“Stop that,” Cal said with a groan, “You’re gonna make me come.”
“That’s the idea,” Vince said, lifting his mouth off Cal’s cock, his fingers still wrapped around the root of the shaft. They were an hour north of Denver on I-25, outside of Fort Collins, making about as good time as Cal’s old rattling F150 pickup could do. Vince had been playing with Cal’s exposed cock from the time they’d cleared Broomfield as Cal sat behind the wheel of the truck and fought to keep it pointed between the lane markings.
Vince’s mouth came back down over Cal’s cock but remained open enough for him to intone numbers as he raised and lowered his mouth on the shaft. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,” he intoned in a muffled voice. “Very good.” He murmured, as he raised his head off Cal’s lap and sat up straighter in the passenger seat, but maintained a grip and stroking rhythm on the other cowboy’s shaft with his hand. “You held it for at least the minimum eight seconds. Just remember that. Stay on the bull for eight seconds and you got it knocked and we’ll be on to Laramie from Cheyenne. And then to Nationals in Vegas.”
“I mean it, Vince. You gotta stop beating me off or I’m gonna wreck us.”
“Then pull off before we get to Fort Collins and find someplace you can do me right. We got the time, and you know how keyed up I get before these contests. I need to be fucked. Pull over and give it to me right. Let me ride it.”
“God, Vince. Anyone else I’d just flip off. But OK, OK, I’ll find someplace to stop—for a few minutes.”
“You’ll stop for as long as it takes. You know I’m your one and only now, and nobody can get you off like I can. You know what you want to do with this dick, and you know I like to take my time.”
Cal brushed a hand he’d taken off the wheel at the fist squeezing his cock, but without success in getting Vince to loosen his grip. “I mean it. I’m gonna come, Vince.”
“Unless you want that to happen before you get it in me, you’d better find someplace to pull off to fast, right?”
“I’m lookin’; I’m lookin’.”
* * * *
The pickup was pulled up behind a closed gas station just off an I-25 exit short of the Fort Collins interchanges. An outbuilding created an alleyway between it and the back of the gas station, where the pickup was parked on broken concrete with tall clumps of grass growing up in the cracks.
Cal was standing behind the lowered tailgate of the pickup, his worn jeans down around his ankles, his strong, calloused hands gripping Vince’s spread legs at the calves. Vince lay on his back in the bed of the pickup, his jeans folded up and pillowing his head, his legs raised and spread, the ankles bound in leather loops attached to the back corners of the pickup’s frame, one hand stroking his cock and the other one palming Cal’s sternum, while Cal fucked him in long, deep strokes.
They were both square-jawed handsome; lean, but muscular; and deeply tanned young cowboys, both in their mid-twenties, both with stars in their eyes of making the bull-riding national finals in Las Vegas this year, Vince more than Cal. But they were a couple, doing this together. They worked together in construction in Denver, they lived together, they played together, and they slept together. Vince and Cal were inseparable. They might as well have been married. In fact, each had thought the same thing, but neither, as yet, had had the courage to mention that to the other.
Making the bull-riding national finals was Vince’s goal for this phase of his life. Staying with Vince and keeping Vince happy was Cal’s goal. How that showed out now was Cal accepting Vince’s bull riding competition goal as his as well.
But Cal was making Vince happy now, right at this moment, with his dick.
“Just about there,” Vince grunted. “You too? You ready to come too, Cal?”
“Yeah, I’m with you, good buddy,” Cal muttered through clinched teeth.
“Eight seconds is the goal in the ring, remember that,” Vince hissed, and then he did a countdown as he stroked himself and Cal stroked his ass in the same rhythm. “Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one,” he intoned, and then he fired off up his flat belly. “Now you.”
Cal pulled out of Vince’s ass with a groan, and Vince grasped his cock and stroked it to the numbers, “Eight, seven . . . two, one,” and then Cal gave him his load with a little cry, collapsed on top of him and the two of them went into a lip lock.
Cal was thinking that Vince had his mind too much into this bull-riding business, but what could Cal do? The way he felt about Vince, all he could do was go with it and do what he could to be part of the dream.
* * * *
Cal stood there by the side of the F150 in the lot next to the bullring at the Cheyenne, Wyoming, fairgrounds while Vice pulled the boot box and a plastic bag from behind the passenger seat. He already had his red, white, and black plaid cotton shirt off his back and had dropped it on the passenger seat. People were passing by to enter the bleachers on two sides of the bullring, and most of the women—and a few of the men—gave Vince’s hard, trim, lightly muscled torso a second look as they passed by. One hard-looking cowgirl actually gave him a wolf whistle and Vince blushed and turned away from her, a little grin forming on his face. He didn’t mind being told he looked good—even if it was by a woman.
Other vehicles—mostly pickup trucks—were arriving and parking haphazardly around the edges of the bullring on the dusty dirt under a glaring sun. There would be a good crowd today. Just this and one more bull-riding event, in Laramie, for this region this year and the top contenders would be off for the Nationals in Las Vegas. The top riders had been whittled down to what pretty much would be those qualifying for Nationals. Vince was well up in the standings; Cal was on the cusp. Cal, three years older than Vince, had been going for it for six years—Vince only for four—but this was the closest either had come to qualifying for Nationals. Statistically Vince was on his way up, but Cal was on his way down the other side.
“Whataya think?” Vince said, pulling a yellow cowboy shirt with baby blue patches out of the plastic bag and then opening the boot box to extract red leather cowboy boots with yellow and blue inserts. He almost said the boots had cost him a week’s wages, which they did, but he stopped just in time, remembering that he’d asked Cal to float him on his half of the rent the last month.
Cal scrunched up his face and said, “Really striking there. You’ll be a queen in the ring.”
It was exactly the wrong thing for him to say, especially after the recent session behind the gas station near Fort Collins. Up until Vince had met Cal, Vince had been a top. It had been Cal who turned him into a bottom, and Vince was still sensitive about that. For his part, Cal fully realized the sacrifice Vince had made for their partnership. Vince’s face clouded up and got red and he slammed the boots back behind the passenger door.
In dismay, Cal tried to reverse field. “I mean they look great. You’ll be a real standout,” he said. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Vince stuffed the shirt back in the plastic bag and stowed it behind the seat. He pulled his plaid shirt out of the cab, and huffily, without looking at Cal, pulled it on. His eye caught a young blonde’s hesitation to take a second look at him.
“How ya doin’, sweetheart?” he called over to her and blew her a kiss. Blushing, she looked away, but she couldn’t help but form a slight smile on her face and hurried on toward the bleachers.
“Ah, come on, Vince,” Cal cajoled. “Don’t get in a bad mood. The boots and shirt are fine.” Cal fully realized that the flirting with the girl had nothing to do with the girl.
“But for homos, right? Declaring myself, you’re sayin’. But it’s OK. I don’t mind bein’ riled. Goin’ into the ring with some anger on helps,” Vince said, giving Cal a disparaging look. “Ain’t I told you that often enough? Here.”
“What’s this?” Cal asked. Vince was handing him $50 in fives and tens. Staying on the bull for eight seconds today would bring $100 back—and getting to Nationals would earn $10,000 in a participation fee and $50,000 to the winner.
“My entry fee. You go on over and get us checked in. I got somethin’ to do first. Meet you at the bull pen in about an hour.”
“OK, but you aren’t—?”
“I’ll meet you later,” Vice said, setting his stance and nearly glaring at Cal, daring him to fill out that sentence. Cal didn’t do it. He just shrugged, turned, and walked off toward where there was a table under a canopy, where the tickets were being sold and the riders were checking in and paying their fees.
Vince walked over to a fifteen-year-old brown and beige, thirty-eight-foot RV that he’d seen at every bull-riding event for the past three years. He stepped up at the door and banged on it. “Harv, you in there?” He called out. “It’s me. Vince.”
He got no response, so he came off the step, backed up to the side of the RV a few steps away from the door, pulling into the partial shade there. He leaned his back against the side of the RV, bending one knee, and planting his foot in it’s old-leather, scruffed boot against the metal stripping behind him, lit up a cigarette, and waited. He felt like a skunk about what he was up to. Cal didn’t deserve this. But Vince was obsessed with going to Nationals and this was the path he’d had to take in the past.
* * * *
“Someone’s banging on the door.”
“Don’t pay no attention to that, sweet cheeks. Just keep doin’ what you’re doing.”
What the nineteen-year-old, small, lithe, Native American, first-year bull-riding contender Billy Beartooth was doing was riding Harv Simpson’s cock on the single bed at the back of the RV parked next to the bullring at the Cheyenne fairgrounds.
Harv, in his late forties, and well-muscled but thick around the middle, with a beer paunch, and ugly as sin, was lying on his back on the bed, naked except for his ten-gallon hat and cowboy boots. Billy Beartooth, naked except for brown-leather chaps and his own ten-gallon hat, was sitting astride Harv’s pelvis, facing him, and riding the older man’s cock like he’d be riding a bucking bull within the next couple of hours.
Billy had a fine little, perfectly proportioned body, and Harv had a quite commendable cock—thick as Billy’s wrist and long enough that Billy could buck wildly and not come off the shaft. Harv made quite clear that he enjoyed Billy bucking while he rode his cock, so that’s what Billy was doing. As Billy rode the cock, Harv held the young man’s slim waist between his hands, helping to bounce his ass on the cock, and Billy held his hat on his head with one hand and stroked off his own cock with his other hand.
They fucked like this for several minutes more after the banging on the door to the RV had stopped, until Billy shot his load up into Harv’s chest hair and Harv, in turn, filled out the bulb of his condom. Billy then collapsed onto Harv’s chest, nuzzled his head under Harv’s chin—a place the young man could escape to without having to look into the older man’s grizzled face—and played with the cum-dampened salt-and-pepper curly hair on Harv’s chest. They both worked to bring their breathing under control and both of them concentrated on Harv’s cock shriveling up inside Billy’s channel.
Harv was a shriveler. He had a cock that looked pitiful when it was soft, but it hardened up into a tool that could make a man moan.
“Did I . . . was that—?”
“That was fine, Billy. Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you this afternoon.”
“How long again?”
“Eight seconds. I’d think you’d remember that. You gotta stay on the bull eight seconds to make it to Laramie and then, if you hang on for eight seconds there, it’s on to Vegas, kid.”
“It’s all too loud—and goes by too fast. I don’t know if—”
“I said I’d take care of you and I will. Now dress and get checked in. Come back tonight and you’ll earn your entrance fee back.”
Billy sucked in his breath. Times like this afternoon weren’t so bad—the encounters before the contest. Harv had his mind on other things then. He wouldn’t pay Billy anything for the afternoon and so he wouldn’t be as demanding. Tonight, though, when it was all over and they were looking ahead to Laramie, Harv would be drunk. He’d think it was all him who had gotten Billy past Cheyenne, and he’d expect Billy to show how grateful he was. And Billy would be paying for it. So, Harv would be demanding and would lose control. He’d use the whip. But if Billy wanted to make it to Nationals . . .
When Billy, washed off and dressed, opened the RV door and stepped down onto the rubber-padded step, he saw that Vince Vale, one of the contestants, was leaning against the RV just a few steps away and drawing on a cigarette. The butts on the ground there suggested this wasn’t the first one the cowboy had smoked since he’d been waiting.
Billy thought he’d recognized Vince’s voice as the dude who had banged on the door earlier. Could he guess what Billy had been doing in the RV? Yes, maybe. But maybe not. The other contestants probably had no idea what Billy was doing to stay in the mix.
Vince gave the young Native American a sour look, waited for him to show his back after he’d tipped his hat at Vince and walked off, and then climbed the steps and entered the RV without knocking.
Harv was sitting on a sofa, facing the RV door. He was wearing a robe that was gaping open, showing that, other than the scanty robe, his boots, and his ten-gallon Stetson, he was naked. He had a hand on his cock, but it was all withered up, not giving a hint of how thick and long it could be. He was smoking a cigar.
“Shut the door,” he barked. “I don’t want to be giving the other guys a thrill shot.”
More likely don’t want them puking everywhere around, Vince thought. The old man’s best feature wasn’t even ready for display. No question what he was doing with that little prick. Billy Beartooth had drained Harv dry. Vince shut the RV door, turned, and started working his belt buckle. “All of it?”
“Yes, all of it. Your body inspires me,” Harv said and then laughed.
“You want to do it on the bed?” Vince asked.
“Not today. Just pose for me and give me a blow job. Right here.” He slouched back into the sofa, spread his legs, brushed his robe more open, and took a drag on his cigar.
Naked, Vince gave Harv a good look from all angles and then knelt between the man’s spread legs and took Harv’s cock in his mouth. Harv had gotten a start at hardening up from watching Vince pose naked, but it still took several more minutes to work him up to respectable proportions, which is when Vince started to gag and his eyes began to water. Harv used his hands on Vince’s head to manipulate him, hold him in close, and keep his head in place, while, engorging to thick and long, he face fucked Vince.
Eventually, he loosened his grip, and he leaned over Vince’s back, squeezing the young man’s buttocks with his free hand. Vince moaned as Harv worked the saliva-wettened end of his cigar into Vince’s ass. That was OK with Vince. He was disappointed that Harv wasn’t fucking his ass with that now-presentable cock. Vince wanted to be fucked more than he wanted to be sucking cock.
Harv laughed and Vince began moving his hips, fucking himself on the cigar, matching the rhythm of that to the bobbing of his head on Harv’s shaft. He sensed that Harv was moving into the “rise of cum” stage. Vince started counting off the time remaining in eight-second intervals—keeping his mind on why he was doing this.
* * * *
“Everything OK?” Cal asked as Vince approached where Cal was standing, one foot up on the lower rung of the bullring fence and looking over the bulls for the day. The bull you drew, supposedly by lottery, was, along with how well your ribs had taken the previous weekend’s bull-riding contest and how much bourbon you’d had the night before—with having some bourbon helping you to stay relaxed for the ride—a key determining factor in whether you were going to stay on the bull for that crucial eight seconds in today’s contest. The kicker in the Colorado-Wyoming circuit was that Harvey Simpson, the region’s ringmaster, conducted the lottery all by himself and in private.
And Vince knew how Harvey Simpson conducted the lottery. So did Billy Beartooth.
“Just peachy,” Vince said, as he saddled up beside his friend and lover and surveyed the bulls brought in for today’s event. He found he wasn’t able to look Cal in the eye. He panicked for a few seconds even with the thought that Cal could smell the sex with another man on him. And Vince only now realized how much of a betrayal that was on his part.
He made a big deal out of assessing the bulls to cover his sense of guilt. Cal didn’t seem to catch on to Vince being upset by anything; giving the bulls a good look over was a natural thing to be doing now. Toward the end of the season, all of the riders got to know the individual bulls and had rated their quirks and rider survivability. Everything wasn’t just peachy with Vince, though. Until now he’d gotten Harv to fuck him before an event and to promise him a bull that wouldn’t kill him, although Harv wasn’t in a position to guarantee that Vince could stay on for the eight seconds. Thus far this season he had, though, and he wasn’t so arrogant as to believe that getting some bull other than Diablo, the bull he had his eyes on at the moment, hadn’t contributed to his success.
Harv hadn’t bedded him and he hadn’t promised him a forgiving bull. He’d just wished Vince luck after Vince had sucked him off. Vince credited the visit to the RV before him of that young Native American who had only shown up the previous weekend at the Boulder bull-riding event with Harv’s tampered-down hankering after Vince’s ass. So, who in the hell was this new guy, Vince wondered. And why was it important to him to last the eight seconds in these end-of-season events if he hadn’t won in earlier events? Was he just gaining experience for the next season when he could qualify to go to Nationals? He’d lasted the eight seconds in Boulder, but that, Vince and Cal had believed, was because he’d drawn Sally Sue for his bull, the tamest of the lot.
But now Vince had to consider that maybe having drawn Sally Sue hadn’t been by accident. Was Vince’s hold on Harv evaporating?
“What’s the new guy doing talking so seriously with Roy Waters over there?” he asked, turning Cal’s attention to the other side of the bullring, where Billy Beartooth was standing close to Roy Waters and listening attentively to the experienced bull rider. Roy was the only cowboy still in qualifications this year who had made it to Nationals last year. He was the best bet to make it there from the Colorado-Wyoming region this year as well—with Vince running a distant second. Roy was everyone’s bet to be moving into the winner’s circle.
“Probably getting pointers,” Cal said, speaking out of the side of his mouth because he was chewing on a hay stalk. Both Vince and he knew he was doing that for the paying spectators who were wandering around. All of the riders played to the crowd—with handsome ones like Vince and Cal playing them most effectively. It always helped to have a cheering crowd while you were fighting for your eight seconds, if for no other reason than the cheering and milling crowd in the stands distracted the bulls from the job of getting the weight off their backs and the spurs from digging into their sides. “He was lucky in Boulder. Drew Sally Sue. But why is he even trying this late in the season, I wonder.”
“Guess he’s hedging on enough of the riders not fully qualifying that they have to dip into the also rans who had lasted eight seconds to make the number needed to go to Las Vegas.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Vince said. And, indeed, he hadn’t, and he looked at the kid with more concern now as a competitor to him and Cal going to Las Vegas. “Speaking of Sally Sue, he’s in the ring today too,” Vince said, pulling his thoughts back from what Billy was up to. He wouldn’t help him in worrying about that when he was counting off his eight seconds on the bull.” Want to draw straws for which of us gets Sally Sue—you or me?”
“We wish,” Cal said, and then the attention of the two went to identifying and assessing today’s bulls. On the “wish I get that one” side were Sally Sue and one called Prancer, who went through the same gyrations each time, going down on his front legs for starters and then leaning left followed by right in his attempt to dump his load. A rider with experience with Prancer could make it to six seconds just by anticipating the bull’s habits. On the other end of the scale were Mad Bull and, the most dangerous, Diablo. Thus far this season, Roy Waters had been the only one to make it the eight seconds with Diablo. One bull that was here today, called Felix, was largely an unknown quantity. He had been at the Gunnison event early in the season, but he hadn’t been used since. He had been making more money for the bull-riding company by standing stud down in Texas most of the season. There was always a chance that fucking all of those cows had taken the fight out of him.
By the time Vince and Cal had done their wishing on the bulls, the trumpet had sounded, calling the spectators to the stands and the riders to the rails near the starting chute. Harv Simpson was standing in his tower with his microphone, warming up the crowd and announcing the first flight of riders. Neither Cal nor Vince were in the first flight, which included the lesser likely contestants.
Only one of the contestants held for the eight seconds from this flight—and that likely was because he drew Sally Sue to ride. Vince and Cal weren’t the only riders to groan when Sally Sue was taken out of the mix.
Each ride was the same in form. The rider lowered himself on the bull in a small pen that didn’t permit the bull to move forward or back or to the side, although it could buck a bit. Some bulls did; some didn’t. Each of the bulls had a leather strap chaffing their balls and dick, which encouraged them to buck in irritation. The rider held an arm up. When he lowered it, a six-foot clock face, marked off for twenty seconds that extended from the side of the announcer’s tower, chimed. Then, as the bull charged into the ring and started to do whatever it was going to do to be free of the man riding its back, the seconds chimed off on the clock, accompanied by the crowd crying off the seconds.
When the rider came off the bull—and they almost always did within ten seconds, the rider made for the fence line if he landed far enough from the bull and could move. Otherwise, two clowns charged out into the ring from the other side from the launch chute and, most hoped, although some came to see the gore, distracted the bull while cowboys dropped into the ring and helped the rider to safety. Each ride of only a few seconds took ten minutes or more to accomplish, and that didn’t count the antics of the announcer that drew the time out to make the crowd think it was getting a full show.
On the fifth ride, a bull Vince and Cal hadn’t seen before gored his rider and an intermission was called while the medics gingerly helped the unfortunate cowboy out of the ring and into a waiting ambulance.
Vince used the intermission to hit the port-a-john to take a piss. That was by a separate building off to the side of the ring. As he was coming out, he saw two cowboys walking off, close together, deeper into the fairgrounds, where wooden buildings to serve different fair purposes were scattered around haphazardly, having been built without uniform plan over time, as needed.
He identified them as Roy Waters and Billy Beartooth—Waters tall and muscular and Beartooth short, compact, and moving like a dancer. Vince followed at a distance, knowing what he’d see them doing, but drawn to the reality of how Billy Beartooth was fitting in so well on the circuit so late in the season.
The two entered a dining pavilion that was open on one side and was furnished with wood picnic tables. The pavilion wasn’t in use today—at least not for the purpose it was intended. It took no more than twenty minutes for Billy to give Roy what he wanted. Billy was sitting on a bench and Roy was bellied into him, with Billy sucking the older man’s cock, when Vince peeked around the corner of the building. Then, Billy, bereft of his jeans and shirt, still wearing his leather chaps and his cowboy boots, lay on the table on his spine. His fists were locked behind Roy’s neck and his ankles were on Roy’s shoulders. Roy, just in his open front shirt and his cowboy boots and with his knuckles pressed into the picnic table top on both sides of Billy’s hips, crouched on the bench between Billy’s raised and spread legs and fucked Billy’s ass in long, strong strokes. Billy writhed under him, making noises of being beleaguered and of having his male cherry popped.
Vince stayed for the heavy breathing and Billy’s cried-out declaration that he was coming and then that he was fucked—praising Roy to high heaven on what a stud he was. Laying it on thick. Vince got back to the ring just in time to help Cal lower himself on Prancer in the bull chute.
“Remember, it’s Prancer. You’ve got this,” Vince screamed at Cal above the roar of the crowd. “Lean back as he goes down on his front legs. Then lean to the right as he leans left. Then the other direction. Then just hang on for two or three more seconds. You got this.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know this one,” Cal screamed back. The two pressed their foreheads together, as intimately as they could risk in this environment, and then Cal raised his arm.
Shockingly, almost idiotically, the feeling of fear for Cal’s safety and the knowledge that Cal was his whole world shot through Vince’s brain at that instant. But all he had was an instant before Cal was out of his grasp and gone.
Cal’s arm came down, the clock chimed, the chute door opened, and Prancer bucked his way into the ring, lowering his head and snorting. Contrary to habit, the bull leaned right, and Cal nearly hit the deck on that side in surprise—and then left, and Cal felt himself slipping. The crowd was roaring the seconds off. Four. Five, they cried out. Prancer bucked, raising his front quarters up and Cal, panicked but determined to hang on, leaned forward. That’s when Prancer went down on his front legs. Six, the crowd cried. On seven Cal was airborne over the front of the bull and landed on the seat of his pants. Prancer lowered his horns, snorted, and prepared to charge. Two clowns rushed out into the arena, one at each edge of the bull’s peripheral vision. They screamed at the bull and danced around. As Prancer was deciding which one to charge, a couple of cowboys, including Vince, were coming over the fence and helping to pull Cal away.
Once on the other side of the fence, Cal let out a big breath, and hissed, “Shit. Fuck.”
“Fuck. Shit,” Vince answered. “What hurts?”
“Just my pride. Fuckin’ bull didn’t follow the script.”
“Load of crap, Cal,” Vince growled. “Sorry, guy.”
“I had a feelin’ this was it. But my feelin’ kept telling me it was because I’d draw Diablo.”
Vince tried to put his arm around his buddy, but Cal shook him off. “Not a good idea, Vince.” His voice had a hard quality to it and Vince backed off. “Look, Roy’s next. On Mad Bull. Maybe he won’t last as long. They have to send at least four guys on to Laramie from here. Only one made it before intermission. Maybe . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Vince said, trying to put hope and confidence in his voice, even though something told him this was it for Cal. He’d had that premonition about the Cheyenne event too. But he’d suppressed it. He didn’t know how it would be going on without Cal with him. He knew Cal mostly did this for him—to be with him. It was only now occurring to him that maybe it was the same way with him.
They watched as Roy dropped down on Mad Bull, which already was bucking and snorting in the chute. The chute opened and Mad Bull charged out and immediately started bucking.
“Never seen a bull jump that high,” Vince said. “He’ll be off in a couple of seconds.”
The bull moved around the ring, using the whole oval, bucking like mad. Roy stayed with him the whole time, even grabbing his Stetson and raising it in the air with one hand. Most of the riders couldn’t even maintain possession of their Stetsons for the count of eight. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. Mad Bull was getting tired and couldn’t manage a respectable buck. Twenty and the clock had rung its last available second off. With considerable style, as Mad Bull came close to the fence between the ring and the bleachers, Roy pushed off of Mad Bull, grabbed the top slat of the fence, and neatly vaulted over to it to stand, turn to the crowd, and bow. The stands went wild.
Vince saw red. Fuck, he thought. It ain’t even a competition anymore. There were just the kid, Billy, and him left and two bulls: the unknown Felix and the much-too-well-known Diablo.
Eight seconds. Roy had done the full twenty and in style. He’d taken all of the promise out of the arena. Shit. Fuck.
“The kid won’t last the eight seconds,” Cal was saying. “Both bulls left are too much for a beginner. Diablo will kill him.”
Harv Simpson announced the next rider over the sound system. “Next to last, our newcomer, Billy Beartooth, on Felix. Give a hand to the kid, folks. He may be small and pretty, but we’ll toughen him up.”
The crowd laughed.
“Diablo. Shit,” Vince growled.
“No, he’s on Felix,” Cal said. “He won’t have any idea what Felix will do.”
“It means I’m on Diablo, Cal,” Vince said. “And I have a feeling the kid knows exactly what Felix will do.”
“How so?”
“I seen him with Roy. Roy was on Felix a couple of times at the beginning of the circuit. If I’m right about that kid, he’s found out the secrets of riding Felix.” And beyond that, which Vince couldn’t say to Cal, he knew Billy had taken his place being fucked by Harv for favoritism in bull assignment. Just knowing he’d have to ride Diablo told Vince Harv had moved on from him—to the kid.
And, sure enough, when Felix bucked out of the chute with the kid on his back, they put on quite a show of uncertainty and “almost” for the crowd, but the kid held on for the needed eight seconds.
When he was done, Vince looked at Cal, whose face showed that he was stricken. If Vince rode for his eight seconds, there was no way Cal was going on to Laramie. Even if he didn’t, chances were good Vince would be the one picked to make up the four who had to go on. It certainly wouldn’t be Cal; the kid, Billy, had better stats now then Cal did. Cal’s season was done, regardless.
“Cal,” Vince said, touching Cal’s arm. “If you don’t qualify and I do, you can go on to Laramie with me anyway.”
“Sure, Vince. It won’t be the same, though . . . will it? I won’t get to ride. We won’t be on the same basis.”
“We’ll do what we have to do,” Vince said. But he knew it wouldn’t be the same either. They were a pair. They did it together. “There’s always next season.”
“Yeah, sure. There’s always next season,” Cal said, giving Vince a weak smile. But Vince could see the tears in his lover’s eyes. Both of them knew Cal didn’t really have another season in him.
“And last, but not least, our very own Vince Vale—on Diablo. It’s gonna be quite a show, folks,” came blaring over the loudspeakers in Harv Simpson’s voice.
“Just do it,” Cal turned to Vince and said. “Get out there and put on a show to rival Roy’s. I’ll help you saddle up. I’ll always be there with you. You want this. And I want it for you.”
Vince was torn by wildly mixed emotions as he settled down on Diablo. The bull snorted, blowing steam out of his nose, ready to tear up the ring. Vince lifted his arm and turned and looked at Cal, who was looking directly into his eyes. There with him for the ride; there with him no matter what. Vince’s arm came down.
Diablo was dancing and bucking the second he launched out of the chute, doing everything he could to toss that alien weight off his back. Vince relaxed and went with him, going into his zone of not thinking of the bull as an adversary but as an extension of himself. Focusing on the bull, becoming one with the beast, anticipating what Diablo would do. One. Two. Three.
But his mind was also on Cal. Cal being there with him, the two of them moving as one too. The two lovers naked, in close embrace, their pelvises moving in unison, as one unit, Cal inside Vince. What was it he wanted most—Cal or the bull? The bull or Cal?
Four. Five. He and Diablo were in synch. He could do this. He knew he could do this. Diablo knew he could do this and some of the fight was going out of the bull. There was no doubt he could do this if this was what he wanted most.
Six. Seven. And, with a sigh and the thought “It’s Cal, not the bull. There’s always another life for both of us—for both Cal and me,” Vince pushed off the back of the bull, under his own power, flipped in the air, and came down hard on his side.
He heard the crack, felt the pain. He knew the arm was broken. There was a sense of relief, though. He hadn’t figured out yet how he would avoid being picked for Laramie anyway. Now he didn’t have to come up with an excuse. The first one to him, looking down into his face with a look of panic and concern, was Cal.
Of course it was Cal.
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