1. "Punching or licking. Your choice."
Am I licking, or are you?
1. "Punching or licking. Your choice."
Am I licking, or are you?
On Saturday morning, Jimmy came downstairs to the staff bustling about, cleaning bedrooms, mopping, vacuuming. Most of the family had already finished breakfast and scattered to the boat or the swimming pools, but Kelvin and Keefe were still in the breakfast nook. The youngest of the Gemstones was short, sturdy, muscular, and femme, a Tom of Finland drag queen, married to a long-haired muscleman with a fading “Hail Satan” tattoo visible on his forearm.
“Good morning!” Kelvin called, flashing the usual Look. “I hope you got a lot of rest, ‘cause we have a full day planned.”
Jimmy sat next to him. A waiter jumped forward to fill his coffee cup and hand him the breakfast menu. He ordered the Denver omelet and sourdough toast.
“To be honest, after the noise and honking horns of Metropolis, it was hard to sleep in the quiet.” Especially with his superpower revealing who was going at it at 3 and 4 am.
“Back when I was in Satan’s Baby, we toured in Metropolis a lot,” Keefe said. “I used to be a regular in the gay club scene up there. Have you been to The Metropolis Eagle?”
Why did Keefe think that Jimmy would be hanging out in gay clubs? “Your heavy metal past is a story waiting to be told. Maybe I can interview you later?”
He looked down at his mostly-eaten frittata. “Thanks, but I like to stay out of the spotlight. I’m the roots of the tree, and Kelvin is the branches.”
Ok, so he wouldn’t be getting much information from Keefe. Time to interrogate Kelvin. “So you came out publicly last year, but I’m sure the family knew long before that. How did you come out to them?”
“Well, I didn’t really need to come out to them – they knew long before I did, back when I was a kid and sneaked peeks at my sister’s teen magazines. It took me forever to figure it out for myself. I was in denial for years, until…” He hesitated. “I guess the kidnapping.”
Keefe objected, too: “But we were doing stuff back when we first met, when Gideon and Scotty….” Kelvin shot him a harsh look, and he trailed off.
Obviously Kelvin was trying to control the narrative, present himself as unaware until 2023, so he could claim not to know about Gideon and Scotty….who the heck was Scotty, and what did it have to do with Kelvin?
“Keefe, are you sure you won’t reconsider that interview? Maybe we can do it while swimming later. I heard that the Lake House was clothing optional?”'
Keefe flashed the Look and glanced at Kelvin, who nodded his consent.
City boy Jimmy learned to swim in a public pool, had been rescued from a sinking ship by Beast Boy, and was trembling with fear on the floating dock as Keefe dove into the 200-foot deep water of Lake Murray (Kelvin stayed behind to do some work with Prism.) He pulled himself up, rocking the dock – the guy weighed 200 pounds – and climbed up to the slide.
He paused. “Aren’t you coming in, Jimmy?”
“No, thanks -- I’ll just work on my tan. But I’m enjoying watching you.” Jimmy hesitated, realizing that it sounded like he was interested – and maybe he was. The guy was massive everywhere. Of course, he had a semi due to their proximity, but Keefe was bigger with a semi than most guys fully aroused. He'd definitely need an extra-extra big condom. If Jimmy was going to accept one of the three-way hints this weekend, it would be with the heavy metal rocker and his husband.
Keefe tumbled down the slide, dove in again, and then lay on the beach towel next to Jimmy – so close that they were touching, of course. .
“Tell me about how you and Kelvin met,” Jimmy suggested.
He grinned at the memory. “It was at Charleston Pride 2019. I was passing out fliers for Baby Queef – my solo act after I quit Satan’s Baby. Kelvin came to one of my performances, and that was it. For me, anyway. It took like three years to convince him that we should be more than sex buddies, and five years to talk him into marrying me.”
Keefe Chambers was on his way to an impressive career – lead singer in a heavy metal band, a solo act as a Satanic comedian, friends with musical giants Ozzie Osborne and Trent Reznor, covers of “It’s Raining Men” and “I’m Coming Out” that charted in France. But he gave it all up to stand in the wings, quietly supporting Kelvin Gemstone, his best friend, boyfriend, and eventually his husband.
“So Charleston Pride, June 2019, right?” Jimmy fished. "Was that before or after Gideon and Scotty?”
“Gideon came home from California later, after I moved into Kelvin's house. Maybe in January or February? Scotty came up a week or so later, and stayed through...well, stayed awhile.”
“A boyfriend?”
“Probably. I mean, we had them over for dinner, like they were a couple.”
“So Gideon is gay?”
Keefe patted his shoulder. “You'd better ask him yourself. He likes irises and Greek food.” He dove into the water again.
If Rev. Gemstone allowed Gideon and his boyfriend to live openly in his house in the spring of 2020, the thing that happened couldn’t be about being gay. Unless he started homophobic, kicked Gideon out of the house, and somehow the relationship was restored.
More after the break
"Mmm...keep doing that." His eyes still closed, Pontius took Stacy's hand and helped him squeeze harder.
"Sorry, I didn't know you were awake."
Suddenly Pontius leapt out of bed. "Be right back -- gotta pee." He bounced to the bathroom, his cock still sticking out in front of him.
While listening to the pee-sounds -- why was that erotic? -- Stacy looked around the room: New dresser, desk cluttered with books and headphones, a map of the world taped to the wall, drawings of car designs, a bookcase with mostly Matchbox car models, three dusty guitars that no one had ever used, a glowing neon P.
Sound of the water running, a towel being yanked, and then Pontius rushed out of the bathroom. How was he still aroused?
"No, on your back. I want to look at you."
More after the break
"You're not here to tell me how lucky I am, are you? Another inch, and the bullet would have hit my aorta, and I would have bled out before the paramedics arrived? God was watching over me, but not the 17 men that Cobb killed?"
"Hell, no." Stacy recognized the voice...but...the guy slid his chair over to the bed with a loud screech. His friend Pontius! Well, not really a friend -- Stacy had seen him on tv and at the Salvation Center, of course, but they didn't really meet until he started going to the skate park last month, and they had only spoken a few times. "I'm here to tell you to get well, so I can get back to watching you wipe out your ass on the tail slides."
"Har-har, big joke. Dude, you know you're a wannabe mobber. Just wait til I get back to that skatepark." He hadn't realized how much he missed skating, and jamming about skating.
Pontius grabbed Stacy's free hand and pressed it against his own. "I brought you some chocolate Turtles, 'cause you know, you're into lizards, but they accidentally got eaten in the car on the way over."
"Jackass!"
He laughed. Stacy felt surprisingly happy to see him. His brash, no-nonsense attitude was the perfect remedy to a week of "God had his hand on you!"
"It was weird. I liked working at the Gator Farm. Cobb was so nice to me, always asking about my classes and the Salvation Center, and all the time he was killing people, and he kept that guy Big Dick as a sex slave, like five feet from where I was mopping the floor."
"Yeah, dude, if you knew, you could have splattered the mother-f*cker!"
"Hey, do you think he was asking so many questions because he was keeping tabs on your Grandad?"
"Probably. Seems like every year, some guy pops up with a grudge against my Grandad, the World Famous Eli Gemstone or whatever." He reached up and squeezed Stacy's left shoulder. "Does this hurt?'
"No. I was shot in my right..."
"How about this?" He moved his hand down to Stacy's crotch and squeezed.
"Hey, knock it off!"
"Just checking to see if your junk still works. Scoot over." Pontius slid onto the bed next to him, so their thighs and legs were touching, and grabbed the tv remote. "You get any porn on this thing?"
"I don't think you're supposed to do that."
"So call a nurse and complain."
Stacy had never sat pressed against someone before, except maybe his brother when they were little. He dated a couple of girls, back before he figured out that he was gay, but they never did any hugging, just handshakes and goodnight pecks. He had been with two guys, but they were just hookups, unzip, suck, and don't say hello in the hallway the next day. Was this what having a boyfriend felt like? Were they cuddling?
Wait -- wasn't Pontius straight?
Pontius was casually clicking on the remote as if the closeness didn't bother him at all. Flustered, Stacy tried to think of something simple to talk about. "Did you know that your Grandad visits me every day? Your brother Gideon has been by, and Kelvin..."
Uh-oh, Pontius took that as an accusation. "I would have come before, but I've been busy. Gideon is starting a new Christian-themed skatepark. I'm going to be the manager." He stopped on Spongebob Squarepants, then put down the remote and took Stacy's hand. Their fingers interlocked.
They watched in silence for a few minutes.
"This is nice," Stacy said.
Pontius started to blush, a reddening in his neck and face. "Yeah, well, touching a dude is good for healing."
He had a thin, tight frame, small hard biceps, some cool tattoos, and the most beautiful hands. Why had Stacy never thought of asking him out?
Reason #2: Wasn't he straight?
"I've seen this episode," Pontius complained. Let's find some chicks, or some dicks." He clicked until he found a soap opera with a shirtless hunk sitting on a couch. "Awright! Check out those pecs! Man, I'd love to be working on those."
"I thought you were...you know...you like girls."
Pontius laughed, then lay his head on Stacy's shoulder. "Dude, you are adorable. I like pussy, but who's gonna say no to a cock? I went down on half the cadets at the Citadel, and the other half went down on me. Sometimes they wanted me to screw them while they screwed their girls, or the other way around."
Casually outing himself as bi? No long, angst-ridden conversation? Stacy was astonished, but strangely, not at ease. Reason #3: Pontius was a player. Whatever was going on here, it wasn't real.
"I'm gay...."
"Well, duh. That's obvious, Stace. Everybody knows. My grandmother knows, and she's not even alive."
"So...if you knew, and you like guys, why haven't you ever asked me out?"
More after the break. Caution: Explicit
3. Sola, the nanny for Baby Billy and Tiffany's children: "Alles gutes zum Hochzeitstag." (Happy Wedding Day).
Pontius clarifies: "Let your love be deep and hard...deep and hard. Best wishes, guys."
The library and student union don't look much different from those of other colleges, except for the uniforms