DARE NOT ASK THE DEAD
by
Madeira Desouza
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY
Madeira Desouza on Smashwords
Dare Not Ask The Dead
Copyright © 2010 by Madeira Desouza
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products or brands referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks or brands is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Smashwords Edition License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
The cover for this eBook was designed and created by the author, Madeira Desouza. You can see original illustrations by the author that will augment your enjoyment of DARE NOT ASK THE DEAD at www.MondoMacho.com completely free of charge. The first edition of DARE NOT ASK THE DEAD was published in October 2010. This updated version was published in January 2012. It contains very minor edits and document formatting improvements.
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Dedication
To S. Bear. I love you very much, baby.
* * * * *
DARE NOT ASK THE DEAD
* * * * *
I am crossing a very arid desert land on foot under threatening thunderclouds that do not diminish the hottest day I have ever felt in my entire life. Through a momentary break in the storm clouds I can see a severe full moon so apparently close to Earth that I can count craters. How did I get here? I can see that I am wearing brown cowboy boots, faded blue jeans, and a white long-sleeve Western shirt. On my head I can feel that I am wearing a cowboy hat. I can see my own cowboy shadow on the desert floor.
I become aware of one very odd-looking wooden device just ahead of me in a shallow desert valley. Sticking out of the landscape under the ominous skies is what looks like a gallows. Something seems very wrong. The air temperature is unbearably hot, but I must run towards the gallows.
Hung from a thick brown rope in that gallows is a muscular, naked man with his arms bound behind his back kicking desperately as his neck is being crushed in the noose. All he is wearing is a bright white cowboy hat. The entire inside of my mouth is suddenly very dry, and I am having great difficulty breathing as I run towards him. Off in the distance maybe fifty yards from me, I can see three or four men wearing cowboy attire running away in the opposite direction from me and from the naked man they doomed today.
That hung cowboy is powerfully built. He is someone who seems obviously capable of having put up very considerable resistance against this merciless fate. His muscular body draws my full attention. His large feet are wildly kicking as I reach the gallows. He groans when he sees me as if to try and tell me something, but I do not understand. How long has he been hanging here like this?
I can see on the ground below him are cowboy boots—dark chocolate brown interrupted by a distinctive creamy white winged pattern on the sides—definitely not a pair of boots that are off the shelf or from any mail order catalogue. Undefended, such a prize pair of cowboy boots seems unlikely to have been left behind by his killers on purpose. His faded blue jeans are also on the ground.
His thick cock and large balls swing from side to side as if he were dancing in the sky. All I can do is just stand there, staring at this incredibly masculine man, completely helpless and probably dying painfully. He looks like he is about thirty years old—the same age as me. His short, spiked black hair, and high cheekbones suggest to me that he is an American Indian.
Then I realize that the gallows has a wench wheel that apparently was used to draw the rope upwards into the air without injuring this doomed man. Whoever lynched him deliberately and very carefully hoisted him in exacting fashion upward by that rope around his neck aided by the wench. His powerful biceps flap helplessly in the air like wings that might let him fly away and end his suffering. Whoever hanged him pulled him off the desert floor at least four feet up into the air not long ago, intentionally preserving this cowboy’s spine intact, and then they padlocked the wench wheel into place. His entire body weight draws downward, ever tightening the noose steadily around his large neck—a slow brutality that no doubt provided his executioners an extended time to watch his desperate kicking before I scared them off, leaving him to continue to suffocate in agony without mercy before he dies.
His deep, dark eyes remain open, defiantly staring outward into the eerie sky. He resumes his kicking, but much more forcefully now. I reach the wench wheel and try to remove the large, sturdy padlock. I discover that I will be unable to turn that wheel to let this hung cowboy own to the ground. He quickly realizes that I am unable to rescue him. He groans reveals his intense agony.
I watch his cock grow fuller as it extends out straight into the hot desert air. His face reveals an intense humiliation that he has developed a full erection. Suddenly, he starts to ejaculate and his body jerks wildly as the nose chokes him. I am standing right below him so his juices easily land directly on my face!
After his orgasm, the cowboy stops struggling. His body cannot fight
back. I hear him desperately try to open his mouth to breathe. The
cowboy has died. I am overwhelmed with intense anger and shock as I
slump to the ground by his cowboy boots.
* * * * *
I feel myself falling completely naked from a different stormy desert sky at sunset. Below me I see rich, red powdery soil on the valley floor where soon I will probably die. I spend my last moments wondering whether the valley floor will be soft enough so that my fall might not be fatal. I do not want to die like this, not knowing from where I have fallen.
At the point of impact, I discover that the red powder seems to be more than four inches thick. I have survived. As I look up from my prone position on my stomach on the valley floor, I am impressed with how this stunningly beautiful locale reminds me of the land of the Navajo people at the very top of the state of Arizona.
This red valley may not be in the physical world. I know that I should have been killed when I touched down from the skies to the powdery soil. This may only be how my mind processes what I am experiencing. I am not like all of you. I travel through time, itself, and I do not know death. I live on and on in a journey across a metaphorical scarlet landscape where tall, crimson rock towers jut skyward into forever. I have prepared this account for you, my friends, so you will know that I once was here.
I am a repairman. That is the simplest way to explain who I am and what I do. Maybe you have heard or read about men like me. Many writers have told stories about the work that men like me do. People all around the world read those stories and they respond, “Oh yeah. That’s science fiction.” Oh yeah, that’s we want you to think. When you think that this is mere science fiction, you deny the fact that men like me are real and you choose to disbelieve in the work that men like me do. That’s how it should be. That keeps the secret safe so that I am safe and I continue to do what I must. I want you to know that I was here. I am real. You will think this is science fiction. I beg you to open your mind and pay attention to what is true. Let me continue…
As if I am awakening from a deep sleep, I gradually become aware that I am seated completely naked inside a thick, translucent blue glass-enclosed chamber that I remembering affectionately nicknaming “The Giant Blue Hockey Puck.” The odd shape of this blue glass chamber reminds me of a standard ice hockey puck, but instead of the familiar three-inch diameter and one-inch thickness, this chamber is more than twenty-five times larger to enable a seated adult to fit comfortably inside.
The eerie blue color comes from the rare element called Lunar Blue that was discovered deep beneath the surface of the Moon not long ago in 2190. All schoolchildren learn that time travel became possible after scientists combined Lunar Blue with liquid diamond and the gasses of two other Earth elements. My planetary history teacher would be very angry with me if she knew that today I couldn’t recall the exact recipe. My head aches like I’ve never felt it hurt before. I am having difficulty concentrating. But, I am certain that I would be considered a world-class hero to all my fellow students back at the Newton School if my top-secret work in time travel were not officially denied.
I return to full consciousness as I feel thicker-than-water translucent white liquid being pumped quickly downward through a grate in the floor of blue glass chamber. The dripping liquid from my nose and chin makes me feel very annoyed. Immediately after the rapid purging of the liquid from the chamber, my lungs are joyful at the availability of sweet oxygen. A low-pitched whooshing sound accompanies the vertical splitting of The Blue Giant Hockey Puck into two equal sections, enabling me to stand up and walk out. Something is wrong. I feel lightheaded. My body feels like I have lost weight. I am somehow lighter. I glance down at my bare feet and realize that they look like I just walked across a dark chocolate cake covered in thick, gooey red frosting. I must be hungry. I cannot remember when I last ate anything. I am sure I will soon topple over because I am too dizzy to think properly or walk normally.
Up walks a man who is wearing a completely white medical uniform and thick black boots. He looks tanned and fit. A thick mustache that is frosty white like his long, curly hair punctuates his friendly face. He resembles a guy who was either a Nineteen Sixties rock and roll star or some renown Shakespearean actor from England who stopped coloring his hair and has grown a mustache especially so that he would not be recognized in public.
The whooshing and beeping sounds of technology connected to The Giant Hockey Puck being to diminish. “Welcome back, Mr. Avila,” he says in a prominent British accent as he hands me a thick blue robe to put on. I watch him smile at me as I quickly put on the robe. I must be losing my mind because I feel like the gravity below me is somehow wrong. He is standing right in front of me and he can easily lean his face closer to mine. “Any problems, sir?” I hear him ask me in proper BBC English.
“You might say that,” I reply. “Feel dazed. Lightheaded.”
“How’s your memory?” he asks.
“Faulty,” I say to him with honesty. “Cannot remember my name. I don’t think I know your name. I recognize the Giant Blue Hockey Puck. But, the gravity feels wrong.”
“Lunar gravity,” he insists. “One sixth that of Earth where you just came from.”
“I think I’m gonna pass out,” I warn him. “You won’t believe what I just saw happen.”
He helps me walk from the Giant Blue Hockey Puck towards an open metal doorway in a large facility that is very futuristic and metallic in appearance. “You need to lie down right away, Mr. Avila,” he says to me. “I’m going to prescribe a sedative for you so you can fall asleep. Your brain should reset that way.”
“You’re a doctor?” I ask him, knowing how foolish my question must sound to him.
“Doctor William Oswald, at your service, Mr. Avila,” he says to me. “It’s okay. You will feel better after one or two REM cycles.”
He shows me to a small military-style bed that is recessed into one of the futuristic and metallic walls. “Let me inject you in the neck,” Doctor Oswald says. Before I have time to react, he has pushed a metal and plastic object into my neck and squeezed it. I feel no pain but I am startled by the clicking sounds the metal and plastic object makes as he pushes it into my neck.
“Theodore Avila, time traveler and noble savior of the known universes,” Doctor Oswald says to me. I presume he is being sarcastic. “Carrying on in the long tradition of the paladin of Charlemagne’s court.” What is this craziness he is saying to me? Whatever he injected me with has quickly taken effect. He helps me lie down on the bed in the blue robe and I roll over on my side so that I am facing away from him.
“Charlemagne? What year is this?” I ask him.
“Well, that’s certainly a trick question, Mr. Avila,” I hear
him reply behind me as I pass out.
* * * * *
It feels like only a couple of seconds later when Doctor Oswald shakes me to wake me up in that bed recessed into a futuristic and metallic wall. I roll over and look at him. “Weird dream,” I say to him.
“Mr. Avila,” he says, “I need to send you back. But, I will first inject all the needed nutrients directly into your bloodstream. You must be hungry.”
“I was thinking maybe a breakfast burrito,” is my response as he jabs a device that makes small clicking sounds into my right shoulder. “Ouch! You should have warned me it would hurt so much, Doc.”
“That should hold you, sir,” he explains. “Tell me about your dream.”
“Some cowboy,” I reply. “Hanged like in a ritual in the desert. I couldn’t do anything but watch helplessly as he died.”
“What if I tell you that was not a dream? What if I told you it was a ritual hanging in Arizona?” he asks me.
“No,” I quickly reply. “Not possible. The device he was hanged on looked brand new. Twentieth Century.”
“Nineteen Nineties to be precise,” he tells me.
“I’m feeling a little fucked up right now. I do remember you are Doctor William Oswald. My memory must be better now. You watch over me when I use that Giant Blue Hockey Puck. You never call it by that name like I do.”
“When I look at it, I do not see it as a giant blue hockey puck, sir,” he says to me. “It is a cylindrical disk situated upright on its narrow, curved edge. It is a time travel device.”
“Sometimes, Doc, I don’t think we speak the same language,” I tell him.
He helps me get out of the bed and we walk back into the large room where I see the Giant Blue Hockey Puck is waiting. He says only one word, “Costume.” I see what he is talking about as I walk towards the GBHP. A cowboy costume is waiting for me suspended by a floating bar of bright silver. I quickly lose my thick blue robe and in a couple of minutes I look like a Hollywood cowboy character from the Technicolor Westerns of the Twentieth Century. Dirty brown cowboy boots, the obligatory white cowboy hat, faded blue jeans, and a bright white long-sleeve Western shirt apparently are what I must wear. The costume looks like what I saw myself wearing in my dream about the hung Navajo.
I adjust my white cowboy hat as I walk towards the cylindrical disk situated upright on its narrow, curved edge and climb inside. Once I turn and sit down inside the blue glass chamber, the two sides slide deliberately and quickly together so that there is no visible seam whatsoever. “Destination: Bullhead, Arizona,” I hear Doctor Oswald’s voice tell me from some unseen overhead source. “The date is August the twentieth, Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-One. Late morning. High temperatures today should reach over one hundred ten degrees. Wear your sun block. Chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Hold your breath.”
My least favorite part of the journey begins. Milky white, thicker-than-water translucent liquid flows quickly onto me inside the GBHP. The odorless liquid feels like warm cream as it soaks through my cowboy hat and costume to my skin. Immediately, the chamber is filled to capacity with the soothingly warm liquid as it starts to spin around my body like I am inside a washing machine. “Hold your breath,” I hear Doctor Oswald’s voice repeat to me from nowhere. Actual time travel begins with a physical sensation that I imagine is how one would feel while being waterboarded and then hit with warm water from a fire hose in the chest at point blank range. I focus on how hungry I feel. That protein and carbohydrate injection clearly was not enough for me.
Despite going through the aggressive spin cycle of translucent liquid inside The Giant Blue Hockey Puck in which holding one’s breath is essential, I materialize somewhere else, completely free of any moisture. As always.
Early morning sunlight in Monument Valley is delicious like egg yolk floating on perfect bright white. I don’t care whether this is a dream of mine or merely a visual metaphor for time travel created by my mind. It is always so overwhelmingly beautiful. Nowhere else on Earth will you ever find more natural shades of pink and red competing for your attention. Unlike sitting in a dark movie theater watching John Ford cowboy movies that were filmed here, when you are in this valley physically, you feel the boundless energy that crackles from the land through your body and into the bluest sky over your head. This land is considered sacred to the Navajo, who have lived here for generations, carving out a life in the forbidding territory of sun, sand, scarce rainfall and spectacular geology. I land on both feet in an impossible way as if my fall has been magically slowed down against the law of gravity. The soft, powdery red dirt beneath my cowboy boots feels like it is at more than four inches deep.
* * * * *
I am no longer in Monument Valley. I materialize in the year
Nineteen Ninety-One behind the wheel driving a brand new Ford
Explorer on Interstate 40 in Arizona. I am nearing the outskirts of
Kingman heading towards the west. From having taken this trip between
Phoenix and Las Vegas so many times, I know that I will soon arrive
in the Bullhead area near the casinos situated on the Colorado River
where Arizona, California, and Nevada all come together.
I know who I am, but I also know that my memory is faulty. I try to recall my time travel missions, but I am unsuccessful. “Help me, Doctor William Oswald, you’re my only hope,” I say aloud as though I am in the Star Wars universe. But, I receive no answer.
I immediately start to remember the naked cowboy that I watched die so horribly. “Hey, dead cowboy,” I say aloud to myself, “Can you hear me? Are you out there in the desert skies?” There is no reply. Why am I so surprised? “I was with you. In the dream world. You are not real. That means you didn’t really die.”
I try to assess what I am able to remember. I know that I travel in time. I don’t know why. I know that part of my job, as one who travels in time is that I got to choose an era to live in and raise a family. I remember that my efforts to settle down in the late Twentieth Century and raise a family ended in a painful divorce. I wish that I could forget Katherine Snowe, the woman I married. I chose to travel back in time and live with this woman as her husband. However, I eventually learned that she and I were a major mismatch; she was straight and I was only pretending to be. How could I ever forget that?
After that failure of living as a married straight man, today I want to enjoy what I realize now is my true sexual identity. I should never have pretended to be straight. Especially in the primitive Twentieth Century. I should never have married Katherine Snowe or any female.
As I drive my Ford Explorer towards Kingman, Arizona, I start to fantasize that the dead cowboy is sitting in the passenger seat of my truck at this moment as we head towards the setting sun. I see the dead cowboy next to me. He is totally naked except for his bright white cowboy hat. I truly understand that he is not really there. I know that what I think I see in my truck is only a fantasy of my own creation for my own purposes. I examine the dead cowboy’s impressive, thick cock and large balls while also trying to pay enough attention to Interstate 40 in front of me. I believe that he is no longer dead. He is breathing and very much alive. I see him smiling approvingly as I assess his endowment.
“With my luck,” I tell the naked cowboy, “While studying your manhood, I’ll lose control. Of my truck, that is. We will careen off this Arizona interstate freeway and I will kill us both.”
He says nothing in response, but he is smiling at me like he understands what I am telling him.
“Dead men. Both of us,” I tell the imaginary Navajo in my passenger seat. “Back east, Katherine–my ex-wife–will get a phone call she will never forget,” I say aloud. I think that I see the cowboy watching and listening to me like he has concluded that I am an insane person. “Mrs. Avila, we have some bad news. Your husband is dead in Arizona.”
I watch the cowboy shake his head to indicate “no,” but I understand from his nonverbals that he is definitely amused by what I am saying.
“Katherine will go to the morgue to identify my mangled body. ‘Take a look here, Mrs. Avila,’ the medical examiner will say to her in a deliciously mournful tone. ‘So sorry for your loss,’ he will say. They always say that line. Then, he continues, ‘See if you can recognize your husband. I’m truly sorry. His 4×4 must’ve hit 17 pine trees before it came to a full stop. No, uh, I see that the report says it was 23 trees. Not much left after that I’m afraid. His body was in five separate pieces scattered all down that ravine where his truck sailed into the sky off I-40.’”
Now I imagine that I see the naked cowboy has broken into a full smile that he cannot contain.
“’Investigators found a second body in the wreckage, Mrs. Avila. A Navajo male, age 30—evidently a bodybuilder. A big guy. Body built like a warrior.’”
I imagine that the cowboy laughs freely at my comments. I enjoy the sound of his voice when he laughs aloud—even if it is only in my head. I see myself as naked as he is. All the seats in the back of my truck have been positioned so that flat cargo space back there is available. Instead of cargo, however, what I look back there in my truck, I see two nude adult males. The cowboy is on top of me. I see him there in a dominant position. I see myself naked on my stomach in the back of my truck on a colorful Indian blanket. The cowboy’s body is muscular and powerful in a way that no gay man would ever forget. He keeps his white cowboy hat on like a good cowboy should.
I hear myself groan to the fantasy Indian who is fucking me in the rear of my truck. I also hear him groan also. He thrusts himself into me forcefully. As if I am outside the truck looking in through the windows, I watch this fantasy build to the crescendo that I know it must. The muscular cowboy keeps extending himself purposefully into my body in that truck and his deep, manly grunts become frantic as he ejaculates. His masculine face is best remembered at the precise moment of his intense and joyful orgasm. I then watch my brand new Ford Explorer sail off I-40 into the air at the exact moment of sunset over the nearby mountains. I see the front end of the truck dip downward towards the earth as this imaginary airborne trajectory takes the truck further into the purple Arizona sky. I hear my voice screaming in extreme pleasure as the truck disappears into a ravine near a billboard promoting tourism that reads, “Lose Yourself in Bullhead, Arizona.” From somewhere nearby, I watch a huge ball flames shoot upward into the air from the ravine and hear an awful explosion.
After dark, as seen from Arizona state highway 68 that gently slopes down into the Colorado River Valley, the area around Bullhead looks surreal to me. I remember that I was born and raised in Arizona, so I have visited the Bullhead area many times during the late Twentieth Century.
But, this visit seems different. Perhaps what I see is filtered through the emotions I feel during this time travel mission. Thick, fast-moving thunderclouds overhead release sharply jagged bolts of lightning that pierce the ground from the skies. Between the lightning strikes, the bright, multicolored neon lights of the Laughlin, Nevada casinos joyously illuminate the otherwise pitch-dark desert skies. The casinos that are all situated along the Colorado River playfully reflect the neon lights into the sky at night while providing the dividing line between the states of Arizona and Nevada. I realize that I am still in Nineteen Ninety-One. I check into one of the Laughlin casino hotels and pass out on the large bed still fully clothed.
When I awaken, I discover that I am not alone in the Laughlin hotel room. My fantasy cowboy and I are reclined in complete nakedness on the soft sheets of the large bed as the first light of day slips in through the edges of the blackout curtains. His muscular left arm is draped across my chest as he remains deeply asleep. I try to awaken him by shaking his arm slowly. Soft yellow light of the rising sun illuminates our bodies together in that hotel room. I notice that the cowboy is fully erect lying so close to me while in slumber. I am having difficulty accepting that what I seem to be experiencing is real and not merely part of my active imagination!
His dark eyes open slowly and he smiles when he sees me. He turns over on his side in the bed and faces me. He is so near to me in the bed that his erection is pressed against me strongly.
“You’re fully loaded,” I say playfully.
He actually answers me aloud: “You cannot resist me,” he says with all due seriousness.
“Okay,” I reply with faked authority. “But, first you need to tell me who you are.”
“Tell you in the shower,” he says.
The warm jets of water from the large hotel room shower splash down from above onto both of us, awakening us with positive energy. I put the slippery orange liquid soap to good use and bring my shower companion to attention. I hold on firmly to his cock and balls, squeezing slight to show him that I am not kidding. “I am real,” he says softly, “You think you are dreaming about me.”
“How is it possible that you know this?” I ask him, squeezing a little more firmly. He squirms and frowns, but I will not let him go.
“Cannot explain,” he says, “Just trust me. I know what I am saying is true.” He reaches down to increase the flow of water upon us.
“Why did you turn the water up like that?” I want to know.
“So they will not hear us,” he replies. “Talk only in a soft voice. Whisper.”
“You’re very strange,” I whisper to him as I massage his cock slowly.
“I was waiting for you to show up when I was being hanged,” he whispers to me.
“Yeah, right,” I whisper back as I watch him close his eyes for a moment to savor the skills that I am applying to his body.
“Cannot explain,” he whispers as his breathing starts to get faster.
I succeed in bringing him to a release with both my hands as the water hits the tops of our heads. I study his macho face as he shoots his load while both my hands keep working his cock and balls. His wide open dark eyes are locked into a deep, intense erotic gaze that I never could have imagined was possible for one man to show towards another. He squints in a most unforgettable expression as his powerful orgasm overtakes his body, and his mouth opens when he exhales and slightly tilts his head back involuntarily.
I turn him so that he is facing away from me. As the water keeps
hitting our heads, I use both hands to provide the orange liquid soap
to his butt and push two of my fingers into him. He jumps as I
expected he would. Then, I gently withdraw my two fingers and slowly
push my erect cock into him. He shudders as I continue my entrance
ever so deliberately. He shouts out in a word in his native tongue
that I do not understand. But, his vocal tone in that ecstatic moment
is completely unmistakable. Fucking him is a most perfect experience
I have had! I release myself into him uncontrollably like a massive,
unexpectedly violent earthquake.
* * * * *
He and I are lying in that hotel bed naked together after sex,
barely able to stay awake. “Vincent Wauneka,” he says to me. My
mispronunciation of his last name prompts him to teach me the correct
way. On the third try, I succeed. Or, at least he stops trying to
have me repeat what he said.
I say to him. “Is this a dream? Or is this real? If I am dreaming, how can I feel the heat of your body next to mine?”
“Old Navajo saying,” Vincent tells me slowly and deliberately. I turn to watch his lips form the words as he tells me, “A lost man. With no direction. Dare not ask the wind.”
“Well, man, that’s lovely,” I say to him. “I’ll have to write that one down in my memoirs for sure.”
“You need hozho,” Vincent says to me.
“Some sort of drug you’ve got?” I ask him, “From the underworld. Or wherever it is you’re actually from.”
“Navajo word,” he says to me. “Means many things. Peace. Harmony.”
“None of the things that I have,” I reply. “That’s what you’re telling me?”
“When you wake up, drive to the address I have written down for you. Piece of paper on the nightstand,” Vincent tells me.
“So I am dreaming,” I reply.
“No,” he answers quickly. “You are awake right now. But, you are falling asleep after sex. Just go with it.”
* * * * *
I pull my truck into the very crowded parking lot at the address the Vincent left for me. I am at TBG, The Bullhead Gym. A run down red VW bus with Nevada license plates is parked next to a black-and-white police cruiser with “Bullhead Valley Police” printed prominently on it.
The dozen or so customers using the generous selection of free weights and weight machines inside the gym are mostly male and all younger than the age of forty. The one-room facility is eerily and unnaturally bright due to too many rows of fluorescent lights on the ceiling.
I walk down one narrow aisle of the gym surrounded on both sides by overweight and sweaty gym customers to a reclined bench where I see Vincent Wauneka lying on his back with both arms pushing upward on a bar holding a very large set of weights.
I guess the address was genuine. I still don’t know if he is real or imaginary. But, he sure felt real enough when we in that shower together.
While reclined on his back, Vincent’s bright white string T-shirt and black gym shorts reveal the impressive body that I controlled in the hotel shower earlier that same morning.
Carefully watching over Vincent is a guy who is assisting him with his bench presses. Must be a personal trainer. He looks like he is in his early twenties. He is tall, yet muscular, and is barefooted with large, perfectly shaped feet. He wears a deep green muscle T-shirt bearing the orange black letters “TBG” and bright blue gym shorts—both of which seemed a size too small for him. Maybe he made those wardrobe choices deliberately.
This personal trainer easily is the best looking man in the entire room. He is exceptionally handsome with a well-toned physicality, deep blue eyes and short dirty blond hair. To me, this man with perfect body proportions seems to be the exact kind of man that the ancient Romans immortalized in their marble statues. I immediately feel a physical attraction to him. I know quite clearly that I want this man in my life as soon as possible. I know what I must do to make him mine.
Vincent sets the bar of weights down carefully and deliberately onto its rack with the help of the personal trainer. That is when Vincent sees me standing next to him by the bench press. In an inappropriately loud voice, Vincent says, “Theodore Avila! Meet my personal trainer, Carlo Zee.” I reach out my right hand to the Roman statue standing in front of me next to Vincent. While speaking in German, the personal trainer shakes my hand and just keeps talking like I’m supposed to be able to understand him.
“Whoa. No comprede, dude,” I say to the trainer as I am disappointed in how weak is his handshake for such a masculine male. “You’re from Germany?”
Vincent laughs boisterously at me. “No,” the trainer says, “Just fuckin’ with you, man. My mother’s German. My father is from LA.”
Vincent continues to talk way too loudly and says, “Great genetic combo, Teddy, right? Works so well. Isn’t this guy hot? Carlo has a solid, and, I would add, unusually thick cock. I think any guy would want to suck that big boy he’s got.”
Suddenly, after what Vincent has said, the entire room falls into an impossible silence. While literally everyone has stopped what he or she was doing, not one single person in the gym even so much as cracks a smile. I can even hear the stretching sound of leather as Vincent shifts his weight in his red and white gym shoes.
In a couple of seconds, everyone returns to working out as though they had not heard what Vincent said about his personal trainer, the Roman statue. Or, maybe the social rules are different here in the desert.
The statue does not look the least bit embarrassed after what Vincent has said and only smiles, revealing white shiny teeth. He leans his face closer to me as if he is going to whisper something. Instead of whispering, however, the personal trainer’s voice is louder than I was expecting. I’m sure everyone in that gym hears him say to me, “Welcome to Planet Bullhead. Not like anywhere else you’ve ever been.”
I instinctively take one step backwards to get away from the sudden invasion of my personal space. I do not see that I am backing directly into a fully stocked steel weight tree, knocking all of the weights over with a very loud metallic crash. My backwards motion sends all of the dozen or so perfectly circular weights each into perfectly unpredictable trajectories across the floor of the gym. The Roman statue and Vincent are laughing in complete enjoyment as most of the round weights roll away harmlessly. But, all is not well.
One of the round weights travels threateningly towards the glass front door of the gym. And the rolling motion looks oddly surreal. You wouldn’t think that a rolling weight that was awkwardly knocked off a steel weight tree would gather sufficient velocity to affect much impact. But, maybe the laws of physics are somehow different here on Planet Bullhead. The rolling weight strikes the glass front door of the gym with sufficient momentum to cause a loud crash, sending both large and small pieces of glass cascading to the floor of the gym.
I am horrified. I spin around to see what the personal trainer’s reaction is going to be. He and Vincent are still standing by the fallen weight tree. The trainer grits those perfectly white teeth in dismay. He shakes his head in disbelief and looks suddenly quite threatening. He places both hands on his hips as if he is wearing holsters, ready to draw both his guns on me. I can hear Vincent laughing uncontrollably as his personal trainer takes a few short steps to stand very near me. This man gives off an aura of classic masculinity and authority as he stands so close to me that I can detect the cool, intoxicating scent of his body heat blended with his deodorant.
I say to the personal trainer, “I have money. I will pay you for this mess I’ve created.” All I can think is how much I want to see what his cock and balls look like as he is standing there in front of me.
Vincent walks up behind his personal trainer, and playfully grabs the man’s crotch and squeezes, causing Carlo to double over. My mouth opens in surprise, just as Vincent expected would happen, so he laughs at my reaction.
The trainer quickly recovers from having his package manhandled by Vincent. He responds by caressing Vincent’s face and gently squeezing Vincent’s lips, making them pucker. “Here’s what I’m gonna do,” Carlo announces to me while continuing to hold onto Vincent’s face. “Dude, don’t you just love this man’s handsome face?”
“Let go of me, Carlo,” Vincent mumbles to get Carlo to release his face.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Carlo continues. “As long as you sign up to have me be your personal trainer.”
I watch Vincent rub his face and squint at Carlo. “But, I don’t live here in Bullhead,” I say to Carlo, who apparently is not listening to me. Carlo quickly asks me, “Why were you named Theodore anyway?” Before I can reply, Carlo slips his gym shorts down so I can watch him grab his impressive cock and balls right there in front of me.
“Named after Theodore Roosevelt,” I say to Carlo and Vincent as they stand there laughing at Carlo’s exhibitionism rather than listening to me, “the first cowboy president of these United States.” As I watch Carlo and Vincent laughing, I realize how strongly I feel attracted to their masculine vibe.
At that moment I realize how energized I feel in the company of these masculine men. So, I feel it is the smart thing to do for me to move to the Bullhead area. That is how I end up checking into an extended-stay motel near The Bullhead Gym.
* * * * *
I wake up wearing only my boxer shorts after reclining on one of the two queen-size beds in a room inside that motel in Bullhead. I look at the clock radio by my bed and see that it says “1:30 AM.” I walk out to the sidewalk from my motel room and head down Colorado River Drive. I feel like I have been awake without sleep for several days. The bright blue and yellow neon lights of a pancake house catch my attention and I feel relieved as I stumble in exhaustion down the sidewalk towards the restaurant. Because the Bullhead Pancake House is not very busy, I sit down alone at a round table for three. The murals in this restaurant convey a 1960s country-and-western motif, complete with the obligatory Joshua Trees. You almost expect to see Roy Rogers and Dale Evans reincarnated here and singing together as they waltz down the aisles between the tables and booths.
A waitress approaches my table carrying a pot of coffee. She is around 40, heavy-set, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She is wearing a bright red and white uniform. This waitress could be the twin of my ex-wife! When she smiles at me, I see by her nametag that her name is Margo. She says, “You look like you need this coffee. Am I right?”
“Yes,” I reply to her, grateful that her voice is one that I have never heard before. She pours coffee into my empty cup. That is when I realize that seated across from me in the second of the three chairs is my ex-wife. She is around 40, heavy-set, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She, too, is wearing the exact same bright red and white uniform. She looks identical to the waitress except for one thing. This one’s nametag reads “Katherine.”
“God, I’m fucked up,” I say aloud as I close my eyes in disbelief for just a moment.
“That’s okay,” Margo says. “I’m sure our coffee is strong enough to return people back from death. Drink up. I will come back.”
As Margo turns and I watch her walk away, Katherine says to me, “You didn’t think you could get away from me, did you?”
“You are not really here,” I answer her. “You’re a hallucination. You’re nothing more than the byproduct of my lack of sleep. And my constantly going back to the future could also have something to do with it.”
“Cute, Teddy. You think I could order a drink in this horrid place? A real drink. With lots of rum in it?” asks Katherine.
I can only say, “This all seems so unreal.”
“How do you distinguish between what’s real and what’s not?” Katherine asks me. “You’re someone who has chosen to work on television for fuck sake.”
The table is suddenly covered with a red and white-checkered tablecloth. We seem to no longer be in the Bullhead restaurant. We seem to be at the same round table for three, but we are now in an Italian bistro together back east. My time travel definitely must be taking a toll upon my sanity. I am in an awakened state and yet I feel like I am experiencing overlapping dreams that I cannot control. I had lied to Katherine about working in a news department of a local television station in Rhode Island. There was just no way I could tell her that I was secretly a time traveler who had been granted the right to live with her as my wife starting in the late Nineteen Seventies. Saying that to her would only prove to her that I am a lunatic.
“We’ve been coming here to this Providence bistro for years,” Katherine says to me. “All we have left in our relationship is eating and drinking, do you realize that?” she asks. “At least the Italian food here is so delicious.”
“Always find the bright spot in life,” I tell her. “I’m having déjà vu. You have said that to me before. I know it. God, I must be losing my mind.”
As always, Katherine is oblivious to what I have just said to her. “You’re behaving like you’re somewhere else, Ted. Far away from here.”
“You got that right. I am in northern Arizona smack dab in the middle of some sleepless night in the Mojave Desert,” I tell her. “I really must have screwed up the space/time continuum somehow.”
When I reach for my glass of red wine, it morphs into a coffee cup instead—just like I would expect to happen in an alternate universe. The entire restaurant fades quickly from the Italian bistro back to the pancake house in Bullhead. I’m not going to worry. I will have to find a way to make all of this work out. I just need to go with it for a while.
Katherine is there across the table from me at our table for three. But, she still has her glass of red wine in her hand. Her face rapidly is becoming the same color as the wine.
“I’m tired, Ted. Really tired,” Katherine tells me.
I’ve heard all this before. She and I had this exact conversation back when we lived in Rhode Island. I remember now. This is a replay of a previous experience that I have had. Are these my memories? Is this a dream?
Katherine says, “I’m tired of acting. I’m tired of pretending to be some other person.”
The waitress, carrying a plate with food, comes to the table for three where I am seated with my ex-wife, who apparently does not see her twin, Margo, the waitress. “Here you go, sir. Three scrambled eggs and wheat toast,” Margo says to me.
“Thank you very much,” I reply to the waitress.
“Don’t thank me, you sarcastic son of a bitch,” Katherine replies. “I’m pouring my heart out to you and all you want to do is make jokes.”
The waitress asks me, “You need more coffee?”
“Yes,” I reply. “Okay, I’ll come back,” says the waitress. At the exact same time, my ex-wife says, “Okay, I’ll go away.”
The waitress walks away from our table for three. I expect that the restaurant in this dream of mine will again fades back into the bistro. But it does not. Nor does my ex-wife go away. Instead of leaving me alone at the table for three, she says, “You know what, Teddy. You’re cruel to mess with me like you’re doing here. I’m trying to tell you that I want to be myself and not pretend to be someone else. I am only one person. I can only be one person.”
The waitress returns to our table for three. “This coffee is very hot,” the waitress says. “Watch out.” I hold up my wine glass to the waitress even though the glass is half full of red wine. “Watch out,” my ex-wife says to me, echoing closely what her twin has just said.
“I will not let you ignore me,” Katherine adds. The waitress pours hot coffee right into my wine glass. I grimace, expecting the glass to crack because of the heat and then spill hot liquid all over my arm. But, strangely, the coffee floats on top of the red wine and the two liquids do not interact whatsoever—just as I would expect to happen in someone else’s universe.
“Oh sure, show me your famous grimacing face, Ted,” Katherine says. “You’re so predictable.”
“Thank you again,” I say to the waitress, who nods, smiles, and walks away. Meanwhile, my ex-wife is livid.
“You think that you can always use humor to save yourself. Well, not tonight. There’s no humor left for us. I’m telling you this tonight because I am going to change who I am. Whether you like or not. I have made my decision,” she says.
I’ve heard her say this to me before. Many times.
I pay more attention to my wine glass. The coffee is a dark brown and it continues to float on top of the red wine, moving in a circular motion like galaxies. I know that the weird separation of liquids in my glass violates the laws of physics. As I have come to suspect, the rules here in Bullhead must, indeed, be very different compared to elsewhere.
“And staring at your wine glass is not going to provide you with an answer,” my ex-wife says. “What’s wrong with you? You haven’t even touched your chicken Parmesan.”
I can see that the plate in front of me contains an order of breaded chicken that has been topped with Parmesan cheese and then smothered in deep red marinara sauce. I use my fork to touch the chicken to see if it is actually there on his plate. The waitress returns as I am doing this and notices that I am prodding my food. “Are you’re eggs cooked the way you wanted?” she asks me.
“Everything’s okay,” I reply. The waitress seems pleased with my response and she walks away. But, my ex-wife is not pleased with what she heard me say. She is growing more agitated.
“You can’t even be honest with me about food,” Katherine says angrily. “You say everything’s okay. And yet, you seem surprised that I haven’t been honest with you about our relationship. I chose to deceive you. Deliberately. Because it was part of my act. I have believed for many years—since we first met—that you could not handle the truth about me. So, instead, I pretended to be happy. For you. For the sake of what I thought you wanted in our marriage.”
I must go along with this dream with a dream and stop fighting it or trying to understand it. Perhaps if I cooperate and just flow with it, I can make it end quickly. So, I ask Katherine, “Why do you feel that you cannot be yourself?”
“You’ve never done too well,” she replies, “with me being depressed all the time. It’s a disorder. You know that. My shrink prescribed Prozac for me. You haven’t done well with me being on Prozac all the time, either. You’ve told me several times that Prozac makes me drink more and you think it makes me suicidal. But, you’re wrong about all this, Teddy.”
“What do you want me to say?” I ask her. “You know what? I have seen the future–a place when people eventually stop calling things ‘a disorder’ like you do.”
She sticks out the middle finger of her right hand very near my face. I never finish the sentence. I never tell her that someday people learn how to get rid of all the things that diminish us emotionally or physically. Here in the Nineteen Nineties, however, that kind of thinking is impossible to attain. She says to me, “I want our marriage to be a safe haven for me. Yes, a safe haven. That’s what I said. A place where I can be myself, where I can be depressed if I want to. And I want you, as my husband, to accept me because you are my husband. You must take care of me. Our vows said so.”
“Yeah,” I reply to her, “well maybe there’s an escape clause in there that we weren’t told about at the altar on that day. Or, you know what? That priest who presided over our marriage seemed so drunk. Maybe his impaired condition means that our marriage isn’t legitimate. I think I’ve read about a Roman Catholic Church law about mental intent that has been compromised by ill will or chemicals. Something like that.”
At that precise moment I think that I see Vincent Wauneka walking in through the front door of the pancake house. He comes closer to the table for three. He waves and smiles at me. I am reminded of the first time I saw him. He died. The second time I saw him, he also died. I even died with him. I must have death fantasies. I must be going crazy from all the time travel.
He is wearing tight green T-shirt with the orange letters “TBG” over his perfect chest and broad shoulders. Vincent is wearing tight blue jeans that really show off his masculinity. I cannot take my eyes off his bulging crotch as I watch him walking so confidently into the restaurant in my direction. He arrives next to the waitress. He puts his right arm around her waist gently in a gesture of friendship. I can feel that I beginning to get an erection as I watch him walk.
“Hey, Margo,” Vincent says to the waitress. “How’s it goin’? Don’t mind if I join you, Ted, do ya?” Before I can answer him, I watch Vincent sit down in the third of three chairs at the table so that now, my fantasy cowboy and my ex-wife are all seated together while the waitress stands at the edge of our table. Now, I definitely am starting to get an erection!
My ex-wife asks me, “So, you think we’re ready to end our relationship?” At exactly the same time, Vincent leans over and asks me, “So, you think we’re ready to begin our relationship?”
I am helpless. I have no choice but to answer both my ex-wife and Vincent by saying, “Sure. Makes sense to me.”
My ex-wife pushes her chair back from the table in anger and frustration. “Take me home, Teddy,” my ex demands. “Or, I swear to you I’ll drive your car. You know I have a spare key. Even though I’m drunk, I’m gonna get behind the wheel of your car! Your life will never be the same any more.”
At that exact same moment, Vincent says to me, “Your life will never be the same any more.” Then he adds, “Now that you have found me. Someone you actually enjoy having sex with.”
The sound of many plates crashing to the floor of the pancake house suddenly makes me and everyone else in the place turn quickly to look in the direction of the kitchen. When I look back at my intensely handsome fantasy cowboy sitting across from me at the table for three, my ex-wife has suddenly disappeared. I was hoping to hear her cry out “I’m melting. Melting.”
I turn my attention to Vincent so that I can start to forget that Katherine was ever here with me in this coffee shop. Perhaps my weak control over my own reality has returned for a while. I do not want Katherine haunting me like this. I am conscious of my erection as I say to Vincent, “I’m totally exhausted. I got a motel down the street from here where they book extended stays. I checked in there, but I’m having real trouble sleeping. I feel like I’m only half here with you right now. What are you doing here at this hour?”
Vincent says, “I worked out late at the gym with my trainer. Was just down the street here. Past your motel. As I drove by, I see you sitting in here, so I stopped in. When was the last time you had a decent night’s sleep?”
“Probably before I got married,” I tell him.
He looks at me like he thinks I am talking crazy, but he says nothing.
“I had my wife committed to a psych ward. Then I left her and filed for divorce. Was with her forever. Left her back in New England. Now I’m here in some strange pancake house with you in the Mojave Desert.”
“Why did you get married?” Vincent asks me.
The question makes me smile. He asks me why I am responding like he said something funny. I tell him, “Well, on our very first date, she gave me a blow job. Simple as that.”
“She was mentally ill?” he asks.
“Completely,” is my honest answer.
He looks genuinely surprised at my answer. “I came to realize that I was not a good match as her husband. She would have been better off marrying a psychiatrist.”
“What did she look like?” he wants to know.
“Believe it or not,” I tell him. “She looked exactly like our waitress here. They could be twins who were separated at birth.” This is the exact moment that the waitress returns to the table for three carrying Vincent’s order—scrambled eggs and wheat toast—exactly the same as my order.
She winks at Vincent when she sets down the plate in front of him. “You two boys sure have the same tastes, don’t you?” the waitress observes and walks away without waiting for a reply. Vincent smiles, obviously amused at what the waitress said to them. “Yeah, we do, Ted,” he says to me. “Is it that obvious?”
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