The two figures, looking handsome together, stood at the doorway of the rambling adobe house on the heights overlooking old Santa Fe. They were standing close together, silhouetted shadows as seen from inside the house, where, in the great room beyond the foyer, small groups of people gathered in proximity - but not too near - a long trestle table, drinking wine and talking in subdued tones.
The woman, tall and thin, her skin tanned and weather-beaten without distracting in any way from her finely chiseled features, gave the impression of a Native American princess, accentuated by the long, plaited braid cascading down her back and the beaded band around her head. Her tawny-colored, long, form-fitting dress was of some sort of suede that matched the moccasins on her feet. The desert artist Lillian Vain, one of the centers of the Santa Fe art community in the early twentieth century, had gone native, but, in doing so, had set styles for the art community nationwide.
Standing with her, closer to her, and speaking in low, measured tones was the Western novelist, Edward Deal. Lillian was a tall woman, but Edward towered over her, and the bulk of him, distributed perfectly over a well-muscled body, made the spine-of steel artist of the desert look almost delicate and feminine. Eschewing the effects of the "gone native" artists' community, which Deal only skirted the edges of, as he was a man's man who valued his individuality and isolation, Deal was dressed in an elegant black suit. His salt-and-pepper hair was close cropped and his mustache well trimmed. He came by his muscular physique honestly, as he was a man of the mountains, although wealthy and well-educated enough to dominate in dignified parlors and who wrote novels of rugged men overcoming the brutal natural obstacles of the West.
Lying on the trestle table in the great room was a simple wooden casket encasing the remains of Lillian's husband of twenty years, William Ware, sculptor of bronze statues of cowboys on bucking horses that were represented in nearly every major museum in the United States and Europe. Edward, the closet neighbor to Lillian and the artist community gathered about the Wares, albeit his ranch was five miles distant, was just leaving, having come to pay his last respects.
"It was so good of you to come, Ed. And I much appreciate what you have offered to do for Alo. If he agrees to it, so do I. It is very generous of you to offer."
"Where is the lad? I haven't seen him since we all went back to Chicago to see him graduate from that private school and then brought him back here. He's grown into such a fine-looking young man, Lillian. Has he decided which college he will go to - or what he wants to do in life? An artist like you and Bill? He's so good with his hands. His wood carvings already are first rate."
"Who knows what Alo wants?" Lillian said, with a tone hovering between wistful and distracted - her mind was still on the composition she had been working on early in the morning before William's friends had started to gather for the last viewing. "Alo was distant from Bill and me even before we sent him to school in Chicago. I have no idea what he wants, although he has mentioned writing novels, as you do. But he hasn't come in from his room for the viewing. I think he took Bill's suicide personally."
How could he not, Edward wondered as he raised Lillian's hand to his lips. Neither Bill nor Lillian had had much room in their artistic lives for the son and only child, who had come to them almost as a surprise. A beautiful boy, always, who they had named Alo, Hopi for "spiritual guide," and who they had promptly turned over to servants and minor artists worshipping at Lillian's and Bill's feet to raise. Only those close to the family called the handsome young man, barely in his majority, Alo now. To most in the world, he was Al, and when they wanted to be formal, they mistakenly called him Allen. The young man seemed to prefer the separation from his parents' inattentive world, so when alone with him Edward called him Allen too.
"Perhaps, Lillian," Edward said gently, "We shouldn't talk too much about Bill's death being a suicide. It's so distressing to the art world, and probably is doubly so to Alo, coming as it did right after our return from Chicago. Alo was all aglow from having graduated and having his summer here with the two of you stretching out before him. The death must have crushed him. That's why I've offered to take him with me on my writing retreat for the summer. This probably isn't a place he should be now."
If this was a veiled rebuke for Lillian, a suggestion that the wife had no need for the son or vice versa in this time of tragedy, Lillian didn't seem to discern it. "Death is what it is, Edward. We have lived our life honestly. Bill would not have taken his life if he wanted to hide his pain. It was his health, you know."
It was not his health, Edward thought. How little you knew of your husband, he mused, although all he did was look sympathetically into those beautiful milky-blue eyes of hers and cluck his regrets.
As he was standing out on the porch and Lillian was still in the doorway, Edward said, "If he would prefer not being here today, please tell him he's welcome to come over to my place through dinner. He can come back tonight after the . . . after Bill has been taken away to the mortuary."
"Thank you, Ed, I'm sure that would relieve us all."
Edward had spoken what he had just now because he was aware that Alo was at an open window farther down the porch line and could hear every word he said. As Edward moved down along the front of the porch in that direction to unhitch his horse from the porch rail, he looked up directly into the young man's eyes, receiving, as he hoped, a look of relief and affection.
An hour later Alo rode up to a wooden ranch house far smaller and less pretentious than his parents' rambling adobe mansion set in a compound with smaller artists' matching adobe houses circling it. Edward was far richer than his parents were, even though they also were wealthy, but Edward carried his "frontier man" rough and simple persona through to his dwelling. The ranch house wasn't small, but, beyond the great room with its soaring cathedral ceiling and varnished oak cross beams openly showing how the house was constructed, there were just two bedrooms; two baths; a large eat-in kitchen, where the housekeeper reigned and left shortly after noon everyday for her own family ranch four miles away; and a large study, where Edward wrote his novels when he was in residence.
Alo walked into the house without knocking, turned right in the great room, and walked down a dark corridor, past the study on one side and the extra bedroom, bath, and storage room on the other side to the door at the end of the corridor leading into the large master bedroom.
Edward was lying on the large bed, his torso propped up by pillows covered in Native American textiles. He was dressed his black trousers and starched white dress shirt and had a book open on his lap. He looked up at Alo standing in the doorway, took his wire-rimmed spectacles off, laid them on the nightstand on top of the book he was reading, and beckoned to the young man.
"Come to me, Allen. Come as I like to have you."
Alo lay sprawled on top of Edward, facing up, his right leg extended across the bed and his left leg bent over Edward's left arm. Edward's right arm was laced under Alo's right armpit, with Edward's hand cupping Alo's chin and lifting the young man's face up to his in a deep kiss.
The perfectly formed, naked body of the young blond Alo was writhing slowly on Edward's lap as the fingers of Edward's left hand dug into Alo's channel, snaked up to the young man's prostate, and worked him there until Alo's cock had hardened. When it had, and still possessing the young man's mouth with his, Edward grasped Alo's cock and stroked the young man to an ejaculation.
"You are so beautiful," Edward whispered when Alo had come for him. The older man had released Alo's mouth but not his cock, which he continued to stroke slowly.
"I want you to fully possess me. Fuck me now. Please," Alo whispered.
"I've told you. I can't now. Soon, though, if you come with me this summer."
"Come with you? Where?"
