Danny pulled into the yard about 8am on Tuesday morning, stretching as he got out of his truck. I watched him from my office window, enjoying the strain of his packed crotch against his jeans as he arched his back. Tommy put the first horse in the cross-tie stall and Danny went to work. When I got out there a few hours later, Danny was bent over with his back to me rasping a hind hoof. His legs were spread and tensed with the effort he was putting into it, and it was all I could do not to squeeze his hard, round butt. Tommy and I gazed at it in appreciation until he released the horse's leg.
I grinned at him when he straightened up, but he gave me only a half-hearted smile in return and barely met my eyes. Uh-oh, I thought - the pantry episode must have been a little too much. Tommy went off to supervise the arrival of a horse van, so I held the next two horses for Danny, talking about inconsequential stuff, trying to get him to loosen up with me. He finally smiled when I told him about Katie and Matt 'practicing'.
"Matt's never been with a girl?" he asked as he ducked under my arm to get to the other side of the horse.
"Uh-uh. Me neither," I added. He glanced up at me with a look I couldn't read, so I decided to force the issue. "Look, Danny, I'm sorry about that day in the pantry. I shouldn't've grabbed you like that. I was pretty hammered and just doin' what comes naturally."
He looked off across the yard before licking his lips and turning back to me. He said it so softly that I would have missed it if I hadn't been looking right at him. "Me, too."
Danny looked away again, and now I could see misery and confusion in his face. He stared unseeingly across the yard for a few moments as I watched him. I was trying to decide what the hell to say when he heaved a big sigh.
"I been fightin' it a long time, Sean. I didn't really even know what the fuck was wrong with me until that day in your office. I never got that hard in my life - even when Becky really worked at it. Cow kicked me in the nuts when I was a kid, and I always just sorta figured somethin' wasn't workin' right down there." He paused for a moment. "But it worked fine with you. I don't know how many times I've thought about that day. A lot. At your wedding, I was prayin' I wouldn't feel anything when I kissed you, but I did, and then you grabbed my dick and I knew."
He still had the rasp in his hand and suddenly whipped it out into the yard as emotion overwhelmed him. His voice shook as he said, "But it ain't gonna happen. It'd fuckin' kill my old man if his boy was a queer."
As he walked over to pick up the rasp I could see him getting himself under control, and by the time he got back to me his face was set. He finished shoeing the horse and packed up his truck before he spoke to me again. He met my eyes as he talked, and the naked pain in them shocked me.
"You been a good friend to me, Sean, and I reckon I needed to tell somebody. But it ain't gonna happen, so just forget what I said."
"Danny." I reached out to put my hand on his shoulder, but he ducked away, climbed in his truck, and drove away down the lane. I stood there watching him until he was out of sight.
Talking to Danny had really shaken me up, and I felt terrible that I had been the catalyst for something that had upset him so badly. I left the barn shortly after he drove off, riding out the back gate on Zena to find some peace and quiet on the trails.
My own coming out had been pretty much a non-event due to my sensitive, accepting mother. God knows what my dad initially thought about it, but after Colleen was through with him, he was very supportive. That wouldn't be the case with Danny's dad, apparently.
After an hour spent wandering around the back part of the neighborhood, I concluded that there wasn't much I could do for Danny other than be receptive if he ever decided to talk to me again. After today that seemed unlikely, but I decided I'd spend as much time with him as possible when he was at the barn shoeing. Maybe he'd get comfortable enough with me that we could discuss it rationally. It really bothered me to think of him going through the rest of his life as miserable as he'd been this afternoon.
I told Vincent everything over dinner. He listened without comment, and then said, "You know you can't do anything, don't you? Not until he's ready to explore what he feels."
I nodded glumly. Why did life have to be so difficult sometimes?
When Katie pulled into the yard the following Friday, I took her to the tack room and presented her with a protective body vest like the ones eventing riders wear when they ride the big cross country courses. It protects your chest and back if you fall off the horse as Katie had last week. Seeing the bruises on her back had prompted me to buy it.
"Wow, Sean, thanks. I never wore one of these before, but it's probably a good idea, huh, cause I'm jumpin' higher fences now, and - urgghhh."
I had dropped it over her head, then stepped behind her and cinched the side straps tight.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"My boobs," she said in a strangled voice.
I'd purchased an extra-small in the men's style without even thinking about it, and the front was only slightly contoured for a man's chest with no room whatsoever for breasts especially Katie's. Alejandro walked by as I started to loosen the straps. He grasped the problem immediately, lifting Katie's arm and studying the soft curve bulging out the side. He gingerly hooked a thumb into the edge of the front panel and pulled it slightly away from her body. The bulge disappeared and Katie let out a sigh of relief.
Alejandro motioned to me to give him the vest, so we tugged it off Katie, and he walked away with it.
Twenty minutes later he was back. He had cut a V out of the plastic on either side, then glued it back together and sanded it smooth. The darts added fullness to the chest and snugged up the waist a little, something else I had neglected to take into consideration. This time when I tightened the straps, Katie wiggled the vest just a bit, settling into it, and then grinned at Alejandro.
"Perfect! Thanks!" She hugged him, which brought a pink bloom to his dark cheeks, then bounced off to get Donna out of her stall. I made a note to order her a women's model as soon as I got back to my office.
Saturday Katie rode really well, piloting two of our better jumpers around a big course. Not GP big, but big enough. After she had gone home, Adam found me in Ginger's stall. I could tell he wanted something fairly major because he beat around the bush a little before getting to the point.
We covered whether it might rain this week, how cute Eeyore was, Matt's latest drawing of Katie sailing over a fence. Finally, he took a breath and said, "I want to put Katie on Calvin."
I looked up at him from my position at Ginger's left front foot. "He's too much horse for her right now. Maybe ever. You know what he's like."
"And you know she's good on the strong ones."
"Adam, he's a handful for you or me, and we're a lot stronger and much more experienced than she is."
"I'll work him for a couple hours first, and I won't have her jump him. I just want to see how she does with him on the flat."
Now he had me thinking about it, though I still had my doubts. "Well, all right, but I wanna be there."
We agreed on 11AM the next morning, and I could see the surprise on Katie's face when she saw Adam on Cal. She turned to me with a questioning look, and when I nodded, she let out a whoop of excitement and began to put on her vest, helmet, and gloves. When she picked up the vest, I didn't tell her that she wouldn't be jumping. I figured it couldn't hurt to wear the thing on the off chance that Calvin dumped her and then decided to step on her for good measure.
Adam had worked Cal into a lather, but I knew he still had a lot left if he was feeling frisky. Adam replaced his saddle with Katie's and gave her a leg up. Calvin is big, and I could see Katie eyeing how far she was from the ground. She gathered up the double reins and asked Cal to walk. His head came up at the unfamiliar signals, and I thought it was gonna be all over right there, but when she cued him more firmly, he dropped his head and walked to the rail.
Adam ran her through the gaits, and we watched as Katie tried to adjust Calvin's big strides and arrogant attitude. At one point, she circled him away from the rail to change directions. He didn't feel like doing that and shook his head a few times as he moved sideways under her. She stuck a spur in him, growled in his ear, and swatted him with her crop as she legged him into the turn. 90% of the battle with a strong-willed horse is to have the courage of your convictions. Katie had that (this time), and Calvin conceded the match, completing the turn quietly, but riding him on the flat in the arena was entirely different than piloting him around a big jumping course in front of a noisy crowd. Katie had a lot of work ahead of her if she expected to ride him in competition.
The next two weeks passed fairly uneventfully. Danny came every Tuesday to shoe whichever horses were due. The first week he gave me a look when I handed him a Starbucks and held the horse for him, obviously wondering why I didn't have a stable boy doing such a menial task. I just smiled at him and sipped my mocha.
When I got called away to the phone, I snagged Gabriel to hold the horse Danny was working on. As I walked away, Danny was staring at Gabriel, probably wondering which side of the fence he fell on.
The second week Danny was pretty friendly with me, chatting like he used to as he worked on hoof after hoof. We had a full day of horses, so I ordered us sandwiches from the deli. We went to my office for lunch, where I sat in one of the visitor's chairs next to him, sharing the small table between us. It was private and quiet, and I could see the wheels turning as we ate, but he stuck to neutral subjects like TJ going to vet school, and the various rescues we had now - eight in all.
He worked through the afternoon and didn't finish up until almost five, so I invited him home for dinner. He looked at me for a long moment - trying to determine my motive, I suppose - so I coaxed him a little.
"Come on, it's just dinner. We eat with forks just like straight guys do, for Christ's sake, and I promise we won't talk about anything queer."
"Jesus, Sean." He had the grace to flush at that, and then he smiled at me. "Yeah, okay, that'd be good, thanks. I got a clean shirt in the truck."
Vincent raised an eyebrow at me when I strolled into the kitchen with Danny, and I raised both of mine back. Sometime since we'd left the house this morning, he'd shaved his head. It had been growing out a bit, so seeing him bald again was a shock. He'd also left a mustache and goatee on his face, and he looked really exotic to me. My crotch lit up like a pinball machine as I struggled for something innocuous to say in front of Danny. Unfortunately, 'fuck me NOW!!!' was the only thing that immediately came to mind.
"Uh....um...you remember Danny, don't you?" I managed as I let Danny walk ahead of me and frantically adjusted my thickening cock to a more comfortable, if less inconspicuous, position. I also pulled my shirt loose in an effort to look casual and hide my boner at the same time. Vincent shook hands with Danny, ignoring my glares, and directed him down the hall to the bathroom. As soon as Danny rounded the corner out of sight, I grabbed Vincent's arm.
"When the hell did you do that?" I hissed. "You look great!"
He patted my chest soothingly and kissed me on the mouth. "Calm down, Sean. We have company, remember?"
Danny came walking back into the kitchen doing up the top button on his Wranglers and buckling his belt - kind of a reverse strip tease. As he tugged his belt into place, the crotch of his jeans snugged up tight for a moment, and I saw Vincent glance at the healthy bulge on display there.
Matt loped in from the garage just then, and stopped dead at the sight of Vincent. A big grin spread slowly across his face as he walked to us. Danny was sort of behind me and off to the side, so Matt didn't see him as he ran his hand over Vincent's smooth head, ending with a hand cupped behind his neck as he wetly kissed him hello.
"You look fucking HOT!"
I glanced at Danny, who was taking it all in with an unreadable expression on his face. I'd told him we wouldn't talk about anything queer - I hadn't promised him we wouldn't do anything queer.
"Matt, I think you know Danny from the barn."
Matt's gaze passed over me as he turned to shake Danny's hand, and I could tell he was wondering what the hell was up. I poured wine for Vincent and me, got a beer for Danny, and left Matt staring into the fridge trying to decide between iced tea and milk.
We had lamb chops with mint jelly, new potatoes, and fresh bread. Danny ate steadily, and I figured his bachelor dinners probably didn't compare with Vincent's culinary skills. He was quiet, but I saw that he was paying attention to the physical interactions between Vincent and me - noticing how Vincent always touched me when he walked behind my chair, and the way we smiled at each other when our eyes met. Vincent called me babe' or sweetheart' on a regular basis, something Danny probably hadn't heard since he'd never spent much time around us privately like this.
By the time we headed for the den with coffee and a box of Corleone's finest pastries, Danny seemed pretty comfortable. Matt joined us with a book, tugged his shirt off, dropped his pants to the floor, and was curled up in his chair before recalling that we had company. Danny had been looking at Matt during all this, studying Matt's body as he stammered out an apology.
"Sorry," Matt stammered. "We always, um, sit around in our, uh, shorts in the evening."
"No problem," Danny muttered, finally turning away from the sight of Matt's smooth, slender body. I studied Matt for another moment, wondering what aspect of him had interested Danny most. The dark pink nipples, the narrow hips, the pale fuzz below his belly button that widened slightly just above his briefs? Matt looked very appealing to me, but then, I already loved him.
I pushed Danny down onto the couch and sat next to him as Vincent took a chair across from us. We munched on chocolate ‚clairs, pecan brownies, and Italian wedding cookies while watching a slideshow of Matt's Amarillo photos on the TV. Each picture was on the screen for ten seconds, and Danny leaned forward to study the one of Wade kissing Cody while Cody held up his trophy, and later, the one of me staring at Del in stupefied delight.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"Guy named Del we met at a bar." I figured he didn't need the extended description of Del as the guy we took back to our room for a rowdy couple hours of mindless sex, or the guy his former employee, TJ, had spent a hot weekend with recently.
Danny watched the rest of the slides in silence, except for a comment on how good Queenie looked working a steer. After the last picture faded off the screen, he stood to leave. I walked him to the door, stopping when he turned to face me with a serious expression.
"Thanks for dinner. You and Vincent and, uh, Matt seem like you got a good relationship. It, ah . . ."
He waved a hand vaguely and couldn't seem to find a word that covered the three of us, so I saved him. "We love each other."
"Yeah, I guess maybe that's it." He looked away down the empty hall for a moment. "You know what old man Harper down to the feed store calls Stonegate? Faggot Farm."
I hadn't known that, but it didn't surprise me. Randall Harper was a mean, unhappy old man who hated almost everything. I made a mental note to check with Teresa. I didn't think Stonegate spent any money with him, but now I was going to make damn sure that none of us - owners, trainers, riders, stable boys - ever went in there again.
As Danny began to go out the door, I put a hand on his shoulder. When he turned back to me questioningly, I kissed him lightly on the mouth and then pulled him into a hug. He hesitated just a moment before bringing his arms up around my back. I gave him enough of a squeeze to bump our crotches together and then let him go. He gave me an odd little smile and left.
Vincent found me in the kitchen a few minutes later, raising an eyebrow when I glanced at him. I shrugged. "He said we looked good together."
"Damn right we do," he said, grabbing me from behind with a hand on my chest and the other cupping my nuts and tugging them up firmly. As he nibbled on my ear, I ground my butt back into him, giggling when he made chomping noises on my neck. I turned in his arms so we could kiss, and felt another set of hands slide up my back as Matt leaned against me. He kissed Vincent over my shoulder, humping my ass while Vincent was hardening against me in front.
Having Danny around had fired up my cock sucking inclinations, so I dragged Vincent's jeans down his thighs, pulled Matt's dick out of his boxer briefs, and dropped to my knees. With a hard cock in each hand, I turned my head back and forth, working one and then the other, until both of them were pumping into my fists. I knew Vincent had better control than Matt, so I got him close, and then kept him there with my hand while I blew Matt.
By the time I tugged the last mouthful out of Matt, Vincent's cock had drizzled precum down my arm clear to the elbow. I switched hands, using Matt's cum on Vincent's dick and Vincent's precum on my dick. As I buried my nose in the familiar, arousing scent of Vincent's crotch, I knew this wasn't gonna take long, and I was right.
Vincent reached a hand to my chest and thumbed my nipple as I slurped on his dripping cock. Matt had knelt down beside me with a hand tickling my balls and his mouth on my neck. When I could no longer pant and suck at the same time, I dropped Vincent's cock from my mouth and looked up at his shaved-headed hotness as I endured those last few endless seconds before orgasm. He stared at me through narrowed eyes, waiting until I started to shoot before dropping his head back and firing his load onto my chest.
When my breathing had slowed, I started to get to my feet, but I'd been kneeling on hard tile for twenty minutes and my knees wouldn't work. Vincent hauled me to my feet and sat me on one of the island stools, chuckling to himself as he unbuttoned my shirt.
"This is why you're supposed to do it naked," he said, holding up my cum-covered shirt as evidence. We stripped and threw all the clothes in the washer before heading back to the den. The three of us wedged ourselves into a pile on the couch, covered up with quilts, and watched TV until Vincent was the only one awake.
Late morning on the Friday before the trial, Jesse called me as I was plowing through paperwork in my office at Stonegate. I'd left him a message about the trial date and wasn't surprised when he returned my call.
"Hey. We want to come over and see you guys this weekend. What day's good for you?"
Vincent had a wedding Saturday, so we settled on Sunday. "Come for lunch. It's supposed to be hot so we can do the pool thing." Katie flashed through my head. "Bring suits. We may have a girl around for a few hours."
He chuckled as I explained Katie to him, and told him the story of her practicing on Matt.
"Jesus, she sounds dangerous. Don't let her corrupt him, for God's sake."
After we'd said goodbye, I decided to try to get everyone over for dinner and hot tubbing on Sunday. That would give us the afternoon with just Ben and Jesse, which I felt would be good for both Matt and Vincent.
Wade and Cody were in town and said they'd love to come over. I saw Cody most days at the barn, but had seen Wade only once since Amarillo. We'd had lunch together a couple weeks ago - our quarterly financial update lunch.
Adam said he'd be there. He came over a few nights a week for dinner anyway, so having him around for Sunday was pretty much a given.
TJ was free and asked if he could bring Gabriel.
"Sure, if you think he's ready for the whole bare-assed bunch of us."
"Yeah, it'll be good for him. It's a no-pressure way for us to get naked with each other again, and maybe seeing all those swingin' dicks'll get him in the mood."
"In the mood? Didn't you guys get together that day he climbed in bed with you?"
"No! He did exactly what you told him to do - he comforted me. Which was great - that's what I needed that day, but by that night, I needed something else and I made it pretty damn clear."
"Why haven't you just jumped him?"
"I don't know." His voice was full of frustration and disappointment. "I like him a lot, but I'm not sure we're gonna click, ya know? That's why I went to see Del. I needed to remember what it's like to be excited about being with someone. Gabriel's a great guy - I just don't think he's my guy."
"Well, shit, I'm sorry."
"Yeah, well, don't worry about it - I'm sure my man's out there somewhere. Anyway, thanks for the invite - we'll be there."
That phone call explained a lot. I had wondered at TJ's motivation for running off to see Del when he had a perfectly good guy right there in the next bedroom. But chemistry's a funny thing, and if they didn't have it, they didn't have it.
Next I called David, Matt's artistic mentor, and to my surprise, he accepted. He'd become a friend in the handful of months since he'd been helping Matt discover his abilities, and I was pleased that he'd be joining us.
After I hung up with David, I sat there for a few minutes, and then picked up the phone again.
"Danny here."
"Hey. We're having a thing at the house Sunday - bar-b-q and hot tub - and I think you should come over. It'll be the guy who helped out Vincent in Dallas, his partner, TJ, Adam, and some guys you met at the wedding."
"Well..."
"Oh, come on. We get naked in the hot tub, and sometimes there's a little grab-ass, but that's about it." Danny was silent. "Where are you?"
"Just down the road from you at Bob Packer's place, but . . . "
"You eat yet?"
"No, but . . . "
"Stay put - I'll be there in twenty minutes."
I hung up on him before he could object further, leaped in the car, and zoomed down the lane to the deli across the road. Fifteen minutes later, I was pulling into Packer's lane. Bob and his wife kept two Clydesdales - sisters named Tilly and Sal - big, gentle creatures with feet the size of dinner plates. Danny was just putting Sal away when I got out of the car.
"Come on." I tipped my head toward the pond at the side of the house, and walked out to the end of the little dock Bob had built for his wife. They both worked during the day, so I knew we had the place to ourselves. Danny sat down beside me, our feet dangling just above the water, and sighed when I handed him a big, messy, meatball sub.
We ate silently, watching frogs and birds putter around the edge of the pond. It wasn't very large, but it was a year round source of water and drew all sorts of wildlife. At one point I wiped a smear of sauce off Danny's cheek with my finger, and then sucked it clean while he watched me. One side of his mouth kicked up in a tiny smile before he turned back to his sandwich.
After I had shoved the wrappers back into the bag, I rested a hand on Danny's thigh. He sat there looking down at it, but didn't move as I rubbed my thumb slowly back and forth.
"How's that feel?" I asked him quietly.
He swallowed hard, and for a moment I thought he wasn't gonna answer, but then he whispered, "Good. It feels real good."
"Come over Sunday, Danny. Just hang out with us for a while. You don't have to get naked, and nobody's gonna hassle you."
"Everybody who's gonna be there, they're all . . ." He paused, and I didn't think he'd be able to get the word out, but he finally managed it. ". . . gay, right?"
"Yup. Every last one of us likes boys. Well, except for Matt," I added, thinking of Katie. "He's kind of straddling the fence at the moment."
He was silent for several minutes, and since I didn't have to be anywhere else, I let him think as he watched my thumb sweep in little arcs across his leg. Finally he spoke.
"Can I ask you somethin' personal?"
Thrilled to have him curious and talking, I replied, "Anything."
"When Matt came in the other night, he kissed Vincent like I kissed you that day." He paused, and then came out with it. "Does Vincent sleep with both of you?"
I squeezed his leg. "Mostly it's just Vincent and me, but yeah, the three of us have fooled around in various combinations, depending on who's home and who's in the mood."
He took a while to process that, staring off across the fields. Somewhere during that lull, he wrapped his hand around my wrist and held me loosely rubbing the back of my hand with his pinky as I continued to stroke his leg with my thumb.
"You're not jealous? I mean, Vincent's pretty much married to you. Why do you let him fuck around?"
I thought about how to explain our relationship to Danny, who'd been raised in the straight, monogamous world of a small town.
"Well, I don't just let him - he lets me, too. That day in my office? I called him to ask if it was okay before you got your blow job." He looked at me for the first time since we'd sat down. "Vincent and I trust each other. BUT not all gay couples play around. Jesse and his partner Ben are monogamous. It can be whatever you make it, whatever you want it to be."
Danny turned away again, and I wondered if I was getting through to him at all. I slid my hand slowly up his leg, eventually bumping into his nuts. He still held my wrist and made no attempt to stop me, although he closed his eyes for a moment. I flexed my fingers into the meat of his inner thigh.
"So, you gonna come over?"
He smiled, still with his eyes closed, and squeezed my wrist. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna come over."
We went back to our respective jobs, both of us thinking that Sunday was gonna be an interesting day.