Last Rodeo

"OK," he said, as if the doctor had solved his problems rather than raised other ones. Kit really wanted to be with the rodeo to be close to Rodeo Bob. It didn't occur to him that moving into the doctor's wagon would mark him in the rodeo community as being the property of the doctor.

"You understand what I mean by sleeping in my wagon with me, don't you kit?"

"Yes, I think so. It means you're going to fuck me in your bed but then not make me sleep on the floor."

"Oh, jesuzzz, Mary, and Jehovah," Pender exclaimed.

* * * *

Everything was cooking along just fine for Kit in his estimation down through Colorado and into New Mexico. Rodeo Bob had only had a couple of nights to give to Kit, but what he gave in terms of a fuck left Kit humming like no one else could. Kit wanted nothing more than to be with Rodeo Bob, and although it wasn't happening enough for him, it was happening.

Hank gave him a pretty rough time, but Rodeo Bob was calling the shots, and Hank was getting most of the nights. Kit actually enjoyed working with the horses. They reacted well to him and he'd shoveled shit all his life, both literally and figuratively, and the atmosphere of the rodeo was just too exhilarating for Kit to resent doing it here. Even though Doc fucked him once or twice a night when Kit wasn't with Rodeo Bob, Kit considered it a low price for having a place to sleep, and Doc didn't give him grief about Rodeo Bob doing anything he wanted with him.

Some others, seeing how slow Kit was and how much he put up with while still maintaining a cheery disposition and an aura of innocence, talked among themselves, though, about how much advantage Rodeo Bob and the doctor were taking of him.

Once even, in the wee hours of the morning of the third day in Santa Fe, when Black Tex saw Kit coming out of Rodeo Bob's wagon, while Howling Hank sat across the compound and glared daggers at the wagon door, Tex pulled Kit aside.

"You know he's just using you, don't you?" Tex said. "And Doc too. They're just taking advantage of you."

"I know I'm a bit slow," Kit answered. "But I'm getting what I want. I want to be with the rodeo and I want to be near Rodeo." Kit had gotten on a first-name basis with the rodeo star, but he hadn't grasped that his given name was Bob, not Rodeo. The others sniggered at that, and some mimicked him behind his back, but if Kit noticed, he hadn't said anything or reacted defensively. It was part of the reason Tex had pulled him aside. He was conflicted. The young man was gorgeous and he'd like a piece of him himself, but he was letting people make a dupe of him.

"But they are fucking you—Bob and the doctor—and people are making fun of you for just laying on your back and opening your legs for them. You're better than that. You deserve better than them."

"I like to be fucked," Kit said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to say. "Rodeo has the greatest cock in the world and Doc P is good to me. I'm doin' what I want to do."

"Others could think they can fuck you too, though. You could wind up giving it to everyone."

"I don't mind. If I like them, I'd let them fuck me. I like to be fucked."

Black Tex couldn't help himself; Kit was just too luscious and open to it. "Do you like me?" he asked in a low-pitched, husky voice.

"Yes. I've been wondering about brown men. I been told they have really big ones."

Black Tex fucked Kit against a wall on the dark side of the wagon, pressing Kit's back against the wall, with Kit's arms around Tex's neck and his legs hooked on Tex's hips. Kit found that Black Tex might not be as thick as Rodeo Bob was, but that what they said was true about his length.

Still in position and nuzzling afterward, Black Tex asked Kit if he'd let him do it again sometime.

"Sure, anytime I'm not with Rodeo or Doc P," he answered. And he would have been happy with Tex's long cock inside him again if what happened during the rodeo later that afternoon didn't happen.

Everything was as usual, except that maybe Rodeo Bob had a more recalcitrant bull than usual. The bull sure as hell didn't like to have Rodeo Bob on his back, and he wasn't the least impressed with the antics of the clowns.

When he threw Rodeo Bob off his back to the gasp of the audience and the clowns tried to distract him from the fallen rider, the bull circled around quickly, took a run at Bob, and gored him in the back with one of his horns as Bob was trying to rise. Bob went down again in a heap. The bull backed off, went into a tight circle, and faced Bob again. It pawed the ground, huffed through its nose, and lowered its horns, preparing to charge again.

Men were pouring into the ring to help. Kit was among them. The others went for the bull to try to distract it. Kit went to Bob and covered his body with his own.

The distraction worked, though. The bull turned its head and steamed over toward the edge of the ring—and into the corral set up for the animals and riders to enter and leave the ring.

The manager, Stan; Howling Hank; and Kit were all at the hospital in Santa Fe while they were working on Rodeo Bob.

When the doctor came out of the operating room, he gave the three men a gloomy stare and said, "Mr. Crandell will live. But there was nerve damage. He will be able to stand again—with support—but he won't be able to walk again. And he certainly can't ride. This was Mr. Crandell's last rodeo riding the bulls, I'm afraid."

Hank muttered an, "Oh, shit," which was echoed by the rodeo manager. Kit just looked confused.

"Sorry to hear that about Mr. Crandell," he said, "but how is Rodeo?"

The doctor gave Kit a confused look. Hank uttered, "Fuck," and stood and stomped off. It took a few minutes for Stan to explain the situation to Kit, who then broke down in tears.

Stan and the doctor discussed hospitalization and treatment. The doctor said that Bob needed to have a private nurse for a while—mostly to be there and help keep Bob comfortable—but that the wound would heal quickly. The long-term paralysis in his legs wouldn't. There was no reason why he couldn't be released within a couple of weeks. But Bob would need extra help in the hospital.

Kit lifted his head and said, "I'll stay with him."

"Kit," Stan said. "It'll be tough on anyone who's caring for him. I don't know about paying for an extra nurse, but—"

"I'll stay with him," Kit repeated, his voice laced with determination. "I want to stay with him."

And stay with him, Kit did. Bob was understandably angry and bitter about what had happened to him and how his career—and, to him, his life—were over. Before taking the rodeo on to Albuquerque, Stan assured him that the hospital expenses would be covered and that there would still be a job for him in the rodeo when he could return to it. They still needed that second ringmaster and the doctor had said that, if Bob were braced, he could stand in the ringmaster's box well enough. At all other times, though, he'd have to be in a wheelchair or a bed.

Rodeo Bob wasn't assuaged. He railed and groused at everyone in the hospital, Kit more than others, because it was Kit who was there, with him, all of the time. At some point Kit was doing almost everything for Bob because the hospital staff was tired of putting up with the abuse.

But Kit put up with the abuse—with a smile on his face.

When the two left the hospital, it was Kit who the hospital staffers wished well to and their regrets that he was leaving, not Rodeo Bob.

The moment after Kit lifted Bob's wheelchair up through the door of his wagon when they rejoined the rodeo in El Paso and started to come up the steps himself, Bob turned, backed up the wheelchair, and cried out, "Get the fuck away from me. Just leave me alone. Everyone leave me alone. Just let me die."

Howling Hank seemed quite willing to just leave Rodeo Bob alone. He'd found another rider to shack up with and made no effort to visit Bob.

It was Kit who delivered Bob's meals and took away the chamber pot and who, when he wasn't working with the horses, sat in a chair beside the door to Bob's wagon and waited.

People would pass the wagon by, cluck their tongues, and give Kit a sympathetic look. When they had walked past, though, they more often than not looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "What a dummy," some of them even said.

Kit told Doctor Pender that he'd be staying in Bob's wagon with him when Bob wanted him and he hoped that the doctor understood.

"I understand," Doc Pender said, knowing and valuing the effort Kit was making and acknowledging the deep affection for and loyalty to Bob that this represented, "but it could be a good long time before he realizes he isn't going to die just because he wants to and that he needs the help."

"I can wait," Kit said.

He didn't actually have long to wait. The fifth night in El Paso, Bob fell out of his bed and couldn't get back in again. He lay on the floor for hours, hitting bottom in his anger and frustration. But the only direction he could go from there, because he didn't die there on the floor, was up. Near dawn, he called out, "Kit!" and Kit was there in an instant.

Kit sat Bob up on the side of the bed and cleaned him up with a wet cloth. He sat down beside Bob and held him in his arms.

"I'm good for nothing," Bob said in a dull monotone, accompanied by a sob. "I might as well die. Nothing works. I'm good for nothing."

"Not true," Kit whispered. "You still have a job. You'll be a ringmaster. And your legs still work a bit. But the best of you still works and hasn't been exercised in weeks."

"What? What do you mean?"

Kit showed Bob what he meant by moving his hand into the fly of Bob's skivvies and pulling his cock out. He stroked it as Bob began to moan and pant hard.

"It works, doesn't it?" Kit asked. He turned his face to Bob's and they kissed, Bob tentatively as first and then, as he lengthened, thickened, and hardened, hungrily.

Tears were in Bob's eyes. "You're too good to me. You're too good for me now. I can't . . . the others will be after you to . . . and they'll be right."

"Fuck the others," Kit answered, having no interest in seeing anything complex in this.

"You'll wake up some day. You just don't know . . ."

"Never. Shush now and fuck me."

"How?"

Kit showed him how. He stood up from the bed, lowered his trousers and skivvies, tore off his shirt, and lowered himself on Bob's staff, coming down on the bed with knees on either side of Bob's hips. He wrapped his arms around Bob's head, pulling the man's mouth into his nipples.

Bob let out a sob as Kit began to rise and fall on the cock.