EPILOGUE
Alessio
When I carried the tray of crab cakes into the walk-in freezer, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a warm voice behind me saying,
“Hey. You. Bad boy.”
Slowly lowering the tray to a shelf, I couldn’t resist grinning. I turned around and sure enough, Truman in all his commanding glory leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, frowning severely.
I croaked, “Yeah? What’m I doing wrong now?”
“You’re not supposed to be carrying anything heavy since your hip surgery.”
I scoffed. “It’s been a month. And I don’t even need the walker anymore. I want to help with your party.”
We were at the Happy Hour clubhouse of the Bent Zealots MC, and I was backed up against a shelf of onions and green peas in the shell.
“I’ll show you how you can help with the party, boy,” Truman snarled, angling his hips against mine. “You can help by helping out your daddy.”
Although Truman had the youthful, fresh-faced innocence of the eternal therapist, enthusiastically helping everyone around him, when it came to me, all bets were off. I loved seeing sides of him no one else saw. He could be raw, snarly, twisted. It was great.
Shoving the onions aside, I hopped onto the shelf. “Okay, daddy. What do you want?”
“I’m going to teach you how to please others. Don’t you want to please others, make them like you?”
“Oh, yes,” I purred, unbuttoning his shirt to slide my hand across his pec. Pinching his nipple, he gasped. “How do I do that?”
Sucking in air, Truman hissed, “Get on your knees. Or I’ll spank you.” But I could tell he was already weak with lust.
I gratefully slid to my knees, gripping his hips. I rubbed my cheekbone against the erection packed inside his tight jeans. Nobody wore suits in Rough and Ready, and it made me moan. “Yes, sir, mister mayor. Whatever you tell me to do.”
He clutched the back of my skull, pressing my face into him. “Then take it out. You know what to do. You’ve done this before, right?”
“Yes,” I groaned. “Only with you, sir.”
Swiftly I undid his belt—complete with a pewter buckle of a motorcycle—and out popped his dick, long, thick, and stiff. Circling my lips with my tongue to wet them, I dove on in, taking the smooth head back to my tonsils.
He groaned so deeply I could feel the vibration in his stomach. I massaged his pubic bone while gulping and swallowing, running my entire mouth down his length.
He was so taken away he could barely murmur, “Show me how you can make daddy proud…”
I couldn’t answer with my mouth full, but I wanted to say yes!
Yes, I’m going to make you proud of me! No one had ever been proud of me as an individual, not a musician onstage, not a conductor or a guitarist, just me, the human being Alessio Messina!
I wanted to climb to the rooftop not threatening to jump off, just crowing to the entire town that I and I alone was the lover of this amazing man Truman Oakley.
“Oh yeah…that’s right…that’s good…” he groaned.
The jizz boiled up from his balls, rolling up the underside of his cock, until it spurted down my throat, way past my taste buds.
I swallowed and swallowed load after load, as if he hadn’t come in weeks.
He gasped in air, then didn’t breathe, then gulped some more, then held his breath.
When he finally sighed and let go of my hair, I detached and uncoiled to a standing position. We were plastered together, panting and sort of laughing. Running our fingers against each other’s faces.
“Hey,” boomed Lock Singer, the Bent Zealots Veep. We both jumped a little, but no one made a move to detach. “The caterer has a lot more fish-related things that need to go in here. Prospect!”
Of course that meant me. Truman could hardly still be a Prospect. I practically saluted. “Yes, sir!”
“Get on out here. Everything’s melting. We got a giant cake and don’t want your jizz on it!”
I kissed Truman briefly, allowing him time to tuck himself away again, and marched out into the bar area.
The room was packed with partiers, both MC and otherwise.
Almost all men, their booming laughter could probably be heard down the block, but the bail bonds next door was used to it.
And Herbal Legends, the dispensary owned by the Prez Turk, was closed for the day in celebration with us.
My music store up the street, the Vibe Vault, was most definitely shut down for this.
The cake box was on the bar next to Jack Hoffman, yukking it up with his old friends Drs. Huntington Mountjoy and Thymus Moog.
Hunt noticed me and said, “Jack was just telling us about—you tell him, Jack.”
Jack swiveled on his barstool to face me. Hands on knees, he brimmed with news. “Remember the body at the trailer park?”
He didn’t even need to mention the name. I nodded eagerly.
“Well. Me and a few of the citizens, Pickett and Ozzie and a few other naked guys, moved the body back to Pine Valley.” He looked suspiciously from side to side before adding, “In their freezer.”
I exploded. “Oh, man!” That was a major knee-slapper, and we all slapped our knees. Pine Valley had shut down while they relocated all the residents, so I wasn’t even sure the electricity was on. They were set to reopen under new management, and those guys were in for a surprise.
“Prospect!” This time it was the Prez himself, Turk Blackburn, who bellowed into my eardrum. “Get that cake into the fridge!”
This was how it went prospecting for a motorcycle club. Truman himself had gone through it, just a bit faster than me, as he now marched proudly under the ceiling banner that proclaimed CONGRATS MAYOR OAKLEY.
“Mayor!”
“Truman!”
“You’re the man!”
“You’re the best!”
I had to quickly shove the cake into the fridge while what seemed like the entire town slapped my lover on the back and dug their fingers into his shoulder.
Truman had worked tirelessly at Thymus’ new assisted living, along with Gunning and Erin.
He’d organized services for recently paroled convicts.
He set up his own low-cost legal clinic where he fought to have their false arrest records expunged.
Denmark ran the office, putting his own knowledge to use.
As Truman knew from loving me, once you’ve been arrested on a felony, you’re pretty much unemployable the rest of your life, stripped of your vote.
He fought to reinstate voting rights for ex-cons.
Truman arranged to have former addicts patrol alleyways and immediately call for medical help if anyone was ODing.
He invited the fire department to demonstrate to addicts how to perform CPR on these victims. Suddenly, people who would’ve been corpses lining the streets were showing up at the community center, city hall meetings.
They found a new way to talk about themselves as addicts.
Truman walked around, sitting with them and listening to what they had to say.
Well, lo and fucking behold, after we convinced Truman to run for mayor, he beat out the incumbent.
The man I loved was also the most loved in town.
Denmark pretty much had to run the legal clinic while Truman moved his shit into City Hall.
Which, being a small town, was basically an old Victorian with equally old furniture. Relaxed and comfortable.
Back in the clubhouse, only our Leonberger dog Korg greeted me. Everyone was too busy crowding around Truman congratulating him and probably asking for mayoral favors. I tried taking a barstool, but the most recent Prospects, Berkeley and Royal, both yelled at me from behind the bar.
“Prospect! Belly up to the bar!”
I gave them a break, as Berkeley, ever the softie, slapped my shoulder and said, “Bro,” in a kind tone.
After all, I was married to the mayor. I poured myself a hefty gin and tonic, watching the amazing scene unfold with faithful, fluffy Korg at my side.
A couple of my former bandmates from Moist Division crowded the bar.
The mob was so deafening even without music blaring you had to yell at your own shadow. I leaned in to hear their drink orders.
Pickett Yarborough stood closest to Truman, connected at the wrist and ankle to his savior. His necrosis had healed after giving up the nasty medications, and he was the most popular guy at Thymus’ assisted living. The crowd calmed down when Pickett waved his arm.
“This guy,” he shouted, “literally saved my life, and the lives of everyone else living in that Pine Valley hell. He came in when stiffs lined the hallways and people slept with mummies—”
Mummies? everyone asked each other.
“—and everyone was on their deathbed being handed fentanyl and illicit drugs instead of the medications we really needed.”
“Hear, hear!” many people shouted.
Pickett continued to blare. “The purpose of Truman’s program is to build our lives so we have something to put into our empty glasses.
Social scenes, jobs, everyday pleasures.
So even as the bad drugs drain away, we’re not left empty.
As our lives have more in them, our glass contains more and more, so we don’t need fentanyl to fill it up.
And now? We feel full without any of that crap! ”
Wow. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
The entire clubhouse erupted into one giant cheer, and I raised my—now empty—glass, roaring along with everyone else.
Even the Lions from the Lions Club were behind that, and everyone clamored to thump Pickett and Truman on their backs.
Poor Truman was going to be black and blue that night, and not from my spanking.
“Here,” I told my bandmate, “give this to Truman.” It was his favorite screwdriver drink, and my bass player squeezed his way through the crowd to give it to Truman. I practically melted at the loving glance Truman tossed my way.
It was Truman’s turn to raise his glass, and everyone hushed.
He shouted out, his voice a bit hoarse from all the orating he’d been doing, “I need to thank my life partner, Alessio Messina, musician extraordinaire.” We hadn’t bothered changing our names, as most people thought of us as heroes and Jack Hoffman continued to post about us, our changes and successes.
“I first became acquainted with him when he stood on the sixth-floor roof of my addiction recovery center, shouting to the crowd about how addicts are humans, punishing them just makes them sicker, and only compassion can heal them.”
Lock Singer wound his way through the crowd to grab my arm, relieving me of bartending duties, to drag me to the new mayor.
Truman continued to orate. “He reminded us how people forced onto the streets just fall to pieces. How many addicts are chronic pain patients like Alessio himself, but are forced off opioids because doctors can’t prescribe them anymore, afraid of being prosecuted.”
I finally spoke up, remembering my onstage commanding voice.
“I was about to jump off the roof to protest this insanity! And when addicts turn to the streets, not only do they get opioids but ones laced with fentanyl and tranqs. Completely lethal shit! When they OD, people are dumbfounded. Stop prosecuting doctors!”
“Hear, hear!” yelled Dr. Hunt Mountjoy. “Stop prosecuting doctors for saving lives!”
Truman’s face glowed with admiration when he wrapped an arm around me. “I have to tell you. This guy saved me as well. I’ve never been so deeply in love, and it just gets stronger and stronger every day.”
I was speechless when he planted a giant kiss on my cheek. But I couldn’t stop the grin that exploded on my face.
“Congratulations!” yelled Ozzie Whitworth, there with a few other naked trailer park denizens.
Everyone erupted into applause, and Truman shouted, “Break out the cake and champagne!”
It was just a madhouse then. Instead of me running for the cake, Hunt actually made a dash for it, and Truman and I headed for the bar. We had to lean into the backs of several other partiers. Being mayor didn’t mean first in line for everything.
He murmured in my ear. “Pickett is right. Your glass is full now. You don’t need anything else to fill it up.”
I touched my forehead to his. “I’m full without anything else at all. Other than you.”
We just grinned like morons at each other, knowing we’d finally hit upon the right way of living.