Page 31 of Blowing Off Steam

Rushy struck off, cursing to himself. “That lowdown river rat Bixby! We’ve got four Celestial stiffs with opium coming out their ears, and he wants to challenge me to a race! Well, Mr. Haight told us not to race. Still. How can I ignore his challenge iffin he’s going to be well-nigh insulting my manliness?”

Shoving past a few Kanakas diving for items that had fallen overboard, Rushy took note of a lone Celestial standing by the starboard rail. He’d seen this fellow on the downriver trip from Sacramento yesterday. Normally, Celestials with their long pigtails and high-collared jackets gathered together in clumps, but this fellow stood out for the loud scotch bonnet with a leather visor, which he wore rakishly set to one side of his head. Funny that a peewee riceman would be wearing such an ostentatious hat, and Rushy immediately struck for Stan Sitwell to tell him to keep an eye on that fellow.

He looked for him, of course, wherever Field Trueworthy could be found, and right now that was the port stern rail. Calliope in her chef’s apron smoked a cigarro, and they appeared to be assessing any advantages the Jack Hayes might have over them.

“With Bixby’s old engine,” Field was telling Calliope, “he’d have to stop constantly to ‘wood up.’ But if he’s really got this grand engine, that’s a new wrinkle. He could go as far as we can without wooding up.”

“But the fact remains,” protested Calliope, “the Jack Hayes is only four hundred fifty tons, and only a hundred and fifty feet long.”

“That might not matter,” said Rushy, joining the group. “Right, Field?”

“Right,” Field agreed. Was it Rushy’s imagination, or had Field’s eyes sparkled more brightly ever since their engagement in Calliope’s stateroom? “If the new engine has enough horsepower, it won’t matter that her wheels are smaller than ours.”

“So you’ve heard about Bixby’s challenge.”

“Yes,” said Field. Leaning against the rail like that with his ankles casually crossed, one could plainly see the outline of his long, delectable prick, sluggishly at half-mast. Rushy reached out to button Field’s frock coat, although it was blazingly hot outside as usual. Field regarded Rushy with his amiable, soft eyes.

Last night, Field hadn’t been so gentle and mild-mannered. Rushy had seen a new savage side to the docile engineer when he’d looked upon a bound Rushy with wolf’s eyes. Rushy had never been as stimulated in his entire life as when he’d stood there exposed and defenseless while a freshly empowered Field tickled his tool with that infernal ostrich plume. The fire and zeal that suddenly enflamed Field’s eyes, especially when he nudged his middle finger up Rushy’s ass and wriggled it about, told Rushy that Field was more than an androgynous Miss Molly, what he’d suspected at first. Field had stroked Rushy’s gland with more passion than Rushy had ever fingered any molly boy.

No, there was a masculine passion to Field’s desire for cock. That was evident by the enthusiastic gusto with which Field fell to his knees and suckled Rushy to orgasm. No mere molly boy would gulp down a prick with such pure rapturous desire. And when he’d told Rushy he’d love nothing more than to kneel between his thighs and screw him up the ass, Rushy had been filled with a tingling excitement and also dread.

Calliope was right—his ass was virginal. It had never been ravished before. He’d always been the one to do the ravishing, the raw, carnal, heedless humping of two men grunting in a corner, or over the rail on a pleasant day at anchor. Rushy supposed he’d never allowed that because it signified weakness, subservience. And he’d never been more subservient than when Field Trueworthy, mechanical genius of the river, had titillated his penis with that damned plume that was probably one of Calliope’s hat decorations—and when she had defiled his ass with that ivory tool that had felt so damned good.

Like a short, fat prick. Fucking him up the ass.

He’d never been smacked before, either. Field’s sharp, stinging slaps roused him till he was out of his head with the need to spend, especially when Field paddled his bursting balls. Rushy’s prick had never felt so tight and bursting with semen. That Field, he was a fellow to be reckoned with.

Field now said, “I was thinking of sending Stan Sitwell over there to investigate the new engine. That good-for-nothing jackass Bixby would recognize Cincinnatus.”

Calliope inserted, “Or have Stan make some kind of booby trap.”

“No!” Rushy insisted. “I’ll win this race fair and square. Even if I have to shoot out their boilers with a Sharps rifle.”

“Well,” said Calliope wanly, “that isn’t entirely ‘fair and square’ now, is it?”

“Not really,” Rushy had to admit. “But I can’t rightly lose a race. Not after having established such a grand rep on the river.”

“Let’s just not race him,” Field suggested. “He wants to start at four. We can malinger. Say we’re waiting on a shipment of something.”

Calliope pointed. “Then the passengers will be soreheads. You know how fast word gets around. And you can’t avoid this Clive Bixby fellow forever.”

Rushy exploded. “Damn it all to hell!” In frustration, he walked in circles about the deck. “We have to race that bastard!”

“We can’t, Rushy,” said Field. “Remember what Soquel Haight said.”

Calliope said, “Who cares what Soquel Haight said? Everyone races on the river. It’s part of the entertainment the passengers pay for. They know the El Dorado will win and they want to get nice and wallpapered and watch our rivals get whipped.”

Field explained patiently. “Haight will find out in a jiffy that we were racing. Hundreds of passengers can testify to that.”

Rushy wanted to wallop Field in his frustration, but he only feebly punched the rail. “By Saint Michael, Field! I’m with Calliope. We can’t allow Haight to dictate our decisions as owners. Just because we’re carrying a few rancid stiffs for him, can he tell us who to race?”

“Bully for you, Rushy!” Calliope seemed to admire this decision.

“I think he said it,” Field opined, “because the more we race, the more wallpapered people will get. Maybe he’s afraid someone will stumble over one of the bodies. And I heard a story about someone in Sucker Flat who just dug up a body to get a ring off its finger.”

“Besides”—Calliope pointed with her cigarro—“how can you be sure old Chan Ho from Kwangtung isn’t going to recognize one of the bodies as his dead uncle and start mourning over it?”

Rushy agreed. “Or worse, give it a burial at sea?”