If Only I Could

Thursday nights are slow at the Lighthouse Club outside of Mina, Nevada, on the lonely, desolate highway between Reno and Las Vegas, so I see him as soon as he walks in. He's limping. Pretty badly. But he has a cane, so it isn't something that just happened in the parking lot. He clumps up to a table just below the platform where Chrissy is doing his bump and grind on the pole.

I call him Chrissy. We all do because he's a sissy boy--one of the club's bottoms for men who like that sort of thing--a girly boy. I don't much like that myself. Chrissy is too giggly and limp-wristed and doe-eyed for me. Not that I dislike Chrissy, in particular, mind you. We get along fine--as coworkers. But this is the manly West, not gay Paree. I'm the club's power top. I haven't had Chrissy. Haven't been much interested in going there. Just too giggly and jiggly for me. We get along OK; Chrissy tries to get along with me too, certainly, because he wants me to fuck him. He's been pretty obvious about that.

Mina is a blip on the road on Highway 95. This part of the country was once famous for roadside necessities like gas stations and motels being made up like something interesting, like huge Donald Ducks or wigwams or something because nothing else in sight was interesting. Mina's "just-out-of-town" version of that is a diner and motel hooked together by a lighthouse. A lighthouse in the desert--our kind of a joke. Not too long ago this one was made into a gay club, with a showroom and covered garages to hide customers' identities added onto the back of the diner and most of the motel rooms assigned to guys working at the club to take their tricks to on hourly rates. As probably the only gay club between Reno and Las Vegas, it does OK. But just OK, and Thursday nights is not a good business night here.

The club has more craziness going for it than just the lighthouse. The guys working here dress to be noticed, and we all take a turn on the platform in our persona for a given night's performance schedule. Chrissy isn't dressed as anyone special this Thursday night because he isn't much dressed at all. He's come onstage in red spangles--Speedo-type shorts over a sock thong, a jacket-like shirt, and boots. At the end of his set, he'll just be in the thong and the boots and, if anyone watching him is enthusiastic enough, he'll come down to sit with them and maybe, if they put the fee up, take them to one of the motel rooms. On a Saturday night, when there's more of a crowd and it's more raucous and attentive, Chrissy will pull off the thong just as the spotlight is going off. Not on a Thursday night, though.

I'm dressed more flamboyantly this Thursday night than usual, as we've done a bump and grind to "YMCA" on the platform. I'm an Indian--what those not from the area insist on calling a Native American. I don't like it very much, but it's the job. I'm serving drinks, my three "YMCA" passes done with. I'm in a fringed deerskin loincloth, vest, and boots, my black hair down to my shoulders with a headband circling my brow, leather bands on my biceps, and a few painted strokes on my face. I don't like it, but I look good in it. I've got a muscular, cut torso. I've worked hard to achieve. I get mostly guys who want to be topped and to have muscles to worship while they're being fucked.

I work in my dad's gas station and garage in Mina--the only one in Mina--by day, and I have a workout room at our house--it's just me and my dad at the house--and I spend time honing my muscles. Dad works out with me, and he's honed for his age. It's something we enjoy doing together.

Chrissy is a seamstress, making sexy clothes for an adult store in Vegas. A lot of guys coming to the Lighthouse and wanting to come there want someone willowy, soft, and creamy, who will want to worship their muscles while they're fucking him. That's Chrissy.

The limper, who, I notice, is built real good on top and a good looker maybe in his early thirties but something going wrong from the waist down, looks just fine when he's seated at the table below the stage. He gives me a look at the door coming in, so I think maybe he was here for me, but once he'd seen Chrissy working the pole on the stage to the bump and grind music, that's where his eyes are plastered and they stay there when I come over to him.

"Can I get you anything? A drink?"

"Three beers, please," he says, not taking his eyes off Chrissy, who is now making eye contact with him too. There aren't many possibilities in the audience this late on a Thursday night, and Chrissy knows most of them and isn't excited about any of them who might be interested in him. This dude who just shuffled in on a cane is new meat to the club, and, as I said, once he's seated, he looks real good.

"Any preference, and all at once or in train?" I ask, thinking, look at me, be here because you want to pay someone to lay you. I saw you limp; I'll treat you right.

"Three at once. Whatever is on tap," he says. He sounds friendly enough, his voice is a low on with depth to it, but he's still looking at Chrissy.

Chrissy does his thing as I'm getting the beers. When he strips off the jacket with the red spangles that makes it shimmer in the spotlights, he tosses it out toward the table where the limper sits. The man puts his hand up, snags it, and rubs it against his cheek. Chrissy sees that. I see that too. So, it's obvious the man is here to lay, not to be laid. Or maybe just to wish he could. I don't know how debilitating that limp might be.

I get to his table in time to see him take three fifties out of his wallet and, seeing that Chrissy is watching, slip them into a pocket of the jacket.

This is when he surprises me, though. As I reach the table and set the three beers in front of him, he breaks eye contact with Chrissy and flashes me a smile. It wasn't a sunny smile; it was more of a wistful smile, as if there was pain behind it, a pain that was always there but that he was enduring it. But it was a smile and it was for me. He reaches out and takes my wrist to signal he wants me to remain there, standing by him. Despite the gimp, he's the best thing going in the room, and my mind is already spinning on what we can do with that leg. My brain is shuffling between position ideas. So, I stand pat.

Dropping my hand, he carefully moves two of the beers to sitting in front of the chairs on either side of his. His, of course, is facing the platform with the pole. Then he pulls a couple of twenties out and hands them to me, making clear they are for the beers and that he doesn't need change. And then, surprise of all surprises, he pulls three fifties out, puts them by the beer in front of the chair to his left, and gestures to the chair I'm standing behind.

"Can you sit and join me in a beer?" he asks.

We have extra guys shoveling drinks and riding the pole just for this. When a patron wants us to sit with him and he flashes some cash, we're always free to do so. If a john wants us to show him one of the motel rooms and he flashes a lot of cash, we are always free to do so. The Lighthouse Club makes most of its money from guys either lying on their backs in the motel rooms or doing pushups on some guy there. We'll even rent them a room if they want to do each other and not one of our guys on staff.

"Sure," I say, surprised, but not second guessing any of this. I know Chrissy will be florid, but Chrissy and I aren't that much friends that I'd bypass a big tip for him.

Then the second surprise. The limper gestures to Chrissy to come down and take the other chair and the other beer as soon as he can. Chrissy signals to the side of the stage for Manuel to take up the pole and comes right down. He's not about to just give the limper over to me.

What's this guy's angle, I wonder. What does he want? I get a pretty good idea what he wants when I see him put the wallet down on the tabletop rather than back in his back pocket. It's not unusual for a guy to do that here. It indicates he's good for buying another round or two, for one thing, but for another, sometimes it signals just what I assume it does here. There's a ring embossed in the side of the leather wallet pointing up--the outline of a condom disk. The guy walks around ready for action. We, of course, have all of the condoms around here that anyone could possibly need, but it's a clear signal when a guy always has one with him himself.

The limper wants more than beer at the Lighthouse. He's come to the right place. He may be quite an unusual player, though, as he's pulled in both Chrissy and me. Chrissy's obviously a bottom--a limp-wristed one, and I'm so bulked up and purposely macho looking that it would be hard for him not to figure me as the power top I am. So, what does he have in mind--him on top of Chrissy while I'm on top of him? I haven't done that before, but there's always a first time in a paid fuck. Me on top of Chrissy and the built limper on top of me? That would be more rare for me, but I'd do it for a fee--and more likely on a slow Thursday night than a "lots of options" Saturday.

I take another good look at the limper. He's clean and well-groomed. The shirt is Wrangler snap-front, mostly cotton in white, over baggy, honestly faded, denim jeans, a silver Western belt buckle, and good cowboy boots in a soft, tooled, but not flashy, leather--what any local of this and the surrounding states would wear to church--or a bar, like this one. Although, it's notable that this is a gay bar--probably the only one for lots of miles in any direction. I leave the assessment confirming that the guy is nicely built on top, something I really appreciate and work hard on myself.

He could be from almost anywhere in the West.

"Haven't seen you in here before, I don't think. You from around here?" I ask. Chrissy is already playing with getting a hand around the man's bicep on his side. I flash a "not so fast or blatant" look at Chrissy. The limper undermines this, though, by taking Chrissy's hand with his, kissing it, and putting it back on his bicep.

Just to push the confusion, though, he turns to me, giving me that weary smile again, and puts his other hand on my knee under the table and squeezes. I turn my legs toward him and widen my stance. He runs his hand down the curve of my cock under the loincloth before pulling it away, getting the measure of me. If he'd left it there, he'd find I could get hard for him.

"No, I'm just passing through, he said. I heard of this place and decided to stop. Name's Hal."

He doesn't volunteer where he's from, but he's given a name, probably fake, so I give him my fake name. "I'm Jim," I say. Chrissy tells him his real name. Chrissy don't care. Everybody around here knows what Chrissy is--what he's good for. And there are enough around here who can't or won't make it with the girls who want somebody girly and who are happy enough with Chrissy for him not to pretend much. There aren't many more than a hundred and fifty people living in Mina. Chrissy's family has been here for as long as anyone can remember. So, he has a place here--in his real name. Anyone who doesn't like what Chrissy is can just pretend it's not there or move out of town. He's not going anywhere. I want to get away, so I keep my names separate between here and the garage, but the locals live with that. They know I won't be in Mina for a day longer than I have to be.

I'm sitting a little way from the table, so I look down at the hand, which has returned to my bare knee. It looks strong--and maybe a little calloused, but not enough to be a hard-working man. Nope, he's not a local. To be a local and still alive, you have to work your butt off in the dirt--every minute of the day. You got to have calluses on your hands and dirt under your fingernails you never can get out. Mina is not a forgiving town.

I press. "Where are you headed, Hal? Toward Vegas or Reno? Hitting the casinos or something? You a card shark, a gambling man?"

"Not long back in the country," he says. "Just trying to get my bearings again."

Ah, squared away, freshly groomed--weary, roughed up, but not much, not like he'd have to be in Nowhere, Nevada. "So, what? Oil rigs or military service?" I ask.

"Afghanistan," he answers.

"Ooo, a soldier or a sailor?" Chrissy asks, nonsensically, showing he doesn't have a clue where Afghanistan is. Or maybe he does. Chrissy believes that guys like them dumb with their legs spread open, their tails elevated, and not giving any mental competition. Chrissy is probably right in talking about bottoms.

"Don't really want to talk about it," Hal says, and I hear the door slam shut on that topic. "Convenient place you have here," he says instead. "Not just a strip club but a motel attached. Don't know what it is about the lighthouse, though. A lighthouse in the desert?"

"It made the place memorable to you, though, didn't it?" I ask.

"Yes, I suppose," he says.

"We could continue with the small talk or we could..." I pause and put my fingers on the three fifties he put in front of me. "So, what? You want to choose what you want here--Chrissy or me? I think you can figure out what is on offer with both of us. And then the winner gets all of the fifties? Because, just three fifties doesn't really--"

"Both," he says, never ending with the surprises. "What I've laid down was just to get your attention. A couple of more fifties each, but for both."

Chrissy giggles. I try not to bug my eyes out too far. There's something I just can't get a handle on here. He doesn't seem hopped up or excited. He just looks a little sad. It makes me want to comfort him, not fuck him. The hard I was getting is fading away, and that doesn't seem right under these circumstances.

Not that that is a problem, let me make clear. I'm young and virile. I can get a hard back in no time and with no artificial help. Let's not get ridiculous here.

Hal is walking slowly and stumbles a bit as we leave the club room, moving his cane to in front of his body to keep him from falling. I reach out to steady him, but he brushes my hand away with a slight show of irritation. He doesn't want the help. What he says, though, is that he doesn't need the help.

* * * *

As we walk past the office in the base of the Lighthouse and I say we need to register that we're taking a room and that Hal--or whoever he really was--needed to cover that expense too, he says, "No bother"--that he'd already checked into one of the few rooms they keep for real travelers thinking this was just a motel with a diner attached and not knowing what else it is--what it mostly is, although the diner is one of few choices for many miles around and serves OK food to anyone. A dust-green Chrysler 300 sedan of indeterminate age but, to my trained garage mechanic's eye, kept in pretty good condition, was parked in front of his room.

The Chrysler gives me a clue about Hal. There is a military base sticker on the windshield that I recognize from other cars I've serviced at my dad's garage. It is for the U.S. Army's ordnance depot thirty-five miles northwest of here in Hawthorne. Hal's car, at least, is local, connected to the Army.

As we entered the room, Hal goes right to the window overlooking the Chrysler and shuts the curtains.

"Please get naked. Both of you," he says, as he strips off his shirt. His musculature is as magnificent as I'd thought it would be, and there's a swirly black tattoo on the left side of his chest, cupping his bicep and going up onto his shoulder and down his arm to his wrist. It covers his left shoulder blade too. There is color added in what goes from his elbow to his wrist. He's lightly hirsute through the chest and is tanned pretty well, so he's been someplace where there's sunshine. That would match with Hawthorne--or, I guess, the Afghanistan he had mentioned. The tattoo is noticeable, but it's not what I notice as I strip what little I have on off my body. What arrests my attention are the marks on his chest--either bullet or shrapnel damage.

I almost ask, but he's already warned us not to go there, and I clamp my mouth shut. I just say, "Nice," hoping he'll say the same about me, which he doesn't, and I reach out and touch one of his nipples, thinking we'd get something going right away. But he brushes my hand away and turns to look at Chrissy, who has waited for him to look before playfully stripping off his thong.

Then we're all naked, except that Hal hasn't taken off his jeans and boots and there's no indication he's going to do so. He has a CD driver on the bureau in the room and he slips a CD in. It starts some bump and grind music. He sits on the straight chair beside the bureau, facing the foot of the bed, and says, "Dance for me, please. The two of you together. Close together."

I haven't been with Chrissy and I didn't ever think he'd turn me on, but he has a beautiful little body. I'd never seen his equipment before, but his package sets the rest of his body off. He has an erection going. So, I'm surprised to know, do I. The whole setup has me aroused.

I wonder if Hal has an erection too. I wonder if he's going to fuck us both. I wonder if he's hung. I find I'm itching to explore his body with my hands. He's a mystery to me. I want his hands on my body. I want him to appreciate the effort I've put into sculpting it. I want him to say I'm hung. I want him to slide his lips down the side of my cock. I'm hard as a rock.

I wonder if he's ever going to take those jeans off and get down to business.

Meantime we dance for him between the end of the bed and where he's sitting on the straight chair, looking at us. Looking a little sad, like he did back in the club room when he said he wanted to have us both. This is where he'll at least unzip himself, take it out, and stroke himself, I think, as Chrissy and I dance, close together, touching each other, occasionally kissing--because we sense that's what he wants, what maybe he needs to go hard to fuck one or both of us. How big is he? Is he bigger than I am?

Will I lay down for him and let him put it in me? Does he have any idea that this is driving me crazy--or maybe he does know and that's the plan?

It's his money. He's paid each of us $250 for this. It's not big money, but it's as good as it gets out here in the desert of Nowhere, Nevada, on a ribbon of road going from Las Vegas to Reno--a trip that most folks take as quickly as they can, if they made a mistake to go this way.

Abruptly the music stops. I have been looking into Chrissy's eyes, realizing for the first time how cute he is, thinking that, yes, I could fuck him. I already know I can get hard in touching and kissing him and rubbing up against him as we dance. I'm hard as a rock. I want to fuck something. Yes, I can fuck Chrissy.

"Chris," Hal says from across the room. "I'd like you to blow Jim's cock, please. But not to a jack-off, please. Yes, just stand there, sort of three quarters to me so that I can watch Chris go down on you. Yes, like that."

Chrissy is down on his knees and he's cupping my balls and taking my cock into his throat. I didn't know he could deep throat, but he can. I had no idea he could do it this well. My legs feel like they are going to rubber, but I've been asked to stand here, so I'll stay standing. I've got to apply a little effort not to explode. Hal has said he doesn't want me to yet. Is he saving me for himself? Will I be fucking Hal? Yeah, I can do that. I start thinking about fucking Hal from behind, my hands holding those bulging pecs of his as I stroke up inside him, and I almost blow with my dick down Chrissy's throat. I have to stop thinking of what Hal and I could do. I put my hands on Chrissy's head and let my fingers run through his long, blond hair, but my eyes are on the stained ceiling tiles, counting them, trying to think of anything but coming.