Always Conditions

But Ken wasn't unnoticed. Several of the guys at the tables and playing pool were watching him out of the corner of their eyes and marking him as fresh tail—and inviting.

First one guy and then another were at the bar, engaging Ken in chit-chat conversation and finding anything he wanted to talk about fascinating. Finding chit-chat a good cover for not having to think about what he didn't want to think about, and thinking these were really friendly guys, Ken felt comfortable with them and was happy to talk to them about St. Louis and how it differed from where he came from. And he was happy to let the two guys buy him another beer. And then there were three guys and yet another beer.

And before he knew it, Ken found himself in the alley behind the bar, with the biggest of the guys who had been talking to him backing him up to a grimy brick wall between a set of trash dumpsters, his face leering into Ken's, the tip of a pool stick under Ken's chin and forcing his head back against the bricks, and the other guy's big fist gripping Ken's crotch.

There was a guy on either side of Ken holding his arms up against the brick wall with grips on his wrists, and cutting through the beer buzz he had on, Ken heard one of the guys mutter, "You first, then me. Sam, you'll have to take sloppy thirds."

Ken began to moan as he felt fingers at his belt buckle.

But then he heard a godawful noise that he barely was able to identify as a car horn and the alley was being lit up by the beams of two headlights.

The guys accosting Ken evaporated and Ken sank to the ground, only to feel himself being lifted and being hazily conscious of the concerned face of Brad looming into his vision.

Somehow Brad got Ken out of the alley and into his car, and Ken was only vaguely aware of being taken back to Brad's apartment, a cup of strong coffee being lifted to his mouth by Brad's hands, and being stripped and tossed in the shower and soaked with cold water.

When Ken woke, it was morning, and his head was pounding, but he was conscious enough to know that he had escaped an involuntary assault—if, certainly, not a subsequent deep fuck from Brad—and had been very stupid to allow himself to get into that position.

He knew before he opened his eyes that he was naked and between sheets and felt very warm and content. He felt the pressure along his side and opened his eyes to find that Brad was laying there next to him. He wasn't asleep, though. His eyes were open and were staring at Ken.

"Hey," Ken said in a quiet voice.

"Hey, yourself," Brad murmured.

"My Prince Valiant. You saved me."

"It appears so."

"How did you know I was there?" Ken asked

"I didn't. I go to that bar. I was entering as you were being hustled out the back. It's happened before at the back of Bad Dog's. And there were three of them. So, I thought it best to get my truck on our side. It worked out."

"Yes, it seems to have."

"What were you doing down there?" Brad asked.

"I thought I was coming to see you. But I got cold feet, I guess. I wound up in Bad Dog's just because it was there and I thought a drink would help me get courage."

"And how did that work out for you?"

"Not too well, or pretty well, depending on how you look at it," Ken answered.

"How do you feel?"

"Like a bad dog."

"Anything I can get for you."

"Yes, as a matter of fact. You can get under these sheets." Brad smiled and lifted his body so that Ken could pull the covers out from underneath him and flip them over him.

Then, as Brad rolled over to face Ken and Ken's hands went to Brad's belt buckle, Ken murmured, "Of course I think you'll find I still have cold feet."

"I'll manage," Brad whispered with a husky voice.

Chapter Five

"You going to call me every fifteen minutes until I've been to the kennel to get Dusty?"

"It depends," Brad said across the miles. "Where are you now?"

"I'm walking down the street," Ken said. "I can see Clyde's kennel now. I should be in and out in the next half hour or so."

"OK, then, if you call me as soon as you're out and have your dog, I won't have to call you again. Have you been to the college to get reinstated in classes and to check on your sports team status?"

"No, not yet. I wanted to do this first."

"Sounds like a plan. Call me when you know something about anything. Love you." It came bouncing off the signal towers into Ken's ear. It clutched at him whenever Brad said that. Ken hadn't dared say it back—at least not yet. Or at least not within Brad's hearing. He groped for something to say, but Brad saved him the trouble. He laughed and closed the circuit.

As Ken got closer, he saw a car in Clyde's driveway he didn't expect to see there, and he had half a notion to turn around and regroup, having a good idea what it meant. But he had put this off long enough, so, although he had pulled up short for a minute, he got his rear back in gear and walked down the drive and to the kennel in the old barn at the back. He could hear Clyde whistling happily away as he approached.

"Well, lookie here. Look who's back."

"Hello, Mr. Snepp. I came back for the Lab pup—for Dusty—just as I said I would. And I've got the $1,200 you're asking for."

"Well, now, I thought maybe you'd ask about your job first, sonny," Clyde said as he lowered the sack of dog food he was bringing into the center aisle from the storage room. "Gone nearly three months, leaving me in the lurch for help. And I suppose you thought you could come right back into the picture. Does that mean you've considered my conditions and are ready to play?"

"Let's settle on Dusty first, please, Mr. Snepp. Then, yeah, I'd like to know if the part time job is still open if I can get back into the college. No conditions though, please."

"Well, the job's filled anyway," Clyde said, with a bit of a smirk on his face. "I can't go three months without having the help. And the other position is filled too."

"Well, then, that's OK," Ken said. He looked through the barn door up toward the back of the house. As he did so, he saw a curtain at one of the windows flutter and the hint of a figure there. And he wasn't all that surprised. Disappointed on one level, but for some reason his insides were turning over and he was feeling all excited deep down at his core. Somehow doors were opening for him and possibilities were falling into place—streamlining his life maybe when he had thought it was tied up in knots.

"OK, I can live with that," Ken repeated the sentiment. "I'll just settle up with you and take Dusty then and be on my way."

"Well now, that would be a fairytale ending and all that," Clyde said. "But as much as I'd like to take your money, that's not possible. That runt of Daisy's came down with distemper and I had to put him down about a month ago. I might sell you one of the other . . ."

Ken didn't hear the rest. He had sunk to his knees, blood rushing to his eardrums and sounding like a pounding surf. What Clyde had baldly said cut him to the quick. He was taking gulping breaths and had his arms stiffly propping up his torso, ready to faint away dead on the floor.

* * * *

When Ken was able to regain his composure he struggled up from the floor of the barn and started walking—out of the barn, down the driveway, and down the street, toward his home that was no longer his home—trudging like a zombie. Not thinking about anything at all. Still in shock. The tears running down his face nearly blinded him, but he had walked this route so often that he could have done it in his sleep. He almost had done it in his sleep several nights when Clyde had called him in to help with some sort of trouble with the dogs. Like the night Daisy died. The night she whelped Dusty and then died. And the nights he'd cared for her pups.

About half way to the house that no longer was his home, he noticed that a car was driving alongside him slowly—at the same pace that he was stumbling along.

He recognized, first, the car and then the driver. He stopped dead in his tracks and the car stopped too.

"Get in," Lawrence said. "Get in and I'll drive you where you want to go. But get in now. I don't want Clyde to see us."

"No. I don't want to get in, Lawrence. I don't want to—"

"I've got something to tell you. Something you'll want to hear."

Ken stood there for the longest moment, looking at Lawrence. Seething at what Lawrence had done. Even before Ken had left for St. Louis, Lawrence was getting it on with the coach and taking up Ken's position on the football team. Being willing to bottom for men when he was a top just to get what he wanted. And now Clyde. He had betrayed Ken. Had shown he wouldn't be faithful to Ken.

And then Ken's face went red with embarrassment at the realization that he hadn't kept faith with Lawrence either. That he had made love to Brad. And not just the once. So he didn't really have a reason to feel all that betrayed. And it was worse than that. When Ken had seen Lawrence's car in Clyde's driveway and Lawrence slipping behind the curtain in the window of Clyde's house, what Ken had felt was release and relief. He had already subconsciously made the decision he wasn't coming back for Lawrence. And Lawrence had saved him the embarrassment of having to say it.

Ken sighed and walked around to the passenger side of the car and got in.

"Where to?"

"I don't know. I don't really know where I was going. I had planned to go back to the motel with Dusty, I guess, and then over to the college. Don't feel like going to the college now, so I guess it's back to the motel. The one over on Sycamore. You know. The one we went to one . . ."

Ken let it die there. He didn't want to talk to Lawrence about that just now.

"OK, the motel then, I guess," Lawrence said. "Can't go back to my place, because I let that go."

Ken sat there, staring out the passenger wind, not wanting to look at Lawrence's face.

"I let it go because I'm living with Clyde now."

"I figured that," Ken told the window.

"He needed help and he offered me room and board in addition to pay . . . and . . . a share of the kennel if . . . if . . ."

"I know. Those were the same conditions he offered me," Ken said—still to the window.

"Still going to college but I'm not on the team anymore," Lawrence said. "I sprained my ankle in practice and by the time I could have gotten back on my feet on the field to resume practices, I'd moved in with Clyde. And then I didn't . . . well, you know. You can get your position back on the team now. I don't think Coach was ever happy you weren't in that position." The last two thoughts were more cheerily offered than the explanation that went before it.

"I know Coach's 'conditions,'" Ken spat out. And now he did turn and face Lawrence. "They were the same conditions he offered you and you accepted before I even went to St. Louis, right? Coach told me all about the conditions you were meeting."

"Ken . . . I . . . I . . . don't—"

"You don't have to say anything, Lawrence. I wasn't faithful to you either when I was in St. Louis. I only tell you because we both know where we stand now."

There was a long pause during which Lawrence kept his eyes glued to the road and Ken stared him down from across the wide vinyl bench seat of the old convertible. Then Lawrence said in a low voice, "You came to Clyde's for that Lab pup you had your sights on, didn't you? It wasn't for me."

"Yes, it was for Dusty. How was I to know you were there? But Dusty's dead. And that means there's really nothing else for me to be here for. I can go to college someplace else just as well as here. Right, Lawrence?"

"That's why I followed you from Clyde's, Ken. I didn't want you leaving with what Clyde told me he told you on your mind."

"What do you mean?" Ken asked. He was staring at Lawrence real hard.

"Clyde lied to you, Ken. That Lab pup you want—Dusty—it ain't dead. Clyde didn't have it put down. He sold it. He sold it to an old lady who came looking for a Lab puppy one day last month."

"Sold him? Dusty's alive?" Ken could hardly get the words out through the gasp. And he would have slid across the seat and kissed Lawrence for telling him that if it wouldn't have set back their mutually understood relationship break by a mile.

Ken almost had to beat Lawrence to do it, but before Ken agreed to get out of the car at the motel, Lawrence had promised to go through Clyde's papers to try to find out who Dusty had been sold to.

* * * *

"Her name's Rosemary Temple and she lives over in Glendale," Lawrence reported to Ken over the telephone the following afternoon. "Do you want her address?"

"Of course. And, Lawrence . . . thanks. And let's just leave it at that, shall we? Let's leave it all at that. But thanks for not letting me leave Clyde's thinking that Dusty was dead."

Ken rented a car and took out for Glendale. He was husbanding his money, so he couldn't let this drag on. There was the college tuition money to throw into the kitty now; he could start college later—after he'd gotten Dusty, if the woman was willing to sell him—when he'd gotten a job and Dusty and he had settled down. He didn't have to give much of a thought to where he'd go and what kind of job he'd get. With all connection to Lawrence now gone, there was no reason why he couldn't go right back to St. Louis and take Brad up on his offer to take on both Dusty and him. Everything was falling into place—just as soon as he managed to get Dusty.

But two and a half hours later, Ken's whole world had fallen apart again. He was setting at the curb at the address he'd been given for the Temple woman—and was staring at a house that had been burned nearly to the ground.

He was so emotional and his hands were shaking so much that he had to sit there for more than a half hour trying to pull himself together, not knowing where to go from here.

It was significant to him, even then, that when he was able to take any action at all, it was to call Brad long distance in St. Louis.

"Calm down," Brad said, using the soothing voice he used on the dogs during search dog training when they had gone on overload. "You have options. Talk to the neighbors about what happened and when and where the woman and Dusty went. Check with the nearest fire department; they should know. Have you done either of those yet?"

"No," Ken said with great difficulty, his throat constricted in frustration and worry. "I called you first. I couldn't think of anything but calling you first."

There was silence over the line. "Do you want me to come out there? I'll hop the next plane. Just say the word."

"No. No, thanks, Brad. It's just enough for one of us to be calm and to know what to do. I'll talk to the neighbors and then check with the fire department if none of them can give me information."

"Well, call me as soon as you know anything. Don't wait until you've done a lot of leg work. Call me at each new piece of information you pick up. I'll be right here. We can get through this together."

"OK, thanks. I'll start checking in the neighborhood now. And . . . Brad . . . thanks for being there when I called."

"No, Ken, thank you. Thank you for calling me first."

The check with the neighbors led Ken to a convalescent center not more than two miles from the burned home. Mrs. Temple was elderly and had some minor burns and smoke inhalation and was still in rehab. Nobody knew about Dusty, although two of the neighbors were pretty sure that Mrs. Temple did have a dog she'd recently gotten and that the dog had made it out of the fire.

"Yes, Dusty. That was the puppy's name," Mrs. Temple said when Ken tracked her down, sitting under an afghan on the nursing facility's summer porch. "Good thing I had him. He woke me up in time to get out of there."

"Why, yes, he did make it out of the fire. But, no, no, I don't know what happened to him. I was gaga for days afterward, and when I asked they were kind of vague—said he'd probably been taken to the SPCA. None of the neighbors who have visited said they'd taken him in. It's really been too much. I've worried about what happened to him, but I haven't been able to do much more than worry about myself yet, I'm afraid. I'm sorry. Certainly, if you can find him, I'll sign over any rights to him I have to you. I can see that my days of independence are over—I'm not too far gone not to realize that. There will be no place for a dog with me now. But I'm sure happy he was there that night. I sure do hope you find him."

"Stay put," Brad said when Ken called him from the convalescent center's parking lot. "I'll send money if you need some. We can both start calling the local pounds there. Do you need me to send some money? Do you want me to come there now?"

"No, thanks," Ken answered. "It's enough to know you're there when I need you. I might try picking up a temporary job, but I'll be spending time trying to find Dusty through the pounds—and I'll go to the fire department. Maybe someone there took him someplace."

"Well, if you need a job referral, just let me know who to contact. And if . . . no, when . . . you have Dusty, you know you can come here. No strings attached that you don't want attached. No conditions, dire or otherwise."

Ken had been quite open with Brad concerning the pressures he'd gotten from both Clyde and Coach to have sex with them.

"Thanks, Brad. Those are the best conditions I've heard in quite some time."

Chapter Six

"I'm glad you stopped by. I wanted to get in touch with you. And, oh my, what a beautiful bouquet. Are those for me?"

Ken had settled into a motel and was stopping by the convalescent center to give Mrs. Temple a contact number for him in case she heard any more about Dusty—and he was in luck, she had.

"It was my niece, Anne. They called her as my next of kin when I was brought into the hospital, and she came up from Spring Hill. The fire department turned the puppy over to her."

"So, she—"

"No, I'm sorry, she doesn't have Dusty anymore. She was afraid I'd want to move back into a place of my own and she didn't want there to be any reason I would argue to do that. She's interfering that way—about my only living relative, but I'm glad she's as far away as Spring Hill. It's bad enough having to make decisions like this at the end of life, but it's worse when you have someone standing over you and pushing."

"She doesn't have Dusty anymore?" Ken interjected, not wanting to be impolite but seeking much different information than he was being provided.

"No, I'm sorry, she doesn't. She gave him over to the SPCA down there in Spring Hill. I made her give me a telephone number for the place, though. I had to convince her it wasn't so that I could retrieve Dusty for myself. It's around here someplace. The telephone number, that is. I know it is. Maybe over there on top of the bureau next to the phone. Yes, that slip of paper there, I think."

* * * *

"Hello, Brad? Ken here. I've got some . . ."

"I think I may have located Dusty," Brad said. The excitement in his voice palpable.

". . . information on Dusty. The SPCA in a place south of here—Spring Hill—"

"Spring Hill?" If anything Brad became more excited.

"Yeah. The lady with the burned-out house told me her niece in Spring Hill took Dusty but already has turned him over to the SPCA. I'm about to call them, but I'm too excited to be coherent to strangers, I think. So I've called you first."

"You don't need to bother to call them, I don't think," Brad said.

"Oh? Why? What do you know."

"Well, I know that a Lab named Dusty was at the Spring Hill SPCA. And I know that I can make some calls and get you set up to check the dog out and see if it's your Dusty."

"OK, I'm listening."

"Somebody's already taken the Dusty the SPCA there had—"

Ken groaned.