Page 88 - Leather Blues

76 Jack Fritscher

“Fine night for a hangin’,” Doc said.
On opposite sides of the room, two men stood facing
each other, polar opposites among the gang of men kicked
back on boxes and leaning against the walls.
One was Arrow. He stood stripped naked except for a
cowboy vest, worn working chaps exposing his dick and
balls and butt, and a scuffed pair of White’s cowboy boots
with underslung riding heels. He waited submissively like a
condemned rustler at a lynching. His gloved hands, crossed
at the wrists behind his back, were expertly tied with wet
rawhide.
The other was Jex-Blake. He was young, grizzled, and
wiry. A working cowboy at ease astride a horse in big coun-
try or riding a straight-up bike between roadhouse bars. He
had a chaw in his cheek, a cup of coffee in his hand, and a
pistol holstered low on his right thigh. He was a spur maker
by trade, a rover, content to haul saddle and bedroll ranch
to ranch. His face was permanently set in the no-shit look
that made women and gayboys figure here came a cowboy
to straighten out their messy lives. Jex-Blake was an outlaw
heartbreaker.
“Arrow has a sweet tooth,” Doc whispered to Denny,
“for cowboy roughnecks.” What he didn’t say was that deep
down Arrow was from the masochistic subtribe who gladly
burn themselves up as sacrifices to their innermost drives and
fantasies. What he did say was: “Take this scene in. Trust
me. Whatever you see pass between these two, remember
that consensual S and M can make a man feel level what-
ever his baggage. At least for awhile, rough man-to-man sex
makes things make sense. It don’t matter that eventually
breakeven can’t be broken.” He studied Denny’s question-
ing young face; then kept the final silent secret to himself:
maturity is realizing nothing makes sense. “Watch,” Doc
said. “Observe. Don’t judge. You may learn something about
the true code of the real west.”

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