This was one of the bases for Boyfriend’s and my arrangement; in a way, I helped get the boys in, held them down while he worked his ass magic, gave them just enough of the familiar — hot hungry pussy, legs wrapped around their backs — to allow them to assimilate his cock without freaking out. Together, we were a walk on the wild side.
Maybe some of the men we fucked went home and cried, got drunk, went into therapy. But Mark fucked back, ass opening easily to new knowledge, greedy for pleasure from both ends. He was as open to sensation as he was to love. If fucking me was like saying a mantra, getting fucked was like being the prayer. Filled with cock, his cock in me, he became a fulcrum, sex and sensation perfectly balanced, and I felt the song of his come build up in him as he climbed higher and higher. Surfing pure fuck, anyone’s come was everyone’s come — any one of us could have been Lucky Pierre, the one in the middle.
When you fuck someone over and over, you learn them and you create a new entity, the fuck of your relationship, your ongoing connection. Your sexual energy weaves together, making a new thing that is of you but beyond you. You can’t create it again with anyone else, not exactly. This is true when you fuck one person, and it’s just as true when you fuck more.
When you fuck someone only once you enter into chance, ride a wave of fate, then sweep up on the shore. Many waves, one ocean: most of us go out and ride the waves again, but not that wave.
Mark died shortly after I brought him home to Boyfriend, doubtless just after making someone else happy, for that seemed to be his brief and shining path. His motorcycle slid on a rainy curve; his last threesome was with it and a speeding car.
When you fuck someone only once, someone you’ll never be able to fuck again, it’s as evanescent as the spun sugar crown on top of the fancy dessert, and just as delicious. I imagine the three of us, on each other, and I circle around and around the image, stopping and starting us like we were wind-up toys, or computer animation. In a place where time stops, just like it did for Mark, we are fucking right now, will fuck perpetually — I visit that place in glimpses and always will. He will always be Lucky Pierre, and I — oh, I’m just lucky.
In memory of Mark.
The Magnificent Threesome
Elspeth Potter
The One-Eyed Man saloon was not providing the entertainment DeVille was waiting for. His companion, Harcourt, was hunched over a small bound notebook, turning his stub of pencil over and over between his big, blunt fingers. DeVille doubted the numbers would change tonight. The next town along was hosting a fandango after a performance of the travelling Grand Ethiopian Minstrel Choir, and the streets had emptied by noon. Not a soul had entered who was interested in playing cards or hiring guns; the patrons, all two of them, came in, drank, gave him and Harcourt a suspicious glance, and left. He’d seen pitched battles that were friendlier.
He fluttered his deck of cards between his hands in a never-ending stream while he pondered how best to irritate Harcourt, and thus distract him from his obsessive accounting. It wasn’t getting them to San Francisco any sooner.
“It’s closing time,” the saloon’s owner Miss Kitty said, leaning over their table. A tuft of dark hair poked out of her red dress’ low-cut bosom, and she needed a shave. DeVille had been surprised, when they’d first arrived two days ago, how few of the customers seemed to mind Miss Kitty’s eccentricities. Then again, it was the only saloon in town.
“I know you must get your beauty sleep every night,” DeVille commented. He gathered the cards into one hand and smiled up at her.
Miss Kitty laughed like mountains crumbling and tapped the back of his head. He grabbed for his hat. She said, “You are a caution, Mr DeVille. Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night?”
“I am so sorry, ma’am, but me and the captain here have other plans,” DeVille said. “Right, Harcourt?”
Harcourt put away his notebook. He looked up long enough to say, “Yes.” He pushed his chair back and stood.
DeVille knew what the locals thought: Harcourt looked dangerous. A coloured man with deep-set eyes and lean cheeks, he wore black from hat down to scarred cavalry boots. The grips of his two low-slung Colt revolvers gleamed with use, and he didn’t hide the Bowie knife sheathed at his back. His voice was deep and rough as his appearance.
DeVille, a round-faced white man with a tidy moustache, knew he looked as if he’d come from another country entirely, though both men hailed from Holmestown, New Jersey. He made an effort to look less dangerous and more prosperous than Harcourt. Today he wore snug fawn pantaloons and a brocade frock coat the colour of good red wine. His embroidered gold waistcoat glowed over a minutely pleated cream linen shirt with a string tie. He reached into his breast pocket, but Miss Kitty laid a giant hand on his arm.
“I’ll run you a tab,” she purred.
“Why, thank you, Miss Kitty,” DeVille said. “And I’ve been thinking — why don’t you call me Virgil? It doesn’t seem fair, me using your Christian name and you not knowing mine.”
Miss Kitty giggled. This sound was more like rocks tumbling down a mineshaft. “Oh, you sweet thing,” she said. “Don’t you forget to have a drink with me next time.”
“I most surely would never forget!” DeVille said. He bowed and kissed the back of her hand. Harcourt rolled his eyes.
As they exited, a slender young cowboy entered, battered hat in hand, his longish blond hair tied back into a stubby queue. He wore a long sourdough coat, stained dark with waterproofing. DeVille gave him a second glance, and then a longer, more appreciative one as he hurried into the saloon, graceful in his high-heeled boots. Harcourt elbowed him. He sighed and let himself be drawn out of the swinging doors.
They’d gone barely ten steps when Miss Kitty bellowed after them. “Virgil! Captain Harcourt!”
DeVille looked at Harcourt, who lifted his eyebrows. They retraced their steps. The cowboy sat at their vacated table. Seeing his face clearly for the first time, DeVille was startled by the softness of his features, though he was clearly no longer a young boy. Without beard or moustache, his lips had a plush curve, just waiting for someone to press with their thumb.
Miss Kitty poured the cowboy a glass of whiskey and placed it in front of him, but he didn’t drink it. Miss Kitty said, her expression fierce, “Some rowdies attacked the Widow Larimer’s spread, just outside of town. Austin here’s her wrangler, and he thinks they’ll be back.”
The Widow Larimer was a coloured lady. DeVille imagined she hadn’t been interested in the Grand Ethiopian Minstrel Choir, either. Before Harcourt could say they’d risk their lives for free, he named their rates.
Austin looked up at that. He was beardless, but no fool, that was clear. “She told me to hire Captain Harcourt.”
“Where he goes, I follow,” DeVille said. “Ever since we were boys. But I’m only half his price, since he’s the better shot.”
After a little haggling, DeVille stowed away their advance money. Austin would ride ahead; they had to retrieve their horses from the livery. As they headed for the Widow Larimer’s ranch, Harcourt said, “You only follow me because it suits you. You’ve been getting me into trouble ever since we were boys.”
“He paid up, didn’t he?”
A few moments later, Harcourt said, “You keep your hands off the widow.”
“What if she’s pretty?”
“She’s respectable, Virgil. God knows, you could inveigle a snake into bed with you, much less a defenceless coloured woman. I don’t trust you farther than I could throw you.”
“What if I inveigled for the both of us?”
“Virgil.”
“Is it because she’s coloured? Are you afraid I’ll-”
“We were hired to protect her, not seduce her.”