion, Neal has to place at least one hand around its base. It does not grow larger or longer as it becomes erect, but only hardens, becoming like a granite rod covered in wrinkled brown velvet. The balls that puddle below this massive organ are small by comparison, but also deep brown and covered by a curly mass of dense red fur mottled with gray. 

Neal takes the bulbous head in his mouth like a big round cock-flavored jaw breaker, swirling his tongue around the fluted corona. Sean moans, taking all of Neal's cock into his mouth and throat, licking, sucking, moving his head slowly on and off its slender length, working his lips and tongue and throat. Knowing nothing of Neal's sexual preferences. He decides to experiment by running the fingertips of both hands lightly up and down between the cheeks of Neal's firm white ass while he sucks him.

"Oh god," Neal thinks at once. The fingertips teasing at his crack excite him, bring back memories of the one and only time in his sixty plus years he has been fucked. Oddly, though it had been somewhat painful, he had enjoyed it, being particularly excited by the feeling of being filled by part of another person's body, the taking of another into himself. But, given the size of Lance, he isn't sure he wants to encourage such invasion. He places one hand around the base of Lance's cock and pushes the rest into his throat, gagging almost immediately. He practices breathing through his nose and swallowing as he begins to move his head up and down in a slow teasing rhythm.

Lance lifts his mouth off Neal's cock, uses three fingers to push back the foreskin and flicks his tongue rapidly in and around the tiny cock lips. Encouraged by the lack of resistance, he furthers his efforts on Neal's ass, continuing to tease his fingertips up and down the crack, but inserting the tip of his index finger slightly each time it passes the tender pink opening.

"Uh," Neal grunts softly around Lance's cock each time the fingertip slips inside him. 

Lance, placing both hands on Neal's chest, asks. "Are you all right? I mean. Okay with this, with all of, this. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"No, I mean yes, I mean. . . I am not sure of, of anything, but if you, if we, er. . . that is. . ." Neal pauses to get it right. "I'd rather regret doing, something with you, er, making love with you, than regret not. . . not loving you."

"If I. If, we. Er. Jeez, I sound like a stupid schoolgirl. I want. . . uh, very much, to, er do this, do everything, with you, but I want to still be your friend. Okay?"

"You got it buddy. Nothing you can do here, that is, nothing we do here is gonna change that." Neal reaches to lay his palm on Lance's face. "I am your friend." 

Lance slides farther down. He takes Neal's dick between his fingers, sliding back the loose foreskin. He leans to sniff Neal's exposed glans. "God how I've missed that savory aroma. He licks tentatively, as one might test the flavor of a new ice-cream. "Um, nice. If I might say so, Neal, you have one beautiful penis. I love the shape and feel of it, so neat and trim and smooth." He laughs. "And the smell and taste. Funky, hot, divine." He uncovers the head of Neal's cock by pushing the foreskin down with his lips, then licks round and round the sensitive ridge. Finally, he reaches with his fingers to pull the foreskin forward over his tongue, to lick around inside, between the glans and foreskin where the masculine musk is strongest. "Um," he mumbles again.

"Uh," Neal grunts softly around Lance's cock. The tight rim of his ass tingles and contracts sharply each time a fingertip slips inside him. Doubtful, he pulls his ass sharply away from Lance's fingers, only to force his cock deep in Lance's throat. He pulls away from that sudden pleasure, yanking his hips back sharply, only to impale himself on Lance's driving finger. He almost loses himself in the conflicting whirl of pleasures, ass and cock, but recovers enough to redouble his efforts on Lance's dick. Intentionally, he begins to move his head sharply up and down, swallowing on the down stroke and licking and nibbling as he moves up to the bulbous head. Simultaneously he grips the base more tightly in his fist and pushes down on Lance's groin, putting pressure on his prostate.

More encouraged than ever, Lance, on the verge of cumming himself, slips his middle finger deep in Neal, flicking and twisting it against the prostate he can clearly feel. 

Neal cries out loudly, spurting his seed in Lance's throat so forcibly some seeps out of Lance's nose, his gagging snorting reaction only increases Neal's stimulation. More cum spurts.

Now Lance loses it. It is Neal's turn to be surprised. Adjusting quickly he increases the downward pressure of his fist on Lance's groin, and simultaneously sucking hard, draws out Lance's cum in a long continuous flow.

The aging lovers both run quickly out of breath, panting and pulling their faces away. However, one highly sensitive penis remains tightly clasped in a fist; one finger remains deeply imbedded in a tender ass.

They lay like that for a time, panting and grinning. Lance moves first, turning to press his cum filled lips against Neal's. They kiss softly, tenderly, savoring the funky, bleachy flavor and aroma of each other. 

"You know what?" Neal says into Lance's mouth. 

"No, what?"

"I've done uh, other things," chuckling, "with a few men, but you are the first ever that I have kissed on the lips." Kissing him. Kissing him again. "It seems so much more intimate than all the rest.

"Me, too. Somehow I always thought kissing another guy was gross, even if I did do, 'other things' as you described them. But you are different, something is different. I like kissing you, Neal" He kisses him softly, then more deeply, tongues swapping cum. 

They lie there a bit longer. Lance pushes up on the bed and rises. 

"Where you going?"

"Back to my bed. I'll leave you alone now."

"The hell you say! Get back in here and sleep with me. What do you think I am, some cheap whore/ In that case you forgot to pay me."

"But I. . .It's your bed."




Silver Heat Ch. 02



"Stop acting stupid and get back in here and sleep with me. And hurry up. Four-thirty comes awful early."

"Okay." Grinning again, Lance slides back into bed and into Neal's arms, where he lies when the morning alarm goes off. Both men awake. Lance leans and pecks Neal on the lips. "Gotta shower and change. Hurry up. The big ones are waitn' for us."

Driving north along the I95, neither man is wide awake, so silence prevails. Lance is driving. Neal's Buick is actually the better car, but Lance's rental Volvo is sexier looking and more fun. Without distracting him from his driving, Neal reaches to lightly stroke Lance's cheek with the back of his index finger. Lance takes his eyes off the road for a moment to smile at Neal.

"Do we have time to pick up some coffee to go," Lance asked. 

"Well, let's see. It's 6:45," Neal says, "I am sure they won't wait for us, but we are only about a half hour away now. That gives us 45 minutes extra, so yes we have time, but not to sit and drink, just coffee to go."

"Great. I sure could use another cup. Somebody kept me up last night."

"Ha ha. I tried as HARD as I could to keep you UP as long as I could."

"Ain't it stupid? The two of us are actin' like a couple of school kids."

"Feels kinda nice, I'd say."

"Yup."

"Lance, I just checked my phone. There is a Starbucks coming up, look for the turn off for Highway 100 and head east, it's about one and a half blocks on the left."

"Okay, there it is, 100."

In Starbucks, a very gay young man keeps looking at them in an understanding way. They start giggling and can't stop. Neal orders a straight Ethiopian, the coffee of the day. Lance has his usual double depth charge with chocolate and a piece of ice to cool it enough to drink. Just for the satisfaction of the young barrista, Lance pats Neal on the ass on the way out the door. Laughing like crazy they run back to the convertible and try to jump in over the doors, like a couple of twenty-year olds. Neal makes it, Lance does' not. He wound up straddling the door as if it were a horse. He straightens everything out and gets in the car without spilling his coffee.

"Did you see that young kid looking at us?" Neal asked."

"Yeah, I think he thought we were a couple."

"Yeah, but a couple of what?"

They laughed so hard they almost missed the turn to get on the 1A north."

"God damn, Neal. Thank you for bringing laughter back into my life. I'll love you for that 'til the day I die."

"Yeah, well, watch where you're drivin' or that'll be soon, Lance."

*** *** *** 

They arrived in plenty of time to board the Love Life II. Neal introduced Lance to the boat's owner, Jeff Long. While they were roaring out to sea, enjoying coffee and doughnuts, they chatted with the ease of life-long friends. Lance tried to talk about their relationship, tried to explain, classify, categorize, understand. Neal argued that ovethinking their relationship might destroy its immediacy. 

In public, especially around other men, they did not touch one another except for those male acceptable punches and pats and pinches. This "hands off" policy was not something they had agreed upon, it came naturally, subconsciously. It wasn't that they did not want to come out, they didn't come out because they were not gay. Both men had had rich heterosexual love lives for many years. Each would probably do so again, if the opportunity presented itself. 

The emotional and physical bond developing between them could not be forced into some arbitrary box of definition, Neal argued, it defied definition. They needed each other, they were there for each other. That was about it.

The spot the captain chose to begin fishing looked to Lance exactly the same as the 2000square miles of ocean they had already seen. Hey had caught a few good sized red fish and some other not so exciting fish. Captain Long addressed Lance directly. "Want to try for a barracuda?'"

"Is that good?" Lance asked. "I am a very good fresh water fisherman, but this is my first time at sea. Is a barracuda a big fish?"

"Well, not as big as some, they can go up to six feet, but around here thirty-six to forty eight inches is gonna be max. But, and as they say, this is a big but," The captain said, slapping his oversized buns, "A barracuda is a hell of a fish to catch. They fight like hell. They are one of the most dangerous fish in the sea. They even look evil. Whereas your thirty-six to forty-four inch Northern, for example, might weigh in at five or six pounds, a three foot barracuda is gonna weigh in at about twelve to fifteen pounds."

Lance smiled hugely, stood up and took off his shirt. "Let's do it!" he exclaimed.

Neal laughed out loud. "Easy Tarzan, there's no Jane around here." The baiter rerigged their lines for barracuda. Lance was impressed by the need for steel leaders and completely baffled by the bait. It looked like a long piece of orange or red plastic with a treble hook at the end. "Excuse me, George, what kind of bait is that?"

"It's a long piece of red plastic. Nobody knows why, but barracuda love to hit them."

"Uh, okay," Lance remained baffled, but remembered his oath to 'carpe diem'.

They had been trolling off the stern at high speed for about ten minutes when Lance felt a tremendous tug on his line. Holding his rod tip high, he snapped it up sharply. The line went taut and the rod bent in a severe arc. Lance felt the thrill only a fisherman knows. "I got him," he yelled.

It appeared that Neal had done this before. Ignoring his own rod, he stood by Lance's side uttering a steady stream of advice. "Keep it tight. Keep that rod tip up. Reel. Reel hard." The captain had cut the engines and was slowly backing into the fish. "Reel, reel hard, don't let up. Keep up the pressure," he shouted. "Don't let the line go slack."

After only five minutes, Lance's arms felt as if he had been swinging an axe all day. His back muscles felt on fire and his legs were rigid. Neal moved closer and set the flat of his hand on Lance's shoulder blade. "Cumon, buddy, bring him in. Yes. Ha ha! That's what we came for."

After about five minutes more, Lance saw the silvery blue fish flash by under water, heading for the boat. He tipped his rod up even higher and reeled like a madman. The fish fought back, clearing the water and flashing into the sunlight above the sea. 

"Oh, he's a nice one," Jeff Long yelled, "keep him tight, don't let him throw the hook. That's it, reel him in. George, the gaff!"

After a few more dramatic moments, the large fish hung from the gaff hook over the side.

"He's a big one, Jeff yelled, forty inches or so, probably weigh in over fifteen pounds. I am sorry to tell you this, but it will cost you fifty more bucks if you want to bring him on board, probably another three hundred or so to filet out and mount. It's worth it to some folks."

"What do you think, Neal.?

"Well, you ain't young enough to have twenty years to look at him. And your kids'll probably sell him at a garage sale for ten bucks. I say put him back."

"Well, let's make sure we got some good pictures at least. Not that I won't remember this."

After a few quick photos, the big barracuda was released. Lance felt truly relieved and satisfied as the silver blue form flitted away into the depths, despite the burning in his hands and the ache in his neck, shoulders and arms.

Lance let Neal drive the convertible 'home', while he lay back, hands knitted behind his head, his graying 'freak flag' blowing and twisting in the wash, a huge smile lighting up his face.

By one thirty, they were back at Neal's seaside cottage, drinking Diet Dew and laughing contentedly. 

"What d'ya wanna do for dinner," Neal asked.

"Well, hell, if I can't have barracuda, what d'ya say I throw a couple a huge steaks and a couple'a potatoes on your grill. I feel the manly need for meat."

After a quick run to town for the makings, the two friends, clad in shorts only, sat in Adirondack chairs on the deck while the potatoes baked, gazing out to sea and sipping Dew. Neal rose, walked over to place his palm on Lance's bare back.

"I been wanting to tell you something for a while now," Neal said. "Remember the other night, the first night you spent here, god, was it only two or three days? It seems like I have known you for years. Anyway the night I brought out the dope for us to smoke?"

"Yeah, I remember, you. . ." Lance rose from his chair and went to lean on the deck rail, gazing out at the surging gray ocean.

"Lemme finish, okay? Anyway I said I had gotten the pot and the little pipe and case from a 'friend'? Well, he was, is a little, maybe a lot more than a friend. Many, many years ago, back in college, I experimented with several men, boys really, classmates and frat brothers, and one really sort of serious relationship with a guy, uh, Mike. Anyway, I sort of considered myself a bi-sexual, if ya wanna put a label on it, which I didn't. You know how it was back then. Free love and all that. That kinda went on for a few years, into my thirties, going out with guys and girls, whatever felt good. Then I met my Mary. Dear, dear Mary. I gave it all up for her. Pledged her my troth, gave my word. I stayed true to her all those years, not only giving up other women, but my attraction for men, too.

"You know, Neal, our meeting, being together, is truly amazing, I. . ."

"Almost finished, good buddy, just a bit more." Lance scrunched his neck to one side as if to crack away the stress of months of grief, and the soreness from the days fishing. Neal seeing Lance's soreness and pain, instinctively took a few steps to stand behind Lance and slightly to his left. As he spoke, he began to softly rub Lance's shoulders. "Three years ago, when Mary died, pretty suddenly, too, I was much like you are now. Desolate, inconsolable. I barely ate, didn't go out, basically felt my life was over. I went on that way for a while. One day the phone rang. An old friend from college days called up and said he was coming through here, was kinda pressed for cash. Asked if he could spend a couple days at my place on his way south for a job. Well, it woke me up a bit, 'a friend in need' and all that. Well this guy, Duane and I had made it a few times way back when." 

"One night while he was stayin' with me, we smoked up a dube or two, his dope, not mine, I hadn't smoked in 25 years, you know, kinda like for old times sake. We got high and right here on this porch, he reached out and put his palm on the front of my shorts. And it all came back. Within minutes we were goin' at it just as we had so many years before." Neal's massage grew stronger, probed deeper, kneading the stress away. "It seems amazing to me that the, the, well, the other side of my sexuality could come back like that, so strong, after so many years. And then he went away. In the three years since then, I have manged to have sex three times, sudden random occurrences, all with men, pretty anonymous. And then along came you. And when I saw you that night, trying so desperately to come, I was thoroughly interested, excited and emotionally touched. I could feel your hurt, having only gone through it a few years ago. Then you got, well, sick. I woke up and there you were, there it was, that glorious hunk of meat you tote around everyday. And hell, hee hee, the rest is history as they say."

Neal's massage grew intense now. He moved to stand directly behind Lance. His firm fingers dug into the soreness of Lance's back, down low under the band of his shorts, almost to his buttocks, back up along his spine, out across his shoulders and down his upper arms. Lance sighed deeply. Neal could feel the stress leaving Lance, feel the goose bumps shiver across his body.

"What's truly amazing," Lance began, "is all the simularities in our lives. I, too played around when I was younger. I too gave it up to marry my sweetheart. I also am grieving, and I have found you. Even more amazing, I had a bisexual lover in my youth, only experimenting at the beginning, but going further as we grew older. I would come home from the service, we would get together. He came home from college, we got together. Went on like that for years until I got married, moved away, lost track. Wanna hear what's really weird?" There followed a long pause.

"Huh, yeah sure tell me."

"His name was Michael."

"Weirder and weirder."

Neal's hands tracked down, his palms covering Lance's nipples, still massaging.

"Ohhh," Lance sighed. He leaned back to let Neal support his weight and laid his head back on Neal's shoulder. Neal's hands branched out, fingertips cruising chest, navel, ribs. Neal turned his head and kissed Lance's neck, nibbling alongside his adam's apple. Their bodies were now in full contact. Only two layers of thin shorts separated their lithe bodies. Even through the clothng between them, Neal's cock was like a living presence behind Lance.

Neal bent his head over Lance's shoulder to lick and suck at one erect nipple. Below, his hands insinuated themselves under the elastic band of Lance's shorts, his fingertips entwining in the mass of curly red hair he found there. Lance's huge prick strained against the fabric of his jean shorts, yearnng to pop free. Moments later, Neal's fist was closed most of the way around Lance's dick, caressing it softly.

"Oh yes," Lance moaned. 

Neal grasped lance's cock more firmly and stroked it hard and fast three times. Lance thrust his hips forward. Neal resumed his slow stroking. He let go of Lance's cock for a moment to insert his thumbs in Lance's waistband and push his shorts down. He resumed his stroking, alternating several sharp, hard, fast strokes with slow sensuous strokes, but now Lance's penis stood out straight and proud and hard as stone. 

Neal whispered directly into Lance's ear, "God I love your cock, it's so, so intimidating. It's like a whole living being." With his one free hand, he struggled and fumbled, finally unclasping and unzipping his own shorts. As he bent to suck and nibble on Lance's nipple again, his slim, iron hard cock made its presence known, lying full length between Lance's tight butt cheeks. "I love your cock," Neal repeated, using his fist to push back Lance's foreskin. Lance had not bathed sine fishing earlier in the day. The piquant aroma of unwashed cock wafted up on the sea breeze. "I love the taste of you, the smell of you, the heft in my hands. I love the way you respond to y touch, pulsing and jumping around. I want you to cum for me, Lance. I want to see your cum, feel it shoot from your big dick." He increased the speed of his stroking, gripping tighter and pushing his fist back hard against Lance's groin. With his free hand, he now began twirling Lance's left nipple between his thumb and forefinger. His mouth closed on Lance's right nipple, nibbling, almost biting. Lance's cock responded, filling, throbbing. The thick vein on the underside pulsed so hard Neal could feel it throughout his palm.

Neal pounded his fist on Lance as he would himself. Lance leaned back more heavily against him, his knees wobbly with passion. He thrust his hips repeatedly forward to meet Neal's beating fist. Neal was moving his hand very fast now, his motion a blur in the waning light. He felt Lance's explosion begin, like the rumbling before a volcanic eruption. He sucked hard on Lance's right nipple, squeesed the other, increased the speed of his pounding.

Lance's breath came in short gasps; he arched his back strongly. The cum began to ooze from the head of his monstrous cock, then shot out into the florida sunset. The sea breeze blew the shot of cum back onto Neal's hand and Lance's balls and hips and belly. And then the spurts came again, stronger, longer, again! Again! Neal whispered in Lance's ear once again,"Oh yes buddy, that's it. Give it to me. Cum for me. I love it. Oh yes!"

The spurts of cum ended, the after shocks began, continued, slowed, disappeared. Lance's cock deflated. It retained its formidable size, but lost its hardness. Neal hung on to the massive organ, continued nibbling softly on the curve of Lance's neck and shoulder. He whispered murmuring sounds of satisfaction and reassurance, even though his still unfullfilled manhood remained trapped between Lance's cluthching ass cheks. The couple stood watching the sea, swaying gently back and forth. After about ten minutes, Lance, still enclosed from behind in Neal's strong arms, finally spoke, "Shall we see if those potatoes are burnt and have a hunk of charred meat, or do you want to go to bed?"

"Naw, let's eat, then, who knows, maybe I'll have you for dessert, you are the sexiest man I have ever met." They sealed it with a long profound kiss, pulled up their shorts and headed to check the grill. Only then did Neal consider that they had just made love in full view of any neighbor who might have chosen to look. He laughed at his boldness and lack of inhibition, but then, Lance had that effect on him. 

They washed their hands and faces. Neal prepared a huge bowl of crisp spinach, with bleu cheese, leftover seafood, fresh tomato, fresh avocado slices, and sweet walla walla onion. In lieu of dressing, he squeezed the juice of a fresh lime over the entire mixture. He placed the bowl on a platter with salt and pepper, fresh unsalted butter, two lime smoothies, plates, knives and forks and spoons, and headed for the lanai.

Lance tossed two 18 ounce club steaks on the grill as if he were in his own house. After only a few minutes the outsides were charred black, while the insides oozed blood. 

"Whoo hoo. Let's eat good buddy," Lance called out, at the same instant Neal emerged onto the deck carrying the salad.

They gorged themselves on the feast. Lance in particular was famished after the rigorous exercise of barracuda fishing. He ate as if he were trying to consume all those Minnesota hot dishes that filled his home freezer. At the end, they sat shirtless, face to face. Lance giggled as he held a half-raw piece of meat to Neal's face. Sensing the gist of the game immediately, Neal sunk his teeth into the meat, shook his head, growled like a savage beast, and tore off a chunk, juice running down his chin and onto his chest.

Next it was Lance's turn. He sniffed the piece of meat that Neal held out, rubbed his cheek against it, purred as he licked Neal's hand, then savagely tore off a piece of steak and chawed it noisily.

They repeated the pagan ritual three more times. Their faces and necks and chests were slimy with meat juices. Lance spied a drop of blood hanging from one of Neal's tight wrinkled nipples and captured it with his tongue. Both men were growing increasingly uncomfortable in their confining shorts, their cocks straining for freedom.

Suddenly, Neal was up and running. Before Lance could recover, Neal had dropped his shorts and plunged into the darkening sea. Lance followed, but a moment before he, too, shed his shorts, he was stopped by the beauty that struck him like a wave. The full moon had risen, popped from the sea as it seemed to do in eastern coastal climes. The starless sky was platinum hue, dotted with alabaster clouds. A river of shimmering silver lay across the pewter sea from sand to horizon. In the midst of that glimmering span, Lance stood in silhouette, his fine lean form outlined in black. Even at his distance, his manhood seemed a force to be accepted, a positive acclimation of his own manhood and of all men.

Neal unfastened his shorts, ran three steps and plunged into the sea, scattering sterling droplets in his wake. He swam strongly and expertly, popped above the silent sea to take Lance in his muscled arms. They stood kissing in the midst of that glittering river. Slowly, they began to wash each other with the sparkling eternal waters.

It was Lance, of course that broke the spell. He stroked strongly away and disappeared beneath the ocean. Neal pursued. They swam and played and horsed around, dunking each other and racing.




Silver Heat Ch. 02



After about an hour, Lance shouted, "I am headed in, I need rest and shelter. And a hot shower or bath."

"Last one in is a dirty cock sucker," Neal laughed."

"So should I swim backwards? Is that what you're saying? Seriously, Neal, do you have any more of that smokage from the other night?"

"I could probably arrange some if we have the time."

"I got nothin' but time, too much. I also have plenty of money, even cash if need be." Saying this, he turned and plunged into the sea, stroking strongly for shore.

It wasn't much of a race. Lance was by far the stronger swimmer. Even so, Neal reached the shore only moments behind his new friend. They grabbed their shorts and raced to Neal's cottage, unmindful of the possible stares of neighbors.

Neal headed straight for the shower. "It isn't good to leave the salt water on your skin. I usually make it a point to wash it off as soon as I come in. I'll be out in a few minutes."

Lance sat in the living room and waited. He didn't want to sit his naked butt on someone else's furniture, so he wandered a bit. Finally he went to the kitchen, rolled off about ten paper towels, set them on the sofa and sat upon them.

Less than a minute later, he stood up again. A great idea had struck him. He went down the short hall toward the bathroom. He heard Neal in the shower: "Gypsy gal, the hands of Harlem, cannot hold you to its heat, your temperature's too hot for tamin', yer flamin' feet are burnin' up the street. I am homeless, come and take me, into the reach of yer rattlin' drums, I gotta know babe. . . 

The shower door slid abruptly open. Lance stood there, gaping. Neal ogled. Lance sang as he stepped into the shower: "If it's you my life lines trace. Hi Neal, nice meeting you here." he stepped into the fold of his partners arms, kissing his lips and reaching for the soap. "Turn around, let me wash your back," he said, grinning.



Silver Heat Ch. 03



The shower door slides abruptly open. Lance stands there, gaping. Neal ogles. Lance sings softly as he steps into the shower: "If it's you my life lines trace. – Hi Neal, nice meeting you here." he slips into the fold of his new partner's arms, kissing his lips and reaching for the soap. "Turn around, let me wash your back," he says, grinning.

Neal obliges, saying nothing, but turning to present his back. Lance soaps his hands into a fluffy lather, the soap smelling cleanly of lavender and spice. He begins with the back of Neal's neck. Taking his time, he gently laves his way across Neal's firm broad back. Lance's object is to soothe and heal. To express his genuine affection for this strong fine man, in words might be misunderstood, so he endeavors to transmit his feelings through his fingertips. Using fairly firm pressure, he seeks not so much to wash as massage. Nonetheless, touching Neal in any way now causes in him the strongest, hardest erections since he and Martha were youngsters. 

Neal places his hands flat on the shower wall for support and leans into them, surrendering to the pleasure of Lance's soothing hands. 

Lance's hands descend to Neal's buttocks, kneading and working deep into the muscles there. For easier access, he kneels. When Lance's hand slides soapily under his ass cheeks, Neal spreads his legs wider, adjusting his footing in the slippery shower. Encouraged to experiment, Lance slides two fingers between the firm tight cheeks,washing up and down, first with the two on the left, then the right, alternating several times. The first three times Lance's fingers encounter Neal's tightly puckered anus, he can feel it contract in response.

Neal spreads his legs even farther. Taking this move as an invitation, Lance inserts the tip of his middle finger. "Ooh." Neal gasps. Lance reaches for the soap again, lathering up once more. For the next several minutes, Lance washes Neal's ass thoroughly inside and out, using copious amounts of the fragrant soap and all his fingers at one time or another. Finally, Lance's middle finger is inserted full length between the muscled cheeks, turning back and forth and around, washing deep inside his friend. When he turns his finger fully around, pointing down, he contacts Neal's prostate. Neal's anus squeezes tight around his finger and his hips involuntarily lurch forward, almost dislodging Lance's finger. 

Lance removes his finger. Stands. He takes a few moments to thoroughly wash his hands, pausing now and then to caress an ass cheek. Hands cleansed, he speaks for the first time. "Turn around Neal, let me do the front."

Neal complies. His long thin beautiful cock is standing straight out in front of him, brushing against Lance's much fatter, longer shaft. Neal begins to speak. "Lance I. . ."

Lance shushes Neal with a finger to his lips. He reaches down and pulls back his long loose foreskin, reaches for Neal's smaller thinner cock. He puts the heads together, one pink, one darker, purple. Then he slides his foreskin forward to enclose about one third of Neal's penis. Stretching a bit farther, he holds the two dicks, joined together, tightly in his left hand. He puts the soap in Neal's hand, turned palm up. "Hold that," he says.

Lance rubs the soap in Neal's hand with his fingertips. "Close your eyes," he says. He washes Neal's face, gently, sensuously, beginning with his eyelids. He thoroughly washes every space his fingers contact on their journey, even inside and behind the ears. He moves to Neal's neck and shoulders, touching so gently, so softly that every touch brings a new crop of goose bumps to Neal's skin. Neal's nipples, like tight pink pencil erasers, stand up proudly in the center of darker aureoles sprouting a forest of tiny hard bumps. First, Lance washes them using circular motions of thumb and forefinger. Then he bends and briefly suckles at each taut nipple. Neal's reaction to every touch, each caress, is transmitted to Lance through their adjoined cocks and back again. Each tender cock head feels the heat, the pulse, the wetness, of the other. 

Lance releases their dicks and steps back half a pace. There is an audible 'tssk' as their cocks plop apart. Lance regains the soap from Neal and soaps his palms again. Next, he thoroughly washes Neal's underarms, his flanks, his taut belly.

Lance goes to one knee, places one foot at a time on his other knee and laves it, top and bottom, under the toes, and each toe individually. In front of his face, Neal's rock hard dick jerks and jumps when each toe is touched. Lance has learned something about his friend. Smiling, he reserves the knowledge for a later time.

At last Lance begins to wash his friend's penis. Neal is so hard, so intensely excited, he nearly cums at the first touch of Lance's insistent hands. His knees go weak and he nearly slips. Lance's arms reach around his hips and buttocks for a moment to steady him. Lance holds back his friend's foreskin with one hand and washes thoroughly round and round the head and around the frenulum. Sliding the foreskin forward, he uses two fingers to wash underneath the foreskin. He uses his cupped fists alternately in long stroking movements to scrub the outside of Neal's cock. He reaches under and thoroughly, but gently massages each ball in its tightening sac. 

Lance lifts Neal's form from the wall, guides him under the shower and uses the still hot water to rinse everything. This done he reaches for Neal's hand, guides him out of the shower, pauses in the hall to grab a large fluffy towel, drags him into what is fast becoming 'their' bedroom, and spends several long, long minutes drying every nook and cranny of Neal's body. It occurs to Lance that now he was sure that every part of Neal's body was squeeky clean, (after all he had done it himself), he could now feel free to kiss or lick any body part. This brings a smile to his lips. Once many years ago someone had licked his ass. He remembered it as feeling pretty good once he had recovered from being grossed out.

The men sit on Neal's large bed, perfectly comfortable with each other's nakedness, discussing wives and lovers and almost lovers, successes and failures and might-have-beens. Throughout their prolonged conversation, they touch each other often, here and there, erections blooming and subsiding; free and easy with each other's bodies, attuned to each other very much like new lovers.

Lance, having previously told Neal about his 'other Neal', from the Air Force, now relates the story of his almost sexual encounter on the beach, expressing his great regret at not having followed through, at not having expressed what had clearly been love. 

Neal takes Lance's face between his hands, eyes boring into his psyche. "You think that's what we have, Lance. You think it's love?"

"Geez, Neal, I don't know. It's surely something, something important. Maybe discussing it, over thinking it, will ruin it, whatever it is. Right now I think I am too sore, too vulnerable, to make rational decisions. I always said my love for Martha had been a rational decision, with benefits. Huh, did you hear that? I just said 'Martha' and my voice didn't choke. Perhaps I am healing. Thanks to you. Thanks very much to you, my dear dear friend."

"You know, Neal. Something just occurred to me. In all my relationship with my "other Neal' I never kissed him once. And even with Michael, my long time lover, I can only remember kissing him once. Isn't it odd? Kissing another man always seemed much more intimate and strange than say, sucking his cock. In the old days, I would suck a stranger, but I would never have kissed a stranger. And yet, I have no trouble at all kissing you. Maybe that means something."

"Well, kiss me and let's find out. The men kiss, laughing about it, then more deeply, more seriously. Neal interrupts. "You know Lance, if it would make you happy, we could try, er, uh, uh, what you didn't do with 'your other Neal'."

"Wait, ho, I didn't mean to imply that or anything. I wasn't trying to. . . "

"I know that. No sweat, it's not, you know, like that. I just want to make you happy."

Lance breaks into soft laughter. "Well, good buddy, and I sincerely do mean, good buddy, you are being very successful so far. You have made me happier than I have been for many years. Not that life with Martha wasn't happy. It's just those last years, with her cancer and all, er, everything. Well, you know how it is. Battling outside forces one can't control, can't fight, can't win. . . It. . . It takes a lot out of a man. But you. You are the best thing that has happened to me in a good long time. It truly feels like fate, or good karma or something coming back to me."

"I got an idea," Neal says. "Let's get that stupid looking trailer of yours, 'the monster', as I call it stocked up and let's go way off in the woods someplace, just the two of us and rough it, be alone, stay naked all the time, fish for our meals and scratch and fart and drink beer and all that stuff."

"And give up all this luxury?"

"Well, you said 'the monster' does have a big shower."

"And aren't you glad?" Lance pushes Neal down on the bed. They horse around, pushing and 'punching', tickling and teasing like a couple of teenagers. But also pausing now and then to kiss, finger, lick like a couple of horny old men. Lance wins the 'wrestling match', sitting astride Neal, pinning his arms out to the side, his long cock nudging Neal's collarbone. Neal's cock is nestled warmly against his buttocks. Suddenly everything seems much more serious.

"Oh god! Oh fucking god!" Lance is suddenly racked with sobs. Hard-ons, nakedness, wrestling, all is forgotten. 

Warm wet tears fall on Neal's taut belly. He pulls Lance down to him, rolls them over to their sides. "What? What is it buddy? Throwing his arms and legs around Lance in a furious embrace, Neal murmurs, "It's okay, lance. It's okay buddy. Talk to me. Tell me. What is it? What's wrong?"

Struggling for control, Lance shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's okay. I'm just a big baby. It's just. Oh never mind. I'll be okay. Just give me a minute."

"Hey buddy, take all the time you need. When you are ready, talk to me."

Sobs subsiding after a few quiet minutes, Lance finally speaks. "I don't think I can talk to you about this Neal. I feel like such an idiot, such a fool. Listen, I think I am going to get on a plane as soon as possible and go back home. It's time I got my shit together, started living my life again, started having some responsibilities again."

Neal pushes against Lance's chest with both hands, creating space between their two bodies. He looks Lance straight in the eyes. "Now just a goddam minute." His anger is beginning to rise. "What the fuck you mean, 'go back home'. Don't I have anything to say about this?"

"Well," Lance says, still struggling to subdue his sobbing, "that's just it. I mean, you have been so wonderful. Putting up with me day after day, feeding me, helping me. It's just no good. I can't stay here and be dependent upon you. What kind of life is that? I've got. . . "

"Now just hang on a fucking second," pushing himself a bit further away. "Where is this coming from. Ten minutes ago we were 'frolicking'. I know things are tough, with losing Martha and all, but I thought, well I thought, well I just thought. . ."

"Thought what? Thought we had something, have something. What? What do we have? A couple of old queers hangin' on to each other 'cause they don't have anything else."

"Is that how you feel? Is that how you really feel about. . . about. . .us?"

"How else can I feel? What, exactly do we have? Can you define it. You wanna get married?Sooner or later the bloom is gonna wear off, the vacation is gonna be over. Reality is gonna set in. Then what?"

"Now look, Lance. Cut it out! Shut up your stupid fucking mouth 'cuz you are really pissing me off." Neal pushes up off the bed, begins pacing back and forth across the room, his shapely penis swaying sharply back and forth as if to emphasize his statements. For about fifty paces, he says nothing, taking deep breaths to control his hurt, his anger. "If you want to leave, if you need to leave, for some deep reason you may have that I don't understand, then, okay, go. go ahead, leave. But what about me? You gonna come here, make love with me, play with my emotions, use my body, then just leave me hangin' here. I took a big risk, being with you, having, er, uh sex with you, trusting you. Now you're gonna throw it all away. For what? Where you gonna go to be happier than here with me? Who you gonna be with? The boys at the Legion Home? Talk about reality. This is my reality. Here is my reality. Now is my reality. You are my reality. Or can be. Could be. Why not?"

"What are you saying, exactly?

"I'm asking why, that's all, Why? Why can't we continue? Why can't you just stay here? With me? Why can't there be an us? Who says?"

"But what happens next? We just grow old, two old bi-sexual hags sitting here slobbering on ourselves and remembering when we used to be able to get it up?"

"What's the alternative? Sitting alone? Two lonely old bi-sexual hags with no fond memories of hard-ons or anything else, and no one to care? What the fuck is wrong with us being together, having each other to care about, learning to live together, learning to love one another."

"Love? Is that what we have? Is it?"

"I don't know and I don't care. I thought at lest we would have each other. Now you want to throw that away. I just don't get it? Why?

"I am not sure I can love again, not even sure I can love a man."

"Is that what this is about. Are you afraid to be 'queer'? Or just afraid to love again, live again. I think I am starting to catch on. You ARE afraid to love, afraid to be hurt again." Neal crosses the room, leans over Lance, lays his palm tenderly on Lance's face. "Oh Lance. You loved her that much. I can only imagine your pain. And now after a lifetime of love, she left you. Alone. Believe me, I know how that hurts. But I am not asking anything of you. Only to be with you."

"I don't know if I can. If I can live like this. Two men. Everyone knowing. Laughing at us like that barrista the other day. I just don't know."

"Well, what the fuck happened to 'carpe diem'?"

"Yeah well, that's okay for vacation, but kind of reckless for everyday life."

"I only have one more thing to say. Then I am through. Take it any way you want. Leave if you want. I can't stop you."

"Maybe we don't love each other at least not in the way you are used to. But love can take as many forms as there are people. Remember your first Neal. Way back when. You told me you had always regretted, Martha or not, that you had not accepted what was surely love for and from Neal. In fact you told me yourself that you had loved two men in your life, at least. Here I am. Here it is. Give yourself a chance. Give us a chance. Stay with me! Please!"

Neal turns away, goes to the closet, pulls on a pair of soft cotton draw string pants and a Hawaiian shirt. He leaves the room abruptly. Lance hears the sound of Neal's old Lincoln firing up, the sound ebbing as the car leaves.

And now Lance experiences true loneliness. Never in his life has he felt so alone. The tears come once more. Hot and wet they pour from him, washing out grief, washing out anger, washing out fear. He cries and cries until there are no more tears, then drifts off into fitful slumber, dreaming of old clowns and the circus audience that laughs at them.

The eerie green glow of the alarm clock pulses 2:45 when Lance is awakened by an engine revving, a screen door slapping. The bedroom door opens. Neal stands wavering, silhouetted in the glow of moonlight off the ocean. 

"Hi," Lance says.

"Hello der you shexy thinf wif the big dick. Did you know that you are shleepin' in ma bed? Heh heh, Whoosh been shleepin; in ma bed?"

"You're drunk!"

"Stunk as a drunk, Heh heh." Neal begins disrobing. Even drunk this is easily accomplished since he wears only two articles of clothing."

"What are you doing?"

"Goin' to bed wif my bestest frien. Watchoo think." he plops down on the bed beside Lance, immediately planting drooling kisses over every body part he can reach.

"But wait. Stop. You're drunk."

"You already shaid that. I don care. I wan shoo."

"What?"

"I want to fuck you. Been wantin' it forever. Roll over."

"What. Get away. What do you mean?"

"Whaja dinkI mean? DinI shay it redy. I wanna fuck you cush you are my asshole buddy."

"Hang on. Uh, uh. Gimme a sec. Ah, I know. I'll go get you a drink. Would you like that? Another drink.?"

"Hokay, budurry, I wanna fuckya."

Lance hurries from the room, stays gone as long as he can.. returns with a steaming cup of black coffee. Neal is passed out on his back, naked, arms spread, half on, half off the bed, snoring loudly enough to wake himself if he had been sober. Lance carefully lifts his friend's legs onto the bed, covers him with a light blanket, and quickly and quietly leaves the room. He establishes himself in the guest bedroom he had stayed in on his first night here. The far off shussh shussh of waves breaking on the shore was like a sad, lonely song in his heart. It would sere him right if he ended up lonely. He had made his own stupid decision. Why couldn't he ever learn to accept what was, what is, without analyzing everything to death? As sleep finally found him, dawn was casting a cold silvery light thru the chinks n the blinds. His last thoughts before crossing the line into sleep were about Neal's drunken ramblings. "Had he really wanted to fuck me for a long time? What would that be like?" He had done it to a few others. And certainly he had more than enough to fill anyone. "Anyway," he told himself, Neal thinks I am leaving? Am I? Shit! Why does life have to be so hard?"

It was long past daybreak, but still silvery gray and sunless when Neal awakened in his own bed. At first he had no memory of the previous night. But his throbbing head reminded him of the most outstanding feature of last night. He had been drunk. Dead drunk. Then he remembered why he had gone out drinking. Then he looked around him. Lance was not in their bed, not with him. He roused himself with difficulty, battled his way to the bathroom and downed two aspirin. He was sick to his stomach, but not from booze or aspirin. He realized with a deep aching hurt, that Lance had said he was leaving.

"Lance! Lance? He screamed as he stumbled down the hallway. Lance, where are you? Are you here?" He pushed his way into the spare bedroom and there he was. "Lance!, Oh my god. Lance. You're here, you're really here."

Lance was slow to respond, having slept fitfully. By the time his eyes were fully open, Neal was upon him, hugging him for dear life and kissing his face. 

"Of course I'm here," Lance replied. "Where else would I be? Go make some coffee and brush your teeth. I'll be here when you get back."

"Then you're not leaving, not going away?"

"We'll see, we'll see, just go make some coffee."

Lance sat on the edge of the bed, naked. He seemed to spend a lot of time naked lately. Sometimes Neal didn't even seem to notice. Things came so easily, so naturally to him. Kinda like my old Air Force Neal. We were often naked together also, also without seeming to notice. "I wonder if he would have accepted my love had I given it at the time. I wonder what that would have been like," he asked himself. "You probably would have wondered it to death," he answered himself, laughing at himself.

Neal entered with the coffee. Lance patted the bed beside him and Neal sat. They sat side by side in silence for a long time, sipping coffee and saying nothing. "I was thinking," Neal finally said, "about getting some more of that weed. What do you think?"




Silver Heat Ch. 03



"Do you need my permission?"

"You gonna keep on being a fuckhead? I asked because I want to know if you are gonna help me smoke it."

"I am sorry. I aam just not very comfortable being around drunks."

"Is that because you are one?"

"How did you. . ."

"I could tell by the way you always refuse a drink. I could tell by the way you drank those Mai-tais on that first night. I could tell you had slipped and were afraid you would fall. That's why I asked you over. Part of the reason, anyway."

"What was the rest of the reason?"

"I was extremely attracted to you and I wanted a chance to be with you. I was afraid you'd drive off into the night towing that weird trailer and I'd never get the chance to find out."

"Find out what?"

"Find out what a wonderful man you are and how great it would be getting to know you, and how big that thing that was bulging your pants really was. It is okay you know to be physically and mentally attracted to someone."

"I was so stupid I didn't eve know."

"Cummon Lance cut the bullshit."

"What do you mean?"

"You knew I was coming on to you. You knew you were gonna come home with me. You knew we were gonna make it."

"Not really."

"Oh yeah. Then why did you ask me the questions about my motivation in asking you over?"

"Yeah, well, okay, I suspected."

"And you came anyway.

"Yes I did."

"And now you are ashamed of it, of us."

"NO, no not ashamed, not ever. Oh Neal. God I am so sorry. I'm so stupid. I have to think everything over and over, even afterward. Martha always said I wanted to 'edit' everything, keep going over it until every 'I' was dotted and every 't' crossed."

"So what do you think?"

"Oh jeez, about what?"

"About the dope. Should I get it or not? You gonna help me smoke it or not?"

"Sure, okay, why not?"

"So that means you'll be staying a while?"

"Yeah, sure, okay, a while."

"Uh, Lance?"

"Yes Neal, what else?"

"Well, Lance, ya see it's this way. I could just buy a quarter. That would cost about fifty bucks. But that wouldn't last very long. But you see, if I had a hundred seventy five bucks I could buy a whole oh zee, and that would last a whole lot longer. Of course if I had about twenty-five hundred bucks I could by a whole el bee, and that would last for years, man. So what do you think?"

"You're askin' me for the money, huh?"

"Well you know, on my limited income I could easily afford fifty bucks, but like I said, that wouldn't last ver long. Especially with you helpin to smoke it. So I was thinkin;. . ."

"That if I were gonna stay a bit longer, we might need a hundred and seventy five bucks."

"Geez, ya never know, lance, maybe we should go for the whole el bee."

"Huh huh. How about we just go for the one seventy five for the whole hosie?"

"Not hosie, Lance Oh Zee as in one ounce."

"Ha ha, I get it. Okay, one seventy five it is. My wallet's on the dresser in your room."

"Thank you Lance. Thank you so much. You will never know how much I appreciate this."

"So what do you hafta do to get this Oh Zee?"

"Well I just gotta call a friend. But Lance. There is something else you should know. Now don't freak out or start analysing everthing, okay?"

"Okay what now?"

"Well ya see, this 'friend', the one I get the dope from, well, he's sorta, wellnot sorta. Well hell, he's a former lover."

"A former lover? How former? Well it's been about a year since we have been together. He was there for me after my wife, after Mary died, you know. I never even knew that the , well, uh, the 'bi' tendencies of my youth were still hiding there deep inside me, submerged all those years, And then I was lost, kinda like you . And then I met Jake and he did so much for me, but, well, it kinda didn't work out, but we are still great friends. You want me to go into more details, Lance? I will if you want me to."

Lance reaches to take Neal's coffee cup, places both on the night stand. He sits again, turns, takes Neal's face between his hands and kisses him firmly on the lips. He maintains his grip on his lover's face. There's one more thing I want to ask you, Neal."

"Anything, lance. I mean that. Anything."

"Do you remember anything bout last night?"

"You mean about your threatening to leave?"

"No, after that. After you came home, uh. . . drunk. Do you remember anything you said?

Suddenly Neal's face, his chest, his thighs are bright red. He tries to look at the floor, but ance has his face trapped, looking in his eyes."

"I remember."

"Is is true. What you said. That you, you wanted me, in that way?"

The blush continues, covering most of Neal's body now. "Well yes, and. . . no. I wanted you that way, wanted to try it. I never. But more. I uh, er, oh hell! Ever since I first set eyes on that, that, he reaches, grasps Lance's cock, "on this. I have fantasized, wondered, what it would feel like to be filled up with with THIS big thing. But Lance. It scares me, too. I know. It's crazy. I know it'll probably even hurt like hell, but even so. It is hard to explain, but still, I think about it every time we are together. But knowing how you feel, I thought, well II though you would you know think it was, I was too, too, queer."

Lance, speechless, says nothing. This is heavy duty stuff he is unready for. His new best friend has just unloaded on him probably the most honest, secret, personal thing anyone could reveal about himself, and Lance's inclination is to 'process' it. Not knowing how to process it, he stores it in memory, grateful for such a personal gift, but wary about what to do about it. "Let's have breakfast," he pipes up, postponing any action.

All during breakfast, Neal wonders how Lance will take the information reluctantly imparted. "Will Lance begin our next lovemaking with the sole intent of fucking me," Neal wonders. "I hope my confession doesn't destroy the spontaneity that has marked our love making so far. Neal's recovery from the night before was advanced by breakfast and more coffee. While Lance was still at the breakfast table, Neal went to the phone. 

"Jake, yeah hi. Yeah, Neal. I'm doin' great Jake, damn fine. Yeah sure, I'll do that Jake. Listen, pal. I've got a friend staying with me for a bit. . .Yeah, I suppose you could say he's THAT kind of friend. Well anyway, we're looking for Maria Juanita, do you know where she is? No Jake, I didn't hear that she had gone to OZ with Dorothy. Well if you see her, tell her we need her as soon as she can get here, like maybe even this morning. No, of course, Jake, of course we'll pay for her bus fare. Is that still a buck seventy-five? A buck eighty-five? Wow, Jake, pretty soon Juanita won't be able to afford to ride the bus, then she won't be able to come to my house any more. So you say she'll be over in about an hour? That's cool, very cool. That's what I like about you Jake. You always make sure Juanita gets here on time. Thanks Jake. Bye. Yeah, I will. Bye."

"That was Jake. He'll be over with the stuff in about an hour. Price went up though, 185."

"No problem. Pretty cute system ya got there,"

"Yeah well, it probably ain't necessary, but you know, why not?"

"Whatever works."

*** *** ***

A short time later, there was a knock at the door. Lance rose and headed for the door, stopped, realized it wasn't his house, and called out, "Neal. Someone's at the door."

"Well, answer it!"

Lance, feeling a bit uncomfortable, went to the door. "May I help you?"

"Yeah, hi, I'm Jake,"

"Oh, Jake, sure, come on in. Neal, it's Jake."

"Be right there. I'm on the can."

Lance, clad only in cut-offs, blushed from head to toe as Jake gave him the slow once over. "Is that all you," Jake asked, smirking and dropping his eyes to Lance's crotch. 

Lance only blushed more deeply.

"Okay, Jake, knock it off," Neal said, emerging from the hallway.

"Geez, I'm only looking. Liking what I'm seein', too."

Neal shrugged. "Want something to drink?"

"Gotta beer?

"Sorry, no liquor here, probably never again. Coffee, diet dew, tea, water?"

"Diet Dew would be nice."

"Sit. Take a load off. That the stuff?" motioning to the rolled up paper bag Jake carried.

"That's it," setting the bag on the kitchen table."

"Jake, This is my new best friend, Lance." Jake and Lance shake hands.

"So tell me, Lance, did your mom see you naked before or after she named you?" Jake asks.

"Don't mind Jake, he's an asshole naturally."

"Not to worry," Lance says, "I have heard it all my life."

"I'll bet you have," Jake says.

"Knock it off or I'll tell him to hurt you with it," Neal says.

"Ooh, mama, it hurts soo good," Jake quips. As they have been joking around, Jake has opened the bag and is deftly rolling a good-sized joint, which he now sticks between Lance's lips. "Well, new best friend, guest of honor, 'Fire in the hole'." Jake produces a battered old Zippo emblazoned with the seal of the 1st Air Cav. And uses it to light the joint.

Lance inhales deeply, then speaks in that Mickey Mouse voice indicative of trying to maintain a toke and speak at the same time: "You were 'in country' huh?"

"Two tours, you?"

"Thank god, no. I got my discharge in '66," Lance says, " Air Force."

"Well, we all do our part." His eyelids rise in silent question.

"Heh, Heh, I love answering this question. I flew a spatula."

"Huh"

"I was a cook."

"Oh, very funny."

The smooth pot is starting to work now and eyelids are drooping a bit, irises dialating. Lance's 'monster' begins to rise and stir. Marijuana has always had this effect on him. Surreptitiously, he tries to press down on the hardening mass that threatens to peek out the leg of his cut-offs, but he gets caught.

"Got a problem there?" Neal asks.

Lance only grins stupidly. The attention, the embarrassment only makes him harder.

"Somethin' I can help you with?" Jake quips.

"I want some coffee," Lance says, ignoring them both. He rises to get coffee, bringing the bulge in his shorts to eye level for the two seated men. He turns rapidly, heading to the kitchen cabinets for a cup.

"Holy crap," Jake says loudly. He turns to Neal. "No wonder you threw me over."

"That was a long time ago, Jake," Neal says, "let's not go over this again."

"I still love you,ya know," Jake says.

"Bullshit, Jake, you never loved anyone as much as yourself and you know it."

"Too, true, pal, too true. And here I am old and alone."

"Poor you," Neal says. I'll bet you get laid every night."

"Well, not every night. Say, you, guy with the lance. You wanna get rid of this old worn out bum and come away with me?"

Lance laughs. "Well, I am flattered by so much attention, but I have unfinished business here. Thanks for the offer anyway. If I get bored, I'll now where to go."

"Damn, shot down again!" He stands and buzzes around the room once, arms outstretched, then sputters and falls to the floor. Well, since no one here seems to appreciate my exemplary sexual abilities, I guess I'll shove off. Duty calls." 

"here's that money I owe you, Neal says, packing a handful of bills into Jake's fist. Jake jams the wad into his pocket without looking. He walks over to Lance. "Sincerely man, nice meeting you," he says, grabbing Lance's hand, pressing it more than shaking it. I hope you two guys, er, uh, well, I don't know what I am tryin' to say. Just good luck."

"Thanks." Lance answers. Nice meeting you too."

Jake swirls out, screen door banging behind. The little house feels suddenly hollow, empty without his exuberant presence.

"Wow," Lance says, he's like a gale force wind."

"Exactly," Neal answers. "Kinda hard to take full time every day."

Lance goes silent, feeling Neal's regret for ; love's labours lost'.

A moment later the thought comes to Lance's mind. LOVE. Can he, could he really love a man? Had he really loved Neal, back before Martha. "Oh, Martha. Why did you have to leave me?Life with you, love with you was so easy, so uncomplicated." And what about Mike? Would he have, could he have, lived with Mike, loved Mike, full time, no turning back kinda love. He resigned himself. He would never have the answers, things would never, could never, be that easy again. Old lives, old loves mattered not. The real question was. . .

"Penny for your thoughts, good buddy." Neal's voice broke through his reverie.

"You really want to know?"

"Of course I do." Neal's voice is true, gentle, knowing.

"How could he do that? How could his timing be so perfect?" Lance asked himself.

"I was thinking about love," Lance tells his friend. "I was thinking about Martha. About the past. About the future. I was thinking about you,"

"What were you thinking, my friend?"

"I was wondering if I. . .if. . Oh, Neal, Forgive me. Please forgive me. I am so sorry." Lance moves quickly across the room and throws himself in Neal's welcoming arms. " I am so stupid, so stupid."

"Ssh, ssh, it's okay, it's all right. Everything is all right now. Come on." Neal spins out of Lance's grasp like a ballroom dancer, until only their hands are touching, reaches with his other hand to grab the bag of pot and papers and matches, and draws Lance toward the bedroom. "Come he says, no talking. No thinking. Come."



Silver Heat Ch. 04



In the bedroom, Neal stands Lance beside the bed. In one swift motion, he yanks down Lance's cut offs and kicks them aside. His own disrobing is similarly swift. Clothing has become superfluous in their lives.

Two old men lie naked on what seems to have become their mutual bed, talking gently, smoking the smooth pot, touching each other lightly and often. Their nakedness together has become so common as to be their normal state when they are "in". Their familiarity with one another's aging bodies is profound. 

Lance has been telling Neal about his work, his books. The current one, a sci-fi thriller titled TPC 2052, takes place in a future time when the electric company and the government are the same, but is essentially a love story. Incredibly, Neal has never read any of his books. Very quickly, Lance feels his narrative is dissolving into bragging. He segues into a long description of his life with Martha, their likes and loves, their trials and truths; his one instance of infidelity with his female publisher at the beginning of his fame. The heavy dues he had paid convincing his dear Martha to forgive, the years more it had taken her luscious body to forgive him.

Lance rises from their bed, crossing to the bathroom. Neal's eyes follow him across the room. He knows every tight muscle, every flabby ass cheek, every lump and bump and curve and whorl in Lance's body. It is impossible, even now, for Neal to be around Lance's naked body and not have his eyes drawn to that prodigious hunk of flesh swaying heavily between his legs. He imagines for a moment what it must have been like for Martha to have taken that giant organ into her body. A surge of sexual excitement flashes over him for a moment, his face hot and red.

Neal rises to meet lance as he returns. He pulls Lance's naked body against his, instantly aware of the massive presence against his own cock and balls. Softly, gently he kisses Lance full on the mouth, moves his face away. "No talking. No thinking. No analyzing, feelings only. Will you let me make love to you?"

The seriousness in Neal's eyes and voice create a huge lump in Lance's Adam's apple. He can barely speak. "Yes," he finally manages to murmur.

Neal slides to his knees, kissing neck, nipples, navel on the way down. By the time his lips encounter Lance's penis, it is turgid, throbbing. "I love the way you get hard so fast," Neal says, enclosing the swelling member with both hands. He extends his tongue fully, licking around and around the flared ridge, holding the long loose foreskin back with his hands. "I love all this," Neal says, moving the foreskin all around with his hands and licking over and under it. "I love the taste of you, the smell of your cock."

The lovers remain in this position for some time. Over and over again, Neal skillfully brings Lance to the brink of orgasm, then slows down, begins anew. Soon Lance's legs are shaking, his voice a keening wail. His legs give way and he falls back onto the bed. Neal follows, kneeling astride Lance's neck. He takes a firm hold on Lance's head. "Open," he commands, slowly sliding his hot wet dick into Lance's compliant mouth. He kneels straight up and, holding Lance's head firmly, fucks deep into Lance's throat over and over, setting up a natural fucking rhythm, the bed bouncing and shaking beneath them.

Lance assumes his role, sucking hard on the long, thin, hard cock that pierces him, rolling his tongue around and around inside his mouth. As Neal's thrusts quicken, thumping the back of lance's throat over and over, Lance fights the gagging sensation, holding Neal's cock tight with his teeth at its base and swallowing over and over. The sharp teeth, the swallowing sensation brings Neal's cock to new heights of exquisite aching ecstasy

Lanes reaches to cup Neal's firm ass cheeks with both hands, cheeks dripping with liquid from his cock and Lance's mouth, flowing across Lance's chin and neck and upper chest. Using the liquid as lube, Lance quickly insinuates his index finger into Neal's tight puckered ass hole. Neal jerks away from the invading finger, plunging his cock even deeper into Lance's throat. Lance's insistent finger follows, piercing deeper and deeper, twisting and turning, probing. Neal's thrusts now take on the frenzy of sexual insanity alternately plunging his cock forward into Lance's deep throat and thrusting his ass back onto Lance's thrusting finger.

When lance inserts the second finger, pushing deep, Neal cries out and spurts a quick dollop of cum into Lance's throat. Keeping both fingers seated deep, stroking the prostate, Lance grasps Neal's ass with his free hand and holds Neal's groin tight against his face. Neal falls forward, supporting himself with his hands above Lance's head and Immediately looses a stream of cum. Lance sucks hard, drawing a steady stream of cum from Neal's Prostate. 

After a very short time, Lance is forced to push Neal's body from his face, oxygen being necessary to sustain life. Neal rolls off Lance, pauses only a moment, then rolls again, onto all fours. He lays his head on the pillow, ass sticking up in the air, cock still dripping onto the mattress below. He looks back under his left arm at Lance. "Do it," he says simply, "fuck me!"

Lance is taken aback at first by Neal's act of submission. He moves to comply with his lover's request. Using the flat of both hands, he begins to massage the tight round globes of Neal's ass. Leaning forward, he plants a sweet soft chaste kiss in the middle of each cheek. The scent of his partner is strong: the sharp tang of athletic sweat blended with Neal's faint sandalwood oil, the cloying bleachy odor of spent cum and a hint of raw ass. The smell inflames Lance, his cock pulsing and jumping for attention. He takes its solid mass in hand and lays it atop Neal's backside, at the base of his spine.

Neal gulps. Lance's cock is a heavy living presence, lying atop him, throbbing and jerking. 

Lance takes it slow and easy, tenderly caressing Neal's butt and the backs of his legs with both hands, then running the back of one finger oh so lightly from the base of Neal's balls to the top of his crack. Lance leans and covers Neal's ass and the backs of his legs with hundreds of tiny nipping bites, licks and sloppy kisses. Neal's legs are trembling, his breath coming in short noisy bursts. "M..more...m...more," he manages to eke out.

Lance reaches from behind and draws Neal's long slender beautiful cock and full, tight balls back between his legs. Holding them cupped there in one hand, he slides his own massive member down along the ass crack to nestle and rub with Neal's, then back up, then down again. With each passage up and down Neal's crack, lance's large cock leaves an ever increasing tail of slick pre-cum.

Twice, Neal attempts to thrust himself back at Lance's advancing cock, but Lance restrains him. Lance cannot bring himself to actually tongue Neal's ass crack to moisten it, so he positions his mouth at the deep indentation at the very top, kissing and nipping and slobbering, his saliva running down Neal's crack to mingle with the pre-cum already deposited. Slowly, very carefully, Lance uses two fingers to smear the slippery liquid all around, and slightly into Neal's tight pink puckered ass hole All the while, Lance's other hand maintains its grip on Neal's cock, now restored to its full hardness, stroking it, now rapidly, now soft and slow again, sliding the tight foreskin on and off it's glistening pink head. 

"Go ahead, do it. Please," Neal implores.

"Ssh, ssh," is Lance's only reply

Very cautiously, Lance explores, inserting one finger up to the first knuckle.

"Whoo," Neal breathes.

Lance bends his finger, turns it, flicks it, pulls outward on the rim of Neal's tight hole, stretching it. Gently he slips one finger deep as it will go. Neal moans, "Yes." Lance follows immediately with a second finger, moving more quickly this time, pulling, stirring, twirling, flicking the two fingers rapidly. He pushes deep, discovering and rubbing his fingertips against Neal's prostate. Immediately, copious amounts of fluid begin to ooze from Neal's cock, wetting Lance's palm. Releasing Neal's cock, Lance brings this fluid to play, lubing a third finger he immediately slides in to join the other two. Now he begins a slow in-and-out motion, finger fucking his lover.

Though his three fingers do not nearly approximate the thickness of his cock, Lance decides the time has come. He slips his fingers from Neal's tight ass hole. Neal's voice expresses loss and disappointment as the fingers leave him.

Neal is surprised that so far there has been very little pain, though he knows that ordeal is yet to come, has known it well before he decided to do this, to take Lance into himself. He feels Lance repositioning himself behind him, feels Lance's hands firm on is hips. Suddenly a great fear rises in him. He sees a picture of Lance's prodigious cock in his mind, imagines it entering . . . his hips involuntarily move slightly away from Lance.

"Are you okay, Neal?" Lance asks tenderly. We can stop this. It's okay, really. I don't have to do this.

"I. . . I want, er, it, er you. I don't know what it is. I just know I want you, need you inside me. You are the one to think and analyze, I just feel what I want, what I need."

Lance takes his giant cock in hand, rubs it firmly up and down Neal's crack, spreading the lube that nearly gushes from him now. He shifts his knees, releases his hold on Neal's hips, holds his cock in his right hand, uses the fingers of his left hand to help spread Neal's tight cheeks, and presses the plum-sized head of his cock against Neal's anal ring. "Are you ready, my friend. It's time.

Neal's pulse is pounding with fear and passion. Somehow, inexplicably, as his panic rises, so does his level of excitement. Oddly, the more he fears penetration by Lance's huge cock, the more he craves it. His anal sphincter keeps trying to clamp closed, but he struggles to relax it open. "Yes," he tells Lance, do it, please, take me."

Lance presses forward firmly. The pink wrinkled entrance to Neal's insides puckers slightly outward, as if kissing the lips of Lance's cock and suddenly, Lance's fat cock head pops into Neal.

"OW!" Neal screams in pain.

Lance pauses. Now that he is in, he leans over his lover's back, gently stroking his back and arms and thighs. He whispers softly, nibbling the lobe of Neal's ear as he speaks. "I am in you. My cock is inside you. Feel me Neal. Feel my cock throbbing in you. I want you so bad. I never thought . . . but never mind. I want you, I need you, Take me into you, Neal"

Neal presses his firm ass back against the intruder as Lance pushes forward. The pain increases to a white-hot intensity as the huge cock penetrates deeper. "Oh god, oh my god," Neal cries.

"Ssh hush, hush, it's okay, it'll be all right. Try to relax. Oh damn Neal I hate hurting you."

"It's okay, I'll be all right. Just, just pause a sec, let me, let me . . .Hoo."

Lance waits and waits, not moving is hips, but moving his cock, caressing, as it were, Neal's ass from the inside. He waits. When he believes Neal is ready, he leans over him once more, whispering as before. Suddenly his teeth nip painfully at Neal's shoulder.

"Ouch," Neal cries, drawing his shoulder away, but his ass toward Lance, who takes advantage of the reaction to plunge his swollen cock the rest of the way in.

"Oh Neal, oh god Neal, feel me in you, take me in."

"Yes. Yes. Take me. God you are so big. I feel like my whole body is filled with you.

Lance pulls out a few inches, then back in. He knows the resumption of movement will cause Neal pain. . . His mind flashes back to that single defining moment on that Florida beach so long ago. That road not taken and now revisited. He did not take that chance and lost that love. He would not forgo satisfaction again. He would seize the day, seek fulfillment, gamble on love. Reluctant as he is to hurt his new-found love, lust begins to overtake him. He pulls his hard hot cock nearly all the way out of Neal then slides back in. Neal is moaning and thrashing under him, crying out in fear and pain, but he goes on. 

Lance soon sets up a steady rhythm. Neal's reluctant rectum still seeks to reject him, still tries to form a tight barrier to hinder his penetration, but he will not be stopped. His pace quickens. 

Neal's world is filled with a brilliant white pain, so searing it transcends all thought, all passion. 

Not only in his ass now, it seems to emanate from an inner source, to define his being. Not just a huge cock, but a tremendous, overpowering force possesses him. Inherently, instinctively he knows that his pain is borne of resistance, but he cannot let go. He struggles, not with the pain, not with the force of the massive cock impaling him, but with the competing forces of power and liberation within his own soul. 

Lance, too, empowered by Neal's resistance and by his own towering need, is rapidly losing control. His cock, so tightly confined, aches with the painful need for release. His mind, his heart, seeks its own relief. Grief and fear and doubt flood up from within him, demanding release. Emotions mix and surge and drown one another until need and lust and want and grief and pain all are one. On the verge of losing consciousness, he plunges past all physical, emotional and mental barriers. Like a man gone mad with passion, he begins to slam harder and harder into Neal.

On and on it goes, pummeling, battering until all defenses are breached, all walls crumble. Neal's pain reaches a repetitive plateau, pain and pleasure and the constant friction of possession at last wear him down. His knees weaken, wobble, he collapses, nearly unconscious, onto the bed. And now, finally, all resistance leaves him, his muscles desert him. The double sphincters that have so long held tight against the invader, now open fully. Lance's raging penis now slides easily in and out of his depths. An all-new feeling washes over Neal. The constant motion of the cock inside him, the massive living presence of his lover within him is all-powerful. It is as if his lover's entire body and soul has entered, possessing him, body and soul, filled him with the bright flash of Lance's fierce liberating love. Intense pleasure such as Neal has never known, blasts through him. He begins to experience the ultimate joy, the ultimate release of total surrender, the delight one can know only from giving oneself fully to another.

Looking down at Neal's body, fallen onto the bed, Lance can readily see the bright red inside Neal's rectum, now wide open and welcoming, can see his cock plunging in and out effortlessly. He feels Neal's surrender, plunges on, overwhelmed with love and gratitude. His cock now brushes Neal's prostate with each avid stroke. The grief, the hate, the anger, the love culminate in a red hot ball behind his eyes; exploding into glorious fireworks as his orgasm strikes without warning. " OH!" he cries, falling heavily atop Neal, burying his heavy cock to its hilt as he releases a flood of white hot cum. All his hate, his fear and grief flow with his cum, cleansing him. Lance's calm, warm appreciation of Neal's acceptance, his openness, his willingness to surrender, completes the serenity.

Beneath him, Neal, awash in a sea of self-loss, feels Lance's cock inflate, jerk and release a flood of cum deep into his bowels. This culmination, this flood of semen and emotion, an impregnation of sorts, is the final act of possession, breaking loose all vestiges of control, freeing Neal from himself. A long drawn our moan of relief and release flow from his lungs as a long constant stream of cum is released into the mattress below. 

A few moments later, though neither man has recovered, each notices the other is softly weeping. No words pass between them, but they shift positions to allow them to rest in each other's arms. 

Much time, perhaps an hour, passes before either man can move. Each burns with the desire to share his life-enriching experience with the other, but neither can find the words to communicate the love, the awe, the respect with which each now holds the other.

Neal glances over at Lance, lying peaceful beside him, a light smile playing across his face. Wordlessly, he takes his hand like an infatuated teenager, squeezes lightly. His own face is lit with the brightness of a large grin. Even the raw soreness in his backside is cause for elation, a reminder of the recent awe-full discoveries about life and love, and yes, about himself,

At the contact from Neal's hand, Lance's smile widens to a silly grin. He squeezes back. His heart, his soul is lightened as it has not been for some time. Martha's long illness, her ultimate surrender to the evil that had invaded her body, the arrangements, the funeral, the empty 'thank-you's'; All had shrunk his capacity for joy. As he watched, helpless -- her gargantuan battle: her love of the arts, her joy at life, even her love for him, waging, raging, but ultimately waning, losing her hopeless war with the life stealing enemy -- his own life force had dwindled within him, the light dimming, waning, ebbing but not quite out. But now this glorious 'thing' this, this overwhelming life-affirming - person- 'thing'. He shakes his head in disbelief at the good fortune that has found its way to him through his misery and grief. "Could this 'thing', this presence, this, this marvelous, wonderful, joyous 'thing' , could it be love? Is it possible that he. after all these years, is in love with a man? Well he finally decides, it matters not. What matters to him is Neal. The only word to express the open, joyous, loving spirit that has entered his life is: Neal." he turns to gaze again. Neal's face glows, beaming surprisingly youthful. Lance begins to speak, " Neal, I. . ."

Simultaneously, Neal speaks, "Lance, I. ."

They break out together in gales of raucous laughter. Ten minutes later they are still laughing, holding their aching bellies. Each time one looks over at the other and sees him laughing, the guffaws begin anew. Finally, they wind down, arms lightly thrown over each other, gasping, and occasionally laughing again, slowly subsiding and regaining their composure and their breath.

"You were saying," Neal says humorously, sputtering, and almost begins again.

Neal sits cross-legged on the bed and Lance moves to imitate him. Facing one another, Indian style, knees nearly touching, they finally find the serenity to speak. "Did I hurt you," Lance asks.

"No well, yes, uh quite a lot, but, no, in a way, not really."

Lance is reluctant to ask the question. It is one men rarely ask one another. "You, uh, you were, uh, crying. Did I hurt you that much?"

"Well, yes, I was crying, so were you I noticed."

"Yes, but I'll talk about that later. First you tell me, why were you crying?"

"I was weeping because, I am not sure I can put it in words. I was, so, so overwhelmed by, by a, a flood of new feelings and emotions."

"Can you tell me more?"

"Okay, cool, yeah, maybe, but look, Lance, bear with me okay. I may get some of this wrong, may have to think about it and talk about It for a long time, if I ever get it right. "Last night, er, I guess I mean today, was, was unbelievable." Neal blushes all over his body, his usual pale whiteness suffused with bright red. "This is difficult," Neal says. " What you did, I mean what we did. I, well, I had been thinkin' wondering about doing that ever since, well, er since we met. But I, Jesus Lance, I had no idea. Has it, have you, uh, that is, have you ever had er, 'it' done to you?"

"No, Neal, I haven't, but I have thought about it, quite a bit, fantasized about it, er, quite a bit."

"Well, I am here to tell you I almost quit, almost begged you to stop. You, that is your, uh, dick, is so fucking huge that I thought for a while it was going to permanently damage me, split me in two, it felt like. But then there came a point. It's hard to describe. But finally there I," (looking down at the bed, avoiding Lance's eyes.) "God this is hard to say, so I am just gonna come out with it. I gave up, gave in to. . . well, to you, to your body and, and everything. Funny thing is, once I, er, surrendered, like, myself totally to you, all sorts of glorious and beautiful things started to happen. It was as if," (now he looks straight into Lance's deep blue eyes) "as if giving up, letting go, made a space that you filled, allowed joy and pleasure and love to flood in, to fill me, just as you were filling me. And that's when the tears came."




Silver Heat Ch. 04



The men are silent for a time. Neal has shared much. Lance is awed. He feels anything he adds will be overkill. He reaches to place his palm gently on Neal's cheek. Neal turns his head, brushes Lance's hand lightly with his lips. Their eyes lock in a way as close and intimate as the joining of their bodies has been, so intense that both have to look away.

"How about you? What were you crying about?"

"I think it was because you allowed it," Lance declares, "because you were so willing to take me in, take everything in. I was so needy, so full of grief and anger and worry. Somehow, what I, what we did, enabled me to pour it all out. Pour it into you as it were, as if you were made as a receptacle to suck away all the negative and leave me open, whole, clean again. My tears were tears of relief," Lance says.

"Whew, that was heavy," Neal says. "Leave it to a writer." 

"Yeah, whew."

After a few more minutes, both rise from the bed, take their turns in the bathroom washing up.

The men wander through the living room into the kitchen, like cattle browsing for feed. "Whatcha wanna eat?" Neal asks. 

"Whatcha got?"

"Ahdono, let's look."

A stranger, entering the little house at that time, would have been mightily amused to see two scrawny old butts sticking out of an Amana, two very different penises dangling and dancing between their slightly spread legs, as if performing in the glow of the fridge's interior light.

"Aha!" Lance cries, Ham and cheese."

"And Rye bread and butter and dill pickles and spicy mustard."

Having cracked two diet dews and slapped together giant sandwiches with the addition of onion and lettuce and tomato, and grabbing a bag of crunchy, curly Cheetos, they move to the sun porch to consume their impromptu repast. They sit and munch in serene solitude, watching the grey sea nibble at the shore and listening to the symphony of surf and gulls, once more oblivious that they could be easily observed by anyone walking down the beach.

Taking a big munch of his fat sandwich, Neal dribbles a daub of mustard which falls directly onto his long thin penis.

Hopping up, Lance calls out. "I'll get that!"

Sensing Lance's intention, Neal opens his arms and remains motionless. Lance bends and licks the brown mustard directly off Neal's long thin cock. "Delicious! Lance exclaims, laughing. Both men giggle like schoolboys. "Only two times in a man's life does he have the time to fall in love," Lance philosophizes, easing back into his deck chair, "youth and old age. Though in the young it seems vastly more intense."

"Yeah and much more short-lived."

"Don't forget that the young are much more physically able, longer and stronger."

"Huh. You, in fact we, don't do so bad."

"I don't know about me, but you do damn well!"

"Yes, Neal says, yes lover, we do." He pauses long. "How did that make you feel"

"What? How did what make me feel?"

"Right then, I called you lover?"

"I didn't notice."

"Maybe that's a good thing."

"Maybe, yeah."



Silver Heat Ch. 01



The growling of his stomach broke him out of his reverie, just in time for him to see a little bar and grill, kind of odd, narrow, with a lot of tables and beach umbrellas on the roof, of course to provide a better view of the sea. The Golden Lion. The place was already packed at this hour which probably meant the food was good. "Hmm, okay." He maneuvered the car and trailer into a parking spot with some difficulty. Inside it was as cold as he had hoped it would be, and dark enough to rest his burning eyes. He bellied up to the bar and waited, ordered a Mai Tai. He sipped it slowly, carefully, spinning the little umbrella between his fingers subconsciously. 

"Can I eat right here or do I have to sit at a table?" Lance asked the bartender, a busty redhead about forty years too young for him, but not for his dreams. 

"No you can order here, sir. Want a menu?"

"Yeah, that'd be great, thanks." After a few sips, the mai tai, the first alcoholic beverage he had consumed in 25 years, started to have a definite effect on him. "No, I'm not having a slip, or falling off the wagon," he told himself, "just relaxing a bit. Well, anyway, if I fell down drunk in my own vomit before the night ended, I'd have a damn good excuse."

He ordered the half pound of peeled shrimp with cocktail sauce and an order of house-made bleu cheese potato chips. He knew he would have to swim a mile to take it off, but he was hungry and feeling very self-indulgent. 

About half way through his meal, an attractive looking male, probably in his late fifties to early sixties, sat at the stool beside him. "Mind if I sit here," asked a deep baritone voice.

"It's a free country," Lance replied, smiling.

After a few moments of silence the stranger introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Neal, you from around here?"

"Lance, Minnesota," he replied. "Neal," Lance thought, "How weird! Right after thinking about Neal after all these years. Coincidence or fate?" Lance wiped his hands on a napkin before shaking hands. The hand was warm and dry and lingered a bit. The prolonged contact made Lance check out the stranger more carefully. The hair was gray and semi-long, but not as long as his. The skin was deeply tanned, but Lance suspected it had been pale before retirement. The face was finely etched with a well-trimmed almost white Vandyke, mustache and tiny tickler. The body was trim and firm, the body of a man with an active life style, but not a workout freak. Lance was taken by a sudden impulse to look down at the man's shorts, but resisted. "What was it with him? Now that Martha was gone, was the homosexual side of his bisexuality rising to the fore, after being sublimated for over thirty-five years? Or was he merely beginning to get his healthy sex drive back after the numbness caused by his loss of Martha?"

Lance finally realized the stranger had been speaking to him.

"Huh, what? I'm sorry, I was daydreaming."

"I asked if you were down here on vacation."

"Well, sort of, more like grief recovery."

"Lose someone?"

"Martha, my wife of thirty-five years."

"Hell man, that is rough. I am really sorry. You hangin' in there?"

"Just barely. I figured it would help to get away from everything that reminded me of her. So far, it's working, I've only thought of her about 500 times today. So far."

"I know how you feel. It's only been a few years now since I lost my wife. All I can tell you is the pain doesn't go away, but it does get easier to bear. You'll be fine. We hurt. We pick our asses up off the ground, we go on. What other choice do we have?"

"I am so glad to hear you say that. In the last four weeks, I think I have been asked hundreds of times if I was 'all right'. I swore if one more person asked me that I would scream 'NO' and fall down and make them take care of me."

Neal laughed softly. "Well, at least you've kept your sense of humor. So, what do you think of the bleu cheese chips?"

"As wonderful as I expected."

"So where are you staying?"

"Well, it's kind of funny you asked. I was kind of looking for privacy and so I thought about renting an RV. I have been a little impulsive today. I pulled into this place down the road, Giant RV Village or something like that. In Ormand Beach, I think it was. And I wound up buying this odd little trailer. It's the weirdest thing I ever saw. Guy said it was the trailer of a star in a movie. Made for being used on location. I laughed until I saw the inside. There is a whole dressing room, with makeup table and all that. If I keep it I'll change that, of course. But. It has a great sound system, a kitchen and sitting room, a full bath, with hot shower, stove, refrigerator TV, the works. And it's beautifully decorated, really spacious for the outward appearance." 

"Lance, can I buy you another drink?"

"Well, I shouldn't, I have to drive."

"Why do you have to drive?"

"Well I gotta park the trailer. I have made reservations to park it in a place called Bull Creek Campground. I don't know anything about it, I found it online right after I bought the trailer, but they say it is out of the way and claim to have the best fresh-water fishing in the state."

'Cumon, man, Carpe diem!"

"Holy smokes! I just said that to myself, less than an hour ago. You must be psychic or something."

"Well it has been said that I was very sensitive."

Silence reigned for a moment. Was Neal hinting at something? Lance supposed he shouldn't be jumping to any conclusions. But there had been a hint of something, he was nearly sure. He decided to reply with a bit of innuendo of his own. "Well, okay, you can buy. But I may end up, 'not all right' and you may have to take care of me."

"I imagine that could be quite pleasant." Neal replied.

That brought on another spate of silence, which Neal finally broke. "Another thing. You come from Minnesota to Florida to go fresh-water fishing. You've got ten thousand lakes. We have an ocean here. Why not really go fishing and go OUT THERE for the big ones?"

"I don't know enough abut it. Don' know anything about it."

"I could take you."

"Huh? What?"

"Fishing. Deep sea fishing."

"Oh, yeah. For a minute there I thought you meant.... Uh, never mind."

Both men let that comment sit awhile, neither man knowing if the conversation was going somewhere, or if they wanted it to. Lance, for his part, was not at all sure he wanted it to go anywhere. In fact he was pretty sure he didn't want that. He told himself he was merely playing around, toying with the other man and with himself.

"Uh, I don't know, maybe."

"So what is so weird about your new little trailer?" Neal said.

"Well,you kinda need to see it to get it. I was about to yell at the guy for trying to sell me a piece of crap, until I looked inside. It is really unbelievable."

"Well, can I see?"

"Huh,what? Oh. Ah. Er. Okay. You mean now?"

"Uh huh! Now would be good."

"Uh sure, yeah, er... Follow me."

Lance rose and Neal followed. "See it out there?" Lance said, gesturing through the bank of windows at the front of the beach-side bar, " it looks a bit like an airstream in the front, but then it has this weird looking box like thing at the back."

"Yeah, I see it." Neal replied, " Pretty weird!"

"You should see the inside, though," Lance retorted.

"Okay, why not"

"You mean right now?"

"Yeah. why not, carpe diem, as you said."

"Indeed. in-fucking-deed," Lance half shouted, Carpe fucking Diem, good buddy, let's go!"

Out in the tiny trailer, Lance is showing Neal around, pointing out the oddities and the niceties of his new house on wheels, when it comes to him like a shock wave that he has just called Neal, "good buddy", a phrase he had previously reserved for another Neal. He stammers a bit as his mind tries to make sense of its own inner workings. "Uh, uh. . . er, uh, Neal. Check out the queen sized loft bed in the back and the way it overlooks the living room. It makes the place seem huge. And look at the full bath, shower, tub, the works. Every room, even the bathroom has controls for the central music system."

Lance is headed back from the bedroom just as Neal, on his way to examine the bedroom, turns to enter the same narrow passageway. Their bodies bump full against one another. Both men stop. Neither moves for a long awkward moment. Both blush. "Er. . . ," Lance mutters.

"Sorry, ... I. . . Uh"

Still nobody moves. Neal looks down between their bodies, quickly looks up again, steps back. 

"Sorry man I was just. . ."

"No sweat."

Finally they move into the less crowded living room space. To Lance it suddenly seems momentous that there is a bed a few feet away. He keeps looking at it, looking away.

Neal clears his throat. "Where you gonna park this monstrosity?"

"Well I have a space reserved at a place called Bull Creek Campground about 30 miles west on what is supposed to be a great bass lake."

"You told me that already. I meant, are you going to drive it out there tonight?"

"Well, that was the original plan, but it is getting kind of late and I have had a couple drinks. Do you think I could leave it right here overnight?"

"Geez, I dunno, probably not. They'd probably call it camping on a public street. They get worried about homeless people hanging around, 'cause the weather is so good. Not that I personally have anything against the homeless, I volunteer in a shelter."

"So what do you suggest? Is there some place close I could park "the monstrosity" for the night?"

"Well, now don't take this wrong, but, well. . . You could park the damn thing in my driveway.

And then, well, I have an outdoor hookup you could plug into and you could sleep out in the monster, or, well. . . What the hell, you could sack out in my spare bedroom. No one has used it in a long time and, well, frankly. . . I could use some company." 

"Can I ask you something?" Lance queried.

"Sure."

"How come we only met two hours ago and you are already inviting me into your home?"

"That's kinda who I am. Very trusting, very gregarious."

"If you are so gregarious. . ."

"Wait, wait, That wasn't entirely true. What I said just then. I mean, Oh what the hell. My wife died not too long ago and to tell you the truth, I was sitting there in the bar, feeling kind of sorry for myself. And there you were sittin' there lookin' even worse, struggling to act happy. Something just told me to talk to you, like we were kindred souls or something. Part of it was I am just damn lonely these days."

"Okay, done! You got it! I will come and park the monster in your driveway and I will come in your house and we can sit around and shoot the shit until dawn if you want, maybe listen to some sounds, just as if we have been buddies forever, What the hell! Carpe Diem, right?"

"Right, good buddy!" Neal stuck out his hand as if to cement a deal and Lance shook it vigorously.

"Huh? What? What did you say?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what you just said. You called me 'good buddy'."

"Did I? It was just kinda natural. I mean you said something about 'buddies forever,' and I just sorta picked up on that. Somethin' wrong?"

"No. Er. . . No. That's okay. Its just. . .just. Something that happened a long time ago."

"I'll get my car and you can follow me to my place. Should I pick up a six pack or something?"

"Uh diet coke or coffee would be fine. . . I don't. . .er. . .can't really drink. And one more thing. Don't make me backup with the monster on, I can't do it, never learned."

Neal laughed heartily. "Piece of cake, been doin' it all my life."

About half an hour later, the "monster" was quietly ensconced in Neal's driveway and the two men stood on Neal's back porch, watching and listening to the waves gently shuss, shuss, to the shore.

"Damn nice place you got here," Lance told Neal. "The kind of a place many men dream their whole lives about owning. For myself, it has always been the lakeside cabin in the Northwoods, but what little money I have made in my life came too late for that."

Neal giggled. "Right, but now you've got 'the monster', you can park beside any lake you want. And you know what? I'm thinkin' it's never too late to realize a dream."

"Sure, all I gotta do is get the little piece of shit back to Minnesota."

"Listen, Lance, I gotta ask you a question and it's kinda sticky. I don't want to ruin our friendship before we even get it started. But in keeping with our new 'carpe diem' philosophy, I just gotta ask"

"Well, gee what is it are you a bank robber or a secret agent or something?"

"Well, we are about the same age and I figure you were in college n the sixties like me, so I figure you have smoked a little dope in your life. Well I hadn't smoked in a long time, but a new. . .er. . friend came up with some excellent shit about a month ago. I have smoked twice since than and find I enjoy it as much as ever, but, well I do cough a little more than I used to. Would you like to try a toke or two?"

"Neal Harrington, you are under arrest for possession of Marijuana. I am an undercover cop and we have been trying to get you for years," Lance laughed. "Holy shit. Pot? I don't believe it. In Minnesota we are very close to passing a medical marijuana law, but it'll be years yet before we legalize possession."

"Well, we'd probably have medical marijuana in Florida if it weren't for the Cubans and the rednecks, Certainly enough retired folks down here who smoked when they were younger and have medical conditions now. So what do you say? Should I fire up the old bowl?"

"Jeez, Neal, I dunno. I. . ."

"Remember, Carpe Diem."

"Okay, sure, what the hell, you'll take care of me if I fall apart won't you? I am kind of fragile right now."

"You got it good buddy. Be right back!"

Of course Lance began to worry and second guess as soon as Neal was out of sight. Why had he always been such a nerd? His politics were pretty far left, but man, his personal behavior was pretty conservative. Maybe it would be good for him to seize the day a little, live a little. He stood there on the porch of Neal's little house, not unlike a Minnesota lake house, in which the front porch is in the back, where the view is. Night was descending, and all up and down the beach, lights began to come on. Lance wished they wouldn't. He would have liked a bit of darkness just then, before the moon rose over the Atlantic. "And what is it with this 'good buddy' stuff," he thought. It is almost as if this guy is a reincarnation of my other Neal.

Neal returned with a little wooden box somewhat like a large cigarette lighter. The cover swiveled back on top, revealing finely crumbled pot on one side, on the other, a channel containing a cylindrical brass pipe. "The idea, Neal said," demonstrating, "is to transfer a bit of the pot from the rectangular side into the round channel, then insert the pipe and twirl it, picking up just enough dope for one hit. Cool, huh?"

"Another gift from your new 'friend'," Lance asked.

"Exactly," Neal replied. He filled the little pipe and handed it to Lance, then fired up a large flame from a Bic lighter.

"What the hell," Lance said. "Here we go," inhaling deeply. Immediately he was racked with huge spasms of coughing that went on for some time. Finally, gasping, he handed the pipe to Neal. Your. . . cough, cough, gasp, gasp. . .turn!"

Neal handled it better than he, coughing just a little, then refilled the pipe and handed it back. Lance waited until he was sure he had his breath back, then nodded, "Okay. Fire in the hole! Fuck it!" he said aloud to himself, took a long toke, and held his breath as long as he could.

By the third hit, it went down easily. Lance's spirits had improved tremendously. He declined a fourth hit. "Thank you my new friend, that will do nicely. Haven't done that in over twenty years. I remember when I used to do this pretty regular. It always went straight to my dick. Laughing. You've got quite a place here. Your own little slice of beach, too, huh?"

"I'm lucky, it has been n the family for generations."

"How private is it? I see you have neighbors pretty close. How nosy are they?"

"What are you trying to ask me?"

"I just wondered if you ever go skinny dipping?"

"What do you think we are, teenagers?"

"Why are teenagers the only ones who are allowed to have fun?"

"No, but if teenagers get caught runnin' around naked, they say: 'Look at those beautiful bodies! Oh well, kids will be kids'. If we got caught, they'd go: Ick, look at those two old dudes flopping around out there. Uh huh, a couple of old preverts'." Laughing.

"Hee, hee, hee! I think we should charge them with age discrimination. My flop is as good as a young person's flop! Thank you my friend, I haven't laughed in six months, but all of a sudden everything is uproariously funny." Saying this, Lance put his arm roughly around Neal's shoulder, half rough-housing, half hugging him, the way men do when they wish to be intimate, but not too intimate.

Neal responded my tussling Lance roughly around the waist. The rough-housing stopped. For a moment, each man looked into the others eyes. Their arms fell awkwardly way from each other. A few seconds of strained silence passed.

"If you want to go swimming (and I would not recommend skinny-dipping in these parts), I have a suit you can borrow," Neal went on, as if nothing awkward had happened.

"Will you come, too?"

"I really don't feel much like it. Swimming is kinda 'old hat' around here."

"Well. I'm not afraid or anything, but they say one should never swim alone."

Instead of swimming, the men sat around chatting the rest of the evening, sharing "war stories" and comparing their relative grief. From time to time, they reestablished their high from the tiny one-hitter, not stoning, but maintaining at an easy fluid level. Neal chose music for the stereo, Bob Dylan's Empire Burlesque, of course. The night was a sweet communion of souls, and as time passed, Lance was reminded more and more of his old Air Force friend, also named Neal. Before evening's end, the two men were calling each other "good buddy" with an ease that astounded both of them.

It had been decided that Lance would indeed spend the night in Neal's spare bedroom and so it was. Lance and Neal bade each other good night with a firm double handshake and called it a night. Neal allowed his guest to prepare first in the only bathroom, waiting until he heard Lance exit the bathroom before moving down the hall for his own ablutions. Shower, tooth brushing, gargling completed, he retired to his own room, leaving the dim night light on in case Lance should need to navigate the small hallway during the night. He was about to close his bedroom door when he noticed, that, when held at a certain angle, the reflection from the door's mirror allowed a clear if dim view into the spare room.

Neal was captivated by the sight of his new dear friend, Lance, lying naked on his side on the large bed, weeping inconsolably, his large shoulders heaving, his trim figure wracked with silent, heart-wrenching sobs. Neal was strongly tempted to rush to Lance and throw his arms around the larger man, but the strong male aversion to close bodily contact held him back. Nonetheless, Lance's anguish affected Neal, bringing back his own grief so strongly that his knees buckled. He sank to the floor and buried his face in the bed.

A few minutes later, the wave of Neal's grief had passed on. He crawled into bed, snuggled under the covers and drifted toward sleep. As consciousness faded, the image of Lance weeping came back clearly to his mind. Something. . . What? 

Morning arrived on the crest of an Atlantic sea breeze whispering saltily through all the screen windows and doors in the Florida-style house. Those inside stirred, shifted, awoke slowly and easily, drifting in and out of sleep to the ebb and flow murmuring of waves on the shore.




Silver Heat Ch. 01



Neal was the first to awake fully. A strong image of the night before rose unbidden to his mind. Suddenly his attention focused on what his grieving brain had previously refused to see, an illusive image that had tried to surface as he had drifted off to sleep. Imbedded in the image of Lance lying on his side weeping, one thing now stood out clearly. Lance had a very large cock. Impressive, almost fearsome.

Feeling like a schoolboy, Neal rose and placed himself in proper position to the mirror. Lance was obviously awake, his back to the mirror. At first Neal was not sure if his visitor was sobbing or masturbating. Lance rolled to his back and dispelled all doubt. He was working his huge dick with both hands. But he was plainly working too hard at it, having trouble. The look on his face was one of utter frustration. After a few more minutes, Lance rolled over in defeat and buried his face in the pillow.

Neal, watching, while sympathetic to Lance's plight, was hugely turned on by what he saw. His cock, more engorged than it had been in recent memory, was creating a wet spot in the front of his pajamas. He pushed down hard with his palm on the center of his crotch, smiled. "Why do we men always think that particular pressure will relieve a hard-on, when we know the opposite is true?" he wondered for the zillionth time.

Laughing at himself, but also amazed at the length and strength of his erection, he cleared his head and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for himself and his new-found friend. Half an hour later, when he had the table set in the sunny little nook off the kitchen, coffee perking, juice poured, bacon and sausage fried and a stack of buckwheat pancakes prepared, he rapped lightly on Lance's door. "Breakfast is ready, good buddy," he called.

"Be right out," was the immediate reply.

"Coffee?" Neal asked.

"Absolutely," Lance called back. "Mind if I eat in my skivvies?"

"S'okay with me."

Lance walked from the hallway, stretching and yawning. His tee shirt rode up to expose his lean abdomen and the very impressive bulge in his BVDs. "Sorry about the skivvies," he said. "I don't usually wear anything to bed, but I slipped these on. I don't own pajamas. You want me to get dressed before I eat?"

"Naw, it's only us guys here. Get it while it's hot."

"By the way, thanks for makin' breakfast. You didn't have to do that."

"Didn't I tell you I was gonna take care of you?" Neal sounded flip, but surprised himself by the depth of his feelings. He truly wanted to help Lance. It had been a long time since he had felt strongly about anyone. Mary's death had been, to Neal, the ultimate betrayal of a life-long trust. She had left him. Alone. "Why?" he wondered. "Why do I feel so attached to this man? This is more than just my penchant for taking in strays." Perhaps he saw in helping Lance, a route to his own healing, a chance to learn to feel again, to trust again.

As they ate, Neal searched Lance's face for signs of the grief and sexual frustration he knew his friend was suffering, but could discern nothing. Lance was obviously very good at the masculine job of hiding one's emotions. Neal thought hard about ways he might help Lance without embarrassing him. His mind came up with nothing. He would wait for an opportunity, hoped he would recognize the moment if and when it arrived.

"So do we have plans for today?" Neal asked Lance.

"What you mean 'we', white man?"

"Hey, I didn't mean to butt in."

"Just kidding. Happy to have you along if you have nothing better to do than tag along with a washed out old writer."

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Put yourself down like that. You'll be fine. You. . . "

"I know, I know. I have no choice, right?"

"Exactly." Both men had a good laugh at that one.

"Then, fuck it! Let's go fishin'."

On the way to the convertible with the stupid little trailer behind, Neal says, " Boy I remember. My little Mary, she sure did love to go fishing."

In front of him, Lance makes a gurgling sound and falls to his knees. Loud fierce sobs of anguish pour from him. He vomits profusely, pancakes an syrup and bacon and sausage fly out in a stream and puddle on the sandy lawn.

Neal rushes forward, bends.

"Martha," Lance gurgles.

Neal helps Lance to his feet, tucking his head under Lance's arm. Together they struggle back into the house. Lance's limp form is a heavy burden, but Neal manages, opening the door with his left hand and kicking the screen door with his foot. He guides his friend through the kitchen and down the short corridor where he dumps him on the bed in the spare room. Gently he lifts Lance's feet onto the knitted comforter Mary had made with her own hands. He slips off Lance's Reeboks and covers him with a light blanket. "Stay there," he commands.

In the kitchen, Neal puts a kettle on to boil and prepares a cup for the special camomile and honey blend that Mary had so often used to calm him, and moistens a wash cloth with cool water.

Back in the bedroom he unbuckles lance's belt and slides off his pants, folding them neatly on Mary's rocker. He covers Lance with a warmer blanket and sits on the side of the bed, holding the folded wash cloth against Lance's forehead.

"I'm sorry," Lance murmurs. "I am so sorry."

"Shut up! Don't you dare apologize. You just lie there and relax." 

He went to the kitchen and was back in a moment with the soothing tea. He administered it to Lance in small sips while speaking softly to his new friend. "Here's the deal. You are going to lay there and be 'not all right' and I am going to take care of you. Do not argue. If you feel like puking, puke. If you feel like weeping, weep. I have seen it all, done it all myself. Go on now, you just let go. If you need anything from me, anything at all, you just ask, okay?" He grasped Lance's hand in his and held it. Other than the tea, it was all he had to offer.

For the next eighteen hours, Lance slept fitfully, wept, cried out loud, cursed the day and the night. During each short period of wakefulness, Neal had been there: ready with a cup of soothing tea, a warm blanket, an analgesic or a sleeping pill, a thoughtful word, a gentle touch, a back massage. Here, with only his one new friend, Lance had finally been able to let go in a way that had never been open to him among his 'friends' back home. Here it did not matter. If he looked bad in Neal's eyes, so what, in few days he would be gone. He would never have to face the social consequences of 'unmanly' behavior. Neal, non-judgmental, easy going and open, made it easy for Lance to be 'not all right'. He was forgiving, loving without demands, a better friend in one day than many Lance had known for years.

*********

Lance was awakened by a beam of golden sunlight dancing across his face. He had no idea how long he had been incapacitated. Neal sat in a chair next to the bed, bent double, head turned to one side on the soft bed, snoring gently. Gazing at the sleeping form, Lance was grateful beyond words. He felt a tenderness, a kind of quiet appreciation, for the value of this man who could give so freely, so easily, so completely, to another, a virtual stranger. The strange coincidences of their meeting: his impulsive stop at the little bar and grill, the commonality of their personalities and experiences, the common recent loss of a loved one, the strange doppelganger effect of the two Neals, both in Florida, both in periods of extreme uncertainty, their mutual love of jazz and Bob Dylan; all contributed to a sense of kismet. Lance felt as if he had arrived at a preordained confluence of natural and spiritual forces beyond reason or control. Overcome by a surge of emotion, he reaches to gently stroke Neal's face with the back of his fingers.

Neal's eyes pop open. Involuntarily, he smiles, turns his head slightly and plants a sleepy kiss on Lance's fingers. The kiss is like a lightening strike in the placid room. Lance's fingers tighten into a firm caress at the nape of Neal's neck, drawing him closer. Lance turns, moves his face nearer. "Neal, I. . . , he begins. Neal places one finger against Lance's lips, shushing him, rises from his chair to sit beside Lance on the bed. Throwing back the covers, he runs his shaking palm over Lance's chest and belly. "Oh Lance," he says simply. "Oh Lance."

"Yes! Lance answers, his voice quavering. He reaches wordlessly to urge Neal's hand lower.

Neal's fingers slide beneath the elastic pajama waistband, curl softly around Lance's penis, feeling it throb, pulse with hot blood, swell. He strokes inquisitively, unsure of Lance's feelings and his own. "I saw you last night," he tells Lance. "The mirror, it. . . Just a glimpse at first, then I watched. I saw you trying to masturbate, saw your frustration." He pauses, moistens his palm with saliva, grips Lance's formidable cock more firmly, teasing, playing. "I wished last night I had the nerve to come and help you. Can I now? Can I help you Lance?"

"You. . . Are. . . Don't stop. . . Please."

Neal adds his other hand gripping Lance's big dick from both sides, leaning over as if praying before a sacred phallus. His fingers tease and tickle, fondle and squeeze Lance's balls on the down stroke; his thumbs circle over the thick head at the top. As he strokes, he speaks softly to Lance. "It's okay good buddy, relax. You're all right now. Let me do this for you. Beautiful! That's it. Wonderful. Easy buddy, easy."

Lance's legs tighten. He crosses his feet. His hips surge up involuntarily. "Oh Neal. Oh."

Encouraged, Neal increases his activities, gripping tighter as Lance's juices begin to flow, stroking faster and faster, his hands moving in a spiral from tip to balls and back again. Up and down and round and round his hands move in a blur of motion. "That's it, Lance. Give it up buddy. Give it to me. Come on. Oh yeah! He mouths over and over.

Neal's mind flashes to memories of things past, to Joseph, the sometime lover of his youth, to whom he had returned in his time of grief. He felt Lance's massive penis begin to pulsate, knew his new good buddy was close. He himself was aroused to aching hardness, but he ignored his own need. He felt the large vein on the underside of Lance's cock expand, pulse thrumming. He pushed both hands down hard, putting pressure on lance's prostate, bent quickly and slid his mouth over Lance's dick as deep as he could, gagging. Neal began swallowing over and over, massaging Lance's cock with his throat muscles. 

Lance twined his fingers in Neal's long gray hair, pressing down gently but insistently. He thrust his hips up to meet Neal's plunging mouth, crying out in a long drawn out, "Oh," as his cum began to spew forcibly. Neal sucked hard on the massive organ that filled his mouth and throat, struggling to breathe through his nose, drawing the cum from deep inside in one long continuous stream,

As very large cocks do, Lance's cock grew softer but not smaller as Neal continued to hold it in his mouth and throat. Lance lay on the bed, his arms thrown wide, panting more and more slowly as his orgasm wound down, murmuring when tiny aftershocks struck from time to time.

Finally, Neal removed his mouth from Lance's penis, grinning. He squirmed around until their bodies were parallel and drew Neal's larger body into his arms, saying nothing, but caressing his back soothingly. He grinned gratifyingly at himself. His mouth and throat and nose were filled with the funky but not-unpleasant scent and flavor of cock and cum as they had been only a few times in his life.

Both men dozed for a time. Lance recovered first. He reached to lay his palm on Neal's cheek, fingers curled behind his ear. "Thank you my friend, my dear, dear friend," Lance murmured softly. "I'll not soon forget what you have done for me."

Neal chuckled. "Believe me, good buddy, the pleasure was all mine. Well," he laughed harder, "maybe not all mine. Wha'dya say now? Ready to go fishin'?"