Bad Neighbors

"You just come in for a drink and a look see, or you want something more, Oskar?"

"Just the drink today, Skinner, thanks. A shot and a chaser, please."

"Been some time since you got any, hasn't it?" the bartender at the Buckhead Ranch said as he set up two shot glasses for the big Swede bellied up to the bar. "You're still in fine shape, Oskar. You should be usin' it."

"And payin' you well to use it?" the big-boned Scandinavian with the fine head of blond hair said, towering a good foot above the barkeep as he leaned over the bar. His beefy arms, matted with curly blond hair, spread out dramatically on the surface of the wooden bar top that was marred with the carvings of hundreds of customers. He was smiling through his full mustache and trimmed beard, though, so he wasn't taken as trying to be critical.

"If you think I'm in such tip-top shape, why are you thinkin' I need to come here and pay for it?"

"You passed three tame bars to get to mine," Oscar. "Don't shit me why you chose mine. When you pay me for it, you get quality. Doubt you're spiking any of those grizzled old cowpokes you've got out there at that ranch of yours."

"Got that right."

"We got a new guy here who might appeal and get you out of your funk. Over there, the well-built guy with the dark hair and the sulky look. Just your type, I think."

The muscular giant turned to look in the direction the barkeep, and house pimp, directed his attention. Skinner had a moment of panic, though. He might have gone too far. The funk the Swede was in had lasted a good ten years. And the new man, a really fine piece in his mid twenties, really did look like Pete had at that age. Still, Skinner thought it was time for Oskar to move on. The man did occasionally take a guy upstairs and Skinner had reports that he was horse hung and a good fucker. He really did need to use it more while he still could. He had to be, what? forty-five or so. He didn't have too many more years of getting it up easily and getting pleasure out of it.

"I don't know," the Swede said. "Really good-lookin' and a fine body, but I don't know. He don't look like one to lie under a man."

One of Oskar's arms had slid off the table and was stretched down in front of him between his belly and the bar. Skinner knew when a man was feeling himself up. So, he knew Oskar was interested in Frank.

"His name's Frank. He goes both ways, depending on what's wanted. And I'm told he's a real firecracker and has a sweet ass. Course he's given some say here. If he don't like the look of a man, he don't have to go with him. You want to take him upstairs and go for a ride, Oskar? I reckon you're overdue."

"Yeah, yeah, I guess."

"A real sexy piece. Go for an hour with him?"

"Now you're pushin' it, Skinner. A half hour should do."

"Already hard just lookin' at him?"

"Yeah, guess you got that right."

"OK. Half hour, one shot, paid now. You don't come down after that, though, you can pay for the rest later." Skinner turned and called out. "Frank, over here, please."

As Frank walked over to the bar, his eyes latched onto the big Swede. There wasn't much else to look at in the room when the Swede was there, he was so tall, broad of shoulders, and barrel chested. Frank wasn't a small guy himself, but Oskar towered over him. And Frank was well-muscled, but he didn't have the bulging musculature of this rancher, who obviously was a hands-on worker. And hairy. The first impression Frank got was of the hair. Not just the unruly blond, curly pile on his head—some of it going gray—that curled around his ears and went down to his shirt collar, but the matting on his forearms and the tuft showing over the V of the plaid shirt he wore, material distressed across the bulging chest, above worn jeans and scruffed cowboy boots.

Frank gave Oskar a big smile as he came up to the bar, the Swede turned to him, leaning on the bar, and Frank looked him up and down, his eyes lingering at the crotch. When his hazel eyes under thick, long black lashes flickered back up to the man's face, Frank's smile was even broader. He preferred big-dicked men, and this guy looked like he was ready for it already.

"Frank, this is Mr. Swenson. You like what you see, you can take him to room three, please, and show him a good time."

"Gladly," Frank said.

This brought out a big grin from Oskar. He obviously was happy he'd passed muster, even if Frank was nothing more than a male whore.

Oskar didn't waste any time, and Frank didn't hold him off. He gathered Frank into him with a beefy arm around his waist and was working the buttons on Frank's shirt, with Frank doing the same with his, as soon as the door to room three slammed shut behind them. It was much like all of the rooms upstairs: a small room with all the essentials—a three-quarters bed, a small bureau, a straight chair, a wooden clothes horse for the client's clothes, and a porcelain bowl with water and a towel for cleanup afterward. They were standing in the middle of the room, swaying against each other, their mouths plastered together in a long, deep kiss.

Each were pulling arms back at the same time to shrug shirts off, and then they were back in a clutch, Oskar grabbed and squeezed Frank's buttocks through his jeans and Frank buried his face into the curly hair of Oskar's chest and searched for nipples with his mouth, while his hands worked between them, unbuckling Oskar's belt, unbuttoning his jeans, and pushing them and his under linen down to the floor. Oskar kicked those across the room and out of the way with the toe of his boot. No niceties of folded clothes on the clothes horse here.

Frank two-handed Oskar's cock and started working it, as Oskar grabbed his head in two hands and pulled his lips back up to Oskar's mouth. This didn't last long before Frank sank to his knees and was gagging on the big guy's cock.

Oskar held Frank's head to his crotch, reared his head back, and roared, his thoughts obsessed with the word "firecracker" that Skinner had mentioned downstairs. Got that right, he thought. The honey was all over him. Wanted it as much as he did—or was a real good actor in pretending he did. He felt the juices rise. He wouldn't be long at this.

Frank had taken care of getting his own jeans down his legs while he was on his knees, and bounded back up and was climbing Oskar's hips with his legs. Oskar went into a crouch, holding Frank's torso cantilevered away from him. Oskar's thick, hard cock had no trouble locating Frank's slack hole and sliding into him, while Frank grabbed gobs of hair on Oskar's pecs with his hands, locked his ankles behind the small of the big man's back, arched his back away from Oskar, and moved his hips in the rhythm of Oskar's deep thrusts inside him.

It was all over for Oskar in less than five minutes of pounding.

He hobbled over to the bed, with Frank still draped on his front, and laid the younger man down on the end of the bed, with his butt on the edge. He dropped down on his knees on the floor between Frank's thighs, grabbed for both of Frank's wrists, and started giving the smaller man head. Frank arched his shoulder blades back onto the surface of the bed and moaned. They were right on the thirty-minute mark when Oskar had come for his second time, crouched over Frank, between his thighs, where he had been placed by Oskar on the bed. Oskar had held Frank's waist and Frank had spread and raised his own legs and, when tired of that, had run them up Oskar's hairy torso, while Oskar was pounding his ass again to a second ejaculation.

"That's it, I guess," Oskar said, as he stood up from Frank's prone body. "Sorry for gettin' in two. Guess I was more anxious for it than I thought. Only a half hour I see, but Skinner will charge me for two—for a full hour."

"We could make it three in an hour with you only having to pay for the two you already owe," Frank said.

"You'd do that for me?"

"Yes. For return business. You fuck real good."

That deflated Oscar just a bit. He'd hoped the answer was that he was just too sexy to resist. That's what most johns wanted to hear. Of course, that's the line most prostitutes gave their johns. Oscar guessed he should be happy that this one was giving him a more honest answer, and still was complimenting him on his fucking. This one certainly had been into the fuck.

"I don't usually fire off that fast. I don't know if—"

"Come, lay on the bed with me. I'll make sure you want to go again inside the hour and can."

They lay on the bed, Oskar on his back and Frank half draped on top of him, stretching his full length. Frank had one hand stroking Oskar's cock back to life and the other playing in Oskar's chest hair.

"I'm too hairy for some men," Oskar whispered.

"Not for me," Frank whispered back.

Oskar felt a lump in his throat. That's what Pete always said. And this young hunk was so much like Pete had been when they left it off.

"I'd like to see you again—and again," he murmured. "But I ain't that rich."

"It could be cheaper if I came to you on my off days," Frank said.

"You'd do that? You want me to fuck you regular?"

"Again and again," Frank whispered. "You're a rancher, right? Tell me how to get to your ranch."

Oskar couldn't figure out what this guy's angle on this would be other than liking the cocking he gave him. He gave up trying to see the bad side of this. He barely was able to get through the directions before his was panting heavily again, and his cock was at full staff.

With a low laugh, Frank rolled fully on top of him, sat up on his pelvis, lowered his channel, on the cock, and fucked himself, moving up and down and back and forth and in revolution, with the palms of his hands buried in the hair of Oskar's chest, while Oskar moaned and groaned and grunted—and did what he could to thrust up into Frank's channel in rhythm.

Frank lowered his mouth to Oskar's chest and slicked up the man's chest hair with his tongue, making little noises to indicate pleasure that Oskar was so hairy. When he nipped one of Oskar's nipples, the man jerked and fired off again.

When he hit the bottom of the stairs, Skinner leaned over the bar and winked. "Really somethin' special, ain't he?"

"Oh, shit yes. If you could bottle poontang like that, you'd be a rich man. That ain't your usual whore house lay. Really gets the jizm pumping, that one does."

* * * *

Sunday was the first of two days off for Frank, and he rode out along the dirt road paralleling the Platte River away from the town of North Platte and the Buckhead Ranch male brothel. Oskar had given him directions to his ranch, and Frank was almost there when he came upon some sort of community gathering. At first he thought it was a church service, but it was mid afternoon already, and he quickly was able to see that, though the women and children appeared to be wearing what they would to church, they were gathered around tables, packing up what looked to have been a picnic, and the men were dressed in work clothes, some stripped to the waist, and were raising a small barn. The log cabin beyond it looked derelict enough that this might have been a deserted homestead. But not, Frank thought, if they were having a barn raising.

It was more of a big shed than a barn, but, nonetheless, it looked like they were working hard to get it up by nightfall—and were falling behind in the task.

Frank had been raised to be neighborly and he'd been to many a barn raising. The barns on his family's spread in Pennsylvania had always been raised this way, so he turned his horse into the yard, rode up to the house, dismounted, and tied his horse's reins to the porch railing. He was stripping off his shirt, preparing to go help on the barn when a man, in his mid thirties, came out of the house.

Frank took his breath it. The man was the spitting image of his own father, but a bit younger, somewhere between his father's age if he had still been alive and his own. His father had died at thirty-six, though, so, here, standing in front of Frank, was the image of his father when he'd lost him—and when the family had been forced into the poverty that eventually led to Frank doing what he was doing.

"Yes, may I help you?" the man asked. It wasn't lost on Frank that the man was looking at his bare chest rather than in his eyes. The man looked weary, but his eyes narrowed when he looked at Frank.

"Saw there was a barn raising as I passed, and I was taught never to pass one by without helping."

"Thank you, but it's almost over. There's no more food laid out anymore, and the families are beginning to pack up to leave."

"The barn's not all up yet, though," Frank said. "It looks like there's a few more hours of light up there. And it looks like it might rain tomorrow. Best to get the roof over it before the day ends."

"It doesn't look like that's going to happen," the man said, a sadness in his voice. He was fully dressed and not out helping on the barn. It made Frank wonder if he was crippled or something. But then he heard a voice, couched in pain, coming from inside the cabin.

"Pete? You out there? 'Fraid I made a mess in here. Need your help."

"On the porch, Sven. Be there in a minute," the man, whose name evidently was Pete, called back into the house. He turned to Frank. "Sorry. Have a dying man in here. It's hard to get away. Been hard for a while. I thank you kindly, but . . ."

"I'll just go over and see what I can do to help on the barn," Frank said gently. "You go in there and do what you have to do."

Pete gave Frank a grateful look. "Thank you kindly again, then. There's no food from the barn raising, but maybe, if you have the time, you'll tarry afterward and I'll feed you some supper before you're on your way again."

It was almost a hungry look the man was giving Frank, and Frank could imagine how isolating and difficult it was for a man to care for a dying man—probably his father—alone. And from the looks of the condition of the homestead, the man had been a long time dying and needing constant attention.

"Sounds good to me," Frank answered. "I'll be going over to the barn now."

While he was nailing planks of wood on the barn roof to get it closed up, with another man nailing at the other end who he was chatting with, Frank asked, "Who is this Oskar men have been talking about who didn't come to the barn raising?"

"That would be Oskar Swenson, just the next ranch over. This is the first barn raisin' hereabouts where he wasn't front and center and doin' the work of three men. We'd got this one up well before dark if he'd been here. Looks like we'll still make it—get it under cover at least—thanks to you comin' along."

"Is this Swenson man sick today?" Frank wondered whether he should go on to Oskar's place.

"Naw. Guess it's about him and Sven and Pete. Bad blood there. Not something we talk about if we can help it. It's probably good he didn't come. There'd be too much tension in the air."

"Sven?" Frank asked.

"The man dying in that cabin there. Don't know if this work is all for nothin'. Don't know what Pete plans to do with this ranch when Sven goes. It was Sven who did the ranchin'. But not much use to talk about it. You got any extra nails over there I can use?"

Frank got the "we don't talk about it" message.

Pete was shy and nervous throughout a very good dinner despite his need to run back and forth between the two rooms. There were only two rooms in the cabin, the bedroom the dying man was in and the main "everything else" room, other than the outhouse, which, as with nearly every ranch in the West in 1915 was "out there."

At first Frank hadn't understood why the man was so nervous, but it began to dawn on him when he'd looked into the bedroom and had seen that the man in the bed wasn't old and decrepit; he was maybe in his mid forties. Another one of those big Scandinavians whose families had immigrated to this part of the States to farm or ranch. The man was probably only second generation, and now that Frank thought about it, when he heard him call for Pete, there had been a distinct accent in his voice.

He wasn't Pete's father and he wasn't his brother either, Frank, didn't think, unless the mother had really been messing around.

"So, how did you come to this?" he said over some sort of delicious peach cobbler they were eating for dessert and a cup of coffee. Pete could cook for him any day of the week, as far as he was concerned.

"To this?"

"Taking care of another man full time like this. He isn't your father or your brother, is he? It looks like you're devoting your whole life to him. Is he paying for you to do this? If so, why you rather than some housekeeper who could nurse him as women can better than most men?"

"I nurse him quite well," Pete said, flaring up a bit.

"I'm sure you do. You certainly feed him well if he'll take it. But you obviously are tied to him full time. What happened to the old barn?"

"It fell over—and then burned."

"This cabin looks like it would do so too if these weren't solid logs it's built with. The question remains."

"He's more to me than a father or brother," Pete answered in a small voice.

"Now, I knew that, but I think you needed to get it out and say it. And if you think that matters to me in some judging way, you're wrong. I understand."

"You understand?"

"Completely. How long has it been since you two have made love?"

"Made love?"

"Had sex. With each other." Frank wasn't going to let him avoid this.

The small voice again, without being able to look at Frank. "Almost a year. No, maybe already a year."

"Any other man taking care of you now?"

"No."

"Do you really think Sven in there would have it that way—would make you deny yourself if he couldn't give it to you?"

Pete didn't respond.

"Look at me, Pete. I said, look at me. There. Why are you being so shy with me? Is it because I repulse you or you fear me? Or because you fear that you could want me."

Pete was making a gurgling sound, but he eventually managed to whisper, "Because I could want you. Because . . . because I do want you."

"Come here," Frank said, pushing his straight chair back from the table and against the wall and opening his arms. "I said, come here. You need something. I have it to give."

Pete rose and took a couple of steps toward Frank, who leaned forward, grabbed the man's wrists, and pulled him to where he was standing between Frank's spread thighs.

Pete let out a low moan as Frank pushed the older man's shirt up from his trousers and exposed his flat belly. Frank kissed the man's navel and laid his cheek on the bare skin of the belly, which was trembling at his touch, while he unbuckled and unbuttoned the trousers and pushed them and the under linen down to the floor. Pete already was barefooted.

"Step out of them. You won't need them for a while."

"Why?" Pete asked nonsensically.

"Because we're going to fuck. I'm going to give you what you need."

With a groan, Pete did as bade and Frank lowered his mouth to Pete's cock. The table, and the butter on the table, was within reach. Pete gasped as the greased fingers found and entered his passage. He came quickly on Frank's face.

"I can't . . . sorry . . . I can't remain standing." His legs were wobbly and he was only being held up by the strength of Frank's hands grasping his waist.

Frank chuckled. "I don't intended for you to stand up." He had managed to unbutton himself, expose his cock, and work it up while he was giving Pete head. So it wasn't a long trip for him to lift Pete by the waist and settle his greased channel down on his cock. He pushed Pete's shirt up to his armpits and attached his lips to a nipple and started raising Pete's pelvis up and down on the cock with the strength of the arms embracing the man's chest.

Pete gasped and threw his own arms around Frank's head. Completely into the fuck, Pete raised his legs and pressed his feet against the logs of the wall on either side of Frank's chair. Using his feet for leverage, he took over the stroking. Rising and falling on the cock, faster and faster, forcing the cock deeper and deeper.