The Look: Alpha Male, Feisty Female Romance (84 page)

Carter was the bottom, simply because the love of his life would never trade positions. The truth was that Maddox was in all ways pure cowboy, save one. He liked slim, tall boys with big lips who looked just like Carter, instead of busty girls. Maddox treated Carter with the grace and care he would a woman, if he'd been straight. So it was in this way Carter could see that it truly wasn't in his boyfriend's nature to be anything but dominant.

They stepped around the corner from where a couple was laughing. Maddox put his hands on Carter's face in the dark, groping for where to plant his first kiss. He found Carter's lips and began making out with him. His calloused hands were something permanent that Carter endured because Maddox's job required heavy labor in the oil fields of Louisiana. For some reason, though, no matter how dirty Maddox got, after a quick shower it was like his skin rejuvenated itself, white and without a single mark. His odor was slightly sweet, as well.

As they continued to make out, Carter put his hands on Maddox's chest, a thick slab of pec, smooth as a marble sculpture. He continued down his abs where he could begin to feel the soft fuzz of his boyfriend's pubic hair. Maddox's gigantic erection was swelling fast as they continued their foreplay. Soft grunts vibrated through the area, drowned by the din of the carnival, the laughter, the screams of excited riders, the giggles of schoolchildren. Maddox drifted his kissing down Carter's neck, sending soft tingles of energy through his body. He took his strong, 21-year old hands and ripped Carter's shirt open. He could feel Maddox continue tasting his chest and then his pelvic area.

Carter put his hands on Maddox's sides and pulled him closer. He began stroking his boyfriend's cock, now swollen to its full glory, as Maddox took Carter's penis in his mouth and rolled his tongue around Carter's dick. The metallic walls shook as a teen male threw his body up against the wall to see if it would crumble. Unbeknownst to that teen and his friends, Carter and Maddox were making sweet, sweet love on the other side of the wall at that very moment.

Maddox picked Carter up and put him on a metal crate in the dark corner of the fun house. They could smell that sugary scent of airborne mist used to create atmosphere of the maze. A soft _hiss hiss_ of the machines at their feet expelled streams of smoke and the light from the fun house leaked out from under the crack in the wall.

Maddox stepped out of his jeans, smiling (he never did any talking during sex) and pulled Carter's underwear off aggressively. Maddox's erect cock was thick and long and it hung over under its own weight. Carter put his hands on Maddox's square waist as Maddox entered him. There was always a little pain at first, but this time they'd brought lube so things got very pleasurable as Maddox began pumping away.

Carter and the rest of the Simmons family were the caretakers of their own self-made carnival called the Buffalo Bill Travelling Carnival. The company originated from an early 20th century entrepreneur from Chicago who enjoyed spending his fortune on various exotic investments. Unlike the rest of his ventures, the Buffalo Bill carnival was hugely successful, and, being that there is no greater bore than perfection, the rich Chicagoan sold it off to Carter's grandfather. The company remained financially solvent through the century and into 1978, when Carter's grandfather died and left it to his son, Carter's dad. Life as a “carny,” though Carter never particularly enjoyed hearing the term, meant he had to adapt to constantly changing circumstances. Never staying in one place for more than three weeks, Carter habituated himself to the friends he'd make and then lose all over again throughout high school. He made peace with the schooling from different mail slots each month and the strange gaps in education. (For example, he taught himself through home school how to write rudimentary programming languages on the computer, but he couldn't do long division. He could recite his own Shakespearean sonnets, but he never learned proper punctuation.) He also tricked himself into enjoying the musty smell of motels he was forced to cook his dinners in when he came home from helping build the makeshift, collapsible roller coasters and spinning teacups.

When he was 13 years old, finally hitting puberty, he began fantasizing about naked men. Having never been exposed to pornography, or even knowing what it is, he founds the magazines which featured naked people in gas stations and convenience stores strangely unnatural, like he might as well have been a mountain man coming into civilization for the second time in his life, exposing himself to all the accoutrements of modern life which everyone else had taken for granted.

But make no mistake; even though he was gay, he was still male. From the start, he had had a preferred type of guy, which he preferred above all others--a strong, hairless cowboy with blonde hair and brown eyes. He could never understand where a preference so specific and rare came from; perhaps it had imprinted itself on his imagination as a baby. Cowboys generally attracted him; their remoteness, quietness, and way of dealing with their problems by %doing% something, rather than thinking about it, turned him on.

Carter, being gay, surprised himself, and likely family members and friends should they have known his secret, because he began having sex with men very early in his life, at the ripe old age of 18. Even though he was living during an intolerant time in American history, Carter was an independent, fearless young mind, a quality that didn't necessarily become apparent until later in his life. Perhaps, despite his circumstances, his experiences living as a carny gave him a breadth of understanding uncommon for someone his age. By 17, over his travels through the nation, he had seen the homeless lying along the 17th street in Los Angeles, the quiet coldness of Montana winters, the beauty of the Smokey mountains, and the exciting adventures 20-somethings have on Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Maddox continued pumping away, naked as the day he was born, and Carter pulled his blonde hair closer to his own face. Maddox's cheeks were without a doubt the softest part of his body, as the rest of him was hardened by the pulling and nagging he had learned from his teens on the oil fields. Carter kissed him softly right as he was about to come.

“I just came,” Carter said into his ear.

“OK, wait for me. I'm almost there.”

Maddox thrust his hips into Carter faster and faster, grunting with each push, and within a few seconds Carter could feel hot, wet lubrication inside him as Maddox slowed his rhythm to completion.

In the soft warm glow of the street lamps, Carter could see Maddox's dark brown eyes lighten in the light.

“We almost got caught,” Carter said. They laughed.

“I know.”

They stood there in the darkness, as the sound of the carnival around them sliding into a momentary silence. Just then, a loud scream came from outside the funhouse. Something was wrong.

II

Stetson Carthswaite was a man of few words, almost none in fact. He trusted very few people and belonging to groups gave him the shivers. He put his black cowboy hat on and stepped out of his rugged blue Ford F-150, in the direction of a pizza parlor.

“Just wait your turn!” a brunette woman said. The girl had a Minnie Mouse bow sitting on top of her head, as she carried in two separate hands a giant pile of dishes to the back. That girl was Stetson's fiancée, the only girl he'd ever loved, whom he met in high school. She had been the cheerleader all the football guys wanted, and Stetson was the lonely cowboy who won all the awards at Future Farmers of America conventions. They'd spoken for the first time at 18 when he won first of many trophies for a rodeo tournament. But that day Stetson had stormed off the podium when they tried to give him his award, because when he looked in the audience for his dad, Stetson couldn't find him. That was the whole reason he'd done the damn thing in the first place, to please his dad. And the son of a bitch hadn't even bothered to show up. On top of that, Stetson hated crowds and talking to strangers.

Out in the parking lot that night, he spoke to his girl for the first time. He got into his brand new truck, propped his feet up on the dashboard, and loaded chewing tobacco into his mouth.

In the darkness of that cold night, he heard a small petite voice from outside his window.

“What ya doin' there cowboy?”

Stetson looked over at her but didn't say anything.

“Why weren't you interested in getting that trophy? You deserved it and all.”

He spit in his cup. “Hate crowds.”

“Well I wanted to congratulate you on your big win. Don't you know who I am? We go to the same high school together.”

“Nah.”

But he was lying. Stetson knew the girl from thirteenth day of August of his freshman year. Lee Ann Finley was her name, and he'd loved her from the moment he'd laid eyes on her. To say Stetson loved someone wasn't an easy thing; his love wasn't something he gave quickly or cheaply. There were now only two people on earth he loved, his father and Lee Ann Finley.

“Well I know you. I know you don't think I'm the type to hang around here and all, but I've wanted to meet you.”

“I ain't your kind.”

“Let me decide that for myself thank you very much,” she said. She jumped in the cab of the truck, the point at which Stetson realized he'd forgotten to lock it. A little annoyed, but more than anything excited that his future fiancée was doing all the communicating for him, he could feel for a single second this alien warmth seep from the cracks in his heart; it was a feeling he'd long forgotten he was capable of.

“You know there's much more to me than just being a cheerleader.” Stetson kept his gaze ahead of him, refusing to lock eyes with her.

“Let's see. I like sewing. I like making pizza for my little cousins. One of them, Drew, he's the funniest. He hates sausage so I always try to hide a little piece in each slice he gets, because he's so funny when he's mad.”

Stetson continued staring ahead of him.

“This one time, I put one of those little plastic babies Cajuns use in a birthday cake. I put it in Drew's slice and he bit the head off. He started screaming and told everyone he ate the skeleton of a rat or mole.” At this point, Lee Ann was laughing in between each word.

Stetson spit in his cup, silent the whole time.

“Well I thought it was funny.” She calmed down a bit and looked around the now near-empty parking lot. “You know, it's very cold out here. Who are you waiting for?”

He didn't answer.

“I mean, you can't be living in your car or anything. What gives? Is it another girl? I'm going to be so angry if it is. You're mine, dammit.” She waited for an answer.

Stetson turned in her direction and looked her in the eye.

“Is that right?”

--

That was fifteen years ago, when both he and Lee Ann were 17. Stetson was now 33 and many things had happened. His only parent had passed away from lung cancer, and he would be all alone in the world, if it wasn't for Lee Ann. She herself had plenty of family. Her dad and grandfather owned a car lot next to that same parking lot where they'd met all those years ago; in fact, that's how Lee Ann got her first Volkswagen Beetle. She even put fake eyelashes on the headlights, which impressed all her preppy friends at school.

Lee Ann had this friend named Brock around lately, whom she said she met through her sister's bridal shower. Given that he tried as much as possible to stay away from people when he could manage it, he forced himself to let her go long enough to hang out with her high school friends. He loved the girl and figured he could trust her, even though he didn't trust Brock. In fact, with every greeting Brock gave Stetson, he wanted to beat the shit out of him with every passing second. Never before had he wanted to hurt someone so much; but he nevertheless tolerated the guy because was curiously close to Stetson's woman.

“Hey babe. You're early.” Lee Ann seemed a little surprised and scared that Stetson had come to pick her up at 2 PM instead of 7 PM, when she'd told him she would be off. For the past few years, Lee Ann had been working as a waitress at this pizza parlor in order to appease her father, who kept reminded her that times had changed, and it was important for a young woman to have some skills in the workplace. So being a pizza server was the compromise they'd made.

“Why not leave early?”

“Because Babe I wanted to see a movie with Stephanie and Brock.”

“No. Let's go.”

“I guess we'll just see him later this weekend at the cabin.”

“Yep.” Stetson spit in his dip cup.

“God that's gross. Honey you're really going to have to quit that soon. It causes cancer.”

“We all gotta go sometime.”

“Ugh, let me get my things.” She walked back into the kitchen, leaving him standing in the middle of a busy restaurant, awkward as ever. Stetson noticed a 19-year old girl walk past him, who was wearing a short mini skirt that just barely revealed her butt cheeks. His brain immediately sent a spark of life to his penis, which immediately began growing in his underwear. He thought of his fiancée and what he planned to do to her that night under the covers--well, really every night over the next weekend.

And indeed, he did fuck her brains out that night. She stepped out of the bathroom in a black lingerie piece. “It's new. Do you like it?”

“You ain't going to be wearing it long, girlie.”