Calendar Mystery 14: JESSE AND FRANK
Characters:
Frank Zanetti, 24, detective sergeant
Jesse Kovic, 30s, boardinghouse tenant
For Readers who have been following Calendar Mystery, I begin this chapter by clearing up two points of confusion in earlier ones, namely: allusions to Boaz and Brexit.
In chapter 2, "The Church of St. John the Beloved," Chris and Frank engage in some witty banter about which one should be Boaz' and which one should be the Moabite' (a gender- neutral equivalent for Ruth). Dave asked me to explain why one of them should "volunteer to be the Moabite.' No satisfactory answer is possible, because their banter is based on role-reversal. Ruth seduced Boaz by means of enveloping his penis, thereby reversing the norm of penetrative sex in which the male plays the active' role. In chapter 3, "Cabin 7," Chris (like Ruth) takes the lead in his own seduction. He prepares to penetrate Frank, but then gets a vibe' that Frank's virginity is meant for another man, so he flips. I don't make it clear whether Chris envelops Frank or Frank penetrates Chris. My text allows the Reader to decide. That was an oversight on my part, but the text is the text. The lovers' banter about Ruth and Boaz suggests that `top- bottom' relations are complex and often confusing.
In chapter 13, "Halloween Festival," I said that Scott McGiver and Alex Hamilton, the Scottish bagpipers from Church of St. John the Beloved, played a few traditional tunes to celebrate the first anniversary of Brexit. I should have listened to Nigel Farage, who predicted all along that Boris Johnson would betray the British voters at the last minute. Which he did. Farage turns out to be right about virtually everything he says. Next time, I'll listen.
The role of Brexit as a signifier of the will of British voters has a certain parallel to nifty stories. Their authors experiment with certain forms of erotica that generally are banned from commercially published fiction. Some authors are beginners, trying their hand at fiction for the first time. Others are more experienced. Some write from their own experience; others from a wide cultural range. All give populist expression to the human imagination, without censor or censure from that faceless bureaucracy that we not call the Deep State'. Put another way: nifty' is an island of free expression in a sea monitored by Big Brother in a neo-Victorian age.
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Jesse Kovic is a laborer in his mid-thirties, an unmarried straight guy. He works as a mechanic in the ore docks. When he was in his twenties, he repaired gigantic steam-shovels in the mines around Hibbing and Buhl, but he moved to Duluth during one of the economic recessions that plagued the Mesabi Iron Range.
Jesse grew up as the second of four sons in a three-bedroom home across the street from the high school in Hibbing; on the same block as Bob Dylan much earlier, in the 1950s. He was old enough to remember a time when everyone in Hibbing hated Bob Dylan, or pretended to; back when the town's most famous son was excluded from the high school's Hall of Fame', which was really nothing more than a line-up of photos in the hall outside the principal's office, together with a row of glass cases displaying football jerseys, hockey sticks, antique survey equipment and other debris donated by famous alumni. Bob Dylan shared this dubious honor with Larry Pacciotti, known to the public as Chi Chi LaRue, who, unless I'm mistaken, is banned from the Hall of Fame' to this day.
As a child, Jesse lived just over a mile from the town's observation deck overlooking the mine in Hibbing, which is famous for having the largest open-pit mine in North America, although Minnesota Swedes beg to differ, citing, instead, the copper-mine in Falun, Sweden, which traces its history back to the Vikings in AD 700. That `Old Country' mine, as historians remind us, had always been an intricate network of underground tunnels, until it collapsed on Midsummer's Day in 1687, leaving a gigantic hole in the earth. Hundreds of miners would have perished, but for the fact that it was Midsummer's Day, when everyone in Sweden is on holiday. After that, Falun became an open-pit mine, and like its counterpart in Hibbing, it now has more tourists than miners, because neither mine has the economic importance that it had in the past.
All of this is prologue to Jesse's favorite proverb: "The Range is the ass of the world, and Hibbing is the hole." Except that Jesse pronounced Range' as Raynch' followed by a breathy aspiration (Raynch-eh'), and Hibbing' as `Hibbink', in line with two features of Iron Range dialect: "Da Raynch-eh is da ass of da world, and Hibbink is da hole."
During his high school years and in his twenties, Jesse had girlfriends and got engaged to one of them, but he never married. When he moved to Duluth at age 30, he struck out with women because he was a common laborer with few prospects, and too picky, fixed on the idea of a young, beautiful woman who was destined to exist only in his imagination.
Nothing is Jesse's background would lead anyone to suspect that he would develop a sexual interest in Frank Zanetti. He had, or pretended to have, a blue-collar revulsion against anything remotely `gay', and a working man's suspicion of cops. Even so, after seeing Zanetti naked in his boardinghouse, Jesse cultivated a fantasy in which Zanetti drove to the boardinghouse in his patrol car, dressed in his uniform including sidearm, nightstick, and handcuffs jingling from his back pocket. Sebastian was always absent from this recurring tableau.
Looks can be deceiving. Jesse lived modestly, but in fact he was wealthy, unencumbered by a wife and children. His only luxury was fine cigars, which he purchased at a high-end tobacco shop downtown. He had cigars ready when he stood on the front porch, waiting for Frank, who arrived at the boardinghouse at the appointed hour.
Frank told Jesse some news about the Halloween festival. The cops turned away a group of feminists who arrived with posters, pots, pans other noisemakers to demonstrate against ethnic appropriation'. "The Ojibwe group admitted two Scottish bagpipe players to their dances. According to the feminist leader, whose name is Marsha Newsome, tomtoms and bagpipes add up to ethnic appropriation'."
"She's not from here, is she?" Jesse sputtered.
"She's at the college," Frank replied. "She came here last year from Brown University to bring all the latest postmodern theories to backwater Duluth. The cops checked visitors for guns, knives, and noisemakers. They ejected anyone seen carrying contraband items. A feminist fracas in the parking area went unnoticed by spectators. By some unwritten law of poetic justice, the strains of bagpipes could be heard from as far away as the statue of Neptune by the lift bridge."
"The newspaper will probably tell a different tale," Frank said when Jesse helped him prepare his Cohiba and lit it for him. They sat together in the front porch of the boardinghouse, on a swing-bench built for two. They watched parents walk by on West Fifth Street, with children dressed in Halloween costumes. At the top of the steps to the porch, a jack-o'-lantern invited visitors. Frank carried with him a smart leather bag with a shoulder strap. From the bag, he produced two large packages of candy. "Hershey bars," he said. "Here, Jesse, you take the one with almonds and I'll take the plain ones. We'll give each child a choice, only one chocolate bar each, or we might run out."
Frank told Jesse the story about how his friend Chris was hauled before the UMD Equity Tribunal to answer complaints about his Chaucer course by campus feminists, only one of whom was actually a student. What were the charges? Oppressive patriarchy in the Knight's Tale, which was too hard for students to read anyways. Rape-apology in the Miller's Tale and the Reeve's Tale. The gross indecency of kissing asshole in the Miller's Tale. Intimidating students by bringing a policeman to class to give a lecture. ("That was me," Frank said.) Blatant anti- feminism in the Wife of Bath's Prologue. The false platitudes of courtly love in the Franklin's Tale. The only thing they approved of was the death of three sworn brothers in the Pardoner's Tale. No one at the hearing had actually read Chaucer, and when he tried to illustrate Chaucer's comedy by reading a few well-known passages, no one else thought it was funny. "One thing that third-wave feminists have in common, Jesse. None of them have a sense of humor."
"Who would have thought that a man could get in trouble for teaching a class in college?" Jesse said. "Working in the ore docks is rough, but I've never heard of a worker ratting on another for any reason. What happened with Chris at this Tribunal?"
"Nothing personal to him," Frank replied. "Lord knows, they tried to get him. Marsha Newsome accused him of patriarchal capitalism' because he owns Sandy Point lighthouse, but she was overruled by the Dean. The lighthouse is a separate issue, she said. A difficult concept for women, who like to mix issues into a hysterical muddle. In the absence of personal misconduct, they decided that the problem was Chaucer. They recommended that Chaucer be banished from the curriculum. No more Chaucer courses!"
"They can do that?" Jesse asked, incredulously.
"Actually, they can't. The Equity Tribunal is part of the Student Life division. Only the English department has the power to banish Chaucer. That won't happen. It would make the department a national laughing-stock."
A parade of children in Halloween costumes interrupted their conversation at many points. Trick-or-treating. But they managed to sustain a certain continuity.
"I should have gone to college," Jesse said, ruefully. "I could have done. There's a community college in Hibbing, and UMD offers upper-level courses on campus. Maybe a degree in business. But after I graduated high school, the Oliver Mining Company paid high wages. It seemed like the best bet. Everything was good until I got laid off. That's why I moved to Duluth."
"College is all about delayed gratification," Frank replied. "But there are alternatives. After high school, I went to Police Academy, then got a job on the police force. But you need a college degree to advance in the force, so I went to night school at UMD. Double majored, in English and Italian."
"Italian?"
"Italian was easy for me," Frank said. "I've spent weeks with relatives in Italy, so I know my way around the language."
"An Italian stallion!" Jesse exclaimed. His eyes drifted in the direction of Frank's crotch. His first hint of a sexual motive, although, it is true, he admired Frank's butt even more. Jesse self- identified as straight, but sex is sex, and he aimed to get $5,000 worth.
"To be honest, I can get pretty horny, but you already know that," Frank grinned.
Jesse blushed, but his blush went unnoticed, as the last gleam of sunlight was gone and the candle in the jack-o'-lantern flickered low. The parade of Halloween children was replaced by teenagers scrounging for treats without the benefit of costumes. Frank and Jesse held the last remnant of their cigars by a pinch of the index finger and thumb.
"That scene with me and Sebastian going starkers up the stairs, did that embarrass you, Jesse?" Frank asked.
"Embarrass me? Not at all!" Jesse exclaimed. "For me is was what you guys call `eye- candy'." Jesse didn't know much gayspeak, but he did know this one.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Frank grinned.
"Another cigar?" Jesse offered. He produced two cigars from the pocked of red-and-black flannel shirt.
"Sure," Frank said. "But it's getting chilly, and we're attracting mosquitoes." He swatted a mosquito that had landed on his cheek with a high-pitched buzz.
"We can smoke in my room," Jesse said.
"Okay by me," Frank replied. He followed Jesse upstairs to his room on second floor. Jesse opened one of the windows. They set up chairs on opposite sides of the window, and placed an ashtray on the sill between them.
"Cohiba, Maduro, or Churchill? Take your pick," Jesse said.
"Whatever you're smoking," Frank replied, and added: "You know, it's been a long day. I could use a shower, and then a cigar."
"Why not?" Jesse replied. He concealed his elation. He was wondering how he was going to get the guy naked.
They stripped in silence, like two men in a locker room, barely taking notice of each other. Jesse grabbed a bar of soap and two towels. "You already know the way," he grinned. Walking behind Frank and hardly believing his good luck, he took a gander at bare ass. When Frank stepped into the shower stall, Jesse stepped in behind him. Arms and thighs jostled under the showerhead.
Frank invited Jesse to apply soap to his back, a washcloth having been conveniently omitted. "Get my butt, too," Frank said. Jesse accepted the invitation to rummage cleavage, all the way to the hole. Frank performed the same service on Jesse, who felt an alien finger in his butt-hole for the first time. It felt strange, but he didn't complain.
Frank turned to face Jesse; a silent invitation to apply soap to his frontal nudity. His nine-inch cock swayed between them. When Jesse's hands rummaged genitalia, a playful sword-fight ensued. Jesse's cock was decidedly average, six and a half inches erect, but a generous foreskin added an aura of mystery.
"You're muscular," Frank said as he took his turn, running his hands over Jesse's torso, down his inner thigh and from there up to his genitals, not omitting the scrotum. "Nice dick, too," he added, remembering that one must always say so.
Jesse was getting into the spirit of mutual masturbation, but Frank stopped him. "Remember our cigars," he said. It was Jesse's idea to take turns drying each other, allowing further opportunities for intimate touching. They returned to Jesse's room.
Jesse selected two Churchills. "Smooth tobacco is better in the evening," he said. He lit a cigar and gave it to Frank. He lit another for himself. They sat starkers in chairs on opposite sides of the window, sharing the ashtray on the sill. Their cocks varied in degrees of hardness, an interesting spectacle. By now, neither man had qualms about being the object of `male gaze'.
Frank opened the dialogue about sex: "I believe you when you say you're a straight guy, Jesse, and yet, here we are! So, I have to wonder how we got here."
"Starvation for sex," Jesse replied. "I haven't gotten laid since I move to Duluth. Besides, you're a prize specimen, regardless of gender."
"I'm flattered," Frank said. "Why do I get the feeling that you're gonna get lucky?"
Frank's words gave Jesse an adrenaline rush. Frank acted like Portia during the courtship- riddle in `Merchant of Venice', making sure that Bassanio rejected the gold and silver caskets, giving him hints to make sure that he chose the lead casket, so that among the contestants, he would be the lucky suitor. Even though they were already naked, Jesse was still courted Frank, praising his manliness, his monstrous cock, his curvature of butt. That's how Jesse played Bassanio to Frank's version of Portia.
"I'll tell you everything, blow by blow, but if I'm completely honest, I'm afraid that you might change your mind," Jesse said.
"One look at my dick and you can see that it's too late for that," Frank said, meatus and glans wet with pre-cum.
"My first thought was that I wanted roll you over and fuck your ass," Jesse said. "I had fantasies of you driving here in your patrol car, dressed in your uniform, and the next image that popped into my mind was y our bare ass and me fucking you."
"That's cool," Frank said. "Tell me, in your fantasy, are you fucking me from behind, or face to face?"
"From behind," Jesse replied. "Yeah, that's all I cared about was your ass."
"And now?" Frank asked.
"Now that we've gotten to know each other, I hope we can be friends. That's what's most important to me," Jesse said.
"I've groped your dick and you've groped mine, so we must be friends," Frank replied.
"Now, I want to fuck you face to face so I can see your reaction, and I want to feel your monster cock between our bellies," Jesse said.
"We can do that and more, and we will," Frank said. "Have you thought about losing your cherry?"
"Can't say as I have," Jesse stammered. "Guess that's part of being straight."
"Don't worry, Jesse, I have no intention of raping you," Frank said. "At least, not tonight," he grinned. "But if we decide to become friends with benefits, well, then ..."
"Friends are supposed to be equal in all things," Jesse completed the sentence.
"Right now, we're talking hypotheticals," Frank said. "As an abstract idea, what would you think about losing your cherry?"
"That's moving too fast for me," Jesse said.
"Fair enough," Frank replied. "What about sucking dick and eating cum?"
"Hadn't thought about that," Jesse said. "I guess sucking dick is foreplay. Swallowing cum? I don't know."
"Well, buddy, I mean to show you some techniques you've never dreamed of," Frank promised. "You're not gonna turn gay, but you'll wish you were. Whatever I do, consider it a gift. No reciprocation needed for anything that's too hard for you."
"I don't want to be selfish," Jesse said.
"Never mind about that," Frank said. He reached into his bag and produced a lube tube and a bottle of poppers. He unwrapped the cellophane wrapper off the bottle. "Poppers," he said. "I'll show you how to use them. We'll use them sparingly, and only at strategic moments. They give you a temporary high during sex, and help you overcome inhibitions."
Their cigars were almost finished.
"Are you ready for this?" Jesse asked.
"Ready," Frank replied. "But there's something else you should know about gay sex. Straight guys, and their female partners, assume that a guy's prick is his only erogenous zone. Gay men are wired differently. They have many erogenous zones. Mouth, tongue, lips, earlobes, nipples, armpits, navel, cock, foreskin, scrotum, all parts of the ass, especially the cleft and the hole. Foreplay is more thorough, like detailing a car. We try to delay orgasm for as long as possible."
"What about condoms?" Jesse asked.
"Condoms. I've got some in my bag," Frank said. He laid them on the bed-stand, next to the lube and the poppers. "A condom makes fucking less intimate, but it might increase your duration."
One last puff on the cigars and Jesse shut the window against the cold night air. They hopped into bed.
"Shall I turn off the light?" Jesse asked.
"We can start with the lamp off, if that'll make it easier for you," Frank replied. "Later on, we'll want the light on so we can see what we're doing."
They lay side by side in the dark, groping cock. Warm and throbbing. Frank leaned over to kiss Jesse's cheek. Then his lips, but Jesse turned away. Frank tried again. Jesse allowed no more than a brief peck on the lips. Frank nibbled on his earlobe.
"Now's a good time to see what poppers can do, Jesse," Frank said. He turned on the light and showed Jesse how to snort poppers. He turned the light off again. Jesse's inhibition about kissing melted away. His passion surpassed Frank's. "I want you to show me everything," he growled.
"Everything I do to you, you do back," Frank said. "If you can't do it, just say so and we'll either try it with poppers or move on to something else. I'm gonna start by working on your nips and pits." A mutual exchange followed. Pinching nips, okay. Licking and biting nips, okay. Biting nips and licking pits, not okay. Jesse tried it with poppers and got a mouthful of Frank's axillary hair.
"Now we'll work on a bit of coordination," Frank said. "I'll mess around with your nips and pits while I finger your hole. Concentrate your mind on how it feels down below." It felt good, Jesse confessed. When he did the same to Frank, he was surprised at the intensity with which he moaned in pleasure. "Your finger in my asshole makes me want more," Frank gasped. Jesse wriggled his fingertip.
"Let's turn on the light and run with this," Jesse said.
Jesse learned that he could stimulate Frank's emotions with the stroke of a finger in an indirect chain of events that would lead to his possession of Frank's body. He relinquished his initial desire for a quick fuck, and settled into a game of prolonged foreplay. When he held his penetrative finger in place, it became a receptor for squeezes from Frank's sphincter, some long and some short, like a message in Morse code from Frank's body to his. Was this by chance or design? He wondered. Gazing into Frank's eyes while the telegraphic message continued, he decided that the throbbing of interior musculature was involuntary.
"Is this what you mean by detailing a car?" Jesse grinned.
Frank invited Jesse to mount him like a missionary. Jesse was jubilant. He had his prize, at last! His eyes flashed with lust. Frank looked back at him with resignation. Jesse wrapped his cock in a condom. "I've always wanted to fuck a cop," he growled as he pushed his cock into Frank.
During initial penetration, the pain was real enough to give substance to his groans and outcries, although these were exaggerated for dramatic effect. Jesse comforted him with soothing words, all the while fondling his throbbing cock. Its nine inches left him gratified that a momentous conquest had been made, as if a dwarf had captured a giant; and satisfied with himself for breaking new ground in which to channel his sex drive. Memories of vagina gave way to the velvety pleasure of Frank's anal canal, roughed out by Jesse's shaft strokes that sometimes bruised and other times soothed.
"For a beginner, you're pretty good at this, Jesse," Frank said.
When they went doggy-style, bull-fucked, and sidled, Frank was more adventurous than any woman that Jesse had known. The sensation came to Jesse, and he reveled in it, that Frank was spiraling into deep surrender. How strange that they could communicate in this way by physical contact! Jesse pulled off the condom and fucked bareback. Just when he thought he had experienced the joy of conquest to the max, Frank lifted his spirit higher by orgazzing while Jesse stood between his legs with Frank's ankles on his shoulders, and fucked. The fragrance of jizz overwhelmed their senses, and stimulated his orgasm, too.
The etiquette of breeding requires each party to praise the other for the event. Frank said that the silken ooze of semen washed over the bruises in his butt like a healing balm.
"You give good ass, my friend," Jesse said, but the joy of sex was over. "You should turn in your badge and turn tricks. You've got a great body, but it don't come cheap."
Frank offered to spend the night.
"Thanks, but no thanks," Jesse replied.
Frank got back into uniform and left Jesse in bed, silent and sullen.
Something is missing', Frank thought to himself. Jesse was companionable for most of the evening, but as soon as he got what he wanted, he turned cold. Game me the bum's rush. Maybe he really is straight, like he said. Or maybe he's some sort of high-functioning sociopath'. By the time he got home and climbed into bed, Frank decided he wouldn't play around with Jesse again.