Doc Selkirk quickly forgot about the Jersey Shore as he shadowed George and me around. He asked more questions than I knew there were questions to ask. After dinner, he watched as George and I cleaned, oiled, and repaired harness. Mud created by the incessant rain filled every grove and seam and tarnished the hardware. We replaced the long lines and horse bits that we had inherited when we expanded to a team of eight. We were trying to anticipate as many problems as possible before we started on the long continuous string of one-night stands.
The weather that day in Philadelphia was seventy-five degrees with a glorious blue sky occasionally dotted with puffy cumulous clouds. It had a fantastic effect on my attitude. We sat on bales of hay near the horse tent and told Doc Selkirk about various wagons and what they carried. He asked questions about the horses and the other animals. He asked about Rawling and the other managers, a subject I didn’t know much about.
The trumpet sounded for supper and Doc, ate at our table. Cold fried chicken, cucumber salad, and freshly baked bread tasted better than normal. We told Doc he wouldn’t be eating with the workers after he started to work. He would be sitting with the “higher ups.” After supper, Doc insisted that we stay overnight at his house so we could sleep in regular beds. He invited us to do that every night until we left town if we wanted to. I found Avery and introduced Dr. Selkirk. I made sure that Avery knew we were not going to be sleeping on the train. I told him that he was responsible for the horses until he saw us again.
I accepted Doc’s invitation, which made all of us happy. Last night’s fever fatigue hung on, and I was anxious to get to bed. Staying at Doc’s also gave me a chance to do several other things. I decided to tell Doc more about the investigation. Second, I was concerned about what I had said about Wolf when I was delirious. I also wanted to call Inspector Brown to determine if he had arrested Ralph or any of his gang when the elephants arrived. I suspected that he hadn’t since there had been no talk on the lot about arrests even though I had not seen Ralph around.
Doc showed George and me a room on the second floor directly across from the bathroom. It had two narrow beds covered by matching quilts with a green and white block pattern. Family pictures of the doctor with his daughters and wife hung on the wall. He told us his wife passed away from cancer last year. I sat on a chair near one of the beds and loosened my boot laces. I wanted to lie down as soon as I could. I was exhausted and my eyes closed as soon as my head touched the pillow.
Doc asked me how I slept when I saw him in the kitchen in the morning. I told him that my sleep had been peaceful, and indoor plumbing was a luxury that I was going to miss once the show got rolling. The telephone rang and Doc picked up the receiver.
“Dorsey Selkirk speaking.” A long silence followed.
“Yes, this afternoon.” Doc looked grim.
“Somethin’ wrong?”
“Yes,” he said, “at my cottage down on the shore there was a fire in the garage. It was intentionally set. I need to go down there this afternoon. Can you and George ride along? Circus doesn’t leave until Sunday right?”
He rattled off several rhetorical questions not expecting answers.
“I’ll see if Peter Ahern can come along, too. It is a perfect opportunity for him.”
When he returned, I said that we had to stop at the lot and let Avery know we would be gone most of the day.
“And maybe overnight,” Doc said. I wanted to inform Williams if he was around.
“We’ll leave whenever George gets up,” Doc said. He stood near the table intently looking at me, as if checking my condition. Softly he said, “Before you meet Peter I want you to know he and I are more than friends.”
“I look forward to meeting him. Just so you know George and I are just good friends but he protects me with his muscles. He will be fine with Peter I can assure you of that.” I went on, “I’m concerned about what I said during my sleep the other night.” He stepped away to refill his coffee cup from the white speckled porcelain pot that sat on a gas frame. He poured cream into the cup followed by two spoons of sugar. He stirred slowly and returned to his chair.
“Seth, you mentioned Ralph and the fact that he was going to kill you. That you said many times. You mentioned something about elephants and officers. You mentioned the bureau and Officer Brown at Empire 3567. I told you about Wolf… Oh, you talked about a mature box. That’s the best I can do. Want to tell me what any of that means? What’s a mature box?”
“A manure box?”
“OK, that makes no sense.”
“I just don’t want you to get involved. My problems with this guy, Ralph, probably are not over unless the officers from the government arrested him the other night in New Jersey.”
“Why New Jersey?”
“I suspect that’s where the elephants, the ones I mentioned in the fever, were delivered. I’ll call Inspector Brown in New York before we leave to find out. But I suspect Ralph is still free. I was calling Brown at the post office when you found me. I suspect that Ralph and his gang are smuggling liquor or dope into this country and selling it on or through the circus. The government officers wanted me to supply details.”
I recounted details of my trip to Europe.
“You want to call now?” he said.
“Sure! Brown should be there. Where is the telephone?”
He pointed toward the front hall.
“You know the number?”
“Have it memorized. ”
I took the receiver from the cradle with my right hand and waited for an operator to connect me to New York. It rang three times before someone answered. I asked for Brown.
“Not here, he’s down the hall. Who is this?”
“John S. Lloyd.”
“Hold on. I’ll see if he can come to the phone.”
There was a long silence as I waited.
“He’s on his way. Hold on.” I felt tension and anxiety building in my own body.
“Hello, Seth?”
“Inspector, I mean detective. Sorry I didn’t call yesterday. I got really sick. Anything happen?”
“We missed them, not the elephants but whatever was being shipped with them. We thought they were off-loading in New York and instead they tied up in Jersey City. By the time we got there the elephants were on their way to quarantine, and everyone except the handlers was gone.”
“Find the manure box?”
“You mean boxes, we understand from the deck guys. There were three or four boxes.”
“I was on the lot for a while yesterday and never saw Ralph or Williams.”
“You may see a couple of new guys working on the crew. They’ll come to you.”
“I can’t call anymore. We leave Sunday morning.”
“I know,” he said. “Good-bye.”
Dr. Selkirk stood on the landing as I ascended the stairs to get dressed. “Everything OK?”
“OK for now. They did not find the stuff and didn’t catch Ralph or anyone.”
I walked into the bedroom to find George dressed in a fresh shirt with a clean-shaven face.
“You clean up pretty well.” He smiled when I brushed my right hand over his dimpled chin where the black beard stubble had been the heaviest.
“We’re going out to the Jersey shore. You want to come?” He moved his head up and down acknowledging my question as he drew his belt through its loops around his belly. I quickly got dressed. Doc had told me to meet him in front of the house when we were dressed. He said he had to pickup Peter Ahern.
The facade of Doc’s townhouse was flush with a building on one side and separated by a small passage from his neighbor on the other. As I stood resting my butt again the iron rail on the stoop waiting, a breeze blew the essence of sweet lilacs. Flower boxes across the street were full of purple, red and yellow pansies. A milk wagon moved away from us on South Street as Doc’s car approached.
Doc introduced his friend, Peter, who sat with him in the front seat of a twelve cylinder navy blue Hupmobile. Peter was ruggedly handsome with wavy brown hair that flopped over his ears and he had a bushy mustache. I guessed he was in his late twenties. He wore stylish chinos and a sport shirt. He looked more like the movie actors I had seen in West Los Angeles than a businessman. His words were few but were spoken in a rich and deep Philadelphia affect.
We drove to the lot at the end of South Street before crossing the tracks. Doc parked near the front entrance. I told George to stay in the car as I went to find Avery. When we started the trip, I noticed how quiet the car was compared to our truck. Doc looked over the back seat.
“Seth, when we get outside of Camden, you can drive. Peter and I will let you chauffeur us. He didn’t ask me if I wanted to, but I was happy with the prospect. George sat intensely looking out the left back seat window. We drove slowly north wandering through city streets to reach the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Once on Route 30 East, Doc turned south into downtown Camden. We were a few blocks from the railroad yards and shipping docks.
George suddenly pointed in my direction. “Look over there - a Rawlings truck.”
He repeated it louder. Doc stopped, backed up and we looked for the truck. We spotted the Rawlings truck parked at the curb in front of an automobile garage. There were trucks and automobiles wedged in at every angle on both sides of the brick paved, macadam patched street. Doc drove around the block and he stopped the car a block away from the truck. We watched three men release cables that held a large crate to the truck. They hoisted it off of the truck bed, carefully lowered onto a roller dolly, and Ralph and two men pushed it into the garage.
“That is a manure box!” No one spoke.
Within five minutes, the brick building was locked. Ralph jumped on the running board of the truck as one of the other men drove the truck slowly away from the curb. It turned north onto Route 30.
“What’s in the box?” Doc asked.
“We filled a box like that on our trip with horse manure and soiled hay bedding.”
“Are you sure that was all that was in it?” Doc said in an accusatory tone.
“I have to admit I was surprised to find not one but two boxes when we arrived in New York. We put extra feed, shovels, rakes in one, and I saw Juno put two trunks in the extra crate. I remember seeing one of the crates in the quarantine area on the back of a Rawlings truck.”
“Let’s go fucking see what we can find out,” Peter said as he opened the back door of the Hupmobile.
“I’m not going snoopin’ around and getting arrested,” Doc replied. “This is not my part of town.”
“Shit, Doc, my warehouse is across the street. No one is going to be suspicious. In fact, my guy may have a fuckin’ key to the place.”
No one other that Peter got out of the car and we sat nervously waiting for his return.
“No key, but I have an idea. Doc pull the car right up to the front door as if we are there to do business. My guy says he has seen trucks coming in and out of the place. He also said there is a side door toward the back that might be coaxed open.”
“Peter, that is breaking in.”
“Fucking right, didn’t Doc tell me that you thought someone was trying to kill you? Don’t you fuckin’ want to know why?”
“Not this way. Let’s go to the police,” Doc sputtered.
Peter burst into laughter.
“Doc, if there’s money to be made illegally, the Camden police make it. We’re definitely not going to the police.”
I got out of the car. We walked to the front door. No one emerged, so Peter and I tried the door. It was locked. Doc and George watched us. After a quick scan in either direction, Peter led me between two buildings to a back entrance near a pile of scrap lumber and discarded rusty steel drums. Peter tried the door knob fruitlessly. He stood momentarily with his hands on his hips with his thumbs laced in his belt loops.
“Follow me I have one more idea.”
There was only one small window on the back wall of the building about six feet up. We muscled a heavy drum under the window. Peter climbed up and pushed on the molding. The window opened. He slithered up through the window and he disappeared.
“Seth, come to the side door!” he whispered.
The padlock had not been closed, so he could open the door. Once inside, the smell of gasoline filled my nose. Peter headed for the closest box. He pushed it. We heard clinking bottles. He shook another box with the same result. Then we tried the door of and inside office. It was locked.
“Booze, and a hellava lot of it,” Peter said. We heard the horn of the Hupmobile blast. “They’re coming back,” I said.
“Out the back window.”
Peter pushed me up, and I managed to fall hands first and catch myself on the top of the metal drum. He was on his way out and fell into my arms. He rebounded to close the window and we went undiscovered. Peter sent me through an alley and told me to wait out of sight until I saw the Hupmobile. As I ran up the alley, I saw the tail end of the red Rawlings truck.
Once we were all in the car, Doc stopped and pushed me into the driver’s seat. Peter couldn’t control his excitement about the discovery of booze across the street from his coffee and sugar warehouse. He speculated about the building ownership.
“Seth, didn’t you call some government eunuch and hear’m tell you about some fuckin’ dope shipped with the elephants?” he asked.
“Yes, MacDougall from Scotland Yard. But only speculation.”
“What do you think was in that office?”
“Could be dope, but how would I know. I don’t even know what it looks like.”
“Seth, my naïve country friend, its white like sugar or maybe very fine flour,” Peter said in a tone that pissed me off.
“Are you a dope head?”
“I’ve tried it. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it asshole.”
“Boys, tone it down,” Doc said. “Besides how long do you think these stupid laws about using drugs will stay in place? There are not enough police or government agents to enforce laws that the people don’t believe in.”
I watched George through the rearview mirror. He seemed to be in a trance or shock from the tension of the morning. He returned to staring out the window. The remainder of three-hour trip to Stone Harbor was uneventful. The road was concrete but the sand drifted onto the road from the giant dunes and obscured the surface in places.
When we arrived in Stone Harbor, we turned off the main road and drove south. The streets were made out of crushed white shells. The car tires crunched as we made our way to Doc’s cottage. The driveway leading to the garage was blocked off by a saw horse. He speculated that it was there because of the fire. Doc told me to park in front of the stone posts that supported the white gate that led into the yard. Before we went into the house the four of us walked to the garage. The high windows of the garage were blackened even though the doors were perfectly white. From the front, there wasn’t any evidence of a fire. We walked around the back and on the lower left corner of the garage. We saw charred wood and gray smoke marks on the wall.
“They brought me down for this?” Doc scoffed. He pushed the broken lock on the side door and went inside. The three of us followed him. The smell of burnt wood was strong and the soot covered the side windows, obscuring the incoming light. Doc walked to the backdoor of the cottage.
“Wait minute. We’ll go get some lunch. I’ll be right back,” he said.
Peter followed him into the house and we waited. Fifteen minutes later, they came out. Doc carried a couple of blankets and a black doctor’s bag. He commented that he was going to need the bag if he had to care for twelve hundred people. The bag rattled as he set it on the back seat beside Peter. He threw the blankets on the floor. Peter had said little since we left Camden. I wasn’t quite sure why he was along until I heard Doc talking to him.
“It’s the right size for you. You don’t have a family.” Doc was trying to sell Peter the cottage. Doc told me to start the car, turn left at the first corner, and take the broad street toward the ocean. Small white cottages of many shapes lined both sides of the street. I watched Peter as we drove toward the ocean. Our eyes locked once or twice, and I wondered who he was. He had a muscular chest like a person who worked out with barbells. He dressed like a college man but his shirt was open showcasing a heavy gold chain. I did not know businessmen wore gold chains.
“Goddamn, Selkirk, where we going? Cape May?”
“I’m taking you to lunch in the country. You’ll like it. Peter, if you buy my place, you’ll want to know where this place is anyway. You of all people need to know where this place is.”
“I don’t eat where it ain’t fuckin’ convenient,” he responded sarcastically with a belly laugh.
Fifteen minutes later, we were deep in the pine barrens. The trees smothered the road and whispered as we passed. I slowed the car so I wouldn’t scratch the paint. We bumped in rhythmic jarring in places where the sandy surface had been rutted into a washboard. We hit a small river where there was pavement to prevent vehicles from sinking into wet sand. We slowed to a crawl as we motored closer to the ocean through the light smothering pine trees. I saw cars ahead and a house perched high above us.
The stilted house was clapboard with stairs leading up to a porch that was scuttled with broken chairs and discarded equipment--an old stove, a refrigerator, and haphazardly stacked junk. Doc pushed the screen door open. The air was heavy and sticky.
We passed through what once was the living room and front hall and entered a screened porch at the back of the house. We sat down near the perimeter of the porch. The table had an oil cloth cover of red and white squares stretched across it. A vinegar jar with the label almost worn off, mismatched salt and pepper shakers, and a bouquet of wilted wild flowers in a blue-greenish Mason jar set the table. Three ceiling fans laboriously pushed the air. Two other tables were occupied, one by a family of five all dressed in swimming suits except for a little boy who wore only diaper. Two men who came straight out of the woods sat at another table. Their scruffy beards and rag-tag clothes suggested their lives were spent outside.
No one waited on us for a while. I asked Doc about the people who owned the six or seven cars parked outside. He didn’t have time to answer because a Negro woman came out of the kitchen. She was enormous, at six-two and one hundred eighty pounds. She wore a long sleeved white blouse with pearl buttons that strained to hold her in the blouse. The dark brown skirt she wore brushed the ground as she marched toward our table carrying four glasses and a pitcher of iced tea.
She set the glasses and pitcher in front of us without addressing us and walked toward the family. Doc did not seem to think anything of this, so we continued talking. The waitress returned minutes later with a platter of fried fish and bowl of boiled red potatoes in one hand and a bowl of creamed peas and onions in the other.
“Doc, you want ana’thin else?”
He smiled at her. “Elsie, everything looks good.”
Peter took his shirt off. We sweat as we ate. No one hurried and little else was said until watermelon dessert.
Doc slurped a bite or two.“Seth, do you think Ralph is smuggling the stuff?” he asked.
His question startled me because George didn’t know much. George didn’t look up from his watermelon. I took a few bites before I responded to the question. The slowness of my response suggested that I didn’t think this was the right place to talk about the subject. Doc persisted, and I finally answered.“Booze for sure. Maybe dope, I don’t know for sure.”
“Where does he hide the stuff?” Peter quipped sarcastically. “In manure boxes?’
“Yes, I suspect that after he unloads he keeps the booze in selected wagon boxes. Some of them have locks which are never opened. People around the circus don’t ask too many questions but I rarely see Ralph around those wagons.”
“Are they onto him? “ Doc asked as he wiped his chin with the back of his hand.
“That’s why I was calling the Bureau. They suspect him but they have no proof.”
Doc pushed his chair back and pulled three dollars out of his billfold and pushed the bills toward the middle of the table. He got up and we followed. Instead of leaving the way we came in, he walked to a door on the ocean side of the screened porch. We stepped down the steps and onto the sea grass and the powdery sand. One small path snaked its way through the dense vegetation. We couldn’t see the Atlantic Ocean from our table in the house, but we heard the waves crashing onto the shore. Once we were on the beach, Doc sat down and took off his shoes. We were overdressed for the day and the place. He got up and walked south on the beach. The sand dunes covered in sea grass created a curtain on our right side. Scattered small groups of people were visible in front of us. The surf nibbled at the cuffs of our trousers. We walked a quarter of a mile or so before Peter said, “Let’s go for a swim. I’m hot and sweaty.”
Doc picked up a shell and shucked it at Peter, who started after him like a kid out for revenge. They ran a good distance down the beach before they stopped. Peter took off his shirt exposing his bullish, hairy chest. Peter stripped off the rest of his clothes and chided the rest of us to get undressed. George hesitated at first but Peter came up to him and loosened his belt. George stood still until Peter started to pull his pants down. George said, “OK, but be ready.” Sure enough George was a full staff when he dropped his bare butt on the sand to untie his shoes.
“Nice, really nice,” came from Peter. Doc and I were naked and ready to plunge into the surf. Peter followed with George close behind. We splashed and pushed each other like little kids. Peter jumped on George’s back only to have both of them tumble and come up stuttering. I felt Doc grabbed my dick and squeeze. I wondered what was in store back at the house. George and I ran into the surf, kicked sand at each other, and had a great time. The water was cool and refreshing.
We played until the shadows grew long. We retrieved our clothes but no one bothered to put anything on. George and Doc examined the debris discarded by the ocean on the beach. As we walked toward the car we encountered several couples on blankets but no eyes focused our direction. Doc, George and I slipped into our underwear before walking through the sea grass to the car. Peter didn’t bother.
The sun dipped behind the pines that topped the sandy berms. Doc was different person than the man I met on the steps of the post office only three days before. He was a precocious child out here. His steps revealed a happiness and peace.
In the car driving back Doc spoke about his wife and how she loved their cottage. Peter was aware of her death and asked a question or two. Doc suggested that we stay overnight at the cottage and go back to Philadelphia early in the morning. We acknowledged that we could because Avery was on duty. Peter said he had to make a call but would definitely stay. He mentioned his interest in buying the cottage and said he wanted to take a closer look.
My underwear stuck to my skin and I was uncomfortable. As we reached the car Doc said, “Seth, drive us home!” Doc sat next to me, pulled a watch out of his pant’s pocket and flipped open the cover.
“We’ll get back in time. Got to meet someone at the cottage.”
Half an hour later, we pulled into the driveway behind a horse-drawn wagon. No one was attending the horses, and they didn’t move as they quietly munched on the lawn. We saw no evidence of people. Doc motioned the three of us to go inside. Without consent, Peter chose to follow him. George opened the front door, and smelly, muggy air greeted our nostrils. He left the door ajar as I sat in a rocker and pushed with my feet while George dropped into a swing attached with chains to the ceiling on the porch.
A few minutes later Doc opened the screen door and entered our refuge with Peter following closely behind him.
“It is so hot and muggy. I’ll opened the windows but there isn’t much of a breeze. Want some tea or water? Awfully hot for so early in the year. No much to eat around here sorry to say. Maybe we’ll go over to Maggie’s later.”
No one seemed to be listening. Peter sat down beside George. Doc pulled up a chair that matched the one I was rocking in.
With everyone settled, I posed a rhetorical question to Doc. “I wonder why Ralph had Haskins killed and is trying to get rid of me. I didn’t disturb his operations. I didn’t even know about what he was doing. I still don’t understand how Raina’s father got in so much trouble with them.”
“Seth, look at it this way,” Peter blurted, “you pal’ed up with Haskins who had been close to Ralph. He got mad or jealous and decided to rough Haskins up. He or his people went a little too far. As for you Ralph and others watched as the brass took notice of your skills and gave you special fuckin’ privileges.”
“What privileges?”
“Didn’t you go to Indiana to buy horses?” Doc asked.
“Yah, but…”
Peter pressed ahead.
“And what else? The trip to Europe. Buddy, open your fucking eyes. You were getting privileges that people had worked their whole lives for on the fucking circus and never got. My friggen young friend you stepped into the middle of a booze and dope smuggling operation. Maybe that girl’s father did the same thing. Maybe they thought you were too hay seed to get it, but you got it. Now they’re worried.”
“What do you mean?” Doc said. “Peter, I totally disagree with breaking into that warehouse. They could have killed you or at minimum beat the shit out of you.”
Peter sneered at Doc. “But they didn’t.”
To deflate the tension that was developing between the two men, I told them what I had observed between Ralph and Williams in Los Angeles. George’s eyes got really wide. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“George, you are my friend and protector. I was just so happy they never realized we were staying in the same place.”
“But Ralph was spanking Mr. Williams. Why?”
Peter quipped, “My naïve friend sometimes adults like pain. Ralph was giving Mr. Williams what he wanted, I guess.”
“Not me. In school I got enough paddling.” George offered while the three of us softly laughed at his genuineness.
Peter was serious and said, “This relationship between Ralph and Williams seems difficult around the circus.”
George spoke:“This is exactly the kind of house I want someday.”
He got up and stepped through the front door into the living room, which was almost dark. Doc looked toward the driveway to watch the Negroes returning to their wagon. They mounted the seat, spoke to the horses and slowly rolled past the stone pillars into the dusk.
Peter probed more about events asked a number of questions about the aerialists. “Raina’s father must have somehow been involved or gotten cross-wise with Ralph. How can they move the fuckin’ booze and dope with so many people around?”
“I suspect at night Ralph’s men made runs to certain wagons. In the daytime there are wagons that are always locked. Probably happens right before the train starts rolling. There is plenty of confusion.”
“What about the dope?”
“Avery told me that the Negroes like the dope. They buy it off some guy in the menagerie crew for ten cents. It’s cheaper than booze that goes to the higher ups.”
“Seth, the booze we saw in Camden was really good stuff. From Scotland and England, premium dollar stuff. Twenty or thirty dollars a bottle. Do people in the circus have that kind of fuckin’ money?”
“My impression is that the bosses and performers get whatever they want,” I told Peter. He took a big puff on an ugly black cigar and leaned his head back.
Doc was restless and got up from the chair and stepped into the house. He returned with a pitcher of water and set it on a small table between the end of the swing and my rocker. The mood, like the dying sunlight, was soft and relaxed. Peter took a drag of the Cuban cigar he clinched in his teeth. I thought of George and what he made of this. I wanted him to remain unhurt by the events. He was a good friend, and I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.
Doc returned to the porch with nothing on except a towel hanging around his neck.
“Want a shower? George is in there now. There’s not a lot of hot water but enough for a quick rinse off.”
Peter and I followed Doc inside and left our clothes on the back porch. Sand seemed to come from every cuff and crack. Doc put a flickering kerosene lamp on the table and putzed around the kitchen as Peter and I waited our turn in front of the bathroom door.
“It’s time to leave here,” Doc said. “I’ll miss this place. Too many memories of my Sarah to keep it.”
“Don’t your children want to keep it?” I said.
Peter chimed in, “Doc, are you sure?”
“With grandchildren, this place is too small. Actually, it’s a little too far from the ocean. So, Peter, I really do want to sell it. Say the word, and it’s yours.”
“You never told me how small the cistern really was. But, yes, I want it,” Peter said. “You can continue to use it until you find a new place.”
After showering we sat on the front porch dark letting the evaporating water cool us. Doc suggested supper, but and no one seemed that interested. Peter brought up the dope again. His question was one I could not answer.
“How does booze and dope get to the circus when you are always moving?”
I had to admit I had no idea. I thought about the many questions there were and how few answers we had.
Peter cuddled up to George and lovingly put his arm around George. George sat stiffly but did not pull away. Doc and I watched for a few minutes before Doc suggested going into the house. We got up and went into the sticky, but cooler house. George and Peter where sporting their stiff dicks and neither had any clothes on. In the living room Peter dropped to his knees and began to work on George who purred with pleasure. Doc and I somewhat sheepishly watched and hardened. I reached over and kissed him and he responded. He vigorously began to stroke my dick and cupped my balls in his right hand. I took his right nipple in my left hand and moved it slowly between my thumb and first finger. It grew quickly.
He got up from the sofa that was scratchy on my butt and pulled me into the one of the two small bedrooms. Once I was on the bed he surprised me by lifting my legs over my head, “Hold your legs up.” I did and felt his tongue thrust into my asshole. I had never felt anything that wonderful. I couldn’t help but moan my pleasure. The pleasure didn’t stop as he loosened my asshole with his fingers before sliding his long slender dick into my orifice. I closed my eyes and endured the momentary pain. Slowly I began to enjoy his movement in and out of me. Sometime in the course of our fucking George and Peter had joined us on the bed. I felt lips against mine and really didn’t care if they were George’s or Peter’s. I was happy when I opened my eyes a slit to see George enjoying me and Peter who was strategically placed behind him. I felt a tear drop onto my cheek. I whispered, “George, are you OK?”
“Seth, more than OK. I was thinking about my mother and home. I don’t know why.” The pace of Peter’s athletic thrusting took George’s attention. I concentrated on the intensifying action of Doc who was getting near his climax. With a soft grunt he released himself into me. Peter was definitely not quiet and he exploded all over George backside. Doc and I watched as he sucked George to climax. As if the performance was over we all congratulated each other. As I lay on my back spent I realized I did not think of a woman once. I wondered if a woman could give a man that much pleasure.
We drank coffee in the morning with no mention of the activities of the night before. Shortly before eight o’clock we jumped in the Hupmobile hoping to avoid the midday heat. The black leather seats of the car were covered with beads of morning dew.
The drive back started with Peter at the wheel and me in the passenger seat. Peter cursed constantly at slow moving trucks making their way to Philadelphia. He passed one only to find three more Fords or Chevrolets piled to the gunnels with produce blocking his view.
Peter told me about his travel to Central America, the Caribbean, and particularly Cuba. He bought coffee and sugar in car loads and then sold it to grocery stores. He asked if I had been in New Orleans, where he has a big warehouse. I told him I had. After about two hours, Peter pulled over to relieve himself, and the seating order changed. I drove while Doc slept next to me. I thought back on our night sleeping naked butt to naked butt. I wondered what would happen to me.