Psychic Detective 32 By: Jake Preston
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
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 32 The Papantla Acrobat
Calvin was disappointed when Jack told him he couldn't go to Mexico with him. It was their first lovers' quarrel. "Göran doesn't want Jésus to come, either," Jack said. "It'll be too dangerous, but we need a trustworthy guide who speaks Spanish." Calvin extracted a promise from Jack that they would go to Yucatán together for Christmas.
So it was Jack, Göran, and Jésus who went to Mexico. If you've never been to Mexico for Holy Week, be warned that this is when every family in the country goes on vacation at the same time. It's essential to organize transport and accommodation in advance. Jésus knew this and reserved rooms in an Airport hotel, in Mérida, and in a remote villa midway between Tulum and the Belize border. He couldn't get a flight from Mexico City to Mérida, so they would have to ride a Pullman bus for that part of the journey.
The threesome arrived three days prior to Holy Week and toured the Palace of Arts in the city center, and the Anthropology Museum, and art museums nearby, which required transferring to three different trains on the Metro. Jésus taught Göran and Jack how to navigate the color- coded train routes. Memorizing Spanish place-names was the hardest part, but during their Metro adventures they saw thousands of Mexicans, not an overweight person among them, and so many beautiful men that Göran and Jack thought they were in pornutopia. Göran stood out as an obvious American, except later in Yucatán where people assumed he was German. The Mexicans who interacted with them decided that Jack and Jésus must be American, too, and offered friendly advice about restaurants and bars.
At the Anthropology Museum, they spent time at an Aztec exhibit illustrating the practice of heart-sacrifice. A priest would drive a knife into the victim's left armpit and force his fist through the opening. He'd withdraw holding a throbbing human heart. "I sense the presence of Albino," Göran said. "He's not here now, but he's been here recently." Jack preferred their time at the Museum of Contemporary Art, reputed to be the best of its kind in the world.
In Mérida they stayed at Juan Carlos Hotel, in a suite with a sitting-room and a bedroom with a balcony overlooking Town Square, where every evening (during Holy Week) was a carnival of mariachi music, comic skits, and acrobatic performances. Juan Carlos is a fine hotel in the grand colonial style, with impeccable service and a traditional Mexican buffet- breakfast included in the price of the room. Göran and Jack loved the setting. Proximity to Town Square was its greatest advantage. They watched from the balcony while a mariachi-band performed 'Guantanamera, guajita guantanamera' with Cuban verses by José Marti. When the mariachis performed an extended Veracruz version of 'Para bailar la bamba' and people started dancing, Göran, Jack, and Jésus descended to mingle with the crowd and rub elbows with beautiful méxicanos. On the opposite side of the Square, a dramatic dance-troupe performed an alternate history of Mexico in which Hernán Cortés fell in love with old Moctezuma and ended up marrying his daughter.
"We've got to get ourselves one of those méxicanos," Jack declared. "Our visit to Yucatán won't be complete without one." They could have picked a hustler or a horny 'nativo', but when Jack saw the troupe of six acrobats- four men and two ladies- performing mock courtships and combats, on fourteen-foot-high stilts, Jack said he wanted one of those 'acrobat machos'.
"If you're going to be so picky, you'll spend the night alone," Göran said.
"Maybe not," Jésus said. "I saw one of the acrobats looking at Göran from the height of his fourteen-foot pole. We've got at shot of getting his attention if Göran takes the lead."
Jésus huddled with Göran and point out the acrobat who seemed to be interested. When the acrobat looked their way again, Göran waved. After the acrobatic performance, Göran sat between Jack and Jésus on the ledge of a fountain in the center of Town Square. They waited for almost an hour, and were about to give up, when the acrobat approached them cautiously, wearing civilian clothes. Göran and Jack beamed and smiled. The acrobat dropped his cautious guard. "Americano?" he asked.
"Göran Svenson, from Minnesota, USA," Göran said, and shook his hand. "This is Jack Jackson, from South Dakota," he said, and Jack shook his hand.
"Sou Dakoto?" the acrobat repeated, haltingly.
"Dakota du sud," Jésus interpolated, and introduced himself to the acrobat.
"Pablo Labrador Rivera," the acrobat said, and shook hands a second time with all three American visitors. He beamed when he learned that Jack was Lakota. "My father is Aztec," he said, "and my mother is half-Maya, which makes me three-quarters Indian."
To indicate that Göran might be available, Jésus held Jack's hand and invited Pablo to join them for tequila in the hotel bar. They sat at a booth with Pablo and Göran facing Jack and Jésus. Thanks to Jésus's translations, the four men were able to conduct a conversation. Göran began, by relating highlights of his life on the farm, and as a detective in Minnesota. Jésus followed with the story of his life as a farm-worker on the West Coast, and how he became a bartender in Superior. Jack told about his life on the Res in South Dakota. Pablo said that he had been a farm-boy like Göran. He grew up as on a farm near Veracruz, until he became an acrobat in Papantla, a small town a few miles from Veracruz.
"You have, ah... what is 'nieve,... nevada'?" Pablo asked Jésus.
"Snow... snowfall."
"You have snow in Minnesota?" Pablo asked Göran.
"Mucho nevada," Göran replied.
"I like to see snow," Pablo said.
"That can be arranged," Göran said. "The Ojibwe Nation could sponsor a tour of his acrobatic troupe in the North Country next winter.
Growing up different was something the four men had in common. They took turns telling stories about that. Jack started the story-swap. He parents were proudly Lakota, and taught him the language by using it all the time at home, he said. He spoke Lakota at school whenever he could, and got scolded or spanked by teachers who overheard him. That made him defiantly Lakota- a source of trouble with teachers and quarrels with students whose folks had told them to stop talking Lakota. Jack sensed that he was different from other boys in his class, but his endless defiance about language presented itself as the obvious cause- to him and to others. By the time that he realized that same-sex attraction was the real cause of his 'difference', he had already been toughened by class bullies, and tore into them whenever he caught them beating up some kid who was smaller or weaker. Jack had always been presentable (he didn't want to say handsome), but he never wanted to be 'popular'- especially not in high school, where being popular meant that he'd have to go on dates with girls- so he sided with underdogs and nerds whenever he could. It masked the fact that he was gay.
"One night after a beating I got from my father, I spent a night in some woods by the Snake River. My younger brother brought me my clothes and some money so I could run away from home," Jésus said. "I traveled east, hiding in boxcars on trains. One night heading east on the tracks toward Minot, North Dakota, I lost my cherry to another hobo who said it wouldn't hurt but it did. Then he got controlling, especially at night, even though I didn't want to get fucked anymore. When the train stopped in Ashawa, I ran away from the hobo and hid in a mountain of sawdust on the other side of the Little Fork River. I hitchhiked to Superior and got a ride on a logging truck. The trucker was a gruff red-haired Irishman, but he was kind. I rode all the way to the harbor with him. Later he took me to a homeless shelter where I lived until a found a job."
"Redman," Göran said.
"How could you know that?" Jésus asked, and for Pablo's benefit: -¿Cómo podría saberlo?
"Maybe sometimes you talk in your sleep," Göran kidded. - A veces tal vez usted habla en su sueño, Jésus said. Pablo laughed.
Göran grew up on a farm as an only child, so he didn't have a brother or sister to serve as a confidante. "When I was a child I was small for my age, believe it or not," he said. "From sixth grade through ninth grade every day in the fall, the boys in our class were required to play touch football during recess. I remember that two boys were hotshots at dodging and throwing the football, and I was on the opposite end of the spectrum, completely useless to whatever team I was on, so of course I hated recess. It was always team sports. In winter it was basketball, which was worse, because my ineptness was obvious to everyone. What I hated even more was the time in the shower and the locker room later. I wasn't bullied, just ignored. In seventh grade my algebra teacher was also my gym teacher- Mr. Fortune. I wanted to get out of playing basketball, so one day I put a bandage on my hand and told Mr. Fortune that I had a cut. He sent me to the library for gym period. The next day I didn't have a bandage, and Mr. Fortune asked to see my hand, which or course had no sign of injury. I was mortified. Mr. Fortune knew my Dad, but he must not have told him anything about it, since that was the last time I ever heard about it. After school, I was a good ice skater, and swimmer, and a daring bicyclist, but the only school sports were team sports, which, we were told, build character. Even as a kid I knew that wasn't true. I was a late bloomer. When I was fifteen I grew like a weed, and maybe I would have started to fit in, but I didn't, because that's when I realized that I was gay and that's the reason why I always felt different. When I was in twelfth grade, Ashawa High School started a hockey team for the first time, and I made the team. Some kids from the Iron Range started a GLBT support group, and included kids from Ashawa and Orr. Most often we met at the Wayward Island Resort. Twelfth grade was the only year in school when I wasn't miserable."
"What about you, Pablo? What's your story?" Jack asked. Jésus: -¿Y tú, Pablo? ¿Cuál es tu historia?
Pablo said his story was like Göran's- he was no good in team sports at school, which in Mexico meant fútbol, but out of school he excelled in gymnastics. At age fifteen he was given a chance to learn acrobatics, and started performing on stilts three years later. But Pablo was reluctant to tell his new friends about childhood memories. -Demasiado embarazoso, he said, "It's too embarrassing."
"A little tequila courage," Jésus said, and gestured for Pablo to take a swig directly from the bottle. -Un poco de valor de tequila.
-No puedo recorder un momento en que no me atraen los hombres, Pablo continued - "I can't remember a time when I didn't know I was attracted to men." -Yo tenía una pequeña collection de libros de historietas sobre de el Zorro, el Robin Hood de California, y so enamoró de sus nalgas. Esa fue mi primera obsession infancia - "I had a collection of comic books about Zorro, the Robin Hood of California, and I fell in love with his butt. That was my earliest childhood obsession." -Q'es una tontéria....
"It's not silly, no tontéria," Göran said.
"No tonto," Jésus said.
Göran ignored his correction and continued: "Zorro was an excellent selection, 'Zorro el zorro'"-he meant 'Zorro the Fox'.
-Cuandro era adolescente aprendi cómo ser iniel a mí mismo, Pablo continued. "As a teenager I learned to be untrue to myself." -Fanfarronear grandilocuente, gestos audaces, bromas reproducer en un professor homosexual. Jésus nodded sympathetically at Pablo's confession and translated, "Grand braggings, bold gestures, practical jokes played on a gay teacher." -He aprendido a fingir ser otra persona. "I learned how to fake being someone else." -Dos de mis tías se quejaron a mi madre que mis pantalones estaban demasiado apretadas. Pantalones flojos podrían curar mi homosexualidad. Una de las tías querían que me case con mi primo segundo. 'Un hombre es para la respetabilidad y la regeneración, o que no debería existir en absoluto', dijo. 'Raquel tiene el rostro de una mula ciervo', dijo mi madre, en mi defensa. "Two of my aunts complained to my mother that my trousers were too tight. Loose trousers would cure my homosexuality. One of the aunts wanted me to marry my second cousin. 'A man is for respectability and regeneration, or he shouldn't exist at all', she said. 'Raquel has the face of a mule-deer', my mother said, in my defense." -He aprendido a fingir no fingir. "I learned how to fake that I wasn't faking." -Detrás de la fachada de fingir y fingir que no estaba fingiendos, Detrás del espejo de la falsedad no había nada. "Behind the façade of faking and faking that I wasn't faking, behind the mirror of fakery there was nothing." -Me convertí en Pablo Fachada, paro esta noche, mis amigos, voy a ser yo mismo. "I turned into Pablo Fachada, Pablo the Façade, but tonight, my friends, I will be myself."
In an extravagant gesture, he kissed Göran on the lips.
That night, Pablo fucked Göran from behind the way he liked it, having never outgrown his childhood obsession with Zorro. No longer Pablo Fachada, he was Pablo Rivera. Göran called him 'Paul Revere', his midnight rider. 'Jinete de noche', Jésus translated, giving Pablo profound satisfaction in mounting his white stallion. The second time they fucked face to face, the way Göran wanted it. Sometimes the stallion gets to decide. Taking their cue from the neighboring bed, Jésus and Jack imitated their man-to-man action in parallel play.