Hidden Treasure

We did it on the bed in the master bedroom of the main house even though I'd set him—and Tajo when I realized he had come with Neo—up in the guest house main bedroom. We fucked on the bed where Riel and I fucked for years. It hadn't been my intent. As far as I knew Neo didn't know that his father and I were lovers. As far as I knew Neo didn't know the Riel took male lovers. I was giving Neo a tour of what would be the museum layout and he pulled me on top of him on the master bed and brought me into a lip-lock kiss while he unzipped my jeans and grasped and guided my cock. I don't know how he lost his trousers and briefs, but he did, and I fucked him right there, in a missionary, both of us nearly fully clothed, but both of us in high heat.

Then I fucked him again, both of us naked, in a Flying Dutchman, me sitting on the side of the bed, with his body, skewered on my cock, cantilevered out over the carpet, arched out like the figurehead on an old sailing vessel, and me grasping the wrists of his flung-back arms and pulling him on and off the cock. There was a tribute to the construction workers of the previous day too in which I put him on the carpet on his shoulders, his legs waving in the air, as I jackhammered down into his channel. And, when I was exhausted and he wasn't, he rode me in a cowboy.

We fucked until dusk. Tajo didn't drag back until I was in the kitchen of the guesthouse preparing a late dinner for us all. I'd say the reunion with Neo Prentice was glorious except that there was no flip-flop. He didn't give cock. That and I wasn't entirely comfortable fucking both a father and a son, especially on the bed I'd so often fucked the father.

It wasn't nonstop fucking. We had interludes in which we discussed the museum, his father's books, and when we moved to the depths of discussion, Neo's father, Riel. It was obvious that Neo knew little about his father and hadn't even met him in person—and that the young man was torn up by the loss and the feeling of rejection.

"He didn't give me a moment's thought. He totally rejected me," Neo complained.

"That's not true, Neo," I said. "He acknowledged that he'd fathered a son—and that you were that son. He talked about you in interviews. I know he did, because I handled the texts of them."

"But he never—"

"Stay there a minute," I said. "These were supposed to be a poignant element of the museum tour, but they are yours, so you can decide."

"What do you mean?"

I hopped out of bed, went over to the closet, and opened the doors. "Look up on the shelves, Neo. The boxes covered in brown paper."

"So?"

"These are as old as you were at several points in your early life. These cover your first five years. Your father cried when he decided to stop these out of frustration."

"I don't understand."

"Two a year for your first five years. Your father picked out the presents himself, but I wrapped them, and I took them to the post office. One at Christmas and one at your birthday. And I invariably was there when the postman brought them back marked refused. He didn't throw them away. He stuck them here in this closet. And checks. They never did stop until he died. I know they went. I cut them myself. Those your mother cashed. It's not his fault he wasn't in your life. It wasn't his fault if your mother never told you he was sending support checks."

Neo got up and walked over to me at the closet. He was a beautiful young man—and more than that, he was the spitting image of Riel. I wanted to hustle him back to the bed and we'd already fucked twice. But I let him pick out a present and open it. It was a miniature conga drum. I laughed in spite of the tension in the air.

"I suppose your mother would have sent that back even if she'd opened it and seen what it was," I said. "But I'm sure your father wanted to give you something that represented Cuba—so you wouldn't forget you were half Cuban. Do you want to open the others?"

"No, I guess not," Neo said. He seemed to be stunned—in a haze. "Are you saying these will be covered in the commentary the museum gives out about my father? That they'll say he had a son?"

"Yes, and, if you want, they will identify you as his son. Your father would like that, I know. As I told you, he never kept you a secret. I can show you the scripts the docents are learning to follow in the tours if you like and we can add your name in. And I don't know why your parents didn't get married. It may not have been his fault, or not wholly so. I know your parents were both volatile and strong-willed people." I was hedging here. I knew why they broke up. Catherine didn't see anything wrong with having women for lovers, but she couldn't accept that Riel slept with men. But Neo didn't know, I didn't think, and I wouldn't be the one to tell him. He seemed to be purposely blind to it. What did he think I had been here, in Riel's life—Swiss cheese? Shit, we'd just fucked. He knew I fucked men like a bunny. What did he think his father kept me around for thirteen years for?

Leo sat down on the bed and put his face in his hands. "He must have been so ashamed that I never tried to contact him."

"You were fourteen when he died, Neo, and you'd never known him personally."

It was as if he hadn't heard me. "And he would be so ashamed of me now, knowing what I've become."

"You're a successful movie actor and model, Neo. Your father would be delighted at that."

"Why?"

"Because you look exactly like him and you are in entertainment professions, just as he was. Novel writing is an entertainment profession. And to be what you are requires that you be an extraordinarily handsome and sexy man—which you are. He would have been pleased and amused. He would see in it that he could be a sexy movie actor and model too."

We both laughed, but I could tell that this wasn't all that was bothering Neo.

"What more, Neo?" I asked.

"I go with men. Men lay me. You lay me. I'm a submissive to men. My father was macho from everything I read, and he wrote macho novels. I've read them all."

"Macho novels were what men wrote at the time. But not everything from that time was what it seemed to be."

"I suppose," Neo said.

I had come "that" close to telling Neo about his father, of making the son see his father as what he was. I'm sure that subconsciously he knew—or suspected. I knew then that before he left, I'd tell him and find a way to make him believe it. It would not be helpful for me to just declare it. I'd had to find a way to make him see it, accept it, and then understand that his father would be proud of him. But I'd have to think about how to do that—or if I would be disloyal to reveal something that Riel had worked so hard to keep secret.

But then it was time to think about Tajo coming home and to worry about dinner.

"Why did you bring Tajo with you?" I asked. "You didn't think you'd want to be with me?"

"I was afraid that maybe you wouldn't want to be with me," Neo said, "that you wouldn't want someone as blatantly gay as me."

I laughed and now, in view of how we'd just fucked, Neo did too.

After dinner Neo and Tajo stripped down and dove into the pool. When they came out of the pool, they fucked on the pool bed—in the same place where Riel had been murdered by a hustler from the street who like to play with knives. I sat across from the pool, watching them, as they kissed and fondled each other. Tajo went between Neo's raised and spread legs and his perfect, rounded buttocks orbs began to bob and shimmer as he went into the steady rhythm of fucking Neo. They were both beautiful young men. Watching them fuck was like watching an art film.

* * * *

It had been the same the night Riel died. We were both beautiful men and the two of us fucking had attained the quality of an art film. We swam, naked, in the pool that night. When we came out, we fucked—I fucked Riel—on a pool bed right there, right there were Riel died that night and right there were Tajo was now fucking Neo.

After we had fucked, while we were cooling down and wondering if we'd fuck again before Riel went into the main house, to his study, to write, and I went to the guest house to sleep, we argued. That's when he told me that he was thinking of coming out of the closet, of declaring that he was queer. He said he was tired of living a lie.

I was terrified. I was here to babysit him for Doubleday. They would see him coming out as declaring that he was living a lie with his macho books. The bottom would drop out of the Riel de Fuentes market. They had identified his new novel as a blockbuster. They had already nominated him for the National Book Award and put a fortune into an advertising campaign. Coming out now would have ruined all of that.

"And what? Ask Doubleday to publish your list of porno books?" I asked. Angry and panicked, I was brutal.

"I'm going to burn all of that," he said. "Coming out of the shadows doesn't mean I want to exploit my writing—or confuse what I write. I just don't want to live a lie. I don't reject being queer. It's not some sort of disease. It's just what I am. I want to be part of making it normal. I think someday in this country it will be accepted as nobody's business but the men's and nothing to condemn or disadvantage them about."

"Burn it?" I was aghast. As far as I was concerned, it was his best writing. It would be sacrilegious to burn it. Besides, some of it was about us—Riel and me. He was going to burn what we'd been with each other, make it just like it hadn't happened? I'd kept copies in my editing that he didn't know about, but that wasn't the point. "And I suppose you want to pull back what we've given to Phil Costas to publish," I said. "You wouldn't want that published, even if it's in pen name."

His answer shocked and further angered me.

"Yes, I think that would be best."

I abruptly rose from the pool bed and stumbled toward the guest house.

"Where are you going?" he asked. "Don't be mad. Let's discuss this."

"I'm getting dressed and going over to Phil Costas's place to tell him your wonderful news."

Then Riel was mad too. "At this time of night? You're just afraid I'll be going out and hooking up left and right rather than giving most of me to you, aren't you? Well, I could. The Duval Street gay bars are still open."

I didn't answer. When I'd dressed and left, he was in his living room, feeding manuscripts into the fireplace.

I went to Phil's. He calmed me down by taking me to his bed—me kicking and screaming at first, but Phil much more powerful and determined than I was—spiking me deep and fucking the stuffing out of me. Fucking the anger and panic out of me. Convincing me to go back to Riel and calmly discuss the matter.

But it was too late for that. One of Phil's friends called him to let him know that Riel had been murdered. That he'd gone out to the bars and taken the wrong male hooker home.

* * * *

"I want to show you something—to discuss something with you," I said the next morning. Neo and Tajo were sitting at a patio table by the pool, in terrycloth robes, nothing underneath, and having breakfast. They looked far more alert than I felt, which was strange, as they'd kept me awake all night with an all-night fuck fest in the main bedroom of the guest house. That wasn't fair, though. I was kept awake mainly by worrying about what I was going to do. How I was going to make it up between Neo and Riel.

"Perhaps you could find something else to do for an hour or so." I said to Tajo. "I have something to discuss with Neo and I don't know whether he will want it to remain confidential or not."

"I've only been down one side of Duval Street," Tajo said, with a smile. "I'll go get dressed." Then he was gone and it was just Neo and me. I was standing at the table, holding the duffel bag I'd put in the back of my bedroom closet in my hand. Tajo was a good sort as well as a hunk. He was laid back and, I could tell, went with the flow. I think he'd be good for Neo.

"What's that?" Neo said, gesturing to the duffel bag.

"What this is is a hidden treasure, Neo. It's been a treasure in hiding for twelve years now. This is your father. The other side of your father. The reason why you need never worry again that he might not be proud of you—what you are and how open you are about that with the world." I set the duffel bag down beside his chair and sat down in the other.

"Open that when and if you want, Neo. I can tell you about your father, but you might think I was making it up just to make you feel good—about him and yourself. But after you've looked at what's in that bag—if you decide you want to do that—and I show you the papers that establish that Riel de Fuentes and Bill Morrison are the same author, I think you'll understand. I was thinking of how or whether to publish all of that myself—not in my name or to my profit, of course—but now I realize it really belongs to you, that your father would want you to have it—and that it's your decision what to do with it. There were two copies. Your father burned his, but if he lived in today's world, I don't think he would have done that. I hope you don't burn it. It's the heart and soul of your father."

He looked up at me. He put a hand on the bag but didn't open it.

"I wasn't just your father's live-in editor, Neo. I was his lover. Yes, your father was gay. And on his last night alive he told me that he was planning to come out, that there was nothing to be ashamed of in loving men. What he said convinces me that he would be proud of you—especially that you are not hiding it."

"You and my father?" And then, after a pause, "I guess I should have known."

"What you should know, Neo, is that I loved him, and I can only hope that he loved me too. And I'm not ashamed of that. And I'm not ashamed of wanting to fuck you anytime I can get a chance to either. Now, I leave you with your thoughts on where you want to go with this from here."

I walked back to the guesthouse and entered the living room. I couldn't resist looking back toward the terrace at that point. Neo had opened the duffel bag and was going through it.

When Tajo came back, horny and in heat, from Duval Street a couple of hours later, I could tell that everything would be fine with Neo now. Tajo wanted to fuck.

"I heard you do a mean threesome, Jack," he said to me.

"Yeah, he sure does," Neo agreed.

I put Neo on his back, legs spread, on the bed in the guest house's master bedroom, and fucked him. When we were going good, Tajo saddled up behind me, mounted me, and, setting the rhythm for all of us, fucked me.

All was right with the world, and Bill Morrison became a best-selling author in the world of gay male erotica.