The Nebraskan Peach Pie Incident

He was not really the type for a casual fuck. In fact, the whole idea of hedonism was hard for him to understand the appeal of- drinking to lose control, dancing all night, fucking someone he\'d just met and wasn\'t ever gonna see again. It all just seemed like a waste- a waste of his time, of his money, of his energy, of himself, really. Then, there was the risk involved. Even if you were scrupulous about using condoms and dental dams and rubber gloves as needed, you had a very good chance of eventually running into someone who wouldn\'t abide by those rules, someone who maybe wouldn\'t abide- forcibly. He\'d had an almost boyfriend like that last year and didn\'t want to repeat the experience. All that, put together with the fact that he lived in a very small Nebraska town, so small he was surprised somebody had bothered to name it- all that explained why he was a twenty-three-year-old, virgin.

So, when someone new had breezed into town- a drifter, a flake, blown there as if by chance, as if by the wind, Fitz didn\'t bat an eye, didn\'t even look his way. Okay, maybe he checked him out, noticed the tight ass, the hard upper arms and the earring- left ear- kind of dangly, like someone had belled him, but Fitzy only had to look once to see that he wasn\'t staying. Yeah, he\'d be gone from this no-horse town the next time the winds changed, leaving nothing behind but the memory of that jangling earring and the vaguest hint of his aftershave.

Fitz was surprised when he spotted that the new fellow was still in town three weeks later, working as a mechanic at Earl\'s Gas and Grub (mostly gas- even if you did get something to eat). He was even more surprised when the guy (his name was Brantley Connor- Miss Mariah, the postmistress, town gossip and the only family he really had anymore, had informed Fitz one day when she\'d caught him looking), surprised when Brantley spent a long Saturday afternoon browsing the stacks of the Possumville Public library allowing Fitz to catch occasional glimpses of him in that threadbare, short sleeved shirt and listen to the ringing from his earring as he moved about.

When six rolled around and Fitz had to close up, he hadn\'t had to chase him out. Brantley\'d shown up at the circulation desk at ten of, applied for a card using his paycheck as ID, and checked out three books: one on Nebraska\'s history, a volume of Shakespeare\'s sonnets and a Dave Brandstetter mystery. The last one caught Fitzy\'s attention, but he managed not to let any reaction show and then Brantley left and Fitz locked up, went home to his one bedroom apartment and jerked off thinking about that old disco song that used bells as a metaphor for sex. Yeah, at least when Fitz was safely at home alone in bed, Brantley Connor could ring his bell.

***

So two months later, Fitz\'s right hand was now officially nicknamed \'Brantley, Brantley, oh God, B,\' especially on Saturday nights, because the new guy had made Saturdays in the library his regular habit and that sweet, little chime went straight to Fitz\'s dick in the worst Pavlovian way. This week it had been more Shakespeare- Two Gentlemen of Verona, Berlin Stories and The Joy of Gay Sex, and Fitz was now sure that Brantley was flirting with him via his book selections. He wondered if Miss Mariah, who fancied herself a good matchmaker, had outed him to Brantley or if he\'d just set off the gaydar with the staring he kept trying not to do.

Either way, Fitzy was not gonna let it get a rise out of him- shit, bad choice of words. Fitz was not going to pursue anything with Brantley. A job and a library card were not the type of things to keep a guy like that in one place, not a guy who owned a car like that. Brantley Connor drove an old Mustang, red, as if it could have been any other color. The car had become another feature in Fitzy\'s nightly fantasies along with the chime of the earring and the hard, smooth skin of his well-muscled upper arms. Yeah, this guy was not staying in a town where his best prospect of getting laid was Fitzy, so Fitzy was not flirting back, much.

***

Three months of this and Fitz almost believed that B was actually sticking around, but what for, he couldn\'t fathom. Personally, Fitz stuck around because he\'d never lived anywhere else- unless you counted the three years he spent at state college, but he\'d barely noticed where he was all that time since he was working and on an accelerated program trying to save himself a year\'s tuition, which he did, but he missed the non-credited aspects of college life to do it. Fitzy stayed in Possumville because Possumville was home.

Their flirting was hot and shameless anymore, but Fitz never said yes when Brantley asked him to do anything other than checkout his books for him, he just couldn\'t take the risk.

All that was there, screaming in his head, when he heard that Brantley Connor had given notice at Earl\'s and then Fitz had found Brantley\'s books returned early, in the book-drop no less. He didn\'t even come in to say a flirty double entendred goodbye and maybe leave a forwarding address so Fitz could fantasize about packing up and running to Omaha, or wherever Brantley was going, and dropping in for a long, slow night of meaningless fucking on his way to bigger and brighter things somewhere like L.A. or San Francisco. So, his life would go back to how it was pre-Brantley, which was not all that different than it was with Brantley in town because of the lack of anything more than ten minutes of flirty conversation once a week and some highly speculative masturbatory fantasies, so no big deal.

***

Three days later, Fitz was buying peaches in the General Store when he heard that familiar, delicious noise behind him. He whipped around to see, expecting it to be a waking dream, expecting that he was finally going over the edge from sexual frustration. But, there Brantley stood; looking a bit cleaner than he usually did, wearing a jacket and tie.

\"Hey,\" Brantley said to him, nodding as he passed, a can of peaches in his hand, too.

\"Oh, yeah. Hey, how you doing?\" Fitz answered, kind of stunned that B was real. He had to be real; Fitzy\'d never had a thing for peaches, so they\'d only figure this prominently in real life.

\"Actually, I\'m doing really, really good. Yourself?\" He smiled a genuine smile, not the leering one he usually gave Fitz when they were sexily not talking about sex between 5:50 and 6 o\'clock pm every Saturday.

\"Been a bit surreal,\" Fitz admitted. He was suddenly very aware of the cans of peaches they were both clutching and that poem echoed through his mind. Did he dare to eat a peach? God, he was ridiculous.

\"Had days like that myself on occasion. I find the best thing to do is just go with it, you know. Let the weirdness happen to you and sort it all out later.\" Then B dropped his can of peaches into Fitzy\'s shopping basket and gently pulled the basket from Fitz\'s fingers. \"Well, come on. We oughta get a pie crust or something to go with these, don\'t you think?\" he added, heading towards the dairy section and not looking back.

Fitz followed and caught up to B as he was contemplating the different kinds of spray whipped cream. \"Ought to spend the extra buck on the brand name, since it\'s gonna be the main course, right?\" he asked Fitz.

Fitz knew he should say something, anything, but well, he still wasn\'t sure this wasn\'t a psychotic break and didn\'t want this pleasant shopping for sweet and sticky things with Brantley to morph into giant pterodactyls trying to eat his head- which seemed as likely as what was happening now. \"Not talking anymore?\" B asked idly, \"\'S Okay, words don\'t always get it done anyway.\" He winked at Fitz and walked to the checkout. Brantley paid for all the groceries and then they were at his car, the mustang, red. The bag with the sticky stuffs went in the trunk, B went behind the wheel and Fitz went in the passenger seat. Some Dan Baird on the radio and the wind in their hair and the ride was over faster than Fitz expected. They were at his place, his tiny one-bedroom.

They were up the stairs and at his door and Fitz was digging in his pocket for keys and then Brantley was helping look for they keys in the most un-helpful way possible, digging in the pocket Fitz had already checked, his hand way too near Fitzy\'s dick, then sliding his hands around to smooth over his back pockets and Fitz lost it and made a needy, little, grunting noise and then they were kissing, warm, lush lips against his own, a breathy pause and then mouths opened. Then, Fitz had a moment of sudden clarity, pushed B away and found the spare key in the hanging planter with the dead strawberry plant in it. \"Yes,\" he breathed to himself and worked the key into the lock.

They entered in a rush, forgetting to bring the grocery bag in from its place on the small landing outside his door, forgetting to close the door. Jackets and B\'s tie were thrown to the floor and then shirt buttons went flying. The couch was close, so that\'s where they landed, Brantley surging over him, hard, hard man pushing him into the scratchy, cheap cushions. Brantley\'s mouth moved from its deep exploration of Fitz\'s tonsils to the pulse point of his neck and then his nipple, suckling and biting and- God, why had he never said yes to this before?

\"I have no clue,\" Brantley whispered against his skin and Fitz wasn\'t sure if he\'d spoken aloud or if B was suddenly a mind reader, \'cause he sure as hell knew what Fitzy wanted. B was working his button loose, then his zipper and then Fitz popped into another lucid moment and pushed Brantley off. He landed, a bit stunned, on the floor next to the couch and Fitz jumped up.

\"Oh shit! I\'m sorry. You okay?\" he asked, reaching out to help Brantley up.

B ignored the outstretched hand and glared at him. \"I\'m fine, confused, but fine. How \'bout you?\"

\"Still having a surreal day,\" Fitzy joked lamely. \"I\'m sorry. I- I don\'t have any- uh- Look, I can\'t do this. I\'m sorry.\"

Brantley stood, ran a hand through his hair and pondered Fitz through a squinty expression. \"Wanna make that pie?\"

\"What?\"

\"We were gonna make peach pie, right?\" He strode over to the door, retrieved the lonesome grocery bag and kicked the door shut behind him. So, shirtless and horny, they sublimated their desire to lick each other by baking, which was weird, but it was safe. The day wasn\'t less surreal, but Fitz was a lot less worried about the fact that he wanted what he wanted with Brantley, because one, Brantley hadn\'t left town even though he\'d left his job and two, B had let him stop them when they were both seriously hard and he hadn\'t gotten mad, he hadn\'t left, he\'d just switched gears to something Fitz could handle. Either B really liked him or he was the nicest person on the planet. Fitzy was kinda thinking both, which really meant that he shouldn\'t have stopped them because, who else would be the right guy to finally trust his body to but the nicest guy on the planet, who also seemed to actually like him?

So, they baked and they talked about the weather and local politics, which Brantley was too well versed in to be planning on leaving, and didn\'t touch, except the rare, accidental brushes one can\'t avoid when one was working side by side with someone one wanted to be furiously fucking, but were instead making pastry with. B didn\'t ask why Fitzy had balked. Fitz found himself wishing that he would, but B was not taking any chances and Fitz didn\'t have the nerve to bring it up himself, so that was that. They baked pie and then they ate pie with whipped cream and the food fight fantasy didn\'t materialize and then B left, taking his wonderful mouth, his tight ass, his naked chest, his strong arms and his jangly earring away with him in his mustang, red.

That night Fitzy finished the pie and jerked off thinking about the salty sweet taste the pie would have had if he\'d eaten it off Brantley\'s naked body.


Books referenced in this chapter:

Dave Brandstetter Mysteries- A long running series by Joseph Hansen (aka: James Colton) which feature a homosexual private detective as the title character.

The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin- two novels by Christopher Isherwood in one volume. Semi-autobiographical novels about a gay Englishman in 1930\'s Germany.

The Joy of Gay Sex by Dr. Charles Silverstein and Felice Picano- obviously, a sex manual.

Shakespeare\'s sonnets and Two Gentlemen of Verona- Poems and a play by English\'s greatest writer, who was also quite fond of having his characters cross-dress.