As it turns out, he did. And although Alastair soon found out that while Finn may have indeed been a New Age trippy hippie, he found out much, much quicker that he was also the most sexually rapacious man on the planet. No joke. Thirteen hours later and Alastair, who prided himself on his sexual prowess, finally called a break with a quavering, “Can I please have my dick back?”
Finn looked annoyed. But complied nevertheless.
While Alastair counted how many brain cells he had remaining, Finn, not bothering to dress—the man was all but a compulsive nudist—walked through the other man’s bungalow, occasionally bowing his head to clear door jams. “Nice place,” he called out, prudently ignoring it was an epitomal bachelor pad, complete with clothes thrown everywhere and fossilized dust bunnies.
He paused at the photos. And awards. Pictures of Alastair as a child. Pictures of Alastair pre-ink (collectors items, those, since the man got his first tattoo at 13). Pictures of Alastair accepting a surfing award—with the said award next to the photo. In true style, the house was a mess, but this little altar was utterly pristine.
The refrigerator was packed to the gills with pizza boxes and—huh?—champagne. Now there is an interesting combo, Finn thought.
“Yeah,” Alastair called from the bedroom. “I kinda had get my own place after I told my folks to suck my cock.”
Finn snickered. He reappeared before Alastair—who was almost but not quite terrified of what Finn could do to the both of them—with pizza and champagne. And rock hard. “You need to build up your strength. I’m not done.” He sat down in a chair that creaked under his weight, his “two beards” spilling down his chest, which itself was dusted with red-gold fuzz. And yes, it was red all the way down…
The other man laughed. Sort of. More like an apprehensive, high-pitched squeak. As he ate, Finn chugged the champagne from the bottle. “So, Alastair of the San Francisco Abercrombies. What was that like?”
By “that,” of course, Finn was asking what it was like to be a scion of a family right up there with the Gettys when it came to amassed wealth, and amassed notoriety. “Mmm. I’m the black sheep, and 7th in line for the throne. No pressure’s on me.”
“7th?”
“Four sisters. Isobel, Jennifer, Clarissa, and Tabitha. Two brothers. Matthew and Duncan.”
“Ever get lost in the shuffle?”
Alastair almost spat out his pizza laughing. “We all did! It’s a high-society gene pool. The children were brought into the parlor around 6 PM. I was raised by a manny.”
“A what?”
“’Male nanny.’”
“Oh.”
“And they wonder why I’m gay.”
Finn looked askance at him. “…You had sex with your manny?” He found the thought utterly delicious.
Alastair smirked. “Ain’t sayin’ one way or the other.”
“Funny,” Finn replied. He took another swallow. At his size – not only was he staggeringly tall, he was staggeringly HUGE at 300 lbs of yoga-made muscle (he couldn’t fit into many gym machines) – he could down the whole bottle and still not get a buzz. The man could stop a charging rhino simply by standing in its way.
Alastair pulled up another slice. “I never knew any other life. And because we were all home-schooled with tutors, I had no idea there was any other kind of life. It wasn’t until I went to college that I realized just how up the scale we were.”
“Sounds airless.”
“Mm. It was. And I probably never could have taken up surfing had I been number 1 or 2.”
“Isobel?”
“Matthew and Isobel, actually. Fraternal twins. And Abercrombies if there ever were.”
“Snobs?”
“Uh…yes,” Alastair said, rocking his head back and forth. “No. Well, let’s just say they are very aware that the crown rests upon their brows. And it’s heavy. Ol’ dad isn’t too keen passing that crown on until they know how heavy.”
“Must have been hard to leave.”
“Eh, with six other kids running around, I doubt they noticed. I didn’t get on the map until I came out. Then they noticed.”
Finn tilted his head to the side. “They were homophobic?”
“Not ‘tie-me-up-to-fence-in-Wyoming-and-pistol-whip-me’ homophobic,” Alastair replied matter-of-factly, “But its enough. But it’s not my siblings’, or even my parents’ call.”
“Huh?”
“It’s my grandmother,” Alastair said, his face lighting up in a mock a-ha! moment. “She’s not an Abercrombie by birth and she knows it, and she’s been overcompensating ever since her wedding. She’s studied up on her Abercrombieology, and rules with a tight grip.”
“And when you came out…”
“Didn’t go over too well. Which was hysterical, considering Pop-pop was at least bi.”
“No…”
“Oh yeah. He and his driver. Not very original, but what can you do. Grandma knew. Everyone did. But you didn’t talk about such things then. Not openly, anyway. But it galled the good Catholic girl she was. She was already an outsider, and Pop-pop’s extracurricular activities probably didn’t put her mind at ease.”
“She was an outsider?”
“Oh. Yeah. Back then, if you were rich, you married a cousin. Kept it in the family. My grandfather bucked the trend—scandal!—when he married her. And she was—gasp!—poor. Well, middle-class. Her father was a shopkeeper who had some business deals with my family. And Pop-pop probably married her because rumors about him and is driver were already going around.”
“She was a beard.”
“And how,” Alastair replied. “So she’s a little bitter, but jeez, he gave her 10 kids so it’s not like she was out in the cold. But, now she can finally vent it. I knew what it would cost me when I came out.” He munched on the pizza. “I knew they would cut me off. Hell, I expected them to disown me! But my manny never raised me to keep my mouth shut, or to kow-tow. I would have loved to seen the look on Grandma’s face when I told ‘em all to suck my dick.”
Finn was quiet. He did not ask, and Alastair noticed, if it hurt.
“It’s called ‘fuck-you money.’”
“What is?”
“When you have enough cash to that you don’t have to put up with anybody else’s crap. When I began pulling down awards and purses, there was at least…patience with my little “hobby.” And then I came out and it all got shot to hell. I’m not Richie Rich anymore, for sure, but I have two houses, two cars, and am set for life. Fuck-you money.”
Throughout the entire conversation, Finn’s penis, full and heavy, never softened. What was he, priapic?
“So,” Alastair continued. “Can you match that drama?”
“Me?”
“I just told you my history. Let’s get a little of yours, Red.” (“Red” would later become Alastair’s pet name for Finn)
Now he became coy. “Nothing like yours.”
“No shit.”
“Grew up in the desert, New Ager commune. Two half-sisters, Nimua and Sybilla. Two-half brothers, Ulysses and Orpheo. All younger.”
“That’s four halves. Wait. Your parents named them ‘Ulysses’ and ‘Orpheo?’”
Finn’s face split in a wide, knowing grin. “As far as the names go, I lucked out with ‘Finnegan.’ Mom and Dad loved James Joyce. ‘Ulysses’ is my middle name, actually. How they met, actually, at a reading. As for all the half-siblings, free love, my friend. Nobody was married to anybody else. And the whole commune raised us kids. I was more-or-less raised by my father’s father. He’s the true hippie.”
Alastair blinked. “Your grandfather followed your dad to a commune?”
Finn smiled again. “Ah, no. Actually, my father was born on the commune. He left.”
“Really.” Alastair was trying to get the facts straight.
“Yep. But instead of running off and joining the circus, he ran off and joined Wall Street. But one too many recessions and he gave up and went back to the farm. He ‘partnered’—ahem—with my mom the day he got back and I showed up nine months later.”
“God, he barely had time to get his hat off.”
“He got something off.”
“OK, not talking about parents’ sex lives.”
“Prude. Did I mention that in summer I never wore clothes?”
“Really?”
“Neither did granddad.”
“What the hell is that place?!”
Finn laughed. “I was an exhibitionist even then. He was a Buddhist, and foreswore clothing as ‘unnatural.’ Did the whole sadhu thing. But it’s a rare guy that has no hang-ups about his body. I learned early on what made a boy and what made a girl, and what my body would look like once the hormones kicked in.”
And what a body, Alastair thought. “Okaaaay, well, no drama, but you’d be fun at parties.”
“I guess. I came out at six and—“
“SIX?”
“Yeah. I told my grandfather ‘I like boys.’ And not another word was said. Never had any sort of judgement passed on me. It was great. You were what you were.”
“I couldn’t count past 29 when I was six! I starting going twenty-ten, twenty-eleven…”
“I didn’t really follow up on that statement, though, until my teens, and when all the parts were working.”
“Six.”
“You’re stuck on that.”
“SIX!” Alastair shook his hands for effect. “Jeez, I didn’t have a clue until I was 10!”
“Some guys take longer.”
“Funny.”
Finn finished off the champagne. “And speaking of ‘taking longer,’ I’d say you’ve recovered enough.” He stood, and lunged at Alastair, still in mid-pizza.
“What? Hey! Eating! I—whoop!”
