Page 24 of A Long Con

I whipped Pothole’s phone from his cradle. “And his phone number?”

Pothole was truly sobbing now. “I don’t remember! Wait! It’s a Los Angeles number.”

“714?” asked Berkeley.

“Yes!” sobbed Pothole.

I saw it in his recently dialed list, and I nearly thumbed it until Berkeley bounded over and stopped me. “Wait. We don’t want to tip our hand. But take that phone with us, just in case.”

Solid advice. What good would it to do call Dennis O’Bell and tell him “We’re coming to get you”? He’d just go somewhere else. It felt great to be working as a team again. I puffed up with victory as I strode to my ride.

“Where now?” said Berkeley in a lowered tone, so Pothole wouldn’t overhear.

“Hermosillo, of course.”

I laughed at Berkeley’s aghast face. Did he think I would not see this through to the end? And I was taking him with me.

“Hey. Can you type a text for me?”

Already skeptical of me since discovering the hard way I was an art forger, Royal lifted one eyebrow. “Now you can’t write your own texts?”

I was forced to be honest, no matter how much it killed me. “Remember? I told you. After falling off the roof, I can read but not write.”

Sighing as though it cost him his pet canary, Royal took my phone from me. “You texting to that airhead moke Cloud?”

“Right. Can you tell him to get a locksmith to change the front door lock? Because Pothole ran off with a key.”

“Good idea,” said Royal, quickly thumbing my screen.

It had been a fucking long-ass trip to Hermosillo. The pitted highway was curtained with saguaro overcrowded by desert ironwood trees, now in bloom in May. Their rounded pods had all burst into a delicate shade of carnation or salmon pink, and we rode so fast they blurred together in a banner. Once Royal, who of course was riding point, had to veer heavily for a family of javelina crossing the road. I took the chance to stop, exhausted by the ride. Royal actually grinned at me and pointed at the waddling piglets.

“A happy family. The kind I can’t imagine.”

I realized we were bonded not only by our brain injuries but by our dysfunctional families. We both had no siblings—well, I had a frozen twin—and we both had fathers that we loathed. I wasn’t sure what the issue was between Royal and his Hawaiian dad, but I knew he was trying to emphasize his mother’s German heritage. Laß mich allein, he often practiced. Leave me alone. It took me forever to piece together that he was mostly learning phrases intended to keep people away from him.

Royal also took this opportunity to text Twinkletoes, who was going to try and triangulate the whereabouts of this Dennis O’Bell by using his cell number. “I have no fucking idea what he meant about That ’70s Show,” said Royal, staring intently at his own cell screen.

I hoped I googled the name correctly. It was hit or miss with my ability to form phrases, but it looked like I got a show cast list. Nothing resonated with me. The names seemed mostly northern European or Jewish. Jackie Burkhart. Ashton Kutcher. Topher Grace. I’d have to let them roll around in my head for awhile.

So that was how we came to this fair-to-middling echo chamber hotel at four in the morning in Hermosillo. I’d never been to Mexico before, but the main aspect that struck me was how loud it was. Even at four AM, maids cleaned rooms with smelly products and men shouted gleefully to each other in the hallways and streets. And, of course, no cars had passed a smog test. We sort of surmised that Dennis O’Bell was going to be hunting wild boar, but beyond that, we had no clues.

Having showered, we each sat on our respective single beds staring at our damn phones. When Royal handed me back mine after texting Cloud, he said frankly, “You know, Berkeley, you’re not a very good Dom.”

I had fucking heard that before from Grindr hookups and associates in New York. I was not monogamous with Ash, although I was sure he was with me. Probably. Until I came to Arizona, that is. “You mean because I don’t whip you.”

“Right. I have almost no experience with men, but doesn’t a Dom slap you around?”

I grinned. “You mean that’s what you want?” I looked at my bare feet. “You remember I can’t even bring myself to kill an insect. I’m a Dom who doesn’t slap men around. Big deal. I see you’re still wearing the collar.”

Royal grinned at me like a lion. He really had the most luxurious mane of gingerbread locks that seemed at one with his beard and moustache, and his beautifully thick eyebrows seemed to be styled ironically, like he was always laughing about some inner thing. He was just wearing the paper-thin bathroom towel around his waist and his plump burnished copper dick stretched the fabric to its limits. “Rajah dat. Though I should take it off to dry.” Which he proceeded to do.

“Why do you like wearing the collar?”

He shrugged. “To me, it signifies that I’m willing to be submissive. A big guy like me, you’d assume I’d be the Dom.” He looked at me with meaning. “But I like being the one having my ass spanked.”

I cleared my throat. I was only wearing the tissue towel too, and my cock twitched when he said that. “To be honest, the reason I can’t is because my dad used to slap us around. You see? I learned to drive when I was ten to take my mother to the hospital. Then the brain injury left me even nicer and gentler, though I still want to boss men around and tell them what to do.” To prod him into response, I added, “Which you like.”

He nodded. “Which I think I like. I’m not too experienced. You’d really never paddle my ass? Slap my dick?”