Evil Is a Man

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

If you like what you're reading, let me know: SellarDhor@gmail.com. And let me know where you want the story to go and who you want Jake to end up with. And if you have any ideas for the future, let me know, I might include them.

JANUARY 13th

Once again, my session in Cornelius's office was interrupted by Meredith knocking on the door. "I've got the Governor in my changing room," she said. "You two better go quickly." Her voice was trembling, and she looked visibly nervous. She had always been so cool before, that seeing her so shaken was unsettling. She had never been upset by embarrassing Syd, Glaucia, Polly, or I, but I knew Jericho was a different beast entirely.

"We'll come with you," Cornelius said.

"No, he doesn't want me there. I had enough of a problem helping him dress and getting the jock the right size for him."

"Right, let's go Mr. Groves."

I followed Cornelius's unusually hurried pace to Meredith's shop. When we walked in, Jericho was standing in the middle of the store, looking in a full-length mirror with shock and awe at his costume.

I looked him over, noticing that where Syd's tux had been black, Jericho's was white. Otherwise, they were identical. He'd already kicked off his platform boots, violently it seemed, as it looked like they had knocked over some of Meredith's clothing racks. His hat had been tossed aside as well, leaving his short hair uncovered.

This left him in the white armbands, which squeezed his threateningly large bis; the white bowtie which seemed to constrain his angrily tense neck muscles; those ridiculous white pasties capping his bulging, hairy pecs; that white cummerbund that looked like his muscled, hairy abs were going to rip through at any moment; and then there was that white leather jock, the white straps digging into the sides of his flexed, muscled glutes, and that ridiculous grey elephant figure in the front with his massive dick coming through the hole, that little black bow around his dickhead. The fact that the elephant wore a large piercing at the end of its snout was even more hilarious.

It was that part that Jericho's eyes were locked onto in the mirror, that part that was drawing such hateful revulsion in his expression.

"We're here, Mr. Governor," Cornelius said.

Jericho spun around to face me, his whole body aflame with rage. "You did this!" he roared, coming at me with supernatural speed, lifting me up by the throat and slamming me so hard against the wall I almost blacked out. He stuck his twisted face in my own, our noses touching and his breath on me, and he opened his lips, showing me his threatening fangs were already out and ready.

I was stunned, both from the pain and from my anxious heart racing, and I couldn't breathe.

"You did this! You fashioned this joke for me! You mean to embarrass me in front of my entire Blood!"

He took his hands off my neck, and used them to pin me to the wall at the level of my torso, thankfully letting me finally take a breath. But it turned out he was just freeing my throat for his fangs; he slammed them into my throat and started to feed off me. I could feel his dick harden in response to the assault, sticking up and stabbing through my polo shirt.

"Mr. Governor, you kill him and you can say goodbye to your Governorship!" Cornelius said.

At first, he ignored him, sucking away at my blood.

"Jericho Logan!" Cornelius said.

Finally, Jericho let me go, though he stared me down with the meanest look I had ever seen, and he roared, his mouth covered in my blood. I was lucky he had the willpower to do the smart thing.

I clutched my hand to my neck wound as Jericho turned to Cornelius and motioned towards the tux. "I am NOT wearing this," he said.

"Sir, you know the rules when you are chosen to be a groomsman of this manner."

"I don't care. This wedding is a sham. Designed to make my look like a fool."

"That may be, sir, but the laws are laws," he said. "If you don't wear the proscribed outfit of the groomsmen and undergo your expected behaviors, you'll serve a two year prison sentence."

His eyes narrowed in thought. "And who would serve as Governor in my absence?"

"Your heir would, until your sentence had been completed."

Realization hit Jericho's angry face, and he spun around to face me again. "I see now, see it all clearly. All of this, the fake wedding, the horrendous tuxes, it's all just a ploy to get me off the Governor's chair, and have Syd instated as Governor, so the two of you can destroy everything I've built."

"No, it's not like that at all," I said.

"I can smell your lies," he hissed. "But I got more smarts than you or Syd ever will. I'll play your stupid games better than you ever could. Come wedding day, I'll wear this atrocity and be the perfect lamb, and your plans will all burn in hell. Now, get out, the both of you. Get the fuck out!" He slammed the full length mirror, shattering the glass and knocking it to the floor.

Cornelius and I quickly scooted out of the room.

"This isn't one of his more pleasant moods," he said when we were a long ways away from the clothing store. "But I've seen worse, believe me. I'd say our session is adjourned. Are you going to be okay?" he asked, looking at my throat wound.

"Sure," I said. "I'll just run up and get Syd to close this wound up for me. I don't think he took very much blood at all before you stopped him, because I don't feel the least bit weak."

"Good to hear. See you later, Mr. Groves."

"Goodbye, Cornelius."

I started to walk away, and then remembered that I was trying not to remind Syd about my blood, and asking him to lick my neck wound wasn't exactly the best way to keep his mind off of the red stuff.

"On second thought, I think Syd might be gone somewhere," I said to Cornelius. "Could you close this for me?"

"Well, I suppose so," he said.

He moved forward with much awkward hesitation and licked my neck wound a few times until it healed.

"My, my. You certainly do taste... magical."

"Uh, thanks."

He looked at me dreamily for a second, and I couldn't possibly guess what was going through his mind. "Good day, Mr. Groves," he said finally, and turned to walk the other way.

I knew it was time to meet Glaucia and Syd for our ridiculous little lesson, and instead of going up to Syd's room to get him, I just walked straight out towards the eastern riding grounds.

I saw Glaucia and Lewis outside the stables, setting down large bags, clearly just arriving. I was almost within earshot of them when I felt someone grab me from behind, pull me back into strong arms. I felt stubble on my ear and a poke in the seat of my pants.

"I had hoped I'd get to spend the morning with my fiancé," Syd said, holding me from behind.

"Not now, Syd, we're supposed to meet Glaucia."

"She can wait."

She luckily turned right then in our direction, and I waved furiously. She waved cheerfully back and beckoned us towards them. We had no choice but to move forward.

"Did you guys hear?" Glaucia asked us.

"No, tell us!" I said, feigning excitement, running towards her.

She beamed. "Parker and Annie are on the stagecoach right now to Mareshead. Should be arriving this evening. Lewis and I were planning to be waiting for them with flowers and signs. We still have to make the signs, but we spent the morning cutting flowers from outside. We're just taking a break so we can work on our horseback riding, aren't me, sweetie?"

"Uh-huh," Lewis said.

I may have been faking the excitement before, but as soon as I heard Parker would be returning, I got genuinely exuberant inside.

"Okay, I'm ready for my riding lesson," Glaucia said.

Syd looked her up and down with disdain. "Glaucia, what exactly are you wearing, and why?"

"Do you like it?" she asked. She was dressed in a modern English riding outfit, complete with the boots and helmet. "I figured I couldn't ride in one of my normal dresses, but didn't know what I should be wearing. I'd seen women riding in cowboy gear, but that seemed so masculine to me, so I got this outfit before I came from the outside."

"It looks very fetching on you," I said.

"Of course Jakey would say that, it's totally in the stuck up preppy kind of style that Jake would clearly wear as well. I mean, it looks like a uniform the Petrov Blood would force us to wear if they ever invaded America. Trust me, round here, that ain't a good thing. If ya don't want folks around here to stone you, you'd better never wear that beyond today, ya hear me?"

She looked disappointed. "Oh, alright. I DO want to fit in. Lewis, stay here with the flowers while we get Polly to bring you your horse."

We walked into the stables, and found Polly and Donnie both at work.

"Polly, Lewis is waiting for his lesson outside."

"Great, ma'am."

"Oh, but I'm also here to ride."

"Yous? Really?"

"Yes, believe it or not. I know it's the first time you've heard me say that. I don't have a horse, but I was figuring I should probably learn to ride Jericho's, since I'll have to ride that one in the rodeo competition. Could you get it for me?"

"Are you fucking kidding?" Donnie asked. "That's the one horse that we keep under lock and key. Jericho doesn't let anyone take his horse."

"She's the Governor's wife, Donnie," Polly said.

"But--"

"Just get the horse for her, Donnie!"

"Fuck, alright." He stormed off to the end of the stable.

"It's a boosted Clydesdale he rides," Polly said.

"That's perfect `cause that's the exact horse she'll need to ride with Jericho in the rodeo," Syd said.

"Doesn't Jericho have his smaller horse as well, for single riding?" I asked.

"You'd think," Polly said. "But he actually just uses the one. Even though he doesn't ride double, he prefers the big boosted horse for all his riding."

"How can he manage to do Heading and Heeling with such a big horse?" I asked.

"Oh, he manages," Syd said.

"I gotta warn ya plain," Polly said. "This horse is a monster. I say folks either pick horses `cause they have the qualities they'd want to date, like Boyd's mare. Or they pick horses that remind them o' themselves. The second rule is true for Jericho's stallion. He's big, he's mean, and he kinda looks like Jericho."

"I'll be sure to kick him a few times just to take out years of pent up hostility on him, then," Syd said.

"I'd punch ya in the mouth for even sayin' that right now, but I ain't worried. I know with that horse, if ya got into a fight, he'd win for sure. I can't go near the thing, he kicks me. I can get along with any horse before that one, even the ones that are too scared of other people. But that one hates my guts. That's why I sent Donnie to fetch him. Donnie the only one the horse has learned to like `sides Jericho. And there are only two horses in here that Donnie gives a shit about, his own, and that one. When I came on board, they were the only two that were groomed and fed."

"Is Donnie's horse supposed to be someone he would date, or one that reflects him?" I asked.

"Reflects him," she said. "A smaller, leaner stallion, totally spoiled. But here's the weird thing." She lowered her volume and spoke under her breath. "Jericho's horse hates other horses, we have to keep him as far away from other horses here as possible, or the poor other horse is like to end up dead. But Donnie somehow got his own small horse used to Jericho's huge stallion. Sometimes I'll come in, and he's in there with him, in his stall. Donnie puts them together. First time I saw that, there was an awful fuss comin' from the stall. I went to look, and Jericho's stallion, it looked like it was killin' the smaller one, which was no shock to me. But when I got a better look, I saw something even more disturbing. Jericho's stallion wasn't fightin' the smaller horse, he had mounted him from behind, and he was forcing him to, ya know, please `im. I tried to rescue the smaller horse right then, but Donnie stopped me. Told me the smaller horse likes it just as much as Jericho's, and sure enough, Donnie's horse always pulls towards Jericho's horse's stall. Still, I can't abide by permitting such things, so I told Donnie he better quit putting those two together."

"You can't separate true love," Glaucia said. "If it makes the horses happy, I say, why not?"

"Donnie's horse always ends up limpin' and bloody when Jericho's stallion is done with him, that's why not."

Right then, Donnie came back, pulling the largest horse I could ever possibly conceive of towards us. It wasn't just genetically intimidating; the vampire blood that had been used to boost it seemed to have sort of a steroid effect, making its muscles unnaturally large. It was light tan in color, with light brown mane and tail hair, which had been trimmed short. The oddest thing was that area above the horse's upper lip seemed oddly bushy, matching Jericho's La Souvarov exactly.

"I'm takin' this one outside," Donnie said, walking the horse past us towards stable exit. As the horse went, I heard it huff in anger, and before I could react, it raised its hind leg up and kicked me in the chest, knocking the wind out of me and sending me to the ground.

"Jake, are you alright?" Glaucia asked, panicked, as she bent down to look at me.

"I'm okay," I said, getting to my feet again.

"Can't blame the stallion for wanting to do that, can we?" Donnie asked.

"Polly, Jake and I will be ridin' double today on Jake's horse."

"Okay." She brought out Patches whom again showed me all sorts of love when he saw me, and unlike with Jericho's horse, there was no evil kicks given to innocent bystanders.

Polly got a couple horses for her and Lewis, and the two of them went off for their riding lesson.

"I tied Jerry to the pole out there," said Donnie to us as he walked back in the stables. It was the first time I had heard Jericho's horse's name, and it made me wonder if Jericho had christened the horse himself with a name obviously short for his name, or if Donnie had been the one to name him.

The three of us left the stables, while I pulled Patches behind us.

"Now, figured we'd start with teaching ya how to ride the big Clydesdale this morn," Syd said. "I know a place where we can have a little more privacy, why don't we ride over there."

"Should I just, you know, get on?" Glaucia asked.

"That's usually the first step, yes," Syd said.

She approached Jerry nervously, and soon as she got close, he made a sudden move to kick her, and she backed off with a scream. "I can't ride this horse."

"I'll get him to mind us," Syd said. "If he can mind Jericho, he can learn to mind me."

Syd approached the horse and tried to get on, but the horse sidestepped Syd and made to kick him.

"No you don't," Syd said. "I'm in charge here, not you."

He grabbed the reins, expecting to yank the horse's head into submission, but the horse swiftly turned and chomped down on his fingers.

"Ooow!" Syd cried as he pulled his hand away. I cringed as I saw it was covered with blood, though the wounds were closing quickly.

"Christ almighty," Donnie whined as he approached us from the stables. "You'll be here all goddamn day and ya still won't get that one to mind ya."

"Can you help with this, Donnie?" Glaucia asked sweetly.

"I can help. But I don't do nothin' for free," he said.

"I can pay you."

"I ain't got a lick o' need for your paper, woman. I take a different kinda payment, Syd knows what I mean."

"I think that could be arranged," Syd said, a half smile appearing on his face.

"Okay then, I'll help ya. First off, Syd, don't take this the wrong way, yer hot as fuck, but you ain't ridin' this horse. Not ever. Won't happen. Glaucia, though, I can do."

"Why not me?" Syd asked.

"Cause yer dick's too goddamn big," he said.

"But Jericho's is just as endowed," Glaucia said.

"But this horse can't be threatened by Jericho `cause them two are practically the same. They got the same soul. Besides Jericho, Jerry won't ride anyone who threatens his masculine supremacy."

"So, he's better with women?" Glaucia asked. "Then how come he likes you so well?"

"Because I don't try to tell this one what to do. We both know that he's in charge, and I just beg him to go in whatever direction I need. If he refuses, I don't fight him. And I love him for his domination."

I couldn't help but wonder if Donnie had ever engaged in sexual acts with the horse. I certainly wouldn't put it past him, no matter how much the idea repulsed and disturbed me.

He took Glaucia's hand in his own, and he then moved them both towards the horse's muzzle. "I'm tryin' to get him used to you," he said.

"Okay."

With her hand under his, Donnie pressed their palms against stallion's muzzle, and this time, it didn't fight back, though it still looked angry. He moved their hands down the horse's neck, over its shoulder and along the underside of the belly. It was so tall, that was the easiest place to touch.

"He still seems angry with me," Glaucia said.

"He needs to be touched so he knows you're there to please him," Donnie said.

Quick as lightening, he moved their hands down to his massive, dangling penis.

"Eew, stop!" I said.

"Yuck!" Glaucia said, repulsed.

"Stop acting grossed out or you'll lose him for good," Donnie warned her.

"Sorry."

"See, Jerry? Just like me, she's your plaything, to do as you please with." He forcibly rubbed her their palms all over the animal's thing. If he had made me do that, I would have punched him.

The horse started to respond sexually, and then finally made a relaxed neighing sound.

"Okay, that's it," Donnie said, pulling their hands away. "That's his indication that he knows you are there as his plaything, and he wants you to get on. I'll help you up."

It took Donnie quite awhile to get Glaucia in the saddle, but amazingly, the horse was patient with her. Donnie grabbed the reins and handed it over to her.

"Just use these to make the subtlest of suggestions to him about where you'd like to go," Donnie said. "We've put him in such a good mood, he'll be fine listening to you for the next couple hours as long as you don't force him."

"Oh, I won't," she said.

"My work here is done. Syd, ya owe me."

"It'll be my pleasure to make good on that payment, Donnie."

Syd and I mounted Patches, with me in front with the reins, and Syd had me ride towards a more secluded part of the riding fields. We went slowly, giving Glaucia instructions on the basic mechanics of riding as we went. Although the horse gave her no trouble, she seemed generally terrified of being so high up.

When we reached our destination and came to a stop, Glaucia said, "Enough of me riding. You two promised you'd show me exactly how Syd used your love making to teach you how to ride."

"Well, first off, we always rode in the nude, just like in the real rodeo," Syd said.

"Don't let me hold you back, I was in the stands, and I've seen all of this before," she said. "Go ahead and get naked like you'd be doing if I wasn't here."

"Jakey and I never turn down any excuse to be naked together, do we, sweetums?"

"Mmm," I said, annoyed.

Syd started ripping off his clothes and just throwing them aside until he was just in his boots and hat. "Jakey loves it when I tear off his clothes myself, ain't that right, darlin?' It just gets him going!"

With that, Syd started frantically ripping my shirt off, then my pants and underwear, leaving me as naked as he was. He brusquely tossed my clothes on the ground.

"Aww, much better, ain't it?"

"Loads," I lied.

"Now, look at this, Glaucia. This is exactly how I taught Jakey how to ride."

I felt him completely lock his body against mine, everything from his legs up completely spooning me from behind, his right hand feeling on my chest, and his right feeling up my inner thigh. I felt him grinding his sweaty pubes against my tailbone. I could feel his soft dick intrude upon my buttcrack, tickling my hole.

"With our bodies as close as our souls."

"I can admire that," Glaucia said.

"The truth is, Jakey never would have learned without me, ain't that right, Jakey?"

"Yes," I said limply.

"He just didn't mesh well with the horses, not one bit. But once I held him like this, it gave him courage, didn't it, darlin?' I used every inch of my body to show him how to ride without a single word."

"Wow, that is amazing," Glaucia said.

"This is the exact position we use to do the Bull Wrestlin' event," Syd said. "And when I'm behind him in the saddle, I'm always feelin' all over my bride with my hands, and Jakey wouldn't have it any other way. If he's doin' the ridin,' we both love it when I tease him. Slap him on the ass," he said, literally slapping me. "Giving oral loving to his pretty hole," he said, pushing my butt up and giving me an embarrassing lick before I pulled back down. "Anything is fair game when the two of are connected as purely as we are, right sweetie?"

"Uh-huh."

I noticed that he had gone soft to semi-hard, and I could feel his quickly enlarging head poking at my poor hole.

"And a lot of times, when the two of us ride like this, it won't be long before he's begging me to fuck him in the ass from behind him on the saddle, just like we always do in bed."

"Aww, that's sweet," Glaucia said.

"But I'm not going to beg for that today, Syd."

"That's just because we fucked four times during the night last night. Well, four and half, to be honest, ain't that right, Jakey?"

"Uh-huh."

"But that's just one event you sit like that for," she said. "What about the others?"

Syd suddenly stood up behind me on the saddle, stuck his hands on my shoulders, used my body to catapult himself over me, and then landed in the saddle in front of me. "This is the position we use when we're doin' the Calf Ropin' event."

"Yes, I see."

"This feels a lil' bit queer, having Jakey behind me like this, `cause this is a position we'd never do in our bed. I'm strictly a top, and he a bottom. But even so, Jakey's found a way to make this position fun. For instance, I was tickled pink when Jakey put his hand like this..."

He grabbed my right hand and forced me to envelope his hard dick, which I absolutely hated holding.

"...callin' it the only saddle horn he cared to hold. And since then, whenever we ride like this, he invented a rule. He ain't allowed to hold onto the saddle, just onto my special saddle horn, or my studly, muscled upper-body that he frankly can't ever get enough of."

"He sure is devoted to you, Syd," Glaucia said. "You might be embarrassed how he constantly needs to be touching your body or is obsessed by your manhood, but I beg you to be understanding. It's just because he only has eyes for you."

"Yer damn right. I might be tempted to get mad at him when he needs my giant cock every second, but I know it's just because he loves me so. Wow, Glaucia, it's so amazing how well you get the two of us, ain't it, Jakey?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"So how did you plan for that event where you have to grab those little red things?"

"The Flag Pullin?'" he asked. "I'll show you. He acrobatically jumped behind me again. "Jakey, turn around so we can show the lady how we do this one."

I sighed, and then carefully turned around in the saddle until I was facing him, trying to sit back so I wouldn't have to touch him.

He had none of that. He grabbed me from behind and pulled me onto him. I felt his entire body against mine, with his hard dick sliding up and down suggestively in my crack, leaving what I was positive was a trail of precum as it did its work.

"This one was easy for us, `cause basically, it's just like makin' love. A lot of times, Jakey likes to get fucked sittin' up like this in my Ironman arms, ain't that right?"

"Yes."

"And frequently, when we were practicing this event, we'd just fuck in the saddle during the practice, `cause Jakey's hole just can't be teased like this without getting a good pounding."

"That's so sweet."

"Now, this event requires my hands to be tied behind my back, which is a little funny, since it's Jakey who loves to be tied to our bed all night long, but we just go with it."

"Uh-oh, I hope the tying up thing wasn't a secret," Glaucia said. "Don't be embarrassed, Jake. Who doesn't like a little soft S&M from time to time?"

"Certainly not Jakey, ain't that right?"

"Yes, it is," I said, trying not to sound angry.

Finally, Glaucia said, "We'd better start back. And you two better put some clothes on unless you want to get a whole bunch of questions from Lewis."

Syd's expression looked like he was about to say we wouldn't mind, so I cut in, "No, we wouldn't want that. We'll put our clothes back on."

We both dismounted, retrieved our clothes, and put them back on, in spite of how dirty they were. We rode back to the stables and put away our horses just as Polly was finishing with Lewis.

"There's still some time before lunch, sweetie," Glaucia said to him after we were all done with the riding. "Why don't we finish picking the flowers?"

"Yeah!" Lewis said happily.

"I'm sure the two of you have something better to do, but if not, you're welcome to join us," Glaucia said.

"We'd love to," I said, willing to agree to anything that might keep me from being alone with Syd.

"Uh, I guess so, sure. Maybe Jakey and I could get some alone time picking the flowers today, if you get my meaning."

"I sure do," Glaucia said, a knowing smile on her face. "I think that could probably be arranged."

I quickly changed my mind about the whole thing. "This all sounds wonderful, but you know what? I always meet with Cornelius in the mornings."

"Didn't you already do that, darlin?'"

"I had to pause the morning session to help Glaucia," I said. "He's waiting for me to return so we can continue for the rest of the morning."

"Syd can help me pick flowers!" Lewis yelled excitedly.

"Um, okay, lil' pardner."

As I left, Syd and Glaucia were happily escorting Syd towards the flower bushes. Instead of meeting Cornelius, I went up to Syd's room and drew a hot bath, washing all trace of horses or Syd off of me. When I was dressed again, I went down to the mess hall for a bite to eat for lunch.

I was just taking the first bite of my sandwich when I heard a voice from behind me. "Mind if I join ya, lover boy?" Syd sat down at the table with me, his food in hand. Darn, he had managed to escape Glaucia and Lewis sooner than I anticipated.

"I take it that's a rhetorical question, given that you sat down before I could answer."

"That's right, you really don't have any say in the matter. You know what else you don't have any say in? What we're gonna be doing after lunch."

I thought I knew where this was going, and I didn't want to go down that road. I quickly changed the subject. "So how was your little romance with Rose last night?" I asked.

"It was the time of her life, I'm sure. Not so great for me. Rose may be smolderin' hot, but her lady-parts are frozen solid."

"I'm sorry you didn't enjoy yourself as much as you thought, Syd."

"That's fine. There's no such thing as bad sex, ain't that right? I'll pay off my dues as good as I can. Hell, I have one helluva reputation to uphold."

Luckily, just then my eye caught the perfect distraction walking through the mess hall doors. "Oh look! Glaucia, Lewis, come sit with us!"

They waved, and approached us. They had their bags of flowers with them.

"Lewis, why don't you go play while I go order our lunches?" She set down her bag of flowers and walked towards the counter.

"Okay, Mom." Lewis started to run towards some other kids who were hanging around the pool tables, and I realized I would be stuck alone with Syd again, which was totally not acceptable.

"Lewis, hold on," I said.

"Yes?"

Syd eyed me curiously.

"Why don't you stay here and tell us about the flowers you picked this morning?"

"Okay," he said, somewhat neutrally, and got back in his seat.

"Yes, that sounds thoroughly fascinating, little bro," Syd said, and I hoped Lewis wasn't clever enough to pick up on Syd's sarcasm.

Glaucia came back before Lewis was even halfway done with his descriptions.

After all of us were done with lunch, Glaucia asked, "What are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?"

I perked up, hoping for an opening to keep me occupied with some activity that would keep me from being alone with Syd.

"We're just planning to hang out in our room," Syd said, nipping my designs in the bud.

"I know," I said to Glaucia. "Why don't you and Lewis come up to our room and hang with us? We'll all do the banners together."

"That sounds great!" Glaucia said. "We'll just come up with you now then."

"You sure you don't need a break? An afternoon nap for Lewis, maybe?" Syd said.

"Lewis?"

"I hate naps," he said.

"No, we're fine," Glaucia said. "Lead the way to your room."

Both Syd and I were smiling pleasantly as we walked them to Syd's bedroom, but if you scratched off the veneer, underneath Syd would have been very frustrated, and I would have been very pleased. He opened the bedroom door and let them into the room.

"Can I use the bathroom?" Lewis asked, then I showed him where it was, and he shut the bathroom door.

"Nice room," Glaucia said, looking around.

"You're the only woman in Mareshead who hasn't seen the inside of it before," Syd said, clearly making a sexual reference. "Well, you and Giggles."

"Uh-oh, it looks like someone's been sleeping on the couch," Glaucia said, pointing towards the blankets and pillows neatly made on the settee. "Syd, have you been in the doghouse with Jake?"

I couldn't believe I had let anyone into the room without putting away those blankets. Would this ruin Glaucia's perception of us as a loving couple?

"Ha, not at all," Syd said. "Jakey gets tired of getting banged in the boring old bed. He begs for it all over the room, on any flat surfaces he can find, and even on some standing surfaces. The couch has blankets on it `cause that just happens to be the last place we did it, just this morning, right darlin?'"

"I guess so," I said.

"Oh, sounds like such fun!" Glaucia said. "This room sees more love than the honeymoon suite of a fine hotel."

Lewis came out of the bathroom again, and Glaucia started to unload all of their materials. My eyes went wide as I noticed a used condom, thrown carelessly onto the floor by the bed, evidence that Syd had enjoyed himself that morning before our meeting with Glaucia.

Syd, you fool, how could you once again fail to dispose of your condom properly, and worse yet, invite a small child into the room without remembering to clean it up?

I walked over to the bed and kicked the condom under it, hoping Lewis had not seen me.

"Who wants to be the flower arranger?" Glaucia asked.

"Oh, I do! I'm really good at that," I lied, knowing it would likely keep me busy.

"Great," she said. "The flowers need cutting, organizing, and arranging in this vase. The three of us can draw the signs," she pulled out large sheets of paper and markers, and I wondered just how Territory approved all of those things were. "I'm going to make a Congratulations' sign. Syd, why don't you do one that says It's a girl,' and Lewis can do one that says `It's a boy,' just so we've got all our bases covered."

While the three of them scribbled on their respective papers, I took my time arranging the flowers. I really had absolutely no interest in flowers, they always seemed absolutely useless to me. A live plant given as a gift made sense to me, but giving someone flowers just seemed like the most bizarre of human traditions. Flowers were nothing but dead pieces of plant. Might as well collect a loose bunch of sticks and dead leaves, put them in a vase, and charge someone eighty dollars for it. Under different circumstances, I would have refused to be the flower arranger by principle, but I had been forced to pretend to be some master florist, so I had to act the part.

There were a number of different kinds of flowers collected, though I wouldn't have been able to name any of them. They seemed rather wild and unkempt looking, so I started to cut all of them into perfectly symmetrical lengths, regardless of flower species, to make them look as uniform as possible. Then I thought there were way too many leaves, so I cut most of those away from the stems. I put them all in the vase, and then noticed with dismay that there seemed to be a mixture of purple and pink flowers. They looked awful casually thrown together like that, so I started carefully rearranging them by color, putting the lightest on the left side and the darkest in shade on the right.

"Well, I'm done," Syd said, handing his sign to Glaucia.

She took a look at it, and then hit him with her hand, smiling. "Syd, you didn't! Look at this!"

I read the sign for myself. Syd had hastily drawn, with quite messy handwriting, "It's a Girl (Let's Hope She's as Hot as her Mother)." I rolled my eyes.

"Jakey, how `bout you and I take a lover's stroll, and let these two finish in peace?"

I could all but guess exactly what he had in mind for this stroll of his. "Actually, I still have a lot of work to do on these flowers before I'm done. You go on and take a walk without me."

"Darlin,' if you work anymore on those flowers, there's not going to be anything left by the time they get here."

"That's just because you know nothing of flowers, Syd," I said. "I look at this arrangement, and I still see a blank canvas. I'll be at this for hours, but when I'm done, it will be exquisite."

"Actually, Lewis and I finished our signs too, didn't we, Lewis? It still should be couple hours before they arrive, and I had planned for Lewis and I to go down to the gym for a workout. That'll give you plenty of alone time to finish."

"Oh, perfect," Syd said. "We can stay alone here, together, and I'll help you finish he flowers."

I cringed. "Actually, on second thought, the flowers look perfect as they are," I said. "And I need a workout. Glaucia, do you want to be my spotter today?"

"Love to!"

"But I thought you said the flowers were still just a blank canvas?" Syd said.

"Sometimes, a blank canvas is exactly the look the artist is going for," I said.

"Syd, will you come to the gym with us?" Glaucia asked.

"Are you kidding me?" he asked her. "If I don't need to exercise to keep this studly body, why waste my time?"

"Alright, save the gym for us lowly humans," Glaucia joked. "Let's go, Lewis."

"Mom, do I have to? That gym is so boring. It doesn't even have a kids center."

"I know," I said. "Syd, why don't you look after your little brother until Glaucia and I come back?"

"Yeah, playtime with Syd!" Lewis yelled.

"I guess that's okay," Glaucia said.

"Wow, I couldn't think of any other better way to spend my afternoon," Syd said, with only me able to see through the phoniness. "Thanks for that suggestion, honey."

And so, Glaucia and I worked out in the mansion's gym, spotting each other and having a good time.

When Glaucia and I stepped back into the room after both of us were done, our jaws dropped at what we were seeing. "Oh my goodness!" I said.

"Lewis, what is the meaning of this?" Glaucia asked.

"Syd and I made the best fort ever!" Lewis said.

I looked at their "fort," which they had constructed by throwing the mattress and box springs on their sides, forming walls, and covering them with the upside down desk and settee. That's when I noticed Lewis was wearing my clothes, and I could see they were already covered with marker stains.

"Lewis, I see you found my clothes," I said, trying to hold back my anger. I HATED when people messed up my organized clothes, and now I wondered if those would even be salvageable. At least it was just one outfit.

"Syd said you wouldn't mind if I wore them," he said. "Makes me feel like home to have normal clothes on."

"Lewis, hush with that!" Glaucia snapped.

"And Syd and I used the rest of your clothes to make the bed inside the fort, isn't that great?" he asked, completely oblivious. I looked at every last piece of my other clothes, crumpled and wrinkled and stuffed about the place. And then I saw Syd, smiling smugly at me.

"Yes, thank you, Syd, for being the most accommodating babysitter of all time," I said.

"Ah, you should be thankin' yerself for having such a swell idea in the first place, honeybunch."

"Lewis, you go change back into your real clothes," Glaucia said. "Then could you help us carry all of this to our room? It'll still be a couple hours until they arrive."

As soon as Lewis was back in his cowboy clothes, looking very cross about it, I picked up the flowers and Glaucia grabbed the signs. As we left the apartment, Syd found a nearby maid and told her that the room needed to cleaned and rearranged immediately. Once again, I felt totally awful for the things Syd would ask the poor cleaning staff to clean up for him. If those people hadn't been slaves, they would have quit a long time ago.

When we were done dropping off the items in Glaucia's large room, Syd said, "Looks like you and I will get some time special alone time after all."

I looked at my watch. "I don't think so, Syd. I've got to run off to meet Boyd. Later."

I quickly said goodbye to Glaucia and Lewis and left before Syd could do anything to intervene.

I found Boyd waiting where he usually was, already riding Patches. He smiled when he saw me, and I returned the favor.

"Get on up behind me, kid," he said.

I climbed up on the horse behind him. "What are we going to work on today?"

"Just a little riding lesson," he said. "But first, there's something I want to show you. Hold on tight."

I wrapped my arms around his buckskin shirt as he rode us to the south, an area we had never gone before. As we got farther away from the mansion, I could start hearing the sound of the stream that Parker and I fished. Boyd stopped us at a thicket of pine trees, much too thick for any horse to get through.

"We have to walk from here," he said, jumping off the horse. He helped me down as well, even though I had gotten to the point where I was far more comfortable getting on and off these large horses.

The south corner of the mansion was still visible from there; we really weren't far at all from the mansion entrance. Certainly there hadn't been any need to ride there, as we could easily have walked. "Where are we going?" I asked.

"You'll see."

Boyd led me a small hole in the thicket that I hadn't seen until he started to crawl through it. "Let me help you," he said. He grabbed my hand, and gently guided me behind him through the tree twigs and pine needles.

We emerged shortly into a very small, circle-shaped clearing in the trees, about ten yards in diameter. The ground was covered in soft, brown grass, and the whole thing was surrounded by pine trees, making it impossible to see into, except for the area to the south, which actually bordered on an especially beautiful portion of that large creek.

"It's my special place," he said with a smile. "No one else has seen it until now." I noticed even though we were clearly through the trees, his hand was still holding mine, and it made my heart flutter.

"I love it," I said. "Do you come here a lot?"

"Yup. Even hid a trunk back here." He pointed to a small wooden trunk that I hadn't noticed before, concealed in the trees. "If you want a drink, just let me know."

"I don't want to drink before I do any riding," I said.

"Oh, right, that makes sense," he said, but I could tell there was a touch of disappointment.

"I'll have one when we finish, how about that?"

"Sounds nice," he said to me, smiling and looking into my eyes. Goodness, he was so handsome. "I was so proud of you in that rodeo tourney yesterday. You look wonderful on yer horse, Jake."

"Thanks to you," I said.

"I still thought there was room for improvement in the Flag Pulling and especially the Bull Wrestling events, where yer in the front of the saddle of the Clydesdale. I thought it'd be good to practice yer riding on the bigger animal today."

"Okay," I said.

"I figured this would be as good a place as any to leave our clothes for the day," he said, pulling off his hat and then yanking off his buckskin shirt, leaving his wonderful upper body bare. I marveled again at how sexy his smooth mocha skin was, stretched over those beautiful muscles on his upper body.

I started to take off my shirt as well, neatly hanging it over some of the tree branches. I removed my pants and did the same with them. As I stripped nude, I marveled how unusually warm the day was, and how good the bright sun felt on my skin.

This time, after Boyd had taken off all his clothes, he put only his hat and his boots back on. He left his belt and chaps on the branches.

"Ready to go?" I asked him.

"Ready if you are."

He grabbed my hand again and led me through his little path in the trees. This time I had to be very careful not to scratch my unit on any of the twigs and branches.

When we reached the horse, Boyd said, "Up and at `em," and helped me back onto the horse, once again using his hands to boost my butt up and into the saddle.

I scooted up to the front of the saddle, and then felt Boyd jump up behind me. I picked up the reins. "Should I take us to the flag course, or the bull pen?"

"Neither, I'll take those, thank you." He reached around and grabbed the reins from me, and started to steer the horse to the south, towards the creek. "I thought we could forget the grounds for a day and take my favorite ride along the creek as we work on the riding."

"Okay," I said, knowing that any excuse to get away from Mareshead was worth taking.

He led the horse along the creek bed, heading east, with all of Mareshead fading from view in no time.

"It's so beautiful here, so relaxing."

"Just lean back and relax," he purred into my ear, his moustache tickling my earlobe. "Let your body melt into mine. When we're riding like this, with me in control, your body should give into the wills of mine. Follow the commands I'm sending to the horse with my body by letting me be in control completely."

"Yes," I said softly, trying to still pretend like it was just the riding I was interested in, but having a harder and harder time. I could feel more and more blood flow to my unit as I let myself more and more fall under Boyd's spell.

We rode like that for a good half hour, just lazily riding along the creek bank, with Boyd periodically crossing the water so as to stay on the most passable side. He definitely knew what he was doing.

Then we came to place where the water pooled up into a large, still swimming-hole type of area. "The water's so pretty here," I reflected. "So tranquil."

"Not for long," he said. He surprised me by leading the horse into the water.

"You're not going to cross here, are you?"

"Why not?"

"It's too deep!"

"No, I told you, I know this creek, I've done this a thousand times before."

Sure enough, he headed straight for the deepest part of the water.

"Better get yer shoes up if ya don't want `em wet," Boyd warned as the water started moved up to the level of the Patches's belly.

I stuck my feet up in front of me, over the saddle horn. This meant I was forced to lean back more than ever, pushing my bare back against Boyd's bare torso, and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling my chest back into him. As the water continued to rise, he stuck his boots up as well, positioning them just to the outside of my shoes. He used this position to cradle my lower half with his strong, naked legs. Goodness, did this position drive me wild.

When the horse was at the center of the pool, the water reached up only to about a foot below where our butts hit the saddle. "This better be the deepest part," I said.

"Why, are you scared of a little water?"

"Not on a day like today," I said.

"I hope you mean that."

"Why is that?"

Instead of answering me, he held onto my body with his own, and then rolled us both off the horse to the left, straight for the water. I gasped as we first hit the cold surface, and soon enough my whole body was underwater.

Totally shocked, I tried to get my feet down on the ground and stand up, but Boyd's legs were intertwined with my own, and that tangle was keeping me from standing.

Boyd let me go, and then lifted me upright. My head poked above the water, and I breathed in air.

Boyd's head was up out of the water too, his face holding a twisted smile. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist," he laughed.

"You bastard," I said, but I was laughing too. I noticed the horse was already climbing out of the stream on the other side. "We're going to lose our horse if we're not careful," I said.

"No, he just wants to get out of the water. He'll wait for us on the other side."

"The water feels a lot better now that I've gotten used to it than it did when I first got in."

"Now that we're used to it, it'll feel colder getting out. Might as well stay here and enjoy ourselves."

The two of us splashed around for a while. Finally, I said, "I'm getting cold. I should get out."

"No, please stay, just a little bit longer."

"I'm really cold, Boyd. My teeth will start to chatter."

"I'll keep you warm," he said.

He closed the distance between us in the water, and then pulled me into a sweet but firm embrace. Beneath the surface of the water, I could feel his rubbery pecs press against my chest, his abs cutting into my stomach. He wrapped his thick arms around my sides and grabbed my back with his hands, pulling me towards him. He rubbed the side of my face with his. Below the water, I could feel him press his legs against mine, and I could feel his soft dick against mine, which felt completely enormous; thank goodness I was as cold and shriveled as I was. I'll admit, his body felt so good against mine, so much warmer. I clung back to it as tightly as he was holding me.

He rubbed his strong hands all over my back, warming me up with the friction.

"Mmm, warming up already, thanks," I said.

"Good, that's what I'm here for."

I felt his hands move lower, and start to rub furiously over my butt. Just when I felt a finger graze over my sensitive butthole, I felt his hands stop rubbing and instead hold onto my butt firmly. Then he started to move my body up and down quickly, creating rubbing friction all against our fronts, heating me up there as well. In the process, his soft dick rubbed and rolled around my own, wrestling it. Once I was fully warmed up, I lingered in his arms, just enjoying the closeness for a while. Finally, the horse neighed and jumped, then started to run to the side.

"Aw, shoot," Boyd said, breaking away from me and running across the pool and up out of the water after the horse. As soon as he was only up to his knees, I could see that his unit was a lot more swollen than usual, though certainly not hard.

I also saw something else far more dangerous. A rattlesnake coiled up and angry on a rock near the creek bed had clearly been what spooked the horse away.

"Boyd, careful of the snake!"

"I see it!" He ran out past the snake, and ran in his wet boots as fast as he could, which was scary fast. He caught the horse, stopped it, and tied it up.

"Nice!" I said, following him towards the shallow water, but not wanting to get near the snake.

Boyd came back, snuck behind the snake, and before I knew it, had it harmlessly behind the head in his hand.

"Don't kill it, Boyd."

"It's dangerous."

"We invaded its home," I said. "Just let it go, for me, please."

He threw the snake a long ways away, clearly putting it long out of range of us.

"We could continue our swim," he said.

"It's okay, now that I'm out I don't think I can get back in. Let's just continue on."

He looked a little disappointed as I stepped out of the stream and cringed at the feeling of having my shoes soaked through. He helped me get back on the horse, and then jumped up behind me. This time, we were both riding soaking wet, and it gave the feeling of his skin pressed against my back a totally different feel.

He handed me the reins. "Time for you to ride and for me to offer any pointers I can think of."

"But you're the one who knows where we're going."

"I'll tell you."

I grabbed the reins from him, and started to steer the horse myself, taking us along the creek bed.

He put his hands on my chest. "You're too tight in your upper body for riding, Jake," he said. "Loosen up."

He started rubbing his wet hands over my chest, stomach, and arms, making them all feel so, so good. Behind me, I swore I could feel his dick harden ever so slightly, though I couldn't be sure. What I was sure of, through, was that his dickhead had settled right against my hole, turning me on.

We rode for about fifteen minutes more before he told me to turn around and start back, so I did. The way back we barely spoke, but the air kept getting more and more charged sexually. The poke I was feeling against my hole was only getting more and more solid until I was absolutely certain he was getting hard, and feeling him react to the ride like that was setting me off as well.

By the time we arrived back at his thicket of trees, I was horny beyond belief and totally taken with Boyd.

"You're ridin' like a real pro now, kid," he said as he hopped off the horse and helped me down again. He tied the horse's reins to a tree.

"All thanks to you," I said.

"I promised you a drink," he said. "Let me help you though the trees." He grabbed my hand, much more like a lover than a friend, and guided me through the twisted branches.

"It sure is beautiful here, with the sun shining down," I said as we made it in.

He opened up his trunk and pulled out a large blanket. He quickly spread it over the grass, lied down on top, and patted the space next to him. I got down beside him.

"Let me get your drink."

He got up and went back to his trunk. After a couple minutes of hearing glass clinking, he came back with a glass for him and a glass for me.

"Here ya go," he said, handing me my drink, and lying back down with me.

I tried to look pleased as I noticed it seemed to again be the awful combination of straight whiskey with no ice. Didn't people drink anything else around here?

"Cheers," he said, raising his glass. "To new in life and people who come in and sweep us off our feet."

"Cheers," I said, clinking my glass to his. I took a sip, and the awful bite of potent whisky inflamed my mouth. I did my best to hide my dislike and my suddenly moist eyes.

"Like it?"

"It's great," I lied. If being with Boyd was going to mean I would have to pretend to like his strong drinks from time to time, I considered that a small price to pay for everything else I'd be gaining.

After we took a couple more sips of our drinks, he said, "You're still wet. Let me get a towel."

He returned to his trunk, pulled out a towel, and brought it back over. He knelt over me, looked over my skin carefully, and wiped my naked body until I was well dry.

"Hmm. I fear I've gotten yer skin all dried out and scratchy now," he said. "Let me fix that up for you."

He went back into his trunk and pulled out an old-fashioned looking glass bottle of lotion.

"My goodness, Boyd, what don't you have in that trunk of yours?"

He laughed as he brought over the lotion. "Here, close your eyes and relax. I'll get your skin as moist as when we left today."

I shut my eyes, and he started rubbing the lotion. He wasn't the least bit shy with his hands, rubbing the lotion into my arms, chest, and legs before finally getting to my dick. Luckily, he just lightly rubbed the lotion into my dick, keeping me from getting hard. As he did, I kept feeling his soft unit rubbing against my skin.

"Turn over and I'll moisturize your back."

I did as he asked, and flipped over so my dick was in the blanket, all the while keeping my eyes shut. I placed the right side of my face against the blanket in a comfortable position. He rubbed in the lotion into my legs, and then moved up to my back. As he rubbed it into my shoulders, I felt a slight graze of what I knew must have been his dick on my lower back. It felt hard to me, but I couldn't be sure.

He moved his hands down to my butt, and he took his sweet time rubbing that lotion into my buttcrack. I didn't know how to respond, so I kept quiet, pretending to have fallen asleep, but really my own dick was rock hard under me.

He rubbed away at my glutes for much, much longer than was necessary in order to just moisturize them. And then he started rubbing into my buttcrack itself, which I couldn't imagine had gotten dried out. And he rubbed, and he rubbed, and he rubbed, and then he put more lotion on his hands and rubbed some more. He was even rubbing my hole, which was driving me crazy.

And then I heard a very sexual groan come from his lips as he embraced my body from behind, pulling me back against him with those strong arms, his smooth pecs hitting my back, his nipples scratching me. His heavy, beefy legs were pressed against my own, and then I felt his huge dick, which was all too hard, be stuck into my crack, the whole shaft against me from perineum to the top of my buttcrack. He started to grind up and down, aided by the lotion in my crack, and feeling him move his shaft over my hole sent shivers through my body.

With my face still turned to the right, I felt him place the right side of his face against my left, felt his facial hair on my cheek. And then I felt those beautiful lips on my own, felt him force open my own lips with his strong tongue. His lips locked onto my own as he exploded into my mouth with his tongue, giving me seriously passionate kisses. At first, I dared not move, trying to pass off like I was still sleeping.

And then I just couldn't take it anymore, the passion had taken over me. In spite of my better judgment, I opened my lips and put my tongue inside his mouth as well, giving as good as I got. I could feel his massive vampire fangs with my tongue.

And once he knew I was awake and kissing him back, he turned all the more ferocious with his loving, kissing me harder, squeezing my nipples with his hands, and grinding into my crack with even more intensity.

"Yeah, this is so fuckin' hot. Yeah, Jake, I've wanted this since the moment I first saw you."

I pulled away, thinking of the promise I made not to tell anyone about Syd. This would seem to Boyd like cheating on my fiancé. "Boyd," I pleaded with him.

"Don't say a thing. Not a single word. Just let me kiss you. Please, I'm begging."

He kissed me again passionately, and once again, I felt my resolve melting away. I had to stop this. I pulled myself away once more. "Boyd, we can't do this--"

"No, please don't stop me. Just let me hold you. Just let me love you."

He kissed me again, and this time, he pressed his dickhead just barely into my butthole as he held onto my body with his strong, naked arms, his weight all over me, and his kisses turned more and more forceful.

"Boyd, you have to understand."

"No, you have to understand," he said sharply. "You're all wrong for Syd. You made a stupid choice picking him. Yer too goddamn young to know the difference between a hot fuck and a good match. The two of you fight like cats, and if ya marry him, I promise you, it'll be an eternity of spats you have to look forward to."

"Yes, you're right, we do nothing but fight."

He kissed me deep. "Can't you feel how much better we are for each other? Can't you feel my passion?"

He hugged me from behind harder than ever, and slipped his dickhead just the tiniest bit further into my hole just as he pulled both my arms back tightly, all of it sending sexual pleasure though me.

"Mmm, yes, I can feel it."

"Syd might be a good lover, I'll give him that, but let me prove to you that I'm better. Because I'm not just into you with my dick. My whole body wants to devour yours, so does my mind and my heart."

He was absolutely driving me crazy, humping against me the way he was, and there was nothing I could do to fight him any longer. "Mmm, yes, Boyd."

"Please tell me you'll let me prove to you how much I care for you, prove to you how wrong you were to pick Syd." He kissed me again.

"Yes, Boyd, yes," I moaned in between his fervent kisses.

"I'm so, so happy you trust me to show you the light." He started to get up off me and go towards the trunk.

"Where are you going?" I asked him as I spun around on my back, surprised at how disappointed I was to have him not touching me, even for a moment.

"I got some lube in the trunk. Just getting it."

"Boyd, the truth is, I don't really want to be topped. It's just not my thing."

"Really? I guess I misread you. Wait, then how come Syd always brags that he's fucking you to everyone with ears?"

"He's lying, he's never really topped me. I won't let him. I've never been topped, and I don't think it's anything I'll ever want to do. I hope you don't mind."

He came back, laid his naked body on top of mine, placing his humungous dick on my own dick, and again I loved feeling his entire weight on top of me. He put a hand on my cheek and smiled, flashing those perfectly white teeth and killer fangs. "Jake, unlike Syd, I don't give a fuck about topping you, not now and not ever. We can have just as much pleasure if not more without it, and I swear to you I'll never miss it. All I want it you to give yourself over to me completely."

"Yes, Boyd, I will."

And Boyd's fervent kiss returned to my mouth as he wrapped his arms around me, clawing at my back. I kissed him back, wrapped my arms around his as well.

He started to move his massive pole up and down against my body, against my hard dick. All the lotion as well as Boyd's hot precum was making short work of any friction there might have normally been, and feeling him grind away at me with such masculine power just drove me wild.

Boyd bit roughly into my earlobe, and I felt the climax of the sex bearing down on me quickly, that's how insanely turned on I was by him.

He wrapped my legs around his hips, and plowed into me even harder. "I want you so bad. I was made for you. Tell me you feel the same way, Jake."

"I do, I do."

"Tell me you were all wrong for Syd," he said, breathlessly. "Tell me you'll choose me, like I choose you."

"I do, Boyd, I will."

"Tell me you'll never lie to me, and I promise I never will lie to you."

"Boyd I..."

"Yes? Should I stop?" He paused for a moment, concerned.

"No, whatever you do, please don't stop. It's just that, I have to tell you the truth. I can't do this with you under the pretense of a lie anymore."

"Yes, please tell me. All I want from you is honesty."

I almost stopped there once again, but I could feel the orgasm coming, and my pleasure was so intense, and it was all because of this man that absolutely drove me wild, this man who was baring his soul to me, and he deserved the same thing back.

"Tell me the truth, Jake, or I'll stop this right now," he said, as we met new levels of passion.

"I'm not really engaged to Syd. That's all a lie. I hate the man, and was forced to enter myself into the engagement in order to stop Jericho from killing me. From the first day I met you, I knew I was attracted to you, yet I was forced to pretend like Syd was my fiancé, so I couldn't act on it. It's been so, so awful until this very moment."

"Yes, that's it, that's what I wanted to hear. Thanks for finally coming clean."

He bucked and humped against me harder than ever, and he moved against me at supernatural speeds, and he was actually thrusting against me so hard, it actually hurts But I reminded myself that I was having sex with a vampire, and vampires probably weren't too aware of the delicateness of their human partners. I blocked out the pain he caused me and just focus on the pleasure.

I felt Boyd's fangs penetrate my throat, and which sort of surprised me because he never asked me if that was okay, but I reminded myself that if this comes with the territory of being with Boyd, it was far worth it.

"Oh my lord, you taste like gold," he said, and if I was even semi-coherent, I would have said something snappy about how I was pretty sure he'd never tasted gold before if he said that. But the bite was turning me on even more than it ever had with Syd, and this time, I was going with the pleasure instead of trying to fight it, and pleasure poured around first my throat, and then cascaded down to every other part of me.

I could hear him groan louder than ever as he tried to say something to me, but I couldn't hear anything but mumbles as he didn't even stop to pull his mouth off my neck, but the mumbles sounded very sexual. His bucking hips started completely going crazy against my body, and I felt hot seed explode out of his dickhead all over my body.

As he spurted his giant load on me, it set me off, and I started shooting as well.

But then the bite turned different somehow, and I quickly went unconscious.

I opened my eyes, my head pounding. It took me a moment to realize that Boyd must have accidentally injected that special Logan Blood venom that makes one fall asleep. I still felt so tired, it was hard to move.

I blinked the weariness out of my eyes and looked over to see Boyd getting dressed over by the trunk. I saw what a mess I was in, my torso absolutely covered in semen (a whole lot more his than my own).

"Boyd, can you hand me that towel again?"

He didn't answer me.

"Boyd?"

"Ya might as well just keep sleeping," he said. "It really was a blast, kid."

He finished dressing, grabbed something out of the trunk, and walked out through the trees.

I grabbed the towel myself and cleaned myself up. I didn't immediately see my clothes, had he put them in the trunk?

I got to my feet, still reeling from that bite, and walked over to the trunk. I saw no sign of my clothes, but the first think I noticed was, along with the bottle of lube, there were stacks and stacks of condoms in there. He knew I couldn't get any STDs, and no one would ever need a condom with me, so that meant that those weren't there for me. It started to dawn on me that he must have had a lot of other people back here in his little love nest long before he invited me, putting his assurances that I was the first one to ever see it in doubt.

And then I saw something in the trunk that was even more distressing. I should have known, since he seemed to have everything else in there. It was a battery powered gramophone that looked like it had been set up to record. Where there should have been a record, there was nothing. I realized then just what he had been holding when he left.

Panic took a hold of me, and I spun around to find my clothes. A few seconds of searching and I found them floating in the nearby stream: wet, trashed, and abandoned.

I realized he was counting on me being too proud to run after him naked, figuring someone with my high level of dignity would find some way to cover myself before chasing him down. Well, he just didn't know me that well. Didn't know me one single little bit.

I ran out of the forest thicket without caring about the scratches I was getting. A long ways away, I could see Boyd walking towards one of the mansion entrances, holding the record in his right arm. There was no way I'd ever catch up. Unless...

I grabbed Patches, who was still tied to the tree, and I jumped up into the saddle. I turned him towards the mansion, and kicked in my heels, and we shot off together in the direction of my betrayer. I used all the skills Boyd had taught me to make the horse go as fast as it could.

When I reached the entrance, I jumped down and ran through the door. It was an entrance I hadn't ever used before, and I found myself in the back of the mess hall. Ahead of me, I could see Boyd walking towards one of the hall exit doors that would lead towards the Great Room. He was going for Jericho, and I couldn't let that happen.

I barely took notice of who was in the room in that late afternoon, barely noticed Syd and Tucker drinking together at the bar, or Arlene and Ryan eating at a table. None of the many mess hall occupants even noticed me until I started running as fast as I could towards Boyd. But soon, the noisy hall went silent and jaws started to drop as all of them took in the sight of me running naked through the room. I would have been mortified if my life wasn't in imminent danger.

I finally caught up with Boyd in the hallway, but he didn't stop walking towards his destination as he noticed me. "Boyd, what did you do?"

He ignored me at first.

"Please tell me."

"I made a recording of our little hot session in the trees, and this is all the evidence Jericho will need to end your sham engagement."

"You do understand that he'll kill me and my family as soon as you give that to him, don't you?"

"I don't give a fuck about any of that."

"So, what are you, Jericho's spineless lackey? You do whatever he orders you to do, is that it?"

"I'm not just handing this over out of a sense of duty. I'm not that stupid. I'm gonna negotiate for it. The Slades have been too long the lead family that the Logans piss on. Sure, we get a seat on the Cabinet, and we have some autonomy in our lands, but they've given most of our territory and subjects to the other families. Hell, the Dixons are rolling in what used to be Slade land. No longer will the Slades stand for this third class treatment."

"Is that really worth my life, Boyd?"

"Hell yes," he said. "I ain't got shit against you personally, kid, but ya had it coming to you. Yer dumb as shit, truth be told. The day you thought you met me the first time, out in that field, and I pretended I knew nothing about yer engagement? If ya even paid attention for half a second the day before, you woulda known I was sitting there in that very first council meeting, where Syd obviously concocted his ridiculous lil' plan in order to save you. I knew the whole time yer engagement was a fake. All I had to do was keep pressing on the Slade charm until you done broke. And record the breaking." He lifted up the record to show me.

"Please, I'm begging you, Boyd. If there was even the slightest part of you that wasn't faking your feelings, if there's a shred of humanity in there, please don't give Jericho that recording."

"Ha. You wouldn't even let me fuck you proper, like I wanted to the whole time. Nah, I don't give the slightest little damn `bout you."

I realized we were about to go through the door that would lead into the Great Room. It meant this would be my last chance to stop him. I angrily ran at him, grabbed the record in both of my hands, and pulled with all my might.

He never let go of the record. Instead, he body-slammed me into the wall so hard that I almost went black, and my hands came loose from the disc. Next thing I knew, he was inside the Great Room.

It took me a moment to recover myself. As soon as I did, I ran though the door after him. I quickly saw him walking towards Jericho's throne, and I sprinted, still naked, towards him, having no idea of what I would do when I reached him, but knowing I was willing to fight to my death if need be.

I noticed the same group of important people who had been there the night before when Syd and run naked across the room to stop Rose were sitting at the cabinet table, talking over important matters.

"Is that Jericho's son-in-law running across the room naked?" one of them asked, horrified.

"Yes it is," another said morosely. "Jericho assures me this behavior is sadly far from uncommon."

Just before I reached Boyd, I noticed that Jericho's seat was actually empty, and I thanked my luck.

"Where is he?" Boyd asked one of the guards.

"In his apartment, Mr. Slade."

Boyd started heading up the flights of stairs, and I stayed close at his heels. As soon as we were alone again in one of the hallways in the top floor, I said, "Please, it sounds like you are a man who's willing to enter into mutually beneficial gentleman's agreement. There must be something I can offer you to keep your mouth shut."

He stopped walking finally, looked me in the eyes, and rubbed his moustache. "I might be convinced by this hot little cunt right here," he said, reaching over and rudely sticking his finger inside me. "Yeah, nothing would be hotter to me than having you as my little fuck toy for eternity, free to feed on and fuck as rough as I wanted it, with you promising never to complain, no matter how bruised up you get."

It sounded like hell, and I knew I would rather die than live a life like that. But it was still worth it to save the lives of my loved ones. "I'd agree to that."

"Bend over, slave, and show yer master that sweet cunt in all its glory." He pushed me down forcefully so I was bent over, my hands touching the ground in front of me and my legs straight.

He got his knees and looked at my hole close up. "Oh yeah, look whose hole is ready for its master," he said. Then he lowered his face and raped me with his tongue while I cringed in horror. "Fuck, ya taste so good."

Finally, he stood up, but that just made things worse for me. Soon, I felt something hard and beyond huge pushing against my tight butthole, scaring me half to death.

"Oh yeah, feel how much this master's huge cock yearns for yer slave hole? I spilled seed just a short while ago, and yet here my dick is, hard as ever at the idea of tearing that sweet hole to pieces."

He stuck more and more of the head in, and I cringed in pain and shut my eyes, trying to block it all out, wishing I could just make myself disappear.

"But I can't do it," he said, backing off me. "As much as I would love nothin' better than to fuck you into oblivion from now on, I got more on the line here than just me. My whole family is counting on me here, and none of `em would understand if I gave up on them just so I could have the sex of a lifetime."

He continued walking as I stood up, feeling both disappointed and relieved at the same time.

"No deal."

He was just about to knock on Jericho's door when I heard, "Maybe I can make a deal with ya."

At first I thought it was Jericho's voice I was hearing, before I realized Jericho's voice never oozed empty charm like this voice did. We both turned to see Syd walking towards us.

He looked me over. "Nice choice of outfit, Jakey. It suits you so much better than yer goddamn Abercrombie preppy shit that you usually pass off as clothing." He looked at Boyd. "I don't think ya want to knock on that door, Boy."

"It's BOYD you stupid motherfucker. And I'm about three seconds away from handing over recorded audio from when I was plowin' yer so-called fiancé, and he was singing my praises and telling me all about yer stupid little fake engagement."

Syd gave me an angry look. "Oh, great fuckin' job, Jakey. I told ya to keep yer big mouth shut, didn't I? I warned ya not to listen to yer vulnerable heart, it'll kill ya every time."

"Berating me isn't going to help us any right now, Syd."

"I'm knocking." Boyd said as he raised his knuckle to the door.

"Now, you hold the fuck on," Syd said. "What if I told ya I repaid the favor you did to my fiancé by fuckin' yer wife?"

Holy crap, I couldn't believe he was married. All that time, I was crushing on a married man. It was so disgusting.

Boyd turned around and raised an eyebrow. "Yer bluffin.'" And of course he was.

"Maybe, maybe not. How will you know? If I tell someone about it, seems like yer marriage will be over, and she'll end up serving time for her crime of infidelity for a couple years."

It was absolutely maddening to me how she would punished for being unfaithful while he would go scot free, as his interactions with me technically wouldn't go against his marriage vows.

"No one would believe you without evidence," he said. "It would be her word against yours, and everyone knows yer are and always have been a lyin' fuck."

"What if I told ya I recorded the incident as evidence, just like you did?"

Boyd raised the gramophone record and smiled. "You used one of these to record it, did ya? That might have some real bite if my wife wasn't deaf and mute. That's why I fuckin' married her." He turned back towards the door and raised his knuckle. "Nice try. Go fuck yerself."

"Wait!" Syd said. He quickly pulled his cellphone out of his pants and pressed some buttons. He raised the phone to Boyd's face.

"I don't give a fuck who yer trying to call with that modern device, I'm telling Jericho right this second."

"I know this may blow yer limited mind, but this funny little box ain't just for callin' folks these days. Believe it or not, I can use one of these to record a video. And no one here has any goddamn clue what these things could do, so if I left this on, let's say, your nightstand, pointed your bed while I fucked yer wife silly, no one is the wiser."

He pressed a button, and a video came on the screen. I thought he had been bluffing the whole time, pulled something out of thin air like he always did to save his butt, so I was shocked to see Syd on top of an attractive black woman in a strange bed, both of them naked, with him absolutely going for it.

"That's not her," Boyd said. "You just found someone that looks like her. I can't even see the woman's face. Nice try."

"Wait a second," Syd said, looking at the screen happily. "There. Right there."

The woman turned towards the camera, and her facial features couldn't possibly be in doubt. I could see Boyd's face turning dark with boiling anger.

"And this, this is my favorite part, just wait `til you see this," Syd said excitedly. "You will love this shit. See this? She wanted to have me pound her doggy style, so she grabs her legs, sticks her feet in the air, and I flipped her over in bed without my huge dick ever stopping pounding all the way through her body."

With the woman facedown in bed, Syd started to wave and grin at the camera while screwing her harder and harder, loving himself back then just as much then as he was in the present. "Damn, sometimes I forget what a fucking stud I am `til I see myself in action. No other man could even come close." He finally pulled his eyes away (which seemed to take all his willpower) and looked back at Boyd. "So, you see, it seems we do have something to negotiate, after all."

"She's not cheating on me, you fucking idiot. We have an open marriage. I'm allowed to fuck whoever I please, and so is she. It's none of my goddamn business who she chooses to bed, though I had hoped until now that she would have much better taste than to ever chose you."

"Looks like you underestimated how fucking irresistible I am."

"Or I overestimated the pool of potential partners she had access to here. Clearly she must have been desperate beyond belief in order to go for someone like you, Syd. Anyway, since she wasn't cheating, all of your efforts will prove useless. I don't care who sees that recording."

"You two may have made some special arrangement that means she really isn't betraying you with this action, but I don't think that excuse is going to fly when it comes to breaking a Logan law. The law is the law, Boy, and she'll end up doing time."

"Boyd! The name is Boyd!"

"I think Boy is much more appropriate, given the child-like immaturity in which you try to play my game. I knew from the second you started helping Jake what you were up to. It don't take no genius to know that you been lookin' for a way to get on Jericho's good graces for decades. I knew you were a slimeball, I knew Jakey was fuckin' weak hearted, and I so I started fucking yer wife, just for insurance. I think yer real cute, tryin' to keep up with the big boys, Little Boy Slade, but ya can't play a much older player than you."

Boyd looked seriously pissed. "Alright, what do you want for this?" he said, holding up his record.

"I want you to never touch Jake again, and I want you to swear no one will ever know what you and him did."

"Fine, as long as the same is true about my wife. And I don't even want her to know about any of this, understood?"

"I think that could be arranged. Oh, and one more thing. I know you and yer wifey are competing us against in our next rodeo competition."

"Yeah, so?"

I was shocked, that came as a total surprise to me.

"I want you to throw the match," Syd said. "But not in any way that will draw any suspicion."

Boyd looked seriously pissed at the idea of losing a match. "How clever of you to ask this, `cause you know fucking well that there's no way you'd ever win legitimately."

"I know what yer tryin' to do, ya think you can bruise my dignity into having you compete legitimately. But as Jakey knows, I ain't got a shred of dignity or honor. I'd rather win the match period than win it fair and square."

"I'll cut you a deal. I'll throw three events in the rodeo, and no more. And I won't throw them so much so that my wife will suspect anything. She can't know. That means you'll still have to play legitimately well enough to beat us, can you handle that?"

"What are the three events?"

"Axe throwin,' which will just mean I ain't gonna win when it comes time to throw my axes. I ain't gonna ruin my wife's turn by flinching, `cause that would imply I didn't trust her. Also, Calf Ropin,' and Headin' and Heelin.'"

"Deal," Syd said, sticking out his hand, which Boyd shook. "I'm deleting this video right now.

"Oh, if you think I'll trust you, yer fuckin' stupid. I want the phone."

"Hey, it's cool, I got another one." Syd handed the phone over as Boyd gave him the record. "Now that you have one of those fancy phones, you can be my new cellular BFF. I can text you every few seconds, and we can play videogames together, and we could--"

Boyd made his hand turn to steel, then he crushed Syd's phone to pieces right in front of his face with an evil glare, dropping the pieces all over the floor.

"Well, that's the last time I try to save you from being stuck in the 19th century. I think I'll do the same to your little present."

He ripped the record into pieces, but held onto them.

"Don't think that just because I agreed to yer terms means you can freely treat me like shit in public," he said. "You try to pull any of the shit that you do on this one," he said, pointing at me, "and the only thing I'll be throwing is your dead body."

"Fine, I'll try to be civil," Syd said. "Thanks again, Boyd. Been a pleasure doing business with ya," he mocked.

Syd and I walked down the hallway towards his apartment.

As soon as we were in an empty hallway, Syd said, "I'm gonna go outside, burn this disc, and dispose of the remnants. I don't want anyone performing any unexpected miracles."

I nodded. "My horse is still out there. Put him away too, please."

"You can thank me later, Jakey. In fact, I'm already fantasizing about all the wonderful ways you can thank me." He turned and walked the other way.

I got to Syd's apartment without anyone else seeing me naked. As soon as I went into the room, which looked like it had been returned to its normal state after the remodeling Syd and Lewis had done, I walked over to the tub and filled it with water. I didn't care if I had taken a bath once already that day, I felt disturbed and dirty.

As I scrubbed every part of me that was ever touched by Boyd, I wished that I could go back and scrub away all the things I had done with him as well. I kicked myself for being so stupid. My love life consisted of Jarrett in San Francisco who had turned out to be a racist jerk, Viktor who had turned out to be a twisted obsessive, Syd who had been on a mission to seduce me and turned out to be a total bastard, and now Boyd, who had somehow managed to match Syd's manipulative bastardness on every level. Throw in a couple forced encounters with vampires who only wanted to use and abuse my body: Jeremiah, Sherriff Towerlry, and Steely. The only two men who had actually been worth my affection were both totally straight and unavailable, Ahmad and Parker. My love life had consisted entirely of failures and betrayals, many of which I blamed myself for not seeing through them from the start.

It was a good argument for me to take a vow of celibacy and give up on love for the rest of my life. At least then I wouldn't ever have to feel the pain I felt then of my heart being trampled on by Boyd.

I rinsed off one last time, and then got dressed in new, clean clothes. Soon after, Syd came into the room, followed by Glaucia and Lewis, all of them carrying cards.

"Darlin, look who found me on my way up to the room?" Syd said, and though he was smiling, I could hear that he was annoyed that he wouldn't have any alone time with me. Even though he knew I had just had sex with Boyd, he still had that glint of desire in his eye.

"The stagecoach should be arriving any minute now," Glaucia said, handing me the flowers. "Let's go greet them."

We walked through the Great Room and through the front door, with Glaucia trying as hard as she could to try and distract Lewis from the naked male slave that was occupying the cage on the ground floor, and I tried to mentally distract myself from thinking about that poor man's certain fate as well.

We waited just a few minutes in the loop of dirt road in front of the mansion before we saw their stagecoach start to approach.

By the time the stagecoach stopped in front of us, Glaucia was giddily jumping up and down in anticipation. "Oh look, there's Annie getting out!" she said.

We all looked carefully. "Are you kidding me?" Syd said. "That woman couldn't look less like Annie. That's the Fools Gold stuffy librarian."

The woman climbing out the back door of the stagecoach was in her late forties, in a prim grey dress that covered up every inch of her skin lower than her chin, had a tight grey bun of hair, and glasses.

"Oh, well she must be the one behind her then," said Glaucia.

I looked to see a woman getting off the stagecoach directly behind the librarian, almost pushing the librarian out of the way. She was an Asian woman, perhaps my age, and she had tons of modern make- up on. Unlike the librarian who was dressed extremely modestly, this woman just had on a modern, very revealing bra, a thong, and a pair of stilettos. She had a modern beer in each hand, with the labels on the bottles and everything, clearly BYOBing from the outside.

"Are you crazy, Mom?" Lewis asked.

"Do you need glasses, Glaucia?" Syd asked.

"I have them, but I refuse to wear them for cosmetic reasons," she said.

"Well, maybe you should unrefuse," Syd said.

The Asian girl in her underwear suddenly tripped her stilettos on the stagecoach as she tried to disembark, and fell forward. Syd jumped forward like lightening and kept her from falling. She put her arms around him and let him carry her and put her down on the ground.

"Wow, my shining knight, er, I mean, sexy cowboy coming to my rescue," she said, slurring her words, clearly drunk.

"Always glad to help a girl whose first instinct when falling is to keep her beers safe instead of stopping her fall."

"Did you lose your clothes, sweetie?" Glaucia asked, concerned.

"Huh? Oh, those. Nah. I noticed how out of place they were in this big ol' Frontierland they were here, so I ripped them off and tossed them out of the stagecoach after my third beer."

Now that she was closer to us, I could see that she clearly wasn't a vampire: she had brown eyes, and she wasn't nearly as attractive as any of the vampires were. In fact, she was more than a little plain, though she just seemed to ooze sexuality. "Well, Meredith's would have something you could wear," I said, trying to be helpful. "You must be freezing."

"You know, your arms felt really nice against my cold skin," she slurred to Syd. "I'd bet you'd warm me up real fast. You know where I can get a hotel room around here?" she asked.

"They have rooms available in the back houses," Glaucia said. "Just go through the mansion and you'll see them."

She never looked at Glaucia, instead staring into Syd's eyes. "And do you know where I can find a cowboy as smoking hot as you to keep my bed warm at night?"

Syd looked down at her, his eyes penetrating. I knew he was trying to decide if the woman was good looking enough to live up to his standards. She seemed decidedly less attractive than any of the women I'd ever seen him chase, though she certainly seemed like an easy enough catch for him.

He smiled his devilishly charming smile. "Well, you'll never find anybody as hot as I am to share your bed, I'm afraid. But, I'm sure you'll find a lesser caliber of cowboy easily enough. Good luck, Darlin.'"

She looked slightly wounded, but took a sip out of one of her beers and stumbled on towards the mansion.

A few others came out of the stagecoach, and then Annie came out, followed by Parker. Parker's eyes locked with mine as he stepped out of the cabin, and he smiled warmly. Goodness, it was so good seeing him again after everything that had happened since he left.

"Congratulations!" Glaucia said, jumping around.

"Oh, you guys didn't have to do this!" Annie said, a big smile coming to her face.

"Yeah, this is much too much fuss," Parker said.

"Lewis, give them your sign!" Glaucia said.

Lewis was holding up the congratulatory sign, and he brought it to Parker. "I can't read it yet, but it says something nice."

"Well, thanks so much, Lewis," said Parker, kneeling down and hugging the kid.

"And Jake took special care arranging the flowers," Glaucia said.

I handed the flowers to Annie.

"Oh, thank you. Wow, these flowers are so... organized," she said. "Parker will love them, he adores order."

"Yeah, thanks so much, Jake, that was really sweet of you," said Parker, coming over and giving me a warm hug, which I absolutely loved. I noticed he smelled so clean and good, even after a whole day on the road.

"So?" Glaucia asked.

"So what?" Parker asked.

"What do you mean, `so what?' What's the sex of the baby?"

Annie smiled. "He's a baby boy," she said.

Glaucia went nuts. She pulled out the boy variation of the two possible banners and held it up. "Yea!"

"Oh great, another Logan swinging dick around here," Syd joked.

"Are you guys up for dinner?" Glaucia said as we walked towards the mansion.

Annie looked at Parker. "We're pretty tired from the ride, and we had a late lunch that I packed," she said. "We'll do it next time." I was disappointed, mostly because it would have kept Syd and me from being alone.

When we got inside the Great Room, Parker said he needed to report something to the Cabinet, which seemed to be gathering together for a meeting. As soon as Annie, Glaucia, and Lewis had left, Parker saw Giggles, and walked over to her.

"Hi, Giggles. Can I have a word with you?" he asked.

She giggled. "Why, of course, sweet brother." She took him to the side of the room and the two of them started to discuss something.

"Well, let's call it, a night, shall we, my lover?" Syd asked me.

"You know what, Syd? I'm going to stay down here for the Cabinet meeting as well," I said.

"Why on earth would you want to do that?" he asked.

"Because I have an important issue I wanted to bring up for discussion, just like Parker," I said.

"There's been Cabinet meetings like every five minutes since we got here, so this must be some new issue?"

"Yes."

He raised an eyebrow. "And what would that be?"

I racked my brain. "Well, um, you see..."

"Yes?"

"All the flowers Glaucia and Lewis picked today surely did serious damage to their gardens here. I wanted to propose increasing the gardening staff by threefold."

"You are such a thoughtful plant-lover, Jakey. I was going to leave, but I think I'll stick around. I want to see you deliver this proposal to Jericho in person."

Jericho suddenly swept into the room, and though no one turned and bowed to him, you could feel the room get a lot more tense. Well, except for the newcomer girl in her underwear, who was wandering around, joking with various people as she pounded her beers, seemingly oblivious to the people gradually coming to sit down at the table. Was she too drunk not to realize she wasn't in some cheap club somewhere? I cringed as I saw her approach Jericho and gasped, knowing she had no idea who he was. I couldn't hear them from where I was standing, but it was clear she was flirting with him.

"That girl's going to end up getting killed," I said, and Syd looked as well.

But then the truly amazing happened: Jericho flirted back. He didn't go so far as to smile, I'd say, but he started to feel her up, clearly enjoying what was on display.

"Holy shit, he's hot for her," Syd said.

Right then, Parker rejoined us, Giggles taking her seat at the table.

"Hey bro, what can you tell me about the sexy girl on the stagecoach with you and Annie?" Syd asked.

"Hmm, let's see," Parker said, seemingly racking his brain. "Oh, you mean Margaret the librarian?"

"What?! No, I don't mean the stuck-up librarian. Is that really the first thing you thought of when I said the word `sexy?'"

He turned red. "Hey, I've always had a thing for librarians."

"You academics are so fucked up," Syd said. "Well, I bet ya screwed the lady on the stagecoach, didn't ya? She showed you the little pink book in her private collection, right?"

"Don't be so crass. No, of course not," Parker was saying. "I haven't slept with anyone since Annie and I married."

"What about when she's out of town? What do you do for blood?"

"I drink the refrigerated blood," he said.

Syd made a face. "I couldn't survive that way," he said. "No, I meant HER, ya moron." He pointed at the Asian girl flirting with Jericho.

"Oh, her. Umm, I don't know, I didn't talk with her. I think her name was Enid? And she had just come in through the West Gate quarantine. The people that work there could tell you more about her than I could, I'm afraid."

"She seems like a major slut looking for a stud to fuck her. What else do I really need to know?"

"I'm begging you to stay away from her, Syd," Parker said. "She may seem well experienced to you, but she's only in her early twenties. She couldn't possibly be as experienced she seems. And no one in their twenties is really ready psychologically for the kind of fun you have to offer."

"You mean, fucking the hell out of them, drinking their blood, and then tossing them aside?"

"Yes, exactly. Unless you are ready to treat this woman with respect in bed and commit to her later, let this one pass you by."

"Thanks for once again being the world's biggest cock block. You always come through, Park."

He walked away from us, towards the long table where the Cabinet members sat.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats," Cornelius announced. "The meeting is about to start."

Jericho seemed almost reluctant to push this Enid out of the way so he could take his seat on the throne. She tried to follow him up, but a guard stopped her.

Rebuffed, she walked back over to where we were standing. "What a jackass," she said. "That douche kept me from getting it on with that guy who looked just like you but with a weird moustache," she said to Syd. "He was telling me that I turned him on more than any girl here, and how he would love to join me for dinner."

"I think he actually said that he would love to HAVE you for dinner," Syd said.

"Huh?"

"Never mind, sweetheart," he said. "Listen, you're messing with the wrong Logan. I'm the only one here that has an answer to every one of your tiny, secret desires. He's the one who will lead you straight for a mass communal grave by the end of your fist date."

"I thought you weren't interested?" she asked him.

"I changed my mind. How about we go back to that room of yours, get that dinner together, and eat every morsel off of each other's naked bodies?"

"Finally, someone here's speaking my language. You're on, sexy."

She took his arm and they walked off through an exit. I shook my head. Just moments before, he had rejected her. Amazing how the attention Jericho showed her seemed to make her so much more attractive in his eyes. Syd's extreme competitiveness with his father (and brother, for that matter) was just plain bizarre.

At least it meant I had Syd off my back at least through dinner. I just needed some way to get him occupied for the later evening too, like he had been the night before.

I noticed Rose coming into the room. That was right, she was a Cabinet member as well. She didn't even look at me as she passed me. "Hey Rose," I said.

She looked at me sternly. "If you desire to speak with me, human dog, you should address me as `Ma'am.'"

I would have rather spit on her, but I needed her to listen to me, so I pretended to be meek. "Sorry, Ma'am," I said. "I have something to say about Syd."

She perked up about that and approached me. "Yes?" she asked, in a quiet tone of voice.

"Well, did you enjoy his visit last night?" I asked.

Her face went red, but she let out a very subtle smile. "Oh, it was wonderfully intense. I've never slept with anyone in my life with so much passion. I was a whole new person in his hands."

"I guessed that's what you would say," I said. "All day he's been going on and on about how last night was the best he's ever had."

Her tiny smile broke free a little more. "Really? He said that about me?"

"Yes," I told her. "He's been praying you'll call on him again tonight. If your lovemaking is as hot as it was the last night, he's thinking of just throwing away those IOUs and just giving you a lifetime pass."

"Really?" she said, delighted. But then her face turned suspicious. "Then how come I saw him walking arm in arm with some two-bit tart in her underwear on my way in?"

I panicked. "Well, you see... that girl hit on him, but he told her, no one could ever replace Rose, and he was escorting her to Meredith's to force her to buy a proper dress. He wasn't the least bit interested in her."

"He'd better not be, or I'll be very, very upset," she said. "So upset, there's no telling what I might do or who I might go to."

"Oh, I guarantee he only has eyes for you."

"Alright, tell him I'll be cashing in my next coupon tonight," she told me, then she turned and walked back to the table, taking her seat.

I rejoined Parker. "Jake, I want you to know how thrilled I am that you won your first rodeo competition," Parker said. "Truth be told, I was beside myself with anxiety about it yesterday, I couldn't think about anything else. I called Glaucia as soon as it was over to get the good news. I'm so exuberantly proud of you."

"Thanks Parker. Look, I would absolutely love it if you could start training me for the next competitions. Arlene and Ryan were rusty novices, we won't have that luxury with the other two couples." My thoughts went to Boyd.

"I'd love to help you, Jake, but I thought you said you'd prefer Boyd to teach you because you two had some romantic sparks flying?"

My face went hot. "Yeah, Boyd's out of the picture now. I'll tell you all about it when I get you alone. But that means I'm relying on you to make sure I have what it takes to win my next two rodeos."

"Sure, want to start meeting in the morning again? Is Cornelius still letting you out in late morning just as I arranged with him?"

"Yes. Let's make that a daily practice, if you can spare the time."

"Of course I can. Let's start tomorrow. I'd love that."

I winced. "Oh, there's one problem with this. Syd told Glaucia that he and I would teach her how to ride, as she's flipped out ever since she learned that she'll have to compete against us with her husband. She lied and told him she was an expert, when really she knows nothing. I have no problem teaching her except that Syd uses the fact that she believes Syd and I to be some super sexual couple as an unholy means of sexually taking advantage of me in the name of teaching her."

Parker looked very angry. "He always does that in front of her in the mess hall, or in front of any audience, really. It really bothers me."

"Well he takes it to a new low when we're riding in front of anyone who still believes us to be a couple, like at her lesson, or at the rodeo competition. I just frankly can't stand it."

"I'm on it," he said.

The last Cabinet members sat down, including Tucker, who clearly had been drinking.

Jericho looked at Parker standing there. "As far as I know, you're not a part of this Cabinet," Jericho barked. "What do you want, Gimpy?"

Parker ignored that bite. "I come with unfortunate news from Fools Gold, conveyed to me by an old information source I used to use when I was heavily involved in espionage."

"Yes?" Jericho asked. "What's the news?"

"The drug cartel run out of Guadalajara," he said.

Giggles stood up. "The one I infiltrated a couple years ago. It took me eight months of being deep undercover before they trusted me, and only then was I able to eliminate the undercover Mexican agent that had been tainted by the Valmor Blood." I understood then what Parker and Giggles must have been discussing on their own.

"Apparently, the cartel is once again at risk. One of the major players within it has gone rogue, selling out to the Valmors. The source wasn't sure who it was, but knew it had happened. They're leading the cartel towards destruction as we speak."

"No," Jericho said. "If that cartel dies, I'll lose my footing in that whole region. Giggles, you have to go back."

"Yes Daddy."

"You'll need to be deep undercover again," Jericho said. "Leave first thing tomorrow. These people are criminals, they're suspicious of everyone. They'll search through everything you have, monitor you at all times. You're not to make contact with us unless absolutely necessary. And just in case we have any unwanted ears in this mansion, I don't want you telling any of us where this cartel is."

"Yes, Daddy," she chirped cheerfully. "Big Horn delivered me to the cartel last time, he's the only one who knows where they are besides me. I'll ask him to take me again."

He squinted at me. "Speaking of unwanted ears, why is he here?"

"It's okay, I'll leave," I said, just as I noticed Boyd coming in the room and joining the meeting late, my anger bubbling over again.

Parker waved goodbye to me as I left the Great Hall. I was hungry, so I walked over to the mess hall and grabbed a dinner there, trying to keep my mind off of all the things I had done sexually with Boyd.

After I was done with dinner, I went back up to Syd's room, looking forward to the rest of the night being spent curled up with one of my biographies.

I was expecting the room to be empty, so I didn't bother knocking before letting myself in. That proved to be a huge mistake. Instead of a vacant apartment, I walked in on Syd and Enid enjoying white- cake dessert together, enjoying it so much because they were eating it off each other's bodies.

Syd was naked in bed with Enid. She was on her back with her high heels in the air, while he was face down on top, his head down between her thighs. I could see him licking out the cake that had been stuck inside her, white frosting and a self-satisfied grin all over his face.

"Oh, disgusting!" I said. They looked up at me, but didn't seem to mind me being there.

"Either step inside or get out, Jakey," Syd said. "Yer making a draft."

I really wanted to turn around and leave, but I was too concerned. "What happened to going to her room?"

"Turned out her room had three other women she was sharing with, none of them particularly attractive," Syd said.

"You guys can't do this here," I said.

"Why not?" Syd asked. "Aw, sweetheart, you getting jealous all of the sudden?"

"No, absolutely not," I said. "But Rose is. Turns out she's kind of falling for you. She really didn't like the idea that you were pursuing Enid at all, so I had to make up some excuse. If she sees you with her now, who's telling what she'll do."

"Don't worry `bout it, darlin," Syd said. "Our agreement was never for me to be monogamous with her."

"I don't think she cares, really," I said. "And think about it Syd, she has all the power. She was insinuating that if you weren't monogamous with her, she'd tell everyone the truth. So, don't you see? You'll need to be monogamous with her, just until we end this thing."

"Uh-uh, no way, it's not happening. There's no way in hell I'll ever be able to stand only screwing someone who kisses like the abominable snowman."

He put frosting all over his huge, hard dick, first slathering it all over that giant pink mushroom, then caking the rest of his massive stalk as well.

"I can' believe you would behave so recklessly," I said. "I thought you told me you were good at these little games."

"I'm the best there is," he said. "Which is exactly why she'll believe I've been totally monogamous the entire time, even when I've been bedding five ladies a day."

There came a knock on the door. Syd and Enid stopped what they were doing and looked.

"Oh, and I was about to tell you," I whispered. "Rose is using another one of her IOUs tonight."

"Who is it?" Syd yelled.

"Just your dream lover!"

"Damn!" Syd swore under his breath. "Okay, Rosie darling, just give me a second, the door's locked."

"Hurry!"

"Just sneak me out the back door," Enid whispered.

"There is no back door!"

"Goddamnit," Syd whispered. "Jake, take Enid into the bathroom."

"Come on, Enid," I whispered, helping the drunk girl to her feet.

"But I thought I was gonna get screwed tonight?" she slurred, thankfully keeping her voice down.

"Hey, yer not the only one that's missing out, darlin,'" Syd said, helping me push her towards the door. "Nothin' I hate worse than havin' to quit in the middle of some good sexin' without getting my rocks off."

Syd helped prop Enid up on the toilet lid. "How long do you expect me to wait in here?" she asked.

"Until I fuck Rose and she leaves."

"So, do you happen to suffer from sever premature ejaculation?" she asked.

"Hell no," he said. "I can go all night long, baby."

"Well then, it sounds like you're expecting us to stay in the bathroom for at least an hour. That's not gonna happen. You'd better make it snappy or I'm just gonna walk out."

"Look, I'll give you two a signal," Syd said. "When I say, `giddy-up, Rosie,' that's yer cue to sneak very quietly out of the room, okay? I'll make sure her eyes are turned."

"You'd better be doing something to stop her ears from working too," I said.

"Syd, what's the hold up?" Rose yelled.

Syd shut the bathroom door.

"I feel kinda sick," Enid slurred, clearly way beyond her alcohol limit.

"Shh!" I said.

"Here ya go darlin,' come on in," Syd said, and I could hear the front door open.

"Whoa, how come you're naked?" Rose asked.

"I just tore off my clothes for you, baby," he said.

"And you're already totally firm?" she asked.

"What can I say? I've been dreaming about you all evening, Rose. You've made me so horny for you."

"Oh, so am I," she said.

I heard the door shut, and then I heard them kissing.

"Mmm, you taste like alcohol," she said. "You haven't been drinking, have you? You know I like all your attention on me."

"No way, darling. I'm as sober as a bone."

"Then how come there's half-drunken beer bottles all over the room?" she asked suspiciously.

I looked at Enid. "Those are mine," she mouthed.

"Jake was just here," Syd said. "That guy has a huge drinking problem, let me tell you. Worse than Tucker, in fact."

I rolled my eyes.

"The human's not coming back here, is he?" she asked with disgust.

"No, darlin,' we have the room to ourselves."

"Wait a second, why is there white stuff all over your penis?"

I gave Enid an angry glance, and she shrugged.

"Well, darlin,' `cause I just slathered frosting on it for your personal enjoyment," he said. "You'll just have to lick it clean."

"Whoa, I've never licked a man's genitals before."

"Well, there's a first time for everything."

"Are you sure that's not going to make me sick? You've bathed in the past couple hours, right?"

"Damn right I have," Syd lied."

"Well, I guess it won't kill me."

"That's it, sweetheart."

I could hear slurping sounds, and then she said, "Mmm. Uh oh, I got frosting all over my face. Let me just use your bathroom to wash it off."

I could hear her steps coming towards the bathroom, and I started to freak out.

"Lock the door!" Enid mouthed.

I quickly looked down at the handle, trying to figure out how to lock it before remembering that this door didn't have a lock.

Right before I heard her fast footsteps reach the door, I heard Syd's heavier footsteps run against the door, obviously blocking her.

"What are you doing, Syd?"

"Don't wash it off," he said. "Why waste it, when you have a strapping, naked man with you who is dying to lick it off your skin?"

"Oh, really?"

"Oh yes," he said, and I could hear the sounds of licking.

She laughed. "Ha ha, that tickles."

"There ya go, all clean."

"Actually, I got some up my nose," she said. "Let me just wash it off."

"Oh, uh, I can lick that up too," Syd said, and I cringed.

"You want to lick the frosting that's up my nostrils?" she asked him, a little put off.

"Yeah, I'm totally turned on by your sexy lady nostrils, sweetheart."

"I'm sorry, that's just a bit too weird for me. I'm going into the bathroom."

"No, it's--"

I could see the doorknob start to turn, and I panicked, figuring our game was up. In one last ditch effort to hold on, I grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door as hard as I could towards me.

I could feel her trying to pull the door open from the other side, but I was stronger.

"The door's locked," she said.

"That's what I was tryin' to tell ya," he said. "Jakey was stupid enough to lock it from the inside and shut it on the outside. And there ain't no lock to open it, neither. We're having he locksmith come first thing tomorrow."

"Wow, that human is even stupider than I first thought," Rose said. "Given his drinking problem, he probably made that mistake when he was inebriated."

"Darlin,' he does EVERYTHING inebriated."

I fumed. How come Syd's lies always had to involve something ridiculous on my behalf?

"You can wash up in the bathtub," Syd said, turning the bathwater on. I noticed the water was making a lot of noise.

"There," she said after a moment, and turned the water off.

"Why not leave it on?" he asked her. "I'd love to bathe every part of you."

"Whoa, let's not get too crazy," she said. "I've never done that before with anyone. You seem to have a wide sexual repertoire, Syd, but I really just like nothing more exciting than some missionary position, traditional sex. Lying down, in bed."

"That sounds, um, great," he said. "I love that too. We'll do it just like last night."

"Remember, just like last night, I don't want you to enter me at any time, because you're much too endowed for that. Just rub yourself against me. Nothing's hotter than that, right?"

"That's the hottest, darlin,'" he forced himself to say. "Like I told you, I hate being on the inside of someone. It feels so stuffy and cramped. Let me help you out of those clothes."

Right then, I saw Enid slump off the toilet seat and lift the lid up, making a loud "clang" as she did. I was so angry at her, but she stuck her face into the toilet, looking like she might need to throw up.

"Wait, did you hear something?" Rose asked. "A banging?"

"No, I don't think so," Syd said. "Come here and kiss me again."

Enid's drunk forehead slammed against the porcelain tank part of the toilet, hitting the doorknob with another loud noise.

"There it was again," Rose said.

"Oh, that," Syd said. "Don't worry about that, sweet thing. These walls are thin, and one of my neighbors has been doing construction in their room."

"Even at this time of night?" she asked.

"Yes, all the time. You know what? What I'd really love? Some really nice lovemaking music," he said.

"Music?" she questioned. "If you're suggesting bringing the band in here while we have sex, you can forget it."

"No," he said. "Remember how you said before you were willing to learn how to be like a modern woman for me?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Well, this is part of that. Do you know anything about modern music?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, modern folks have machines that play songs for them. They love to make love while playing their romantic, sexy music."

"But you don't have any sound machine in here," she said.

"No, but ya know what? I think I can find a song on my cell phone and play it that way." I heard him grabbing his phone and looking through it. I had never heard Syd play any music on his phone before and I wondered if he really knew he had it. "Ah yes, there's some music," he said.

`All of the sudden, his Pacman ringtone came on, and I figured he had made a mistake.

"That's the music modern people find romantic?" she asked, dubious.

"Yeah," said Syd, turning it up. It sounded horridly annoying. "This song gets modern couples going like no other."

"Well, it certainly sounds futuristic," she said.

Right then, Enid started to vomit into the toilet, making a lot of sick, disturbing sounds, and I cringed, thinking she would be heard. But the sound of the phone must have masked the noise, because Rose never said anything about it. The smell of Enid's beer vomit was making me feel sick myself.

"You know what, there's one more thing I want you to try," Syd said to her. "Something that modern ladies love to do before the missionary position."

"What's that?" she asked.

"They call it, giving head."

"How does that work?" she asked.

"Well, I'll stand up here against the headboard, and you kneel in front of me."

"Like this?"

"Perfect."

"Are you sure it's something I'll like more than you?"

"Of course, it's not something that will float my boat at all. Now, open yer mouth, and I'm gonna slip inside you."

"Like this?" she asked, her voice sounding like she had something large in her mouth.

"Yes, just like that. Giddy-up, Rosie."

That was supposed to be our signal. "We have to go!" I whispered to Enid.

"Ugggh," she said, vomiting up some more beer. There was no way she was moving.

"What am I supposed to be doing, exactly?" Rose asked. "Just opening my mouth while you lay yourself in me?"

"Well, sometimes the women like to give a little motion. Bob back and forth, or let the man hold their heads while they thrust a bit. Here, I'll show you."

"Hmm," she said.

"That's it, giddy-up, Rosie," Syd said, this time more loudly. I looked at Enid, but she was still vomiting.

"God, PLEASE stop saying that," she said. "I am not a horse, Syd."

"What, you mean when I said `GIDDY-UP ROSIE?'" Syd yelled.

"Yes, don't say that again."

"Okay, I won't ever say `GIDDY-UP ROSIE' again."

I opened the bathroom door quietly. There was Syd, standing with his back against the headboard on the bed, Rose in front of him, her mouth just barely containing Syd's fat dickhead.

He made eye contact with me, his eyes looking urgent, as he motioned them towards the door. I shook my head in response, and opened the door all the way, showing him Enid hunched over the toilet. He nodded, and I shut the door.

"You know, this doesn't seem to be doing much for me," she said. "What exactly is supposed to be enjoyable about this?"

"Just keep trying," he said.

"No, it hurts my mouth," she said.

"Well, how about if you just lick, and not put it in your mouth, darlin?'"

"Okay."

"Kay, I'm done," said Enid, and she moved to hit the flusher.

"Don't flush!" I said. "Try to be as quiet as possible when we walk out of here."

"Aye aye, captain," she said, saluting me.

"Where are your underpants?" I asked her.

"You mean they're not on me? It's so hard to tell with those tiny things."

"Well, you can't go out like that," I said. "Here, put this bath towel around your waist."

"Yup."

"And where is your left shoe?" I asked.

"Guess it's gone. Oops."

"Well, take off that shoe and hold it. You'll make too much noise walking through otherwise."

Once she had done that, I opened the bathroom door and made sure the coast was clear. Syd was still keeping Rose with her back to us, and he gave me the go ahead through his eye contact. I grabbed Enid, shut the bathroom door after we exited it, and tiptoed across the room towards the door.

"You know what Syd, I've decided, I don't like doing this giving head business at all. My tongue has never been so tired and dried out. I'm done." She started to turn around, right towards Enid and me. I froze.

Syd turned her head back towards him, slumped down on the wall until her was at her level, and moved his face towards her. "I never really liked any of that oral stuff either, really," he said. "Please, just kiss me."

Luckily, she opened her mouth and started to kiss him, as stiff and painful as her kisses looked. That was all we needed, I opened the door quietly, pushed Enid outside, and shut the door very gently.

"Here, I'll help you to your room," I said.

"Oh, please," she said. "Now that I upchucked, I'm fine. Tell Syd he owes me some banging, and I'll be here to collect tomorrow."

She walked off, leaving me alone in the hallway. I sat down outside Syd's apartment, wondering where I should spend the next couple of hours.

Just then, Glaucia happened by with Lewis holding her hand. "Hey stranger," she said. "We were just heading for bed, weren't we, Lewis?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why are you sitting outside your place?" she asked. "You're not in the doghouse, are you? With Syd? Please tell me you two lovebirds didn't have a fight."

"No, no, nothing like that," I said. "It's just that, well, um... he's smoking in there, and I don't really like the smell of smoke, so I'm just sitting out here until he's done."

"Oh," said Glaucia. "Hey, I had a long talk with Parker. I explained everything that I told you and Syd about riding, and the sweetie offered to train me himself from now on! Guess you and Syd are off the hook. And in case anyone sees us, it'll look better if Parker is coaching me instead of the people who are supposed to be my competitors."

"Oh, and Parker's really the one who knows the rodeo best," I said, so thankful that he had talked to her about that.

"And one more thing. Parker told me exactly about the wager you and Jericho made over our competition. Honey, I had no idea this was about your family, and I'm truly sickened about the whole thing. Makes me feel like ass, excuse my language, Lewis, to be begging you to help me get better for my own sake when you are competing for the sake of your poor family." She put her hand to her mouth and it looked like she was about ready to cry.

"Glaucia, please, don't worry about it."

"Thank you so much for not getting mad with me. But Parker and I worked out a great plan. A way we all can get what we want. He'll train me to compete so I can fool Jericho into believing that I was always a skilled rider. And then on the day of the competition, everyone will be impressed with how good I look. But the truth is, though I'll be good, I'll always just barely lose my events to you. Which means you have to be even better then me, Jake. You have to be really good. But I'll make sure you win that match, no matter what." She smiled big, and I was absolutely ecstatic hearing this. And I knew I had her as well as Parker to thank.

"Glaucia, that means so, so much to me. Thank you."

"I'd do anything for family," she said. "And family of family is family too. So of course I'd do everything I can do help save them."

She hugged me, and I was very touched.

"Come on, Lewis, let's get to bed."

The two of them walked down the hall, and I sat back down against the wall. That's when I heard Rose's terrified scream. Concerned, I ran up and put my ear to the door.

"WHAT is that under the bed?" Rose asked

"I don't see anything," Syd said.

"Oh, disgusting. That's a used contraceptive!" I remembered now about Syd's condom that I had kicked under the bed earlier in order to keep Lewis from seeing it.

Syd, please tell me your total lack of normal hygiene is not the reason for me being reported to Jericho and executed.

"Oh my lord, what is that doing there?" Syd asked. "Oh, I know. That's Jake's." I was instantly angry.

"Jake's?" she asked.

"Yes, he's always carelessly leaving his used condoms in the bed after all the hotties he bangs," Syd said. "He's disgusting. A sex addict, really. Just sleeps with them, and then throws his condoms all over the place like this whole room was his own personal garbage can."

"I thought you said he only liked men sexually?" she said. "Isn't that part of the deal with his gene?"

"Yes, yer right," Syd. "When I said "hotties' just then, I meant male hotties, of course. Loves to have them screw his butt silly. And the men line up for it most of the time, sometimes dozens of them. And he'll screw them all even if it takes all day, sometimes taking two or three of them up inside him simultaneously. I tell ya. It's just gross, having to bunk here under these conditions."

I was so angry with him. What other lies had he told random people about me that I didn't know about?

"I can understand why," Rose said. "Between the whoring and the drinking, I wouldn't stand for it. If he was my human, I'd keep him chained up."

They started kissing again, and Rose started making sexual noises, and I heard the bed creaking.

After a couple minutes, she yelled, "What is this?!"

"What's what?" asked Syd, out of breath.

"This ladies black thong I just rolled my face into. Whose is that, huh? One of your friends?" she seemed furious, and I realized where Enid's underwear had gone off to.

"No, no, no," Syd said. "It's not like that. That's from Jake's conquests."

"I thought he just slept with men?" she asked.

"Yes, but he himself wears those," Syd said. "He has a fetish for wearing ladies underwear."

"That is so bizarre," she said.

"I know," Syd said. "Whenever you've seen him wearing his city-boy pants or shorts? He's been wearing panties underneath every single time."

Again, I was so annoyed.

"Here, let me throw it aside, and then we can resume where we left off."

"No, uh-uh. I'm not ever touching this bed again, not after I knew that your human dog had all sorts of disgusting sex in it."

"So, should we call it a night then?" Syd asked, clearly hoping for that option.

"No, I'm not nearly done with you. You're coming with me, to my room for the night. Let me put my clothes back on."

I could hear her start to get dressed.

"Let me wash the rest of this frosting off real quick," Syd said, and I heard him open a door.

Syd, please tell me you can't be that moronic.

"Syd, what did you just do?!" Rose yelled.

"What?"

"When I tried that door, it was locked shut! You just opened it."

"Oh, yeah, right, guess I did," he said. "Ya know what? I just done and broke the door open. Guess I don't know my own vampiric strength sometimes."

"You'd better not be that clumsy with me in bed," she said.

"No, no, I won't." I heard the bathroom sink turn on and then the toilet flush.

"Hey, what's this high heeled shoe doing over here?" asked Rose angrily, suspicious, and I knew when Enid's shoe had gotten off to.

"Oh, that?" Syd asked. "Jake's again. He likes to put those one when he gets rammed. Says it makes him feel all pretty. I don't get it at all, if you ask me."

"Come on, let's get out of here before this perverted pig comes back," Rose said.

I ran away from the door and around the corner of the hallway. I heard the door open and shut, heard them carrying on as they walked towards wherever her room was.

I walked back into Syd's room and shut the door behind me, thankful that I would have the rest of the night to myself. I read for more than an hour, got ready for bed, changing into pajama bottoms and a t- shirt because it was colder than normal in his room. I said a prayer, and fell asleep on the settee.

"Wake up."

I blearily blinked open my eyes, yawning. The room had light in it, was it morning? No, I realized, it was just the bathroom light on. The bathroom door was open, spilling its light into the dark room.

I propped my head up off the settee and looked towards the bathroom. There in front of the bathroom door, illuminated in the bathroom's warm light, was the bathtub, like it always was. Only now I could see it was filled up not just with water, but with a person.

I saw that Syd was laying in the bathtub, wearing nothing but his cowboy hat and his boots, his head lounging against the back of the tub, looking very relaxed. He had his legs spread wide and hanging over the sides of the tub, the porcelain supporting the back of his knees, and his boots clanking lazily on the outside of the tub. His huge, flaccid dick was floating on the surface of the bathwater between his legs. He had a cigarette in his mouth. What was he doing up so early? I didn't care.

I turned my head back down to go to sleep.

"Wake up, Jakey," he said.

"Syd, do you know what time it is?" I asked.

"Time for you to pay yer dues," he said. "What, surprised I remembered? I never forget a debt owed."

I knew exactly what he meant. "Nope, too late, Syd. Sorry. It's morning, and that payment offer expired at midnight last night."

"Actually, Jakey, the time is eleven thirty. Still plenty of time for you to pay up."

I realized he was not having his morning bath, he was in his post-coitus soak

I raised my head. "Shouldn't you be spending the night at Rose's?"

"I cut out early to be with you, isn't that sweet?" he asked. "You're not upset that I ruined your all too obvious plans today? The ones designed to keep you from paying what is rightfully mine?"

I groaned, not bothering to deny the truth. "Syd, you obviously just climaxed with Rose, and I know from the used condom I found on the floor earlier that it was your second time that day. You couldn't possibly have any steam left over for little old me tonight."

"Oh, don'tcha worry about that, Jakey. I was fantasizing about you the whole time I was screwing Rose, and to tell you the truth, I didn't climax with her. She did, and she thought I did too. But guess what, Jakey? I faked it. Since I had my condom on the whole time, she was none the wiser."

"Uhhh, come on," I said.

"And, `cause I knew I'd be drinking your sweet, sweet blood tonight, I haven't bothered to feed yet today Which means, I need you tonight, most literally. And right now, I want you join me in this warm bathtub."

"Ohh, alright," I said, jumping off the settee and throwing my pillow down angrily. "Let me take off my pajamas."

"Nuh-uh."

"What do you mean, `nuh-uh?'"

"I mean, I want you to get in the tub with me as is."

"With my pajamas on? They'll get soaked!"

"I don't care," he said. "And it's my choice, ain't it? That's part of our agreement."

"Fine. But are you sure you don't want me to change into my nicest suit before I just in the water, shoes and all?"

"Sounds like fun, but I don't want to wait any longer." He put out his cigarette in the bathwater, then flicked it onto the floor.

I walked up to the bathtub, and he tilted his cowboy hat up so he could keep his green eyes locked with mine. He half-mindedly played with his soft dick.

"Crawl right on top of me, Jakey," he said.

I sighed, annoyed that I was going to have to get my pjs wet, then carefully lowered myself facedown on top of him, one of each of my hands holding onto the porcelain sides of the white tub, trying to keep my shirt dry.

"I don't think so," he said, wrapping those muscled arms around my back suddenly and pulling me into the water, pressed against his naked, wet body.

The front of my clothes became covered with warm water quickly, and I gasped. He moved his wet hands behind my head and forced it towards his, my mouth pushing against his lips. I felt him lick my lips eagerly, then he opened his tongue invaded my mouth, attacking it lustfully.

His hands moved up and down the shirt on my back, rubbing my body furiously. Finally, they settled on my pajama-covered buttcheeks. I felt his legs encircle my body, his boots hitting my legs. His feet pushed my lower body harder and harder against him, more and more water covering my pajamas.

Once my butt was soaked, he rubbed those wet pjs even harder with his hands, not just massaging my cheeks, but moving his hands up and down my crack as well.

He grabbed my hands, which had been sitting lifelessly by my sides, and moved them down to the bottom of the tub, on his wet, sculpted back. It was clear he wanted me to be as into the sex as he was, and I tried to at least fake it, digging my fingers into his lats.

His hands left mine and went back to my wet t-shirt. After a minute of him massaging me there, he suddenly ripped through the fabric with his shockingly strong hands.

"Hey!" I said, breaking our kiss. "Couldn't you just have pulled it off?"

"Ripping it off is way hotter," he said, ripping the fabric totally off my upper body. "Now, I want yer hot mouth on my body, Jakey."

He pushed my whole body down towards the foot of the tub until my mouth was lined up with his wet, soapy neck, thickly muscled and veiney. I knew what he wanted from me, and licked him there. He pushed my body down some more, and I licked his upper right chest, then the tight cleft between his pecs, his matted blonde fur scratching my tongue.

He pushed me down some more, and my mouth was lined up over his perfect right nipple, the hard pink flesh covered with white suds. I lowered my mouth and started to lick that morsel. He pushed my face to his left side, and I sucked on that nipple as well.

He slid my wet body down his own some more until my face was right on his glistening abs, and I licked around the contours of his washboard, teasing his treasure trail with my lips. He had been leaning up a bit in the tub, putting his upper body out of the water. The waterline was just on his pubes, and he pushed my head down onto his wet, blonde bush, and I licked away at it with my tongue.

"Time to get yer sweet mouth on that big Texas dick, Jakey," he cooed, pushing my head down onto his floating soft dick.

I started to lick his sudsy monster penis, thankful that I knew it was at least clean. I licked around the base, and then, with my right hand holding it in front of my mouth, licking all the way up to his pink mushroom head.

"Stick it in yer pretty mouth, darlin," he said to me.

I took his huge dickcap in my mouth, licking the morsel.

"Yeah, that's it," he said, looking intensely into my eyes.

His eager hands grabbed my head and pushed it down farther on his dick, until I had most of his soft penis n my mouth and throat. I felt blood pump through that huge rod, and I knew what was coming. His dick quickly hardened and grew straight as a telephone pole, and I suddenly got scared the thing would choke me. I pulled out down to just the dickhead, which was now pointing straight up from the bathwater right into my face.

Glancing up at his face, I could see his huge fangs were out; clearly he was hugely turned on by my actions.

He put his hands behind his head with a pleasurable sigh, and once he did, the undersides of his bare upper arms were in my view. The pose showed off those huge flexed tris on the outside of his arms, and those strained, veiny bis hitting the sides of his head. I could see those round, muscled shoulders from underneath behind the arms, as wet and glistening as the rest of him. His matted, straight blonde pit hairs stuck out from those pits that were surrounded by muscle. With his arms up like that, his chest was particularly flexed, still covered with suds, and so were those abs framed by his obliques.

Of course, once he had his hands behind his head, there was nothing holding my head down on his member, so I pulled my head back off of him, letting his dick slide out of my mouth, and using the respite to catch my breath.

He raised an eyebrow and looked down at me questioningly. "You'd better not think yer done with the suck job so soon, Jakey." He thrust towards me, clearly wanting me to resume.

I still needed to catch my breath, but I was sure that excuse wouldn't work on him, so I came up with one better: "I'm just taking the opportunity to admire your perfect hard dick, Syd," I moaned.

He flashed his pearly whites, grinning smugly. "Well, I guess I can't blame you for yer need to worship the biggest, hottest penis you'll ever fuckin' meet. I should be more sensitive to yer needs, sorry. Shoulda realized it must be torture for you to have me get hard all the way down yer throat like that, without you ever being able to see the thing in its absolute full glory. Go ahead and take a gander, Jakey. But don't ever accuse me of not putting yer needs first."

I couldn't possibly summon up the complete level of BS that would be needed to agree with his comments, so I sagely stayed quiet. But I knew the break I was having from having my gullet stuffed with his huge rod was only bought with the pretense that I was loving his penis with my eyes, and I was ever conscious of his haughty eyes looking down at me, so I did was I was expected to.

I looked down at where that sandy treasure trail blended in with his pubes, looking lighter in color than ever due to the large amount soapy suds mixed into them. Beneath that, it really was incredible how totally hard Syd's dick was, jutting out ninety degrees from his body. It was hard to believe it was actually blood and flesh inside that veiny, skin covered tube; it looked to me like steel. The color of the massive shaft was the same tan shade of his body, yet on the top his beautiful mushroom tip were as tan-pink as his beautiful nipples. Somehow his head was even bigger in girth that his thick shaft, and the huge volcano was oozing white lava all over it.

He thrust his hips towards me, those V-muscles flexing, as he slapped his huge head against my lips. As he did, all the precum splashed onto my face. Hot liquid hit my cheeks and nose, some landing in my mouth, with my tongue sparking from the manly saltiness of the flavor.

"Mmm, you like that sweet Syd seed, doncha? Why doncha get yerself a good taste of the source of all that hot Syd batter? That's right, my fucking nuts. I want `em in yer lovin' mouth, Jakey."

Syd moved his dick up my face, drawing a line of precum as he went, until his pendulous balls were right in front of me. I couldn't believe how big they were up close, two huge, lemon sized nuts, covered with wrinkled skin. Even though his rod was totally hard and ready for sex, his balls still hung low. They were dipping white suds from the bathwater.

I already knew I couldn't get my mouth around both nuts at once, so I didn't even try. I just started licking the right ball, fascinated by how different this skin felt against my tongue than the skin of his shaft.

I used my hand to help guide the huge ball into my mouth, licking away at the scrotum.

"Yeah, that's it," he said. "Devour those sperm factories."

Without even using his hands, he slapped his steel rod onto my face and head over an over again, clearly excited by my attention.

"Left one needs some love now, Jakey," he said.

I let his right ball fall out of my mouth and took the left one in.

After a minute of him groaning, he said, "Time to work yer sweet mouth back up to my dick."

I noticed he didn't actually mention me sucking his dick again, and I hoped I could avoid it this time. I kept my right hand fondling his huge balls while I started to lick up the underside of his shaft, worshiping that huge tube he had on the underside of his dick.

When I finally got to underside of his dickhead, I licked up the cleft of his mushroom head, my tongue catching more precum that had been oozing down. I stuck my tongue out and licked his dickhead like a lollipop, sucking up his salty juice, hoping that would suffice. I grabbed the top of the veiny shaft in my grip just beneath his head and stroked him, hoping to get him off without being choked by him.

"Uhh, yeah, squeeze my manmeat, darlin,'" he groaned.

But then he forced his huge dickhead back in my mouth, more salty precum oozing onto my tongue. I kept my hand on his dick, hoping he wouldn't make me go any deeper, keeping my other hand on his balls.

Syd was enjoying himself, bucking his hips back and forth with my administrations, but then I felt his hands push my head down father on his dick, and I knew I wasn't going to get away that easily after all. I concentrated on opening up my jaw to allow that huge thing in.

It seemed like the farther he forced his way down onto me, the more excited he got. By the time only three or so inches remained, he was absolutely groaning.

"Whatever I do, you'd better keep that sweet mouth locked onto my rod."

I wasn't sure what he meant, and then I felt his reach forward and grab my back with his big arms. He spun my body around so instead of lying on my stomach, I was sprawled out with my back supported by the foot of the bathtub. He laid his hands on my chest and sat up.

"Keep that magic tongue workin,' sweetheart."

Egged on, I licked away at his bloated cockhead, tasting all the edges, then lapping away at his piss slit.

"Yeah, that's it," he growled, and more precum came oozing out of him onto my tongue.

He started to plunge in and out of me again, holding onto my chest to anchor me down as he pumped. His assaults turned more and more ferocious, with me feeling like I would choke each time he slammed himself into me. He pulled me towards him until my nose was forced right between his huge nuts, his scrotum tickling me. I felt his wet pubes against my chin. I put my hands around his taut upper thighs to keep myself steady.

After a couple minutes of that, he said, "You'd better keep yer mouth on my dick again, darlin.'"

I was surprised when he started to lift me, but I listened to what he said, and concentrated only on keeping my mouth on his dick.

He pulled my body up into his arms until my upper body was perpendicular to the floor. Because his torso was at a slight lean, he sprawled out my body over his torso, my legs dangling up in the air. I wrapped my hands around his waist and held onto his strong hip muscles for support, clasping them behind his body. At the same time he had lifted me up, I felt his wet armpit hairs tickling the back of my thighs as he used his strong arms to pin my knees to my chest, leaving my butt hanging up in the air in front of his face.

Instantly, I felt his tongue hit my sensitive perineum just south of my balls, and he licked his way up my crack towards my hole. Before he got there, he lifted off and moved his tongue to my upper tailbone. He licked his way back down my crack towards my hole, but this time before he reached it, he started licking a wide circle a couple inches in diameter around it.

"Wow, are ya sure you don't wanna get fucked, just a little? Wait a hot sec, what am I sayin?' With my huge-ass cock involved, ain't no such thing as a little fuck. But still, yer hole is just beggin' for my dick, Jakey."

"Yes, I'm sure I don't want to, and it's not part of our deal, so just forget about it."

He sighed unhappily. "It's damn hard to forget about when this world class ass is always around me, tempting me. Hey, Jakey, I know, ya want me to make ya a vampire?"

"What? No! I hate blood. I'd sooner die."

"Hey, it ain't so bad, bein' a blood sucker. I absolutely love it. And yer sex life will at least triple. Course, yer not a top, but there'll be plenty of new human men out there who'll want to fuck yer vampire ass. Only thing is, I ain't sure bout the blood. I think that magic blood ya have right now will go away. But you still got AB negative blood, which means vampire tops like me are gonna be all over you, so don't ya worry `bout that."

"I don't even care about that," I said. "Why do you want to turn me all of the sudden?"

"'Cause the process is fuckin' unbelievably hot," he said, and licked around my rim again.

"What does that mean? I thought it was just a matter of you drinking my blood, and then feeding it back to me?"

"There's more to it than blood in, blood out, Jakey. The vampire needs to be fuckin' in order to do it. That means in order for me to turn you, ya gotta give up this hole to me."

"But I saw Giggles turn Tucker. He was inside her."

"Yup, for fanged girls, they usually need to be penetrated by the male in order for it to work. Same is true for bottom guys like you. If I turned ya, and you wanted to turn another sometime in the future, this would require you to bottom for them."

"Are any of the vampires men I know here bottoms?"

"Not that I know of," Syd said. "Bottoms are a rare breed among vampires, just as rare as special females. Both are highly valued by their Bloods because you need one to turn a straight male or a top. That's why Jericho has Giggles and Arlene turn most of the male vampires. If ya let me turn you, Jakey, you'd be one of the few bottoms in a world full of tops. They'd be all over you."

"I absolutely don't want to be a vampire," I said. "Especially not if it means having to be topped by you or by anyone else."

"Well, ya better not let any lesser fuckin' vampire, like Boyd or someone, try to turn ya. You'd for sure end up dead."

"Why is that? Because they wouldn't be able to stop sucking my blood in order to feed me their own?"

"Well, maybe. But what I meant was, well, I already said that the vampire who is turning the person needs to be attracted to them. You wouldn't have any problem there. But the other part is, the human that is gonna be turned needs to be just as attracted to them, if not more so. Hell, some of the weak, mushy ones even need to have feelings for the vampires. But all of them at the very least need to be fuckin' attracted to the vamps, need to fuckin' desire and want the sex they are having. Or they won't accept the transformation, and they'll die. That's why no vampire can force any human to turn."

"And why in the Heavens would you think that I would ever desire you to top me, in order to make the turn successful?"

"Come on, Jakey. We both know you been beggin' to be fucked by me ever since you laid eyes on me in Lake Tahoe."

"Ha. Like I said, I'd sooner die then let you top me and turn me at the same time."

"You say one thing, Jakey," he said. "But your hole says a different story. What that dangerously pretty ass is begging for is my big huge cock. It's a damn shame I ain't gonna make its dreams come true. It'll have to make do with my tongue."

I felt his stubble scratch my buttcheeks, then I felt his tongue start to drill hungrily into my butt.

"Lordy, you taste sinfully good," he moaned.

His mouth gave my hole a relentless attack, throwing gentleness to the wind and instead preferring to use his tongue to mimic his dick, fucking me with the thing for what seemed like eternity, all the while squeezing my back with his strong hands.

I thought that he only intended to give me oral, but I was seriously wrong. While his tongue remained inside my hole, I felt his fangs poke me, one just to the left of my anus and the other just to the right. I figured he was just teasing me; he couldn't possibly bite me THERE, could he?

But then I felt pain as the two pinpricks pushed into my skin, and I tensed up, shocked. Just like always, almost as soon as the pain began, it turned into a huge overflowing pleasure, and I realized, yes, he could bite me there.

With his tongue still inside me, I could feel him start to suck the blood into his mouth, only this time, he didn't have direct access to my jugular, resulting in much less blood flow than normal. This would take him much longer to satiate himself, I realized, and I knew he wouldn't be complaining.

The blood was getting him so excited, he reached down and grabbed the back of my head with his right hand, pushing me down on his dick. I felt his huge member disappear entirely into my throat, feeling like I was about to choke, but somehow kept it contained. My chin nestled his wet pubes, and my nose buried itself in his manly scented scrotum.

"Yeah, it's so fuckin' hot seeing you take every last one of my billion inches, Jakey!" He murmured, then returned to the sucking.

Holy crap, him biting my butt felt so, so good. Just like anytime a vampire bit me, insane amount of pleasure pulsed throughout my entire body, but this time, the largest amount was localized around my butt, turning what had been a pleasant licking of my hole into something of utmost sexual pleasure. I actually briefly wished there was something else of bigger size to stick inside me, that's how good it all felt.

He used his hands to pull my head back until just his mushroom tip was barely in my mouth. Then he pushed my head back down to his crotch, then pulled it back again. All of this motion was rubbing my rock hard dick up and down in the cleft of his wet, hairy chest.

Finally, he used his hands to lock my head in place and started to fuck my face. His groaning became feverish, and I grabbed onto his bubble butt as he plunged into me, feeling it constrict and relax with every one of his vigorous strokes.

He was so turned on, I could taste his precum just oozing into my mouth, bathing my senses with its sweet smoothness.

"Yer gonna have my hot seed flowing out of yer ears, Jakey!" he yelled, then returned hungrily back to my butt.

A scalding surge of sticky, salty cum shot into my mouth, then was soon followed by a second surge. That did the trick: the pleasure I was getting from the bite combined with his muscled pecs rubbing against my dick sent me over the edge, and I started to shoot on his chest.

His tidal cum flooded my mouth and dripped onto my nose, eyes, and forehead. I tried desperately to swallow it as fast as I could. I felt him lick my wounds shut as he locked my head onto his dick until the last drop was in my mouth.

"Damn Jakey, that was fucking hot!" he said as he put me down on the ground and sat down in the tub again. "How `bout we take a bath together?"

"Nope," I said, getting out of the tub and drying off. "I'm going back to bed, as soon as I brush my teeth."

"Aww, don't ya want the flavor of my sweet cum to stay with ya forever?" he asked.

"Nope," I said. "I want it off me."