Retreat to Eremenos

The two figures, looking handsome together, stood at the doorway of the rambling adobe house on the heights overlooking old Santa Fe. They were standing close together, silhouetted shadows as seen from inside the house, where, in the great room beyond the foyer, small groups of people gathered in proximity - but not too near - a long trestle table, drinking wine and talking in subdued tones.

The woman, tall and thin, her skin tanned and weather-beaten without distracting in any way from her finely chiseled features, gave the impression of a Native American princess, accentuated by the long, plaited braid cascading down her back and the beaded band around her head. Her tawny-colored, long, form-fitting dress was of some sort of suede that matched the moccasins on her feet. The desert artist Lillian Vain, one of the centers of the Santa Fe art community in the early twentieth century, had gone native, but, in doing so, had set styles for the art community nationwide.

Standing with her, closer to her, and speaking in low, measured tones was the Western novelist, Edward Deal. Lillian was a tall woman, but Edward towered over her, and the bulk of him, distributed perfectly over a well-muscled body, made the spine-of steel artist of the desert look almost delicate and feminine. Eschewing the effects of the "gone native" artists' community, which Deal only skirted the edges of, as he was a man's man who valued his individuality and isolation, Deal was dressed in an elegant black suit. His salt-and-pepper hair was close cropped and his mustache well trimmed. He came by his muscular physique honestly, as he was a man of the mountains, although wealthy and well-educated enough to dominate in dignified parlors and who wrote novels of rugged men overcoming the brutal natural obstacles of the West.

Lying on the trestle table in the great room was a simple wooden casket encasing the remains of Lillian's husband of twenty years, William Ware, sculptor of bronze statues of cowboys on bucking horses that were represented in nearly every major museum in the United States and Europe. Edward, the closet neighbor to Lillian and the artist community gathered about the Wares, albeit his ranch was five miles distant, was just leaving, having come to pay his last respects.

"It was so good of you to come, Ed. And I much appreciate what you have offered to do for Alo. If he agrees to it, so do I. It is very generous of you to offer."

"Where is the lad? I haven't seen him since we all went back to Chicago to see him graduate from that private school and then brought him back here. He's grown into such a fine-looking young man, Lillian. Has he decided which college he will go to - or what he wants to do in life? An artist like you and Bill? He's so good with his hands. His wood carvings already are first rate."

"Who knows what Alo wants?" Lillian said, with a tone hovering between wistful and distracted - her mind was still on the composition she had been working on early in the morning before William's friends had started to gather for the last viewing. "Alo was distant from Bill and me even before we sent him to school in Chicago. I have no idea what he wants, although he has mentioned writing novels, as you do. But he hasn't come in from his room for the viewing. I think he took Bill's suicide personally."

How could he not, Edward wondered as he raised Lillian's hand to his lips. Neither Bill nor Lillian had had much room in their artistic lives for the son and only child, who had come to them almost as a surprise. A beautiful boy, always, who they had named Alo, Hopi for "spiritual guide," and who they had promptly turned over to servants and minor artists worshipping at Lillian's and Bill's feet to raise. Only those close to the family called the handsome young man, barely in his majority, Alo now. To most in the world, he was Al, and when they wanted to be formal, they mistakenly called him Allen. The young man seemed to prefer the separation from his parents' inattentive world, so when alone with him Edward called him Allen too.

"Perhaps, Lillian," Edward said gently, "We shouldn't talk too much about Bill's death being a suicide. It's so distressing to the art world, and probably is doubly so to Alo, coming as it did right after our return from Chicago. Alo was all aglow from having graduated and having his summer here with the two of you stretching out before him. The death must have crushed him. That's why I've offered to take him with me on my writing retreat for the summer. This probably isn't a place he should be now."

If this was a veiled rebuke for Lillian, a suggestion that the wife had no need for the son or vice versa in this time of tragedy, Lillian didn't seem to discern it. "Death is what it is, Edward. We have lived our life honestly. Bill would not have taken his life if he wanted to hide his pain. It was his health, you know."

It was not his health, Edward thought. How little you knew of your husband, he mused, although all he did was look sympathetically into those beautiful milky-blue eyes of hers and cluck his regrets.

As he was standing out on the porch and Lillian was still in the doorway, Edward said, "If he would prefer not being here today, please tell him he's welcome to come over to my place through dinner. He can come back tonight after the . . . after Bill has been taken away to the mortuary."

"Thank you, Ed, I'm sure that would relieve us all."

Edward had spoken what he had just now because he was aware that Alo was at an open window farther down the porch line and could hear every word he said. As Edward moved down along the front of the porch in that direction to unhitch his horse from the porch rail, he looked up directly into the young man's eyes, receiving, as he hoped, a look of relief and affection.

An hour later Alo rode up to a wooden ranch house far smaller and less pretentious than his parents' rambling adobe mansion set in a compound with smaller artists' matching adobe houses circling it. Edward was far richer than his parents were, even though they also were wealthy, but Edward carried his "frontier man" rough and simple persona through to his dwelling. The ranch house wasn't small, but, beyond the great room with its soaring cathedral ceiling and varnished oak cross beams openly showing how the house was constructed, there were just two bedrooms; two baths; a large eat-in kitchen, where the housekeeper reigned and left shortly after noon everyday for her own family ranch four miles away; and a large study, where Edward wrote his novels when he was in residence.

Alo walked into the house without knocking, turned right in the great room, and walked down a dark corridor, past the study on one side and the extra bedroom, bath, and storage room on the other side to the door at the end of the corridor leading into the large master bedroom.

Edward was lying on the large bed, his torso propped up by pillows covered in Native American textiles. He was dressed his black trousers and starched white dress shirt and had a book open on his lap. He looked up at Alo standing in the doorway, took his wire-rimmed spectacles off, laid them on the nightstand on top of the book he was reading, and beckoned to the young man.

"Come to me, Allen. Come as I like to have you."

Alo lay sprawled on top of Edward, facing up, his right leg extended across the bed and his left leg bent over Edward's left arm. Edward's right arm was laced under Alo's right armpit, with Edward's hand cupping Alo's chin and lifting the young man's face up to his in a deep kiss.

The perfectly formed, naked body of the young blond Alo was writhing slowly on Edward's lap as the fingers of Edward's left hand dug into Alo's channel, snaked up to the young man's prostate, and worked him there until Alo's cock had hardened. When it had, and still possessing the young man's mouth with his, Edward grasped Alo's cock and stroked the young man to an ejaculation.

"You are so beautiful," Edward whispered when Alo had come for him. The older man had released Alo's mouth but not his cock, which he continued to stroke slowly.

"I want you to fully possess me. Fuck me now. Please," Alo whispered.

"I've told you. I can't now. Soon, though, if you come with me this summer."

"Come with you? Where?"

"I've talked with your mother. I am going on retreat for the summer to a dude ranch, a special kind of ranch, in the Grand Tetons in Idaho. I wish to take you with me. Take you from here. Make you a man. Your body is beautiful as it is, but you can work with the cowboys and become even more hard-bodied."

"Is that what you want - you want me to be more hard-bodied before you fuck me? Because I will do that. I'll put on more muscle if that's what you want, if that's what it takes. Or don't you think I am serious about wanting you? I've wanted you for years."

"Yes, I think you are serious about it," Edward said with a sigh. "And I want you too."

"Is it because you are such good friends with my parents?"

"No, lad, it isn't. It's because I want my men experienced. I get no joy out of fucking virgins."

"You will give me these hand jobs and you will suck me off - but you haven't let me do that for you yet - and yet I'm not experienced enough for you?"

"Have you let any other man fuck you? Has another man had his cock inside you?"

"No," Alo answered in a small voice, hesitating a bit as if he was weighing what the effect would be to lie and say he'd already been fucked. "It is you I want."

"Well, I will have no man who isn't well-fucked. Don't ask me to explain. Do you want me enough to let other men break you in first?"

Alo hesitated, but then, in a determined voice, he said, "Yes. If that's what it takes, I will do it. But how?"

"Go with me this summer to the Eremenos Ranch in the shadow of the Tetons. It's a ranch solely for men. Men there will prepare you for me. If you want me, that is what you will have to do. We can be lovers in the fullest sense by July. Will you come with me?"

"Yes," Alo whispered.

"And I feel you hard again," Edward said. "Will you come for me again now."

"Yes," Alo whispered as he moaned and lifted his face to Edward's for another deep, lingering kiss as Edward's stroking of his cock increased in intensity.

* * * *

The train ride from Santa Fe to the end of the rails was a grueling one as far as Edward and Alo were concerned, entailing boarding the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe line, headed north to Chicago; getting off in Omaha; and picking up the Union Pacific line, aboard the Overland Limited, headed west. The journey by rail took five days in 1915, and the closest rail stop to the Idaho side of the Grand Tetons was Green River, Wyoming, in the south of that new state. Green River had burgeoned in size - but was still not large - with the passage of the railroad through there having been completed in 1868. From Green River it was another five-day ride by stagecoach over rough dirt tracks north to Driggs, Idaho. The Eremenos Ranch, tucked into a finger of the Teton Valley, projecting into the Grand Tetons on their western slope, was another five-hour ride on horseback.

Fully private compartments and carriages were a rarity on the run north and existed on the Union Pacific run west primarily to serve industrial and railroad magnates. So, semiprivate compartments were the best that Edward could obtain.

When he and Alo were the only ones in such a compartment during segments of travel between station stops, though, Edward would lower the curtains to the corridor; turn the lock in the door; pull Alo onto his lap, with the young man's trousers on the floor at his feet; and finger fuck and stroke Alo to an ejaculation. In this way he kept the young man keyed up for him and continuing to beg for a fuck that Edward would not provide.

Edward fully expected to make Alo his. He just felt he had good reason to fully prepare for it. For years he had intended to make Alo his when the lad reached his majority, and everything he had done in relating to Alo as the young man grew up was to prepare for this relationship without scaring the young man away. In this situation, so near to his goal, though, he needed to exercise supreme restraint, no matter how hard that was for him to do. He needed to do it right so as not to ruin it altogether.

On the stagecoach ride north from Green River, there was a driver and relief driver in the driver's box and a young Mexican man to do the hauling chores, who sometimes sat on top of the stage coach, amongst the luggage, and sometimes in the stagecoach, when it was raining. There were two other paying passengers, in addition to Edward and Alo, composed of an elderly missionary couple en route to working on and spreading the gospel to an Indian reservation.

It rained during the first day of travel, and the Mexican, Pedro, rode inside the carriage, sitting beside the missionary couple, with the massively large Edward sitting across from Pedro and Alo sitting beside Edward. During the trip Edward and Pedro exchanged several glances that Alo didn't particularly appreciate, but he wanted Edward so badly that he wouldn't say anything.

That night they camped on the north bank of the Muddy River, which honestly earned its name. They camped near the home compound of a ranch by arrangement. The ranch family provided meals, although the passengers and drivers slept in tents by a campfire.

The second day of the journey took them to the small town of Kemmerer, where, once again, they camped in a small grove of trees at a ranch that provided meals. Edward had been moody the whole day, even though the weather was good. Pedro was riding on top of the stagecoach.

That evening, as the passengers and drivers gathered from walks they had taken after their evening meal to stretch their aching limbs from a full day's ride in a lurching coach with inadequate springs, Alo noticed that Edward and Pedro had not yet returned. First Pedro returned, stumbling and looking distressed, and lurched into the tent he was to share with the drivers. Edward entered the camp soon thereafter, whistling and almost strutting.

Edward and Alo shared a tent. The previous night, Edward had managed to embrace Alo and quietly stroke him to ejaculation. This second night, though, he merely turned over, with his back to Alo, after a furtive kiss on the lips, and drifted off into snoring.

The next morning, as they were loading the stagecoach, Alo noticed there was no Pedro. So did the missionary couple. The husband of the couple asked the driver about this, and the driver gave a scowl and said that Pedro had taken ill in the night and would be left at the hosting ranch to recover. When the missionaries turned away, though, Alo saw the driver's scowl turn toward Edward, who was in good spirits and not paying much attention to the loading at all.

Alo felt tense the entire day of the ride northwest, across the Idaho state line, and to an encampment on the banks of Bear Lake. The tail end of the Tetons now clearly were in sight to the north. Edward continued humming to himself and engaging in discussions with the missionary couple that Alo knew didn't really interest the novelist at all - and weren't providing anything he could use in his writing, which was normally the only topics that could loosen Edward's tongue.

It also seemed to Alo that Edward didn't want to be engaging in discussions with him.

But that evening, after the meal and while the drivers were setting the tents up, Edward asked Alo to take a walk with him along the banks of Bear Lake.

In a hidden little forested ravine leading down to the shore of the lake, Alo disrobed at Edward's request and took a dip in the water. Edward remained dressed, watching Alo from the bank. When Alo came out of the water and had dried off with his shirt, Edward pulled the young man into his lap and finger fucked and stroked him to an ejaculation, while covering his face with kisses.

Alo had tried to be standoffish and certainly was showing Edward he was ticked about something, but Edward ignored this until after he had made the young man come for him - an activity that Alo was lost to as soon as Edward initiated it.

"Tell me what's wrong, Allen," Edward said.

"Pedro. You - "

"Yes, I fucked him. And we might as well establish right now that I will fuck other men during our relationship. But if you wind up living with me, as I hope you will, I will always be coming home to you. That doesn't mean I will tolerate you fucking other men after this summer. That is just the way it will be. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Alo answered, trying to keep the whine out of his voice. "But, why would you fuck Pedro and not -?"

"I established that Pedro let men fuck him. He was experienced. I needed the relief. You can't imagine how frustrating it is to be near you like I have been on this journey and not to find sexual relief."

"But . . . anytime you wanted me, you could . . . and Pedro, when he returned . . . Oh, Edward. Oh!"

Edward had moved down Alo's body and taken the young man's cock in his mouth and was sucking it. Alo was lost to him. Edward had only rarely done this for him before, and Alo was transported to the clouds overhead, completely lost to any more questions he might have about Pedro.

* * * *

A man introducing himself as Henry - but saying most called him Hal - met Edward and Alo at the stagecoach stop in the town of Driggs, Idaho. The stop was in front of a saloon and the man came out of that wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He was a big, strapping redhead, who Alo thought was maybe five years older than he was. Alo wished that he could go into the saloon too, but civilization had reached this little town in the shadows of the towering Grand Tetons. He wasn't old enough. It didn't matter that his parents had let him drink from the moment he'd said he wanted to try it. Of course, that had worked as they probably wanted it to. Since it wasn't forbidden and he wasn't at all impressed with his first drunken state, he had only drunk in moderation since then.

He started to tell Edward that he might like to have a drop to assuage the dust of the long journey, but he stopped when he saw the assessing look Edward was giving Hal. In any event, in a short time they were on horseback and on their way east, toward the plain at the base of the foothills into the Tetons. Edward, Alo, and Hal were each astride a horse, and two other pack horses carried their luggage. Edward didn't travel light.

While they rode, Alo asked, out of curiosity, "I don't understand why the ranch is named Eremenos. Is that an Indian word?"

"No, it's because of what happens at the ranch," Hal answered. But then, looking like maybe he wasn't supposed to say anything, he clamped his ruggedly square jaw shut.

Edward looked over to the cowboy and said, "Eremenos? You?"

The man laughed. "I'm twenty-five, and, no, that was never me."

Edward sighed and looked away from the man. He turned to Alo and said, "It's not an Indian word. It's a Greek word. As this young man has said, it signals, although doesn't dwell on the actual import of the word, the business of the ranch to those of us who are interested."

"How so?" Alo asked.

"Eremenos is Greek for a young man, a boy really, younger than you by a few years, who accommodates an Erastes, like me. An older man."

"An older man?" Alo asked, still not getting it.

"Older men who fuck boys, young boys, sometimes as young as nine years old, during the ancient Greek period," Edward said, with an amused look on his face. "To keep it legal in these United States - even in Idaho now - it's younger men rather than boys. It's like Alexander the Great and his young lover, Hephaestion. It was quite common and acceptable in Greek times. The gods did it - Zeus fucked the young Ganymede. And the Thebans were said to have three regiments made of seasoned warriors and their young male lovers. The Greeks married, of course, but they also were permitted to have boys to fuck. I guess 'Hephaestion' wouldn't be readily pronounceable for a ranch name, though. Eremenos is pretentious enough. But I'm sure it does the job for advertising what you can get at the ranch - or near enough if you take into account how young the Eremenos can be."