All Snug (5 page)

stared daggers at me. Shit. I had gone right there and walked

on his dick. What the hell was wrong with me? Knowing

people and how to deal with them was my major gift, and a

major reason I made good money. What was it about Shawn

that was turning me into a social moron? “Sorry,” I said and

resolved to taking in a night of Shawn’s two-dollar drinks the

next time we went out.

Next time? said my inner voice. What do you mean next

time?

As the show came to an end, Liddle Awful Annie

promised the audience that we’d be able to find her and her

cast upstairs on the dance floor. That was our cue, and

Shawn and I headed up.

“You know what to do?” I asked.

“I do,” he said, and we split up.

I found Dixie a short time later leaning against the bar.

She was in her full outfit except for her shoes. I immediately

bought her a drink, something that she called a pixie stick,

and it wasn’t any two-dollar drink either. There was

something hilarious about trying to flirt with a man wearing

a bright nearly florescent blue wig and a goatee that had

been painted to match. It just wasn’t something your dad

taught you how to do. Or your mother for that matter. But

like I’ve said, knowing people—and charming them—was

what I did. My boss said I could charm the Pope out of his

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [36]

little red Gucci shoes. It didn’t matter that Dixie was already

barefoot.

After a second “pixie stick” (it was the color of her hair),

I let her know what I was after.

“You want my what?” she asked.

“Your girdle,” I explained.

“You are a kinky bastard, aren’t you?” she slurred. I

doubted two drinks did that. The booze must have been

flowing backstage.

“It’s a bet,” I explained. “I don’t want to keep it. I’ll give

you a fifty as collateral.”

“Honey,” she said. “You could have it for that price.

Thing is,” she said, poking her plump belly, “I don’t wear

one.”

Holy shit, I thought in surprise. Why, that hadn’t even

occurred to me.

“But I do,” came a loud voice, and we turned to see

Gena Talia and Shawn.

Shawn was holding a girdle. A large one.

It turned out Gena had a soft heart for men with big,

sweet blue eyes.

So Shawn won again. It was two to one.

I was losing. I don’t lose!

But those eyes that Gena had a soft spot for? Looking at

Shawn at that moment, even with that girdle, made my heart

melt.

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [37]

“WHAT’S today’s challenge?” Shawn asked me on the phone.

He was at work, and the poor dear apparently had a hell of a

hangover. One more reason not to buy cheap booze. I

refrained from telling him so.

“It’s your turn,” I said. “I’ve come up with two, and

that’s not fair to you.”

“Screw fair,” Shawn moaned. “My head feels like it’s got

about a ton of cotton stuffed inside, and I can’t think, let

alone come up with a challenge.”

“Well,” I said. “I did have an idea.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Well, in regards to the list. The Labors of Heracles? The

capturing part…?”

“I thought we agreed that there would be no capturing?”

“What about capturing with pictures?” I asked. “It’s a

pretty standard scavenger hunt kind of thing. We take

pictures of the items instead, meet tomorrow—say for

lunch—and the one with the most items wins the round.”

“Goodness,” he said. “That doesn’t give us much time

since we’re both working today. I guess that means I won’t

see you tonight?”

“I have a date with St… with my man.” A fuck was more

like it. I was going to go home and find a burglar in my

apartment and threaten to call the police. Then Steve—I

mean the burglar—was going to plead with me and tell me

he’d do anything not to go to jail. What’s more, he was going

to be a “straight” burglar who’d never been with a man

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [38]

before. I’d been hard all morning thinking about our evening,

and it was difficult not to jack off in the shower.

“Ah,” Shawn said, and did I detect a note of

disappointment in his voice?

El, you’re an idiot, my inner voice told me. Don’t go

there!

“Monday night is one of those nights I don’t get to see…

my boyfriend,” he said. “He has a class that night.”

See, he was just thinking about his boyfriend, just like

you should be doing.

I’m doing, I’m doing, I told myself. That’s why I’m

already getting blue balls!

“So anyway,” I said. “The Labors I figured would work

include the Nemean lion, or just a picture of a lion. The

Golden Hind of Artemis would be any kind of antelope,

gazelle, you know? The Erymanthian Boar—”

“A pig?”

“Exactly,” I replied. “The Stymphalian Birds would just

be birds. Then there would be a bull, a horse, a cow of some

kind, apples, and a dog.”

“If that last is supposed to be Cerberus, it better be a

mean dog. No toy poodles or Chihuahuas,” he said.

“Fair enough. We can just use our cell phones and—”

Shawn cleared his voice. “Ah, I don’t have a cell phone.”

“You don’t have a cell phone?” I asked, incredulous.

Who didn’t have a cell phone?

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [39]

“El! Do you know how expensive it is to have a cell

phone?”

“You can get them for free,” I said, although I certainly

didn’t own one that had been free.

“With a two- or three-year, mega-expensive contract,” he

remarked. “I haven’t been able to find service for less than

about sixty-nine dollars a month. I can’t do that.”

Once more verifying to me that Shawn had no business

buying that bed. Because as I thought about it, new

numbers hit me. That bed cost more than the house he and

his lady had lived in. Not that huge a deal for me, but for

him? He must really love his man, which was another reason

for me to watch my feelings. And just what were they? Why

was I thinking so much about Shawn? This was a contest,

nothing more.

“So this idea isn’t going to work?”

“Wait a minute,” he said, putting me on hold and filling

my ear with Christmas music. A moment later he was back.

“A digital camera will work, right?”

“You have a digital camera?” I asked.

“No, but my cubical mate does, and she wants to help.”

I could hear giggling in the background.

“That’ll be just fine,” I said. “So do you have the list?”

“A lion, antelope, boar, birds, bull, horse, cow, apples…

dog? Is that right?”

“Yup,” I said. “And an extra point if you can get a

picture of a monster.”

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [40]

“A monster?” he asked. “Where am I going to get a

picture of a monster?”

“Well, how can I tell you that?” I answered. “You’d go for

the same thing I was shooting for.”

“You’ve already got something in mind, don’t you?”

“Nope,” I said and meant it. “But my eyes will be

peeled!”

“All right, El,” he said. “We meet for lunch tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir. Tell me where you work, and I’ll pick you up.

Do you get an hour?”

“I wasn’t going to take that long… overtime, you know.”

“Oh,” I said. I’d already forgotten.

“But this is an exception, so okay.” He gave me his work

address.

“I know right where that is,” I told him. “And I know a

great little Indian place we can go. Do you like Indian?”

“I’ve never had it,” he said.

“You haven’t?” I asked, surprised once again, and then

kicked myself. Bumblefuck, Missouri wouldn’t have Indian

restaurants. “How about Thai?” I said and then kicked

myself again.

“Haven’t had that either, but I’m ready for an

adventure.”

I could actually hear his grin over the phone, and my

heart gave a little skip.

“We’ll go wherever you want,” he said.

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [41]

I nodded and tried to swallow the knot that had formed

in my throat. “Noon?” I managed.

“Noon,” he said. “I’ll wait outside.”

“You got it,” I replied. “And I am buying, hear? No

arguments!”

“El!”

“No arguments,” I repeated and hung up. Then I called

my personal trainer and told him I wouldn’t be in that day.

At lunch I headed over to the Kansas City Zoo. In no

time I had my lion, antelope, my boar—a wild red river hog

actually, but I figured it would do—plenty of birds, and two

dogs. One was an African hunting dog, which looked pretty

scary to me, kind of like a hyena. I even took a picture of the

New Guinea Singing Dog, which was actually kind of pretty,

except I bet he’d be less pretty if I got in his cage.

That left only the bull, horse, cow, and apples. Bull and

cow? Weren’t they close enough to be the same? And the

monster of course.

I was having fun, and I was on a roll. I also needed to

get back to work, though.

Thankfully I saw one of the horse and carriages that go

through Kansas City’s famous Plaza and snapped a quick

one there. My secretary coincidentally had an apple on her

desk she hadn’t eaten at lunch, and that took care of that.

On the way home, where Steve should be pretending to

burgle my apartment, I took a picture of one of many painted

cows around town left over from when the CowParade

international public art exhibit came to Kansas City.

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [42]

That left only a monster. But Steve’s tight little ass was

calling, and I decided to leave that one to fate.

Steve was right where he was supposed to be. He was

pretending to unplug my sixty-inch flat screen. I yelled and

shouted and threatened to call the police, and in no time he

was blowing me like only Steve could. Not long after that, I

was fucking him rougher than I’d ever fucked anyone in my

life, and he was urging me to fuck harder. I thought I’d die

when I came. God, Steve knew what he was doing.

“I went by Derringer’s today,” he mentioned while he

smoked his after-sex cigarette. It was annoying, both the

smoking (which I had never done in my life except for a good

cigar), and bringing up the bed. I wondered if Shawn’s

boyfriend kept dropping that into conversation or if he had

the good grace to keep quiet.

“Don’t you worry your sexy little ass about that,” I told

him and asked him to brush his teeth before round two.

The second time I fucked Steve, I found myself

wondering if Shawn was a top or a bottom. With his shapely

rear end, it would be a shame if he weren’t at least versatile.

SHAWN was waiting outside his office building just as

planned, and I was right on time. I figured when he said he

had an hour, an hour is what he meant. Menial office jobs

could get so Nazi about the time clock.

I took him to Zardagan’s, a sports bar that has the best

hamburgers on Earth.

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [43]

“What happened to Indian or Thai?” he asked as we

pulled into the parking lot. “Sheila coached me on what to

order.”

“You seemed to be humoring me,” I replied. “Figured you

were a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and you won’t believe

these burgers.”

He shrugged. Even looked a little disappointed. “I told

you I was ready for an adventure,” he said and then gave me

those deep eyes again.

I felt a shifting in my pants and adjusted myself the

second he looked away. Shit!

“Next time?” I asked.

“Do you think there really will be many more next

times? Christmas is almost here,” he said. “We’re going to

have to finish this up.”

I felt a drop in my stomach. “That doesn’t mean we can’t

still do things,” I said. “I like you, Shawn. We can be friends,

can’t we?” I didn’t like the almost whine I imagined I could

hear in my voice.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Losing could cause some hard

feelings.”

We went into Zardagan’s. I held the door for him, and I

waited until we were seated to answer him.

“Let’s make a deal,” I said. “No hard feelings.”

He gave me his sweet little smile. “I can’t promise that,

El. But I’ll try.”

I found it hard to talk suddenly and was grateful that

our waitress arrived with glasses of water. I took a drink