Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 08:42:31 -0400
From: Jake Preston <jemtling@gmail.com>
Subject: Psychic Detective 21

Psychic Detective 20
By Jake Preston


This is a work of erotic gay fiction, intended for readers who enjoy a
murder mystery in which fully developed characters interact sexually and in
other ways. Their sexual encounters are sometimes romantic, sometimes
recreational, sometimes spiritual, and almost always described
explicitly. My attention is equally divided between narrative, character
development, and sex scenes. If you don't care for this combination, there
are many other excellent "nifty" stories to choose from. And remember that
while nifty stories are free, maintaining a website is not. Please think
about donating at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html

Writing is usually a solitary avocation, but not necessarily so on
nifty.org, where a longer story appears in installments. If my characters
and my story grab your attention, you can always intervene with suggestions
for improvements. All sincere comments will get a response!

Jake, at jemtling@gmail.com


      *  *  *  *  *  *


Chapter 21
Jack and Calvin in Ashawa



	"I can't believe you told my Dad that I fuck you!" Calvin
exclaimed.

	"He needed to know," Jack relied. "At first he didn't believe
me. Then he did. It made all the difference."

	"Knowing this made him happy?" Calvin wondered.

	"It made him relieved," Jack said. "When you're dealing with
straight men who love you, like a father or maybe an uncle, you have to be
sensitive to their feelings. Straight men think tops are masculine and
bottoms are feminine. I saw a chance to ease your Dad's mind without
telling a lie."

	It was late Monday morning. Jack and Calvin settled into a
two-bedroom cabin on Wayward Island Resort. "Göran said this is his
favorite cabin, because the door opens out to the dock. It's as close as
you can get to the water without floating in the bay."

	They looked out on the water. It started raining. "That must be
Wayward Island," Calvin said. "Göran said it has three cabins. You can
make out one of them, in the fog. He opened the front window to let in the
sound of rain. The cry of loons echoes. "I love North Country sounds- a
fish jumping in the water, the wind at night, rain, loons." After a roll of
thunder, the loons cried again. "Loons looning, singularly human, like the
hallowing of a man in a high key, having thrown his voice into his head,"
Calvin said.

	"Looning," Jack said.

	"Ducks quack, sparrows chirp, canaries tweet, loons loon," Calvin
replied. "It's not in the dictionary, but it should be. Thoreau used it in
The Maine Woods."

	"About Göran," Jack said, "he told me that he has feelings for
Jésus. He invited Jésus to come up for a few days if it's not too
busy at Apollo's. He's coming tomorrow. He'll return to Superior on
Thursday."

	"Does that mean Göran's breaking up with you?" Calvin asked.

	"'Breaking up' is too dramatic," Jack said. "We're being
realistic. Göran's future is here, in St. Louis County. Mine is in South
Dakota. We love each other, but we were never exclusive.  We always knew
that our relationship was fated to be temporary. He wants me to explore my
feelings for you while we've still got a chance."

	"Does that mean we've got a chance?" Calvin asked.

	"That's up to you, CC," Jack said.

	"You take my breath away, Jack," Calvin said. "I thought our
relation was... what's the right word... recreational, because you and
Göran were an item."

	"You'd have to think in terms of moving to South Dakota," Jack
said. "Don't answer yet.  Just think about it."

	They kissed.

	"There's a reason why we've got a cabin with two bedrooms," Jack
said. "I invited your parents. If they come, they'll have a place to stay."

	"I suppose this means I won't get to fuck Göran," Calvin
laughed.

	"Spoken like a true top, it's one of the things I like about you,
CC," Jack said. "You still might get a crack at Göran. He told me that
we've got a date with him and Red Hawk, at Jake Preston's cabin on the
point. It's on the other side of the island. You can't see it from
here. I've never met Red Hawk, of course, but Göran tells me he's a lot
like you."



	Monday morning, the loggers found two patrol cars abandoned on Five
Mile Road, a mile from each other. When Göran and Jack drove to the site
at noon, Jack insisted on taking Calvin with them. "I want CC by my side at
all times because of the danger," he said. Fingerprints later disclosed
that the first car was driven by the Sergeant, and the second by Deputy
Nelson.

	"Coleman and Brad Nails-if that's his name- are preparing another
sacrifice," Göran said. "They've got Nelson and the Sergeant, and the
percussionist who disappeared from Apollo's. They're on the hunt for two
more victims."

	"Unless they decide that three is enough," Jack said.

	"Maybe," Göran said, but the look on his face was
skeptical. "It's supposed to rain all week. They've got the weather on
their side. People won't see them moving in the rain and the fog."

	"How do you know they've got Craig Clark?" Calvin asked, referring
to the percussionist.

	"It's his psychic intuition," Jack said. "I believe him.


      * * * * * *



	Monday evening- Dmitri, David, and Redman slept three-in-a-bed with
Redman in the middle at Ben Hasek's home in Hibbing. Göran moved them to
Hibbing for their own safety.  Redman insisted that he was straight, but he
declined when Ben Hasek offered the use of a second spare bedroom. Dmitri
and David teased him with gropes and kisses in his pits, on his nips, in
the navel. He didn't protest when they sucked his cock and his
scrotum. With one male beauty on each side, how could he refuse? Erections
and scrota were fondled all around. Dmitri whispered something in David's
ear, and David said "Nah, he'll never go for that!" Redman asked what.

	"Dmitri said he'll kiss your butt if you kiss him back," David
said. "Do it and you can fuck both of us." Redman sprawled facedown and
arched while Dmitri nosed his cleft.  Afterward, Dmitri and David got side
by side on all fours. The spectacle of two sightly asses brought lust to
Redman. He kissed each butt briefly and said it was the best a straight man
could do. "Ah, come on, Redman, you can do better than that," David
protested. Redman rimmed reluctantly, and was rewarded with access to two
arched asses. He penetrated Dmitri first, then David.

	Neither Dmitri nor David fancied sex with a straight guy-a common
gay fantasy- but they didn't believe that Redman was as straight as he
claimed to be. They liked the novelty, too.  In doggie-position side by
side, they kissed and rubbed shoulders or arms, while Redman switched
between them like a buff-bellied hummingbird beak-bombing the crowning
whorls of Fructose and Glucose. They semi-embraced when Redman flattened
them face-down and alternated between them until his lust was satisfied.



      * * * * * *



	Back at Wayward Bay, Göran led Jack and Calvin down the path
along the lakeshore from the lodge to Jake Preston's cabin. Red Hawk met
them on the path, vested in deerskin beaded with Ojibwe symbols, and plain
deerskin trousers that complimented his figure. For the occasion, he
sported a headband with a single reddish-brown hawk feather.

	"Instead of viagra, we've got Cialis. It lasts longer. It's the
price of admission," Red Hawk said when they entered the kitchen. He
distributed the pills, and took one himself. "Never mind about the
whisky. I don't want anyone destabilized by booze in the sauna. We'll have
whisky later, along with peyote chips." He gestured toward thick, crudely
triangular chips piled in a tray on the kitchen counter.

	"We're having a peyote ritual?" Jack asked. He glanced at the
ceremonial carpet in front of the fireplace, ornamented with geometrical
symbols of four directions, wigwams and canoes, hunting scenes, war and
peace. The carpet shimmered in firelight.

	"A peyote ritual, yes, the shaman will be here soon, to make
everything legal," Red Hawk replied. He led Jack by the hand to the
fireplace, to view the carpet symbolism.

      "That's south by the fire, north where I'm standing, Manitou whirling
above Gitchee Gumee in northern skies, rivers and mountains, canoes,
wigwams, and hunting scenes marking the lay of the land," Jack said. "But
why does the Ojibwe scene stretch so far east of Gitchee Gumee, all the way
east to the Atlantic Ocean?"

      "See the little white scrolls at the eastern and western ends of the
scene?" Red Hawk pointed to the design on the carpet. "They signify that
the scene is historical. It traces the Anishinaabeg migration from the
Atlantic westward to their present location in the lands around Lake
Superior. Sixteenth century in the east, these symbols mean 'Waabanaking',
Land of Dawn, the original homeland of the Anishinaabeg. Seventeenth
century in the woodlands and plains west of the Cuyahoga River, eighteenth
century in Wisconsin and eventually north into Ontario and Manitoba, and
west into Minnesota. The Anishinaabeg were driven west by the Iroquois, who
expanded their territory in order to profit from the fur trade. Here's our
location, the Ashawa tribal band, and the Waabooz tribal band to the north
around Crane Lake. The scene is disproportionate geographically, because
it's not a map; it's a migration history."

      "Let me guess," Jack said, pointing to tomahawks and archery in the
western side of the carpet: "Here's where my people fought against yours,
until the 1870s or so."

      "Very good, Jack," Red Hawk said. He put a hand on Jack's
shoulder. "It's true, until the 1870s and 80s, the Lakota and the
Anishinaabeg were traditional enemies. More specifically, the Ojibwe and
the Oglala Sioux were traditional enemies- my tribe and your tribe,
Jack. I've searched the birch-bark scrolls for evidence of a formal peace
treaty. So far as I can tell, our tribes never passed the
peace-pipe. Technically, we're still at war, but we're here to make love."
Red Hawk swatted Jack on the rump and laughed.

      "I have an idea about that," Jack said. "We could arrange for a
calumet ceremony at the next Sumer Solstice Powwow. The Lakota elders would
love it! The other clans in North and South Dakota, too."

      "Dark Eagle will approve," Red Hawk said.

      "What happened in the 1870s and 80s was westward migration of
American settlers into Lakota territory. The Lakota entered into a sequence
of treaties- more than thirty treaties with the Americans, but the settlers
violated every last one of them. The Lakota continued fighting, but the
settlers and the U.S. Cavalry were their new enemies. It was the settlers
who violated the treaties, but the U.S. Government was forced to support
them against us. For the Americans, peace treaties were just another
instrument of war. In the meantime, the old conflicts between Oglala and
Ojibwe were moot," Jack said. "How strange that this story is never told in
history classes, not in high school, not even in college."

      "You're right about that, Jack," Red Hawk said. "As a result, for
Americans and even for Indians, the Indian Wars are not-knowledge, except
in Hollywood movies, which are mainly fiction. The contrast between Lakota
and Anishinaabeg is lost- the Lakota continued fighting for their lost
land, while the Anishinaabeg depended on treaties. They lost land, too,
especially in Canada, but they didn't lose as much land as the Lakota. The
Anishinaabeg fought on the side of the French during the French and Indian
War. After that, they sided with the British in Canada, and kept to
themselves in the U.S. After the Civil War, they stayed out of the Indian
Wars."

      "The Lakota were valiant warriors, and won many battles against the
Cavalry," Jack said.  "But their cause was doomed, because they never
understood the impact of the Civil War."

      "How's that?"- Calvin joined in the dialogue.

      "Because after 1865, most of the American settlers- they were called
'movers', not 'pioneers'- they were Civil War veterans, trained and
experienced in war," Jack replied. "And when the Atlantic-Pacific Railroad
came through in the 1870s, the settlers and the Cavalry had ready access to
munitions, which could be shipped by rail to Missouri and then sent north
on cavalry wagons. I wrote a paper about this, for an American History
course at Emory."

      "If we could get media attention for a peace-pipe ceremony at the
Summer Solstice Powwow, it would be a chance to publicize this history,"
Red Hawk said. "The Ojibwe Monument is well known. That's a place to
start."

      "Ojibwe, Anishinaabeg, what's the difference?" Calvin asked Red
Hawk. "Sometimes you use the words interchangeably, other times not."
Calvin had followed the dialogue closely, and he had a good
memory. Attention deficit disorder had never been one of his problems.

      "Sometimes 'Anishinaabeg' is used as another name for the 'Ojibwe',
at least in this part of the country," Red Hawk said. "That's the way
William Krueger uses the words in Iron Lake and in his other North Country
murder mysteries. But historically, 'Anishinaabeg' is the name for three
tribal groups that have the same ancestry: the Ojibwe in Minnesota and
western Canada, the Odawa in Kansas, and the Algonquin in eastern
Canada. Their languages are similar- more like dialects. They trace their
ancestry back to the Abenaki in New England and upstate New York. They call
the Abenaki their 'Fathers.' Abenaki has almost no modern speakers- it's
practically a dead language- but it's related to the Anishinaabeg dialects,
so it's possible that the Anishinaabeg tribes originally were part of the
Abenaki nation. That's the story we get from the wilgwaasabak- the
birch-bark scrolls. To add to the ambiguity, 'Algonquin' has a double
meaning, too. 'Algonquin' is the name of one of the three Anishinaabeg
nations, but 'Algonquian' is a collective name that linguists give to the
family of languages that includes Ojibwe, Odawa, Algonquin, and Abenaki."

      "That's the sort of confusion that creeps in when we let someone else
write our history," Jack said. "But the Indian nations have no cause to
complain. If American anthropologists hadn't written it, no one else would
have done. Instead of complaining, the best way to fix it is to start
writing our own history."

      "Amen!" Red Hawk exclaimed.

      "The birch-bark scrolls, what you call wilgwaasabak, do they still
exist?" Calvin asked.

      "They do," Red Hawk said. "I've got some scrolls here." He opened a
trunk and displayed them. He showed Calvin copies of his books, which
included transcripts and translations of some of the scrolls.

      Red Hawk invited Calvin to help him with the task of cutting balsam
boughs for the sauna. He explained the routine- a warm-up in the sauna, a
jump in the lake, then back to the sauna for a mutual massage with balsam
boughs. Calvin cut the boughs, while Red Hawk collected them. "What you
said about Ojibwe history- it sounds exciting to me," Calvin said.  "I've
been thinking about majoring in Philosophy, but maybe I should major in
History instead, if I could get into Indian history."

      "I've got some books I can give you, if that's what you want," Red
Hawk said, and changed the subject: "Göran tells me that you and Jack
are an item, and that you're new in the gay scene," Red Hawk said.

	"It's the first time I've had a boyfriend, if that's what you mean
by new," Calvin replied.

	"Göran also said that Jack identifies as a top, but with you
he's a bottom," Red Hawk said.

	"He said that?"

	"It wasn't idle gossip," Red Hawk replied. "Since we're planning to
play as a foursome, it's good to know something about each other-at least
the basics. For example, it's important to know you're a Twinkie Top."

	"Twinkie Top?" Calvin wondered.

	"Some guys would say 'androgynous' or 'epicene'," Red Hawk said,
"but those words are too feminish. 'Twinkie tops' can include epicenes, but
also masculine nerds, outside the limits of gay stereotypes."

	Calvin looked dubious. He continued clipping balsam boughs and
handing them to Red Hawk, who continued- "Do you know a novel by the Cuban
writer Reinaldo Arenas, called The Color of Summer?"

      "No."

      "Well, it's a satirical novel about Fidel Castro, his persecution of
gay men, how he tossed them in El Morro prison and in concentration camps,
and how a gay man had to depend on his wits and ironic humor to survive. In
one of the chapters in The Color of Summer, a cross-dresser named
SuperChalo gives a lecture on the four categories of tops. First there's
the Occasional Top who's a homophobic family man except on days when he's
horny enough to hump a twink in the toilets or in a city park. Second is
the Complexified Top- a guilt-ridden family man who can't control his
impulse to fuck twinks on a regular basis. Third is the Natural Top who's a
loud- mouth, scar-faced, tough, pugnacious bully, and can't seem to keep
his hands off his crotch.  Fourth is the Machobug who fucks other Tops but
wouldn't dream of fucking a fairy. All four categories are macho
hunks. Arenas doesn't allow for the possibility of Twinkie Tops. Is that
because Cubans are so machismo-myopic that they think all tops are titans?"

      "Possibly," Calvin said. "You have the advantage of me, since I
haven't read Arenas, but shouldn't you allow for the possibility that these
are Chelo's categories, and not Arenas's? The name is satirical: Chelo
falls somewhere between cholo, a derogatory epithet for a half-breed, and
chulo, a jester, a fool, or a rascal."

      "Maybe you're right," Red Hawk mused. "The main point of Chelo's
comical lecture is that macho Tops couldn't exist if it weren't for
'fairies'- that's his cover-term for bottom-boys, and he includes himself
in that group. Even so, he omits Twinkie Tops- a fifth category- who can
range anywhere from one to ten on the macho-scale, from androgynous fems to
bantam pugilists."

      "You could apply the same decade-scale to bottoms," Calvin said-"from
feminish Ganymedes to body-building hunks. I'd rank Göran as a seven or
an eight. He looks and acts like a top, and he can perform as a top when
his partner wants him to, but when he has his druthers, he takes it up the
ass."

      "And Jack? Where would you rank Jack?" Red Hawk asked.

      "On a scale from one to ten, he's a twelve," Calvin said. "At heart
he's a top, but he'll bottom for the right guy."

      "And the right guy isn't necessarily a stud," Red Hawk interjected."

      "I'd say that for Jack, the right guy is never a stud," Calvin
replied. "He fucks Göran, because Göran is bigger and stronger than
him, though not by much. On the whole, Jack doesn't seem to like screwing
with a guy who seems a mirror image of himself. Lucky for me, I'm not at
all like him!"

      "You haven't yet met Dmitri Zarvopoulos or David Gabrioli, have you?"
Red Hawk said.  "We've got them hidden in Hibbing, away from Deputy
Nelson. Dmitri is a bit like Jack, and David's a bit like Göran, except
that the differences between them are more subtle, since they're both
Mediterranean types- a Greek and a Spanish Jew... Sephardic. David's a
Sephardic Jew."

	"That means he's a citizen of Spain, too, as of last February 7,"
Calvin said.

	"Really? How can that be?" Red Hawk asked.

	"The Cortes Generalis in Spain passed a law granting dual
citizenship to all the descendants of Jews who were expelled by Ferdinand
and Isabella in 1492-about three and a half million Jews. I'm an Akenazi
Jew, so it doesn't apply to me," Calvin said.