Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(58)
Toby was saying, “So I told him, we’ve already got Helium Head and Crybaby. We already sound like a motorcycle club.”
Slushy pointed at Toby with his can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. “You don’t want to be a Prospect, nerd boy. Just ask Speed. They made him wander in the desert without food for five days until he saw a blue unicorn.”
“Purple,” said my brother, who had been fully patched for a year. “And in my own defense, I really did see a unicorn. It was biblical. I ran into a group of those furries doing their yiffing thing in the middle of nowhere. I seriously wasn’t hallucinating. But yeah, Toby. I don’t think you want to try to prospect. You’d never make it.”
“What are furries and yiffing?” My BFF Emma was by far the most inexperienced and na?ve person in the entire bar and grill. The Bum Steer was open to the public normally but the forbidden, dangerous aura was still there owing to the Harleys parked in the side alley and the cut-wearing brothers who still worked the bar and kitchen. Emma’s unhot boyfriend Paul hadn’t come to our party. I wondered if she had even invited him. I knew The Bare Bones could sure use having a building inspector on their side, but Emma had currently been ogling one of the inked waiters.
Speed was the knowledgeable one to explain. “Furries are people who like to dress up as cartoon animals, I think. They have whole conventions and all. Not all of them yiff, though—have sex while in costume.”
Emma wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t that kind of hard to do with all those layers of fur?”
Speed shook his head at the floor, awash with wall-to-wall peanut shells. “You’d be surprised.”
Slushy was taking the wrapper off one of Turk’s “Make Me Happy” brownies. I was surprised he’d been so into those, since I thought he was allergic to pot. “The Califur convention is one of the biggest in all of furry fandom.”
Everyone stared at Slushy. Finally it was Turk who said, “Have you been eating too many brownies, Slushy? Sort of sounds like you attended one.”
Slushy looked up from his brownie and chuckled half-heartedly. “Yeah. Makes it sound. You guys know me. Mister Close to the Vest. I keep a low profile, watching my Christopher Guest movies and pretending to enjoy classical music. I’d be invisible if I got any whiter.”
“Does anyone even know where you live?” I asked.
Everyone shook their heads, murmuring their Nos.
Faux Pas said, “I ran into him picking berries at a farm by Mormon Lake once.”
Tuzigoot said, “He’s got one of those oval two-letter Oregon bumper stickers.”
“I saw a photo of your daughter once,” said Turk.
“Slushy’s got a daughter?” I asked.
Slushy held up his hands. “Hey, hey. I support community agriculture. Don’t you prefer it this way, no one knowing where your lawyer lives? I brought you some of the heirloom tomatoes I grew, and Duji, I saw you at IKEA a couple months ago.”
Duji looked embarrassed. “What the f*ck would I be doing at IKEA? Prospect! Another Bud!”
Behind the bar, the Prospect waved his acknowledgement. Emma leaned over and whispered, “That’s the one I think is hot.”
I actually hadn’t noticed the heat level of anyone other than Lytton for months now. Jake Gyllenhaal could be strutting through The Bum Steer’s bar wearing adult diapers and I would nurse my beer. I’d even gotten over my childish crush on Ford, although he did bear a strong resemblance to Lytton. No, Lytton was the only one for me.
He’d been nothing short of wonderful throughout my whole recovery. He knew instinctively when to back off when I was timid and jittery. Understandably, that whole Iso incident had left me with a sort of post-traumatic stress. It was difficult for me to open up and trust anyone. I even saw a counselor Madison recommended for awhile, a Dr. Petrie. Lytton didn’t push me. I was slowly relaxing with Lytton, but we still had not f*cked again. Some teeth still hurt, I had popping and pain in my ear drum, and there was nerve damage. I knew Lytton wouldn’t wait forever. The only good thing—I’d lost a lot of weight due to not eating. Milkshakes get very old after awhile.
Lytton was hotter than ever, and meeting more women than usual in his new position as budtender of The Joint System. It shouldn’t be a shock that some “patients” who come into dispensaries for “medicine” aren’t really ill—they are just recreational users. So Lytton saw many new able-bodied healthy women every day, the fresh-faced idealistic type who wanted to discuss vortexes. While I was feeling vulnerable, unattractive, and disabled with these ugly arch bars on my teeth, Lytton was leaning over the counter having in-depth conversations with pretty, younger girls about the benefits of his home-grown Young Man Blue.
But Lytton claimed to never go to the Racquet Club in Flagstaff, that Master Hawk was dead and buried. In fact, he’d disassembled his playroom at the Leaves of Grass ranch. He’d bought ten acres much farther down the mountain where he already had architectural drawings for a new house. There hadn’t been any talk of me sharing the house—the old house would remain as offices for the Leaves of Grass, but even Toby didn’t want to live there after what had happened. Toby would be coming to the new house, too.
So in a way, although Lytton gave me no reason to doubt him, I felt insecure. I couldn’t give Lytton blowjobs, and everyone knows blowjobs are ninety-five percent of men’s reason for living.