This is a work of erotic gay fiction, intended for readers who enjoy a murder mystery in which fully developed characters interact sexually and in other ways. Their sexual encounters are sometimes romantic, sometimes recreational, sometimes spiritual, and almost always described explicitly. My attention is equally divided between narrative, character development, and sex scenes. If you don't care for this combination, there are many other excellent "nifty" stories to choose from. And remember that while nifty stories are free, maintaining a website is not. Please think about donating at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
The following neologisms or rare words are used in this chapter:
daimon (noun): a transcendent agent or abstract force that dominates, or seems to dominate a person.
entheogen (noun): a hallucinogenic substance (such as peyote) that generates a sense of the divine from within; adjective, entheogenic.
epicenic (adj.): androgynous; modifier derived from epicene, an androgynous male.
lophophoric (adj.): relating to peyote, a cactus belonging to the genus Lophophora.
Writing is usually a solitary avocation, but not necessarily so on nifty.org, where a longer story appears in installments. If my characters and my story grab your attention, you can always intervene with suggestions for improvements. All sincere comments will get a response!
Jake, at jemtling@gmail.com
Chapter 22 A Second Peyote Ritual
Red Hawk deposited his armload of balsam boughs in the sauna. He arranged them in a neat pile. "I have an idea, CC," Red Hawk said, when he and Calvin walked back to the cabin. "Let's both of us act campy for Jack and Göran. We'll see how they like getting fucked by a couple of fems."
"You do that better than me," Calvin said, "but I'll do my best." It's possible for guys to fake 'fem', but most gay men can tell when it's unnaturally campy. Two or three years after the Mariel Boatlift, a Reinaldo Arenas and other marielitos spread the word, in American and French magazines, that Castro's government had been torturing gay Cubans in concentration camps, or enslaving them on farm-labor camps. To save face in the world, Castro recruited teams of gay men to give lectures about the joys of Communist Cuba to audiences in Europe. That was in 1983. To facilitate the deception, the gay pro-Castro lecturers had to act campier than they actually were, so people could see that gays were accepted in Cuba after all. The gay Cubans who had suffered persecution had no trouble seeing through the fake campiness.
When Red Hawk and Calvin returned to the cabin, they found Jack and Göran seated with Dark Eagle on the ceremonial carpet by the fire. It was obvious that Dark Eagle and Jack had formed an instant friendship. Jack's tribe lacked a proper shaman, and their medicine man had been identified as one of Albino Perp Coleman's victims. He was, in fact, the central figure in the Five Spirits / Eight Eagles crime scene. While Red Hawk and Calvin were talking sex, Jack persuaded Dark Eagle to accompany him to South Dakota, to find a new shaman for the Lakota people.
Dark Eagle outlined the evening's agenda: "First, you boys will cleanse each other's bodies in the sauna, to prepare for the peyote ritual. The sauna is informal. It's not a ritual. It's a time for friendship and mutual trust, necessary to the ritual. Then we'll partake of peyote and pray to Manitou for insight. The Great Spirit might speak to any of you. At our last ritual, the Great Spirit spoke to David Gabrioli. The Great Spirit knows no distinction between Ojibwe, Lakota, Greek, or Jew."
"Wow! My first peyote ritual!" Calvin exclaimed.
"I've never seen the Ojibwe version," Jack said. "Lakota peyote-rituals don't include sex, so that part will be a first for me, too."
Naked in the sauna, Göran paired off with Calvin. Jack paired off with Red Hawk. Calvin and Red Hawk turned on a campy version of charm. "Ooo! What big muscles," Red Hawk said to Jack, and fondled his biceps and abs. "Ooo! What big muscles," Calvin said to Göran, and fondled his biceps and thighs. They wiggled their buns and preened while Jack and Göran looked at each other amazed, and laughed. The feminish act came more naturally to Red Hawk, who looked the part with his slender figure and shoulder-length hair. Calvin did his best to keep up.
During their first exit from the sauna, they stood by the dock, knee-deep in water, and applied soap and shampoo to each other's bodies and hair. Soapy hands fondled pits and nips, cocks, scrota and clefts. No body part was omitted from touch by the others. To wash off the soap, they splashed each other, dove into placid waves, ducked and groped under water. Erections came and subsided with the rhythms of aquatic foreplay.
Back in the sauna, Göran and Red Hawk demonstrated full-body balsam-massage on Calvin and Jack. Calvin and Jack took their turns as masseurs. Erections bloomed. Mutual fondling got romantic until the heat of the sauna drove them out and they jumped in the lake, where underwater wrestling and groping took place. In the aquatic buoyancy, Red Hawk cradled Jack and lifted him to the surface. Just above the water, his dick sprouted upward like a bullfrog on a lily-pad. Red Hawk leaned over and sucked Jack's dick. Calvin did the same to Göran.
After three more balsam-massage sessions in the sauna and a final dip in the lake, the men returned to the cabin, still naked. Dark Eagle told them to stay that way. He sat on the North side of the ceremonial carpet. He positioned Göran and Calvin on the East side, and Jack and Red Hawk on the West. He brought tumblers of whisky on a tray, and served the first round of peyote chips. "Remember to chew the chips to a paste," he said. "Use the whisky when you need it to cover the bitterness, but don't wash the peyote down with booze. Chew for as long as you can, and swallow carefully." Jack and Calvin got their first taste of peyote. If its bitterness surprised or repelled them, they didn't show it. "Ken Kesey gorged himself on eight cactus plants, but we're not flying over cuckoo nests," Dark Eagle said. "I think four peyote chips should be entheogenic enough. 'All things in moderation' means nothing to excess."
After twenty peyote chips had been consumed- four to a man- Dark Eagle recited a prayer to Manitou, and announced that it was time to play. "This is festival time," he said. "Remember that Manitou speaks to two-spirited men, and he speaks only to a man's second spirit, his homosexual side. In your carnivalian sex-play, your goal is to uplift your partner's second spirit. If Manitou chooses to speak through one of you, that man is honored, but one who brings out his partner's second spirit is even more honored."
"No pressure, right?" Jack quipped. Everyone smiled, including Dark Eagle. As a Lakota guest, Jack could get by with saying such a thing.
"Do your best. It's all we can expect," Dark Eagle quipped back, quoting from 'Chariots of Fire'.
Red Hawk and Calvin put on their feminish act in foreplay, not without graduating to aggressive fondling of Jack and Göran-their respective partners-who responded with a high pitch of eroticism and, eventually, to submission. Tender mercies were in short supply when Red Hawk missioned Jack and Calvin missioned Göran, but kaleidoscopic colors distracted their minds from the pain in their butts. To the shock of initial penetration, peyote added a mysterious aura of pleasure. Through the lophophoric lens of hallucinogen, Jack and Göran envisioned their role-playing partners as multi-chromatic epicenic daimons. The impact was strongest on Jack, for whom Red Hawk's shoulder-length hair- draping his face in strands- appeared as a glittering nimbus, like Achilles standing unarmed in his chariot by a ditch outside the wall of Troy, when the war-goddess Athena wrapped herself around his head and frightened the Trojans so much that they backed away in panic and slew each other in friendly fire. Red Hawk with shoulder- length hair was like Achilles-Athena, and Jack, like the Trojan warrior, supine in surrender.
"Let's punch-fuck our mates," Red Hawk said to Calvin.
"Punch-fuck?" Calvin was puzzled.
"Pull your dick all the way out and jam it back in, like this," Red Hawk said. The demo got a groan from Jack. Red Hawk set the pace, while he and Calvin punch-fucked Jack and Göran in tandem. Red Hawk and Calvin switched partners. After the punch-fucking exercise, Göran returned to Calvin, and Jack to Red Hawk, and played kabuki-tricks-Jack sat on Red Hawk's cock, and Göran on Calvin's. They backed into their partners and straddle-fucked. They swiveled and straddle-fucked facing them. They tried it sideways, with Red Hawk and Calvin lying parallel while Jack and Göran balanced themselves by holding hands. Then Göran straddled Calvin and Red Hawk got behind him and inserted his cock for a double-fuck. Göran groaned. "You're next, Jack," Calvin said, rather authoritatively. Calvin straddled Red Hawk and Calvin got behind him. "Oh my God!" Jack exclaimed when they fucked him in tandem.
Recreational four-play gave way to parallel coupling with a touch of romance. Red Hawk and Jack forgot about Calvin and Göran. Calvin and Göran forgot about Jack and Red Hawk. Jack was the first to cum. His jizzy scent added fragrance to the lophophorically-heightened sensations of chromatized bodies and subarticulate moans. Calvin poured himself into Göran and reciprocated with a blow-job. Red Hawk plowed and seeded Jack. Calvin was the last man standing. Unexpectedly recrudescent, he flipped Göran and mounted his ass a second time while Jack and Red Hawk watched in the contentment of après-sexe.
"Maybe not unexpectedly," Jack said. "Calvin's done this before."
No oracles were spoken. Dark Eagle waited in silence. Had they lost Manitou's favor? Was Manitou mute, or a myth? Suddenly and simultaneously, Calvin and Göran went into a trance. "I see a wooden fence with three rails," Calvin said. "It's below white pines."
"It's Matthew Shepard's fence," Göran said: "a short buck-fence with angled posts and three rails. I see it from above, as if I were perched among the eight eagles."
"Instead of an oracle, Manitou sent a double vision," Dark Eagle said. "According to Ojibwe custom, someone other than the visionary must declare its meaning."
"The simplest interpretation is most likely to be true," Jack said. "Howard Coleman and his companion, whose name is almost certainly not Brad Nails, are planning to stage another group of five murders on Eight Eagles Island. They'll build a buck-fence on the island, as an instrument of torture and death, in symbolic allusion to Matthew Shepard. This will happen soon. They've already kidnapped Deputy Nelson and his Sergeant as two of their victims. They're hunting for three more victims- less than three, if they've brought someone here from their hunting grounds in Oregon or South Dakota. The danger is present and clear. Albino Perp and his Dark Companion are present in Lake Ashawa. Eight Eagles Island is Ground Zero."
"Brad Nails, it's an anagram: 'bard slain'," Göran said. "He's taunting us. Remember the slam poet who was popular at the Gopher Hole coffee shop near the UMD campus last year? He sometimes performed Thursday nights at Apollo's. He had a coffee-house style for the Gopher Hole, and a campy style for Apollo's. Then he dropped out of sight."
"Baily Arlenas, part Irish, part Puerto Rican, all gay," Calvin said. "The last time I saw him was.... Oh! The last time I saw him was the night I gave Brad Nails a blow job!"
"Brad nails, 'bard slain', Bradley Nails, Baily Arlenas," Göran said. "It's a double code, but it's not his name, it's the name of the victim he kidnapped that night. You escaped because he picked Baily Arlenas." Göran had a proposition for Jack: "Why not give a go-go demo, Thursday at Apollo's. Last time, you were a sensation. Maybe you and CC could dance together- you do the strip while CC plays straight man. If Coleman and his buddy are trolling gay bars, maybe we'll spot them."
"I wouldn't be very convincing as a straight man," Calvin laughed.
"Figure of speech," Göran said. "Jack does the strip act while CC directs and gestures, like a presenter."
"Like he owns you," Red Hawk said.
"He does own me," Jack said.
It was time for sleep. Calvin thought he'd be expected to sleep with Göran, but Göran sent him back to Jack. Göran and Red Hawk took the bedroom, while Calvin and Jack snuggled on sleeping bags by the fireplace.
Jack invited Calvin to live with him in Lakota. Calvin agreed.