Karen Mercury (11 page)

She unlatched her mouth from his with a giant smack and fell to making great cow’s licks against his salty, virile throat. Tearing his shirt asunder to reveal his well-developed chest, she reveled in running her palms over the pectorals, the silken hair stimulating her palms. When she pinched a stiff nipple, he gasped loudly and angled his hips into her more forcefully, holding her against the wall with just the thrust of his hips.

Fidelia came unhinged at the pressure of the delicious, long penis she had admired so when watching it in its aroused state—arousal for Spenser. Now it was
she
who was enflaming this desirable man, and her seductive abilities all came rushing back to her. It made her feel supremely feminine and wicked that she had the ability to drive this cultured man wild, and she sucked on his beautiful throat as she bucked her hips against his.

“
Mon Dieu,
Fidelia,” Chess groaned, his chest vibrating with his lust. “You’re stirring me beyond any reasonable response.” He panted against her forehead as his fingers sank into her braided bun. “We must stop now or I’ll get carried away. Do you want that? No? Of course not. I must walk you back to your hotel room, and—
Ah!
”

She had clamped her teeth down around his taut nipple and felt a great shudder take hold of his entire body. She managed to jam one palm between her muff and his bulging crotch, flipping the buttons of his denim trousers apart with the dexterity of the milkmaid she had been in a very remote former life. In a flash, the thick mighty phallus was heavy in her fist. She ran her thumb over the slimy drips at its tip, causing Chess to huff and swallow his groans.

“Stop, Fidelia,” he whispered. “You must be out of your mind. I’m doing everything in my power to restrain myself, and you’re not helping. You’re driving me over the edge with this behavior, and it simply must stop.”

“No!” she cried frantically, turning her face to his. “Why should I stop? What am I doing wrong but pleasing us both?” Her free hand yanked up her skirts to her hips, indicating her willingness. The tiger’s stuffed hind leg seemed to be giving a little under their combined weight, but Fidelia didn’t want to ruin her completely advantageous position.

Chess cried in a strangled voice, “You must allow me to court you properly! Just because you’re only a barmaid doesn’t mean I should take advantage of your hysteria.”

However,
he
sounded like the hysterical one. Fidelia knew exactly what she wanted. She positioned his cockhead at her dripping pussy entrance, sweeping it rapidly back and forth against the opening. Chess groaned heavily, allowing his head to roll back on his neck, exposing his lusty throat to her nips and bites.

“I don’t want to wait,” she whispered and impaled herself on his prick.

At first, Chess remained absolutely still. Only an enormous shudder ran through his body as Fidelia lunged her hips against his, plunging his cockhead up against her womb, then swiveling her hips back so far his penis nearly withdrew.

Here she could gyrate against his cockhead, using the slime of her juicy cunt as lubricant to outline all manner of squiggles and hieroglyphics against his sensitive, bursting glans. When she sank back down on his penis with a grunt, Chess exhaled all in a whoosh and fucked her in earnest.

He gathered her ass in his broad palms and pinned her to the sooty wall with the power of his pulsing penis. He pinned her so firmly Fidelia barely had room for her frantic bucking, so she took her frustration out by smearing her face over his sweaty neck and chest.
Oh, this is heavenly
. She wasn’t worried about becoming with child, as she knew a woman couldn’t conceive without having an orgasm, and surely this randy buck would ejaculate before that could happen.

Indeed, he speared her with several long, impassioned lunges, then a series of short quick jabs given with a groan like a dying bear. His jugular vein was between Fidelia’s teeth as she snorted hot breaths against his neck. When she gave a little jump in order to lock her ankles together at the small of his back, the tiger’s leg collapsed under her toes, dissolving in a pile of sawdust, but she was firmly entwined around her lover.

His entire body quaked with the force of his orgasm. Fidelia was flooded with his pent-up waves of jism, and she relished every drop of it. She sucked it in with her inner pussy muscles, milking it as though it were the last sustenance she’d ever receive. She nearly lost her grip on his slick shoulders as his rigid penis shuddered inside of her. He seemed to come for a long time, although her memory could be faulty, it had been so many years.

Then she seemed to swoon, or lose consciousness for a few moments. Maybe it was the frankincense—or another more medicinal smoke—wafting in from the front of the shop. But the next thing Fidelia knew, she was gasping and gulping air and sliding down the wall so her behind rested on the tiger’s back. Since the tiger was now a bit crooked, missing a leg, she began to slide down the animal’s back, too, and Chess’s still-firm cock slipped from her.

She panted like the brazen hussy that she was, legs splayed, skirts hiked up around her hips. Chess whistled, presumably with admiration at the monumental fuck. “Oh, hell,” he panted, leaning with one hand against the wall, his head lolling loosely. He shook it in wonder, his eyes squeezed shut.

“
Oje
,” Fidelia whispered, pleased to feel the semen trickle from her muff and into the crack of her ass.
Oh, dear.

They both jumped nearly a foot when the tapestry that separated the back room from the front was flung open and the silhouette of a crazed man appeared. He was short and wiry, and it was a good thing he wasn’t holding a cleaver, that’s how deranged he was.

“What is this?” he shrieked. He was an Oriental fellow, one of those ricemen who wore little satin caps and pajamas. They were normally fairly placid folks, but this fellow was derailed. “I hear all sorts of banging and bellowing, but I am in front serving a very good customer. Now I come to find interlopers robbing my shop!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Chess said, holding out calming hands. He stood protectively in front of Fidelia, giving her a chance to get to her feet and smooth down her skirts. “We’re hardly robbing your shop, my fine fellow. We just stopped in the back door for a little—ah, a bit of afternoon refreshment.”

The riceman strode forward, looking daggers at Chess’s bared chest, Fidelia’s heaving bosom, and then the hind leg of his stuffed tiger. He was apoplectic with rage, and he merely sputtered for a few moments while pointing a stiff arm at the tiger’s leg, giving Chess some time to fish coins from the pocket of his denim pants.

“
You broke tiger!
” the riceman finally squealed, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. “Tiger cost me a hundred seahorses and twenty bear penises! What is the meaning of this? You are terrible, evil, agitated white men!” And he ran for the front of his shop, presumably to get a sword.

“We should go out the back,” Fidelia suggested.

“No. I’m a newly arrived upstanding citizen and I intend to act like it.” Chess tossed his head in the direction of the back door and gently shoved her by the shoulder. “You go ahead. I’ll set things right with this fellow.”

“But you don’t even have your gun belt.” Chess must have left it behind on the floor at Freund’s.

Chess flashed a charming smile. “Cash reigns supreme. You go ahead—I don’t want you harmed. I’ll meet you later at the Oddfellows Hall.”

And he manfully strode past the tapestry to meet his Oriental nemesis.

Fidelia, however, wouldn’t sneak out any back door. She was the one, after all, who had broken the tiger’s leg. So she followed Chess, only to discover the riceman flailing his arms about, his fists chock-full of various roots and sea creatures. The shop itself was a marvel of jars and pots lined up on shelves in some sort of mysterious order, and other stuffed animals leered at them from various hanging branches and baskets.

“Look here, my good man,” said Chess, holding out a handful of coins. “Will this pay for the tiger?”

The riceman shook a fistful of roots in Chess’s face. “I pay a hundred penises for that tiger from Calcutta! Your piddling coins cannot get me a new tiger!”

“Wait, wait,” said Chess, closing his fist over the coins. “Now it’s a hundred penises that you paid? A minute ago it was only twenty bear penises. Suddenly it’s a hundred?”

“And two hundred mermaids! I was in front talking to very good Frog customer who wishes to buy Spanish fly—” The riceman looked Chess up and down with disgust. “Which you obviously have no need of. Getting disturbed on top of my tiger!”

Chess frowned. “Mermaids? Now, listen up, you pixilated purveyor of powders. I have half a mind to walk—”

Fidelia came between Chess and the riceman. “Look here, be reasonable. There’s probably someone in Laramie who can fix the tiger. It’s not like it disintegrated into absolute dust—it’s just one hind leg.”

“Wait.” Chess cupped Fidelia’s shoulder. “Wait. Mister…”

“Chang!” spat the riceman. “C. Chang, Proprietor!”

“Mr. Chang. What did you say about a Frog buying Spanish fly? You have such an item?”

“Of course I do! But why you would want it is a mystery! My special prick tea is much better anyway. Spanish fly gives big balloons all over skin.”

Chess didn’t wait for Chang to explain about the balloons. The news that Bullet Bob had been in there purchasing Spanish fly seemed to have some significance. He became absolutely electrified, gripped Fidelia’s arm, and poured the coins onto Chang’s counter.

“Take these,” Chess said urgently, already yanking Fidelia toward the front door. “I’m Chess Hudson, you must know my father Simon, and we’ll take care of your damned tiger. No worries, Mr. Chang!”

As he pulled her through the front door, Fidelia recalled Zeke Vipham telling the Freund brother that Chess had been involved in some “Spanish fly incident” in London. An infamous incident, apparently. They quickly scanned the crowded street, in the nick of time glimpsing Bullet Bob as he limped around the corner east onto Grand Avenue.

“He’s wearing my damned spurs!” Chess snarled and started off in the same direction.

Fidelia followed, having to jog to keep pace with her lover. “Why do you care if he took those spurs? He can barely walk in them.”

“You told me your brother’s murderer wears giant spurs—that’s why you suspected me at first. Now Bullet Bob’s taken them—”

“Yes, I saw him swipe them from Freund’s counter, along with your Stetson.”

“—and he drinks absinthe at the Morning Star Gallery. What’s next? What is the newest clue your brother’s spirit has given you? What more do we need to convince us that Bullet Bob is the true culprit here?”

Fidelia had to smile as she rushed down the street alongside Chess Hudson. She had been considering cutting off all connections with Chess once she got her pistol back and now that her odd sexual craving had been fulfilled. Men were worthless dogs, after all, weren’t they?

But now that she knew Chess believed in Ulrich’s spirit, her trust in men was reaffirmed. These two male heads, Chess and Spenser, as randy and obstinate and rattlebrained as they could be, were better than one.

“Listen, Chess,” said Spenser. “You’ve got to approach Bullet Bob and at least demand your hat back.”

Chess shuddered. “I don’t know why, but the minute I arrived in town that dandy’s been following me around, insisting we’re pals from Europe, and giving me the creeps. But I sure would like that hat back. I think it’s the only item of Western attire that I got right—right, Spenser?”

Chess liked it when Spenser grinned. He seemed to fairly glow from the fucking he’d received in the back room at Freund and Brothers, although he hadn’t been satisfied to completion. And, Chess was proud to note, Spenser didn’t even have cuff marks on his wrists. Spenser had not been overly shocked to see Chess arrive at the Oddfellows Hall with a panting and disheveled Fidelia in tow. Things were looking up all around for Chess.

“You got the hat right,” Spenser agreed, “but what did you say, Fidelia, about Ulrich singing? Something about a boss’s hat? You’re a boss, Chess. Of the entire Serendipity Ranch or whatever you’re going to name it.”

“Yes,” said Fidelia. “Ulrich sang something about a boss’s hat and a piece of paper, but it didn’t make any sense.”

Chess looked fondly at the barmaid. “Is that all your brother’s ghost does—sing?”

She seemed forlorn. “So far, yes. I’m hoping to goad him into speaking in proper sentences. I did just shout at him at Freund and Brothers when he interrupted—when he materialized so suddenly and scared me. He seems to only manifest in my greatest emotional times.”

“You heard the guitar!” Spenser said excitedly to Chess.

“Yes,” Chess admitted, wondering why the half-assed minstrel hadn’t manifested while he was fucking Fidelia. Had she not been “emotional” enough? “But I didn’t hear any singing. What was he singing about that time?”

Fidelia reddened noticeably. “Oh, ah, he was playing a C chord, and…So do you believe us, then? About my brother’s ghost?”

“Sure,” Chess said affably. “I mean, why not? I’ve attended many a séance in Europe. Admittedly, most of the claptrap was completely obvious, such as tongs being used to make marks on the ceiling to ‘prove’ someone had levitated, fellows with false whiskers and the like. Once, we exposed a fellow dressed in ‘spirit pantaloons’ made from the
Daily Courier
newspaper—and of course promptly reported it to the
Daily Courier
. All of this was always performed in the dark, making it more difficult to expose the charlatans.”