2 comments/ 48134 views/ 4 favorites The Photograph Ch. 01 By: sr71plt Chapter 01: John Why had he left the photograph there, standing right there in a leather frame on the dresser top? More important, why was the photograph here at all? I had gone into his room to put his things together so they could take them down to Hayden along with the body, and there it was. To some extent the whole success of the Wolf Creek Ranch had hinged on J. Harvey Kincaid's patronage and good will. He had been coming to Wolf Creek for as long as I could remember. And where J. Harvey Kincaid went, everyone else of note followed. He was the pied piper of world literature, an icon of unique proportions. Back almost in pioneer days, my grandmother had taken a large acreage of homesteaded land in a remote Rocky Mountain valley dipping down into northern Colorado from dusty Wyoming that few others could find let alone want. And she turned it into a dude ranch for celebrities—writers, movie stars, and politicians mostly—who either wanted to retreat from the pursuing world for a short time or wanted to hunt animals and bag them in privacy. J. Harvey Kincaid had been one of the latter. He was already a writer of legendary status when he started coming to the ranch in search of the majestic elk in the high, snowy regions of the Rockies bordering on the Medicine Bow National Forrest. He said he identified with the elk, and indeed he had every reason to do so. He wrote celebrated men's novels of male bonding in challenging and dangerous circumstances, themes, and situations that bring out the grit and nobility of strong and bold men. His writing brought him fame and international awards. And his books invariably inspired noble and strong and bold movies that won international awards on their own merits despite the fact that they missed casting the ideal protagonist—J. Harvey Kincaid himself. He was the epitome of the rugged, handsome, square-jawed, determined man battling the elements, whatever they were—and winning and possessing what and how he pleased. He had come to our ranch three or four times a year from the time I was a child, and my father took him up into the upper slopes of the Rockies, no matter the weather, and they stayed out there for three or four days at a time or for as long as it took to bring back an elk. I always held him in awe; everyone did. He had a rich, deep, expressive voice befitting his stature, both physical and intellectual, and he could tell a story as overpoweringly as he could write one. For years I would sit under the dining room table as he dominated and enriched the dinner conversation no matter what other celebrities were in residence. As I said, my father was always the one to take him into the mountains. That is, until he died unexpectedly. I was off at college when my dad died. We had had our problems and had left much unsaid, but I loved him deeply. When he died, I had to leave college and come back to the ranch and do my share in filling the gigantic hole in maintaining a demanding business that his death had created. And there was so much to do that I didn't have time to grieve for my loss. J. Harvey Kincaid stepped in to fill a great void. The first summer after my father's death he came to the ranch three times rather than his usual single time during a season. And he made sure that the regular celebrities came as well—and that new ones started to come. He saved our business for us. On the third visit he spoke at dinner of missing his trips up into the mountains in search of the mighty elk. I, of course, offered to take him hunting as my father had done for nearly two decades. We owed him everything. I had little idea how to track elk—that had been my father's specialty—but J. Harvey Kincaid was a patient man, a very patient man. We rode across the isolated ridges for days, searching near the tree lines, where Kincaid said my father often took him. By the third day our horses were worn out, and Kincaid suggested that we just lay by in a stand of cottonwood trees next to a fast-running stream in a sheltering ravine he remembered from previous trips. We ate that night over an open fire, leaning against the saddles we had slung on the ground between the bank of the stream and the line of cottonwoods. J. Harvey Kincaid was his charming best, weaving stores of male bonding and the raw challenge of man against nature in that rich baritone voice of his, in words that were strong and raw but also mesmerizing in their poetry. The air was crisp and slightly chilly, and Kincaid called me over to sit beside him as he leaned against his saddle so that we could share the blanket. He said we would be so much more comfortable making maximum use of our shared body heat. And I believed him. I had always believed him. We sat there, against each other, as J. Harvey Kincaid continued weaving the magic of his stories. He asked me questions about what I thought of male bonding, of how close one man could be to another, how much support they could give each other in struggling against the elements. And he helped me provide the answers. He asked me about my connections with my father, and I started to cry, the grieving gripping me now, at last. He kissed my tears away. And he kissed my cheeks. And he kissed my lips. He told me not to cry, in that mesmerizing poetic baritone voice of his. He told me he loved me, and no one had told me that before, not even my father. He asked me if I trusted him and if I loved him too. And then, at that moment, I surely did. He was a connection to my father. He was the savior of our ranch. He cared for me and comforted me. He unbuttoned my shirt and comforted the hollow of my neck with his lips, and then he comforted my nipples and my belly with his hands and his tongue. He was unbuckling my jeans and slowly unbuttoning my fly, all the time telling me that he loved me and wanted to take care of me. And asking me if I loved him and trusted him. And I did and I told him so. And he told me again of the joys and comfort of male bonding and said he wanted to bond with me. And he asked if I loved him enough to bond with him. And I did. I yearned for male bonding. And I told him so. He told me it would hurt at first but that it would become glorious and that it would be a connection unlike any other. That it would wash my grief away. He told me that a man fought through the pain for what was important, and asked if I was ready to give myself to him. To trust him to take care of me. He was handling me, stroking me through the open fly of my jeans, and it was a new, pleasant sensation. He asked me again if we could bond, out here in the crisp mountain air, in the beauty of nature in front of a crackling fire. And I said, "Yes, oh yes." And I'm sure I meant it. He was kissing my penis now and urging me to follow his lead. He had his member freed from his jeans and it was thick and long and hard. I tried to do as he was doing—but I gagged and he didn't. He tasted salty and his tool was hot and hard and throbbing and was pushing at me. Between my lips, the unsheathed tip pushing against my inner cheeks and depressing my tongue, pushing deeper inside. I gagged again, but then got the knack of handling him. He was murmuring at me, giving me encouragement and guidance. Telling me how beautiful my body and my penis were, asking me how his attentions felt. And when I told him I was embarrassed at how I was filling out but that I was feeling pleasures I never had felt before, he told me that I was doing the same for him. That we were bonding beautifully, that I was pleasing him very much—but that we could bond even closer. Did I want to bond even more fully? Yes, oh yes. It would hurt at first, but only at first, he was saying. There, could I feel that? Ohhh, yes I could. I'd never had anything going in there, only coming out. But, maybe . . . Oh, yes. He parted my lips with two of his fingers and told me to suck on them. And while I did so, I felt a finger of his other hand moving underneath me, circling the rim of my hole, before moving a bit inside again. And rotating around. Urging me to stretch out. He stopped this, but only for a moment, as he stripped off my clothes and then his, and we were both naked, skin sizzling on skin underneath the encasing woolen blanket. He had my butt cheeks at an angle against one of his hips. He was holding my side close to his with an encircling arm and the two fingers I had been sucking on were now at the rim of my hole. He put his chin on my shoulder and kissed me in the hollow of my neck. I lurched in a slight, sharp sense of pain as the two moistened fingers slowly pushed into my passage, deeper and thicker than the previous exploration. I was trembling and whimpering now, and he started speaking to me in low, melodic tones again. Telling me the story of a mountain man and his best friend, out alone for months in the mountains, in a camp not unlike this one. Of how much they depended on each other and how grieved they were at the death of a mutual friend. How they needed to comfort each other. How they need to bond. To bond closely. To become one so that they could face the elements together. To express their love. To do so in natural ways, the ways of time immemorial. Of how wonderful they felt when they had bonded. How there was pain at first, but quickly great joy and release of all their grief and fears. One of my legs had been coaxed to lay astride his thighs, and I could feel the insistence of his manhood laying hot against my own thigh. I was trying to listen to him, but my attention was increasingly going to what those fingers were doing inside me. Moving deeper. Moving in, separating, spreading me inside, and then coming back out. And then moving in deeper than before. The pad of one had found a very sensitive point, and what it was doing to me made me tense up—and I felt like I had to piss and to jack off all at the same time. I was groaning and moaning, trying to let J. Harvey know that something was happening that he might want to stop if we didn't want to be embarrassed. But then I jacked off. I tried covering myself with my hands, ashamed, hoping he hadn't noticed. But he just laughed and cooed at me and told me that this was exactly what I needed to do. That this was all a stop, a necessary milestone, toward ultimate male bonding. A good reaction. A very good reaction. To show he wasn't angry or upset, he lowered his mouth to my penis and licked me clean from what I had shot off there. All the time he was telling me this was exactly what was supposed to happen. That this is what happened to those men in the mountains as they moved toward perfect bonding that ended their grieving. Could I feel as those men did, he asked. Yes, yes I could. Was I man enough to pass through the pain of the initiation into the bonding? Yes. I was as much a man as either of those he was talking about. I was my father's son. Yes, yes you are, he said. Did I trust him? Did I love him? Did I want to get beyond the grieving and would I let him help me do that? Was I ready to move into the bonding? Yes. Please. Now. While still encircling my chest with one arm, he lifted my pelvis with the strong hand of the other arm and centered my hips over his and slowly lowered my passage on his throbbing tool. I cried out as he impaled me, as he slowly pulled me into his lap. I was grunting and moaning and whimpering, and he was sighing and whispering encouragements to me and telling me how good I was doing and how well we were bonding and how nice and tight I was—and sweet—oh, how sweet. And how much he loved me for bonding with him. For being the first to bond with me. That this was very special for him. I was settled completely down in his lap now, and he was encircling my chest tightly with one arm and holding my belly hard against him with the hand of the other, holding me in place while the impossible invasion and stretching of his hot cock was slowly being accommodated by my virgin passage. About the time I thought I had managed the pain and we had totally bonded, however, the movement started. He had his hand wrapped around my waist now and he was lifting and pulling me down on that throbbing tool of his. I was crying out for him to stop or at least to slow down and he was telling me that just a bit more and we'd be beyond the pain and into heaven. And then we were, and I was crying out for him to do it forever. There was still pain, but now I was feeling the passion, the wonder of this bonding thing he'd been telling me about. He was stroking me up and down on his pole faster and going deeper inside me with each stroke. He was trembling as much as I was now and making animal sounds and using that beautiful voice of his to make love to me with his words just as much as he was by making us one, a single pistoning machine, moving toward release, his cock stroking up into my channel. I was arching my back against his heaving chest, trying to make us one. My head was flung back and he was kissing me deeply on the lips and swabbing the insides of my mouth with his tongue when he lurched and I felt the flow of him burbling deep inside me. We sat there entwined for many minutes, as we both worked to bring our ragged breathing under control and he let his hands glide all over my body and his tongue coat me with honey-toned words of how well we had bonded. Then he told me that we could only really keep the depth of that feeling through frequent bonding, especially at first, and would I give myself to him a different way? Would I show my trust and love by putting myself entirely in his power? Shortly thereafter, I was bent, completely naked over the seat of a saddle, my belly against the leather, my butt in the air. The saddle had been placed between and a little in front of two cottonwood trees, with the leather straps ending in metal stirrups angled off toward the trees—one toward the tree on the left of the saddle and one toward the right. J. Harvey Kincaid had tied one end of a rope to each of the stirrups, run it around a cottonwood tree and tied the other end around each of my wrists so that I was held there on the saddle, not going anywhere, denied the use of my hands. Open to him. All of my trust in him. And then a towering, naked J. Harvey Kincaid crouched down behind and above me, his thighs encasing mine, and he thrust his cock into my puckered, tilted-up hole and rode me hard to a second ultimate bonding. The second time was not as painful for me, as I was well lubed from his first ejaculation inside me. And I thoroughly enjoyed the third time, when he had turned me on my back so that my hips were raised up onto the saddle. I particularly felt the bond of this third merging of our bodies, because I could see his eyes. I thought I could see how much he loved me in his eyes. I thought I could see the honesty of all that he wrote and believed about the ultimate goodness of male bonding. That feeling held for a good three years of his visits to the ranch three and four times a year. Each time I took him hunting into the mountains and each time he bonded me deeply and repeatedly. For those three years, I did believe that he was making love to me—that he loved me. But I grew up. For the eighteen years after that, to today, I came to know that he was just fucking me. But his patronage continued to help the ranch survive and prosper. For twenty-one years I took him into the mountains to bag his elk—and me. I even began to identify with the elk. Each time he came to the ranch, he'd call ahead to make sure that I would be there and free to hunt with him. But not this time. Not for this visit. He had called, yes. My son, home from college for the summer to continue learning to take over the management of the ranch, had answered the telephone and told J. Harvey Kincaid that I wouldn't be here for the week he wanted to visit. I would be up in Laramie at a rodeo. I didn't necessarily need to go to the rodeo in Laramie, but we had reached the stage in my son's training that he needed to face whatever problems came up in the ranch operations on his own without me there to guide and save him from any bad decisions. I wouldn't be around forever. He needed to stand on his own. He and I hadn't gotten along all that well for several years. We had been inseparable when he was younger, but then something happened—something I'd never learned the reason for—that had cooled him toward me. But this ranch was our family income. He knew that, and he was willingly trying to learn the business from me—even while holding me at arms length. He seemed particularly upset the day that J. Harvey called to set up his next visit. And J. Harvey had gone ahead and come, even when I wasn't going to be here. He'd never done that before. When I returned from Laramie, my son was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Jamie?" I asked the first ranch hand I ran up against. "Charlene's at reception; Jamie should be there." "He's up in the hills with that writer guy, Mr. Raven," the cowboy told me. "That writer guy?" I asked, totally confused. Why had Jamie left his responsibilities here to go off with some dude? "Yeah, that one you always hunt with, Mr. Raven. Jamie was in kind of a fix because the guy showed up and wanted to go huntin' and you weren't here. Jamie said he had to make a choice; he couldn't be in two places at once, but he knew how you were always saying how important this Kincaid guy was to the ranch. So he went on up into the hills with him to hunt elk, like you always do. Left Charlene in charge. She seems to be doing OK, if you ask me." I wasn't asking him. I was confused. Kincaid. J. Harvey had come ahead even knowing I wouldn't be here. That was two days ago. Now Kincaid was dead. Brought down slung over a horse. The cowhands said Jamie told them it was a hunting accident. But I hadn't seen Jamie. I'd been too busy calling Hayden and making the arrangements. The sheriff down there would be up in a couple of hours and he'd be the one to be asking questions. But here, in my hand, was the source of a question I hadn't really wanted answered. The photograph. It was an old photograph. Two men standing by a makeshift sling between poles holding the carcass of an elk. A photograph at least three decades old. Two hunters. Kincaid on the left and my father on the right. And the way Kincaid had his arm wrapped around my father, I knew. I suddenly knew. I wasn't the first Raven Kincaid had bonded with. And whatever happened up in those mountains two days ago, Kincaid had meant me to see this photograph. My son. Jamie. It hit me then, and I lurched out of Kincaid's room, stopping briefly at the fireplace in the main room to throw the photograph into the flames, and then out into the dusty courtyard. In search of my son. Before the sheriff arrived. The Photograph Ch. 02 Chapter 2: Jamie I saw that photograph. I saw it that first evening, when I went in to turn the bed down because Charlene was busy out in reception. I had already figured he had been doing my dad all these years, and it's something that had come between me and my dad. Not that Dad knew what I knew—or at least strongly suspected. But our connection just couldn't be the same anymore because of it. But seeing that famous author guy, Kincaid, in that old photograph he'd put on his dresser—that just set me off. I could have killed him then and there. Putting that photograph there was like he was flaunting it, flaunting his control and his power. The photograph showed that big elk he'd bagged up in the mountains here. But that's not all it showed. In the photograph, he had his arm possessively around the waist of my grandfather, who had taken the famous author on that hunt when he was staying at our family's dude ranch, Wolf Creek. And it showed to anyone who might have half suspected it that the elk hadn't been the only animal Kincaid had bagged up in the mountains. I tried to be angry at my dad for also putting up with Kincaid's attentions all of these years, but I knew he'd done it to keep the family business going. It's what paid for my college down in Boulder; it's what was setting me and the rest of the family up for our lives. And J. Harvey Kincaid, the famous author of those men's novels on male bonding and "man against the elements," was the main patron and pull for our celebrity dude ranch—and had been for decades. Dad had left me to manage the ranch for a couple of weeks this summer while I was home for college. He'd gone up to a rodeo in Laramie specifically so that he wouldn't be around to bail me out of tough decisions at the ranch. And Kincaid's showing up at the ranch was the toughest decision I was faced with. He came three or four times a year. But he always came when my dad was going to be there and could take him up into the mountains, up near Medicine Bow National Forrest, to hunt elk—or so they said. Kincaid had called ahead this summer and I told him on the phone that my dad would be gone then. But here he was anyway. And he wanted to go up into the mountains to hunt elk. And he was the patron of the family business. So I took him on up. I couldn't be in two places at one time. So, I left Charlene in charge at the ranch and picked out the most steady of the ranch hands and paid them extra to do what they could to help her out and keep a protective eye on things while I was gone. And Kincaid and I saddled up two horses and headed up into the hills, toward the still-snowcapped reaches of Hahn's Peak. I went with the intention of staying my distance, of being polite but standoffish. I didn't want Kincaid for a friend, and I was afraid that if I could get within striking distance, I'd kill the man for what he'd done to our family. Not just what he did to my grandfather and father but how dependent we'd become on his patronage. I couldn't see the point of his fame. I'd read the books and seen the movies done from them, and, yes, he was an engaging, persuasive writer. But that macho male friendship and combining strengths and resolves to take on all comers, whether the scenario was the American West or the battlefields of Iraq, got old pretty fast, I thought. But the longer I was riding around with him up in those deserted hills of magnificent wild beauty, just the two us, with him weaving stories for me in a rich baritone voice that lulled and stroked me to the very quick, the more I could see how he worked on a person. He must have been over sixty by now, but he was still quite a man, the virile, solid, handsome man of power and decisiveness that he wrote about, and for which he had received international accolades for four decades. The third day we had struck camp in a cottonwood grove next to a racing stream running down an isolated, sheltering ravine and then we'd ridden on up toward the snow line in search of elk. We found a mud slide instead. Neither one of us got hurt—and the horses weren't any worse the wear for the slide either. But we were filthy. With a hearty laugh, Kincaid challenged me to a horse race down to the crystal clear little lake the stream in our ravine fed into, and off he roared with another laugh. It wasn't his horse, so he flew with reckless abandon and was already off his steed and in the lake before I got there. When I arrived I somewhat dumbly said I couldn't come right in because I hadn't brought a swim suit and wasn't wearing anything under my jeans for that matter, and he just rose out of the water and threw wide his arms and said there was no need for such modesty out here in the wilderness. He was buck naked and showed off exceptionally well for a man his age. He tossed out a "Real men don't need swim suits" at me in that macho voice of his and, challenged to the quick, I stripped down and dove into the cold, clear water. We paddled around a good ten or fifteen feet away from each other, cleaning the mud off ourselves, as he wove another one of his male bonding stories for me—a story of young men starting off in life and those with experience of the world doing so much better than those of limited horizons and narrow views. He told of the story of a young architect, taken under the wing of an older, established one. And how their lives merged and how much their bonding developed the lives and works of both in enriching ways that could never have happened if they'd lived in isolation. I couldn't help but listen to his story in fascination. I aspired to being a writer—I'd shyly told him that several summers ago—and I could see parallels. And I fancied I was drawing those parallels on my own. He suggested a race, a race across the lake. I didn't think that quite fair, an author in his sixties and a nineteen-year-old athlete who had been ranch handing for the last two months. But this was his hunting trip. He was calling the shots. So, I laughed and asked him what we were wagering on. He said if I won he'd both clean and cook the fish for dinner and if he won I'd have to give him a shoulder rub right there in the lake and listen to another story he was trying to work out before he wrote it. He said all of the riding had made his body sore. He, of course, won. I surely didn't like either cleaning or cooking fish, but Kincaid had much more at stake than I did. Or did from his perspective, at least. So, there I was, that ten or fifteen feet no longer between us. I was standing behind him in water up to our nipples and massaging his back and shoulder muscles deeply. The water was rippling around us and moving us in waves, moving his butt from time to time back against my groin. And I have to admit this was having its effect on me. Meanwhile, he was unfolding his idea for a story. About a young man who wanted to write about life but who hadn't really experienced life deeply and fully enough for anyone to take notice of what he put in writing. But then he was taken under the wing of an older, more experienced, far more successful writer. The young man won a scholarship to study with the older man for a year, and the two went off to a tropical island country to work on developing the young man's writing in private, without distractions. But for months he could think of nothing to write. There was no experience to draw from, no passion from which to write. The tropical island went into chaos. A revolution was erupting around them, and they had to hide out in interior rooms of the house they had let. They went through travails of protecting each other from the threats around them, and they became closer and closer. And they bonded, becoming one. And the young man was writing now. Writing from a wellspring of experience and passion. And after the revolution, when they emerged from hiding, he wrote a Pulitzer-winning novel. A novel enriched by deep experience and passion. Sometime during the weaving of this mesmerizing tale, the waves were no longer moving us together. Kincaid had his butt plastered into my groin now and had my now half-hard cock encased between his thighs. And I hadn't even noticed this was happening until he took one of my hands in his strong fingers and wrapped it around his very hard cock, his hand on top of mine. He was murmuring to me in that sing song baritone voice of his, "I know you want to be a writer, Jamie," he was saying. "But do you really think you have the experience and passion for it?" "Yes, of course," I quickly answered, trying to take my hand away from his cock, but being held there firmly in his grip. And then, with more thought. "No . . . No. Probably not. I do find it hard to decide what to write about. And when I do, it often comes out so naive." "You know what all of the successful men writers have that you're lacking?" Kincaid whispered. I remained silent, afraid of the answer. And my mind focused on my cock being held closely between Kincaid's thighs and my hand on his throbbing cock. "Bonding," he continued. "That's the success of my writing, Jaime. I write of the most important things—men bonding and taking on the elements together. I live on passion. I need passion for my writing. I can't imagine that you are different. And I'm eternally grateful for all of the inspiration I get from bonding. And I am a giver. I help those who feed my needs." He let that sink in, as his thighs began massaging my cock, making it harden out, and his own tool lengthening and thickening between my fingers. I was confused. And frightened. And aroused. I remembered that I had come out here with some sort of resolve, but I couldn't quite focus on what I had resolved. His voice. His strong body. His very presence. His slow persistence. I was melting. "Have you ever experienced someone's lips on your manhood, Jamie? Have you ever experienced the passion of that? I have, and it has inspired my writing." "Uhhh . . . yes," I had to admit. "Sure, there have been girls . . ." "And no men, Jamie? No men? The level of passion and inspiration is entirely different, I assure you. No men?" "No, of course . . . well, there was a fraternity party once last spring . . ." "And the passion of it? The comparison of the girl and the boy?" "Well, I was more than half drunk at the time. But as I recall . . ." "Oh, no. You have to be fully there, Jamie. Fully there to make full use of the experience, of the inspiration. Here, let me show you." "I don't know . . ." But before I could go further, Kincaid had turned me around in the water, facing him. He had crouched down in the water and my legs were hooked on his shoulders as he pulled my torso into his face. He was supporting me with hands on the small of my back and my shoulders and the back of my head were floating in the salt water of the lake while he gave me a cock teasing and deep-throating blow job like I'd never experienced before, not that I'd experienced much of anything like that before at all, of course. He was right. I had known nothing like the feel of his lips and warm, moist mouth on my cock. I'd had no experience until this moment worth inspiring writing anything worthwhile. I had no passion. This was more passion than I'd ever felt before. Who was I kidding? Kincaid was the real writer. You had to go through what Kincaid had gone through to be a real writer. I howled with passion and experience as I shot off all over his face, globs of my passion peppering his face. He laughed and deep-throated me and cleaned me off. And then he was standing in shallower water and forcing my head down to his cock and I gathered a whole new experience and a whole new sense of passion. He was mine, centered on me. Giving himself to me. The famous novelist. The man who could be my mentor. Having passion for me. Moaning and sighing because of what I was doing. Stroking himself inside my mouth, ever deeper, ever more vigorously. Crying his own passion as he jacked off down my throat. Centering himself entirely on me. Giving me his all. He was crouched in the water then, drawing me into his lap, whispering to me of male bonding of wanting to be my mentor, to help give me the experience and the passion I needed to become a first-class writer. He had his bulbous mushroom cap at my rim, and I was grunting and groaning, letting him know I didn't do this sort of thing, that I'd never done this before, that it hurt. "Experience is pain," he was whispering in that persuasive voice of his. "Passion is pain. The only good writing comes from pain." If I wanted him to be my mentor, we simply had to bond. We had to become as one, to move as one, to share experience and passion. Is that what I wanted? "Yes, oh yes." Beyond pain was paradise. Passion and paradise and inspiration. Did I want that? "Yes?" Did I want to seize it like a man or work slowly into it, taking the risk of being denied the prize by not seizing the moment, not taking the risk? Did I trust him, love him? Or did I want to second guess my actions every step of the way? Grasp the golden ring or take my lesser chances of relative safety and uncertainty? "I want it all. Now," I cried in my own world of ecstasy. Grab for that golden ring. Fame, fortune. "More pain at first but then more pleasure, deeper passion, richer inspiration," he was breathing in my ear. "Richer inspiration," I cried. And his cock centered on my hole now, he thrust up violently, strongly as he forced my hips down hard. I screamed and writhed and cursed and cried. He started pumping immediately, fast and furiously. My cries of pain and frustration were turning to passion and new heights of ecstasy. He was laughing and yelling out his joy, his victory. The slushing of the lake water inside my passage was operating as a lubricant and increasing the wave sensation of the fuck. He was making animal sounds, groaning and grunting and moaning and speaking rapidly, telling me of the deepness of male bonding in this way, of his love and passion for me. Forever and ever, til the end of time, as if there was no tomorrow. I arched my back to him and presented my face so that he could take my lips in his and tongue-fuck my mouth. I was lost in love for him. His now for whatever else he wanted to do—as he flowed inside me in three great bursts of virility. As we rode back up to the camp, he was telling me of plateaus in male bonding and that he couldn't be sure of my commitment without my showing complete trust in him, my willingness to follow his every lead as he worked on developing my writing. To show that I was willing to be dominated by his will, by his knowing what was best for me. To prove myself fully his to form, I let him strip me and turn me on my belly on the leather seat of a saddle laid out between and in front of the cottonwood trees. Leather straps ending in metal stirrups were strung out on either side toward a cottonwood tree, and lengths of ropes were tied on each of the stirrups and then wound round a tree and tied at the other end around each of my wrists so that I was held there on the saddle, not going anywhere, denied the use of my hands. Open to him. All of my trust in him. And then a towering, naked mentor crouched down behind and above me, his thighs encasing mine, and he thrust his cock into my puckered, tilted-up hole and rode me hard to a second ultimate bonding experience. Then he turned me on my back so that my hips were raised up onto the saddle. I particularly felt the bond of this third merging of our bodies, because I could see his eyes. I could see how much he loved me in his eyes. I could see the honesty of all that he wrote and believed about the ultimate goodness of male bonding. That night I slept in his arms, on a blanket, under the stars, and he side-split me from behind once, twice, three times during that long darkness while I listened to the racing of the water in the stream and the wind whistling through the tops of the cottonwood, suddenly full of experience, inspiration, and passion I'd never even imagined before. His manhooded domination was complete. His cock a veritable battering ram, plowing me hard, caressing the inner walls of my passage, shooting off again and again, slathering me in buckets of his virile juices. J. Harvey Kincaid. My mentor. The man who would bring me to the age of mature, experienced, passion-filled writing. The secret of male bonding. Repeated, deep male bonding. I woke to the sound of the gunshot in the darkness. The fire had gone out long ago. I was alone on the blanket. I stumbled around until I found him, lying beside the racing stream, a smile on his face. The mentor gone, the experience not to be undone. the passion in question. Inspiration surely there, but perhaps never dared to be inked on paper. I don't know why but a deep suspicion, almost a realization, hit me at that very moment, as I looked down at Kincaid's face, smiling a very self-pleased smile in death. The relevance not very clear but also crystal clear. When my grandfather had died, everyone said it was an accident. In fact, they said it was a accident so often and so distinctly and so loudly that just the saying of it contained the seed of doubting it. He knew the Colorado mountains. He knew you didn't try to drive over Rabbit Ears pass in January in a snowstorm. He knew. But that's what he had tried. Right after one of his hunting trips with Kincaid. I was careful in handing the shotgun. There were going to be suspicions enough in any event. Motive just below the surface, begging to be set free, hidden, but there in plain sight for any damn fool with half a brain to see. When I had reached the ranch, the deflated body of Kincaid, devoid now of all of its mesmerizing presence and power—its malicious soul—slung unceremoniously over his horse, I heard immediately that my dad had returned from Laramie and also that the sheriff had been called up from Hayden. I didn't want to face my dad; I was much more willing to face the sheriff. So I hid until I saw the police cruiser nose through the log gate up the road. In the end, I was saved any suspicion. While the sheriff was driving down from Hayden, he'd gotten a call that Kincaid had left a suicide note at his home in Jackson. He had terminal cancer and considered a slow death unmanly. That left my dad. I knew he'd ask what happened between me and Kincaid up in the mountains, and I was fully prepared to tell him that nothing had happened, that Kincaid had been withdrawn into himself the entire time and hardly spoke to me at all the whole three days. There was no one to dispute me, and I saw no reason to indulge Kincaid's last, intentional, I was sure, little victory over the Raven family. Now there only remained the damning photograph. But I couldn't find it. When I went to Kincaid's room to search for and destroy it, all of his things had been cleared out already and sent down to Hayden with his body.