Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Not intended to infringe on any "the Fugitive" copyrights anywhere and
anyhow.  Please don't sue us--we just did this for fun.



   Chapter One

   Wild Horses



   "So, pipsqueak, you don`t look any uglier than usual," Nico said,
tapping a fist to the top of Cosmo`s head in the traditional Brothers
Renfro ceremonial salute.  "How's the brat pack doin`?  Everything okay on
your end?"

   Awake, he wouldn't have easily remembered his oldest brother's living
face.  Asleep, the youngest Renfro brother knew the eldest one instantly.
In Cosmo's own distant youth, Nicodemus had appeared so mature and worldly
wise.  Dead now for decades, his brother's face now seemed so tragically
young.  Almost like he were Cosmo's kid brother, rather than his eldest.

   "Yeah, great.  We`re all great," he heard himself say in the dream.  He
looked around at the scene - a little east Hoboken bar in which he'd
slugged down his first beer with Nico's borrowed ID.  The bar in life had
fallen under the business end of a wrecking ball ages ago.  "Hey, I'm
dreamin' here, right?  What is this?"

   "No, you're not dreamin'.  You always wake up talkin' to a dead guy in a
place that ain`t been here in years.  Yes, moron, you're dreamin'."

   "Give it a rest, I figured as much.  So, how about you, dipshit?  How`s
the... afterlife treatin` ya?"

   Nico laughed, shrugged.  "You wouldn't understand if I told ya, you
know? It's all good.  Isn't that what you guys say these days?  In my day
it was bitchin'....  you know, hey, that's bitchin'.  So yeah, it's all
good and it's bitchin'.  Look at you, though, all grown up.  A middle-aged
man now with some gray in your hair, with a career and a family yet.  I
missed all that, you growin' up.  Shit, I missed so much, ya know?"

   Cosmo nodded.  "Hell, I miss you now.  I wish to hell and back you were
here right about now, in fact.  Jesus, these days I could really use your
advice."

   Nico thumped his little brother`s head again.  "What?  Do I look like
the Ghost of Christmas Past to you?  Why do you think I`m sittin` here?"

   Cosmo broadcast his smokescreen of a blinding smile.  "Thought maybe you
were keeping me from some occasion of sin or something with some hot dream
babe, right?"

   Nicodemus shook his figurative head.  "Listen to you.  Who are you
talkin' to here?  You'd be dreamin' about your Texas stud muffin and you
know it.  And lucky you, you don't have to play tonsil roulette in order to
be with the man you love.  But no, you're bein' an altar boy, trying to act
all macho grande.  You're hiding behind Marisa, when the obvious solution
isn't that hard to figure out."

   "Now you sound like Richard Kimble..."

   "So you tell me, what do you think Mari'd rather have?  A whole, living
Cosmo who also has a male friend?  Or a fucked up and suicidal man she has
to herself?  Marisa will learn to understand."

   "The problem ain't Mari." He shook his head at himself as much as anyone
in the course of the dream.  "Marisa understands.  Marisa always
understands.  I just can't do it to her.  She married me thinking one
thing. It's not fair for me to turn around and do this to her now."

   "Isn't that what always happens?  Don't you always get married thinkin'
one thing and somethin' else happens?  Put like that, what's fair about
what society did to you?"

   "Society, my ass.  I did it to myself."

   "No, you didn't, Cos.  We didn't ask to be born as we are.  Anyway, this
resistance shit ain't about what's fair to Marisa.  You know you'd figure
out something with her.  This is about you being terrified of what you`re
feeling.  About you kissing on your hunky stud muffin in your dreams,
right?"

   "Don't call him a stud muffin.  Trust me, it doesn't fit."

   "Well, isn't that what`s been keeping you awake nights?"

   In his sleep, Cosmo didn't have to pretend.  He even laughed a little.
"In my sleep is the only time I totally admit to it, ya know?  Walkin'
around, I try to convince myself this is my imagination.  I had this whole
fucking elaborate theory worked out.  I mean, I know it`s complete
bullshit, but I gotta have something to tell them, right?"

   "Yeah.  Been there, done that."

   "Yeah, but with me, we're not talkin' six years, like with you and
Robbie.  I been with Sam forever.  How do you live for decades with your
heart so completely full of something and not know it?  It gnaws at me
every day in a hundred ways I can`t even tell you.  I burn for him all the
freakin' time... It's why I can't go back there.  I get anywhere near him
and that's all she wrote.  I mean, I know it.  It's written in blood.  And
all this has been hiding in me all these years.  But where?"

   Nico tapped his beer in the dream.  "Remember when Pop started drinking?
You knew it as well as any of us, but you didn't want to see it, so you
didn't.  You explained it away as other things.  And Sam had his guy so it
made it a non-issue.  But it's always been there.  You know that."

   "Yeah, yeah...I know that," Cosmo said.

   Nico nodded again.  "And I think that's the way this love stuff is
supposed to be.  The real thing...this kind of love...is like gravity. 
There's no defying it.  I couldn't have lived without Robbie any more than
I could eat without swallowing.  You're not gonna be able to live without
Sam."

   "Yeah, well, really, I'm dreamin' here.  So basically, I'm talkin' to
myself.  I would give myself that excuse wouldn't I?  Even if I agreed with
that, how in hell am I supposed to do it?  I'm so fuckin' embarrassed I
can't even face Sam.  I can`t even bring myself to call him..."

   "You`ll find a way.  You miss him like you'd miss your fuckin' feet."

   "Of course I do." Cosmo shook his head.  "But aside from that, Sam`s got
Richard now.  I mean, I'd be imposing myself.  Sam just feels obligated
because I spilled my guts like I did."

   "Oh, there's convenient self-pity for you, Brother Superchicken.  What
is it I remember about some Christmas party where Calder Whathisface got
blasted to his sneakers and had a hissy fit in your specific direction?  He
told you Sam had a thing for you."

   "Naw, Cal told me the next morning he was bullshitting."

   "He lied.  He could get practically apoplectic when it came to you and
Sam, and you know it.  You`re the only man in Sam`s world he was fuckin`
jealous of and you know that, too.  The good thing about all this is
Richard's a lot more open-minded about this stuff, and he thinks you're
adorable.  I mean, gag me with a maggot ... no accountin' for taste, right?
All that said, I gotta fly.  Literally.  Me and Robbie have a date for
something you wouldn't understand if I told you about it."

   Cosmo surrendered up a smile he couldn't help but give him.  "You two
together over there, huh?"

   "We've always been together.  Hint, hint, hint.  Oh, before I forget,
everybody over here sends their love.  Tell my oldest that this latest
boyfriend of hers is actually maybe sorta worthy of her...okay, almost. 
Let Delph know he's still my little wussy brother even if he is a hotshot
priest.  Plus tell Richard that Helen says there's still the bonds in the
savings lock box at the old bank.  Not their newer one, but the old one. 
He keeps forgetting to look."

   "I'll tell Gina and Delph.  If I ever see Sam and Richard again..." His
voice trailed off sadly for a moment.  "Well, then I'll tell `em about the
bank thing, too."

   Nico looked deeply into his eyes for a final time, then let up a loud
laugh.  "If you ever see `em again.  Man, are you in denial.  Here's a
little news flash from the future - you're going to see them again.  See a
lot of them.  Okay, now time to wake up, squirt.  You slept half the day
away already."

   He didn't know if the dream had ended and then he'd awoken, or if he'd
dreamed all that in the night and only with the day, awoke.  His feet
dangling off the edge of their otherwise empty bed, he leaned forward to
look through the door into Alec's room.  Empty bed.  Schoolbook bag missing
off its mounted wall peg.  Jacket off the door.  No doubt, both the kids
were at school.  And Marisa was driving her own forty head of grade
schoolers toward the middle of their day.

   It felt so weird...so fucking weird...to be here.  He should be sitting
around the office making paper airplanes while they awaited the spill of
reports.  Marshal schedules happened in fits and waves.  Between them fell
long hours of doldrums - fighting to stay focused, then suddenly the call
came in and they were running off in a new direction.

   God, he missed it.  Missed them.

   Missed him.

   Once again, he reached for the phone, dialed through the main office
number that Sam never answered, and waited for the voice mail to pick up.
Just to hear his fuckin' voice.  What a loser you are, Cossi.  Renfro
reveled for a hard, deep moment in his daily recorded dose.  He held the
receiver a moment against his chest.  He slowly slid the receiver away to
hang up the line with a sad, expectant thud.

   The heart's a traitor, it plots our woe, it beats away the measure of
our lives, gives away the secrets of our lies... makes of sympathies our
enemies...

   Okay, he'd been reading a lot of crap poetry lately.

   He walked from the bed to the window, staring out at the alien light of
day.  This wasn't his time to be here...the whole of this most familiar
world glimmered with an unfamiliar shine.  Everyone seemed to have
somewhere to go... something to do... some point to be... some one to
see... everyone but him.

   The Frisbees were tomorrow.  Then his life's driveshaft would engage. 
Realign.  Make sense.  Somehow.

   He showered and dressed and shuffled through his morning of weak margins
and wavy lines, then found himself staring out the backdoor into what
passed for their yard.  He stepped out onto the little patio, where
collected the odds and ends of previous seasons.

   He could see over the foliage barrier, down into the small slip alley
between their little district row house and the next.  Nothing.  Nothing
and no one.  The world was a restrictive quiet with a dull roar of TV far
beyond.

   "Mr.  Renfro!" A voice splashed down on him like last night's water from
a high window.

   Mrs.  Crabtree: she who watched from her own little reviewing stand the
unfolding drama of the neighborhood.  The neighborhood kids called her the
Sentinel.  Renfro himself had some other more adventurous names for her.

   "Hi, Mrs.  Crabtree," he said, looking up at her through the sun.  It
made the irritable scowl on his face more permissible.

   "Mr.  Renfro, what in the world is this I hear about your leaving the
Marshal's Service?"

   Wonderful.  Now he was getting lit into by the neighborhood old
battleaxe Grand Poobah.

   "Yeah, well, you know how it goes... things weren't going so good for me
there, so I left.  It was time.  Going to the FBI now.  Tomorrow, in fact."

   Her face always looked like she had just smelled something bad, but this
time she managed to display even greater distaste.  "J.  Edgar Hoover was a
cross-dresser, you know."

   "Yeah, so they say."

   "You have children, Mr.  Renfro.  That doesn't disturb you?"

   "Not really.  Besides, he's been dead for, like, three hundred years."

   "Even so," she said sharply.  "I would like to go on record as
officially against this choice of yours."

   And I would like to go on record as not giving a flying fuck, Mrs. 
Crabtree.

   By some small miracle, his phone rang.

   "I'll be sure to mark you down as a no," he said, standing.  "Got a
phone call.  See ya later."

   "Think of it, Mr.  Renfro," she called out in closing, "a
cross-dresser."

   Oh, what the hell.

   "Yeah, well," he said before he dragged shut the screen door, "Long as
he don't borrow my bra and panties, I don't mind."

   The door smacked the frame like a period on the end of a compound
sentence.

   He grabbed up the phone.  His heart hammered a moment in equal parts
terror and anticipation until he realized it was time for Marisa's daily
check-in.  Her herd was grazing and she had time for a sandwich and a quick
call home.

   "Renfro's," he said, lightly, still not entirely sure who it might be.

   "This is your wife," she said quickly, to assuage his concerns.  "In
case you ever wondered, it is possible for a seven year old boy to eat an
entire cup of paste.  Why is another matter altogether.  Anyway, I have to
tell you something, some officious-sounding android from the Bureau called
on the cell line.  I brought it with me, just in case."

   "What the hell did they want?"

   "Before you go to Dearborn for the orientation tomorrow, they want you
to stop off in mid-city to see some cardiologist, Doctor Galouzis.  It's
about the stupid benign heart murmur again."

   "Again?  Jesus, Dr.  Harvey faxed all that shit over to 'em!  I've had
the frickin' thing since I was six months old!  We gotta deal with this
now?"

   "I know!  I told them.  They say it's just a technicality.  Humor `em,
okay?  Once he clears you, then you're on your way over to Dearborn.  At
least the doctor is Greek, right?"



   "I don't care if he's a talking German Shepherd." He shook his head at
the ceiling.  "Alright, no getting around it, I guess."

   "Exactly.  Good.  And now," she said, audibly inhaling.  "There`s one
more person I want you to talk to.  You have a visitor - no, not Sam or
anyone from the Marshal.  I won't tell you who because you won't answer the
door if I do.  Just answer the door.  And talk to him.  For me."

   Cosmo exhaled down to the air in his socks.  "C'mon, Mari..."

   Then she said the magic words again: "For me?"

   Hell, why not?  Like your day has gone All Aces so far?  Yeah, but all
he needed now was a fistful of 8's.

   "Okay, okay," he said, carrying the cordless with him to the front door.
He looked through the peephole to see an eye staring in.  "So far, he's the
amazing giant eyeball.  Who is it?"

   "My darling man, have I not been your best friend since Pat Kinsella
tried to eat your bowl turtle Pugsley and I rescued him...Pugsley, not
Kinsella, I mean... "

   Cosmo laughed through the phone, still staring through the peephole. 
"Yeah, yeah, you're my superhero."

   "Not super, just someone who speaks from a heart that loves you.  I. 
Love.  You.  ...not some idea of you, or some preconceived thought of you,
but you.  Ah, how we could wax philosophic back in the day.  You remember
those words?"

   Cosmo couldn't have smiled more brightly if he'd tried.  "I'd better. 
You jackhammered `em into my brain.  From our wedding vows.  So what`s that
got to do with the giant eyeball guy?"

   "Just this.  I want you to talk to him.  For me."

   "You sure it`s not -- ?"

   "I promise!  I promise on Pugsley's immortal bowl turtle soul, okay?  I
gotta go now.  Colin's eyeing the crayons for an appetizer.  Love ya," she
said, and the phone clicked away.

   He released the line; left the receiver on the hallway table.

   He opened the door.

   He felt a flood of happy surprise at who it was, wrapped around
significant relief and a damned weird ripple of regret that it wasn`t
somebody else.

   Renfro glared playfully at the tall man before him - a taller, beardless
version of himself in casual priest gear and summer-weight cassock.  The
taller man was grinning at him, wiggling his fingers in a coy greeting wave
while he reached out a fist and tapped Cosmo's head in the ritual greeting
of all men born into the Family Renfro.

   Cosmo grinned back.  "Well, look at what some cat dragged onto our
doorstep, a big ugly ratface.  I might have known you were part of this."

   "Hey, mind your manners, shithead.  People see you yelling at a priest,
they don`t take it so well.  Even in Illinois.  They don't know you're my
putrid baby brother."

   "They can tell we're related by lookin' at us, I`m ashamed to admit."
Cosmo slid aside in the door.  "Come in if you're staying.  You make me
nervous with your ears scratching the sky there."

   "Yeah and you're still too short for the grown-up rides.  Actually, I
was gonna see if you wanted to grab some lunch.  Somewhere cheap for a
hungry man with a vow of poverty."

   "Like I won't be stuck with the check?  Sure, why not?  The Umbrella
Diner next door okay?"

   "I thought it was called the Parasol."

   "It was.  New guy bought it, didn't want to change the sign."

   "Kind of like the early Church Fathers," Delph said, laughing.



   Cosmo, with Delph, was immediately greeted and the two of them speedily
seated at one of the large booths that ringed the glass-walled front.  The
waitress smiled hugely, brought them both water, and left them with new
open menus.

   "Eating with you is like dining with Sinatra, I swear to god.  I eat
here once a week and I never get service like this."

   "It's the collar," he said, shrugging.  "It's like the Shadow.  Has the
power to cloud men's minds and render everyone else invisible."

   As if proof, the waitress appeared again, order book in hand.  "What can
I get you, Father?"

   "Chicken salad," Delph said to her, smiling.  He added to Cosmo, "I've
got to watch my cholesterol...again."

   "Just some tea, I guess," Cosmo told her before the waitress sped away.

   "That adds another worry to the ever-growing list," the priest said,
sampling his water with an unhappy expression.  "You're not eating.  You've
lost ten pounds easy.  You look like day-old crap... not to say that isn't
an improvement.  I hear you're not sleeping much either.  All that said,
I`ll bet you've guessed why I'm here."

   "I thought maybe Sign of the Ascension finally threw you outta Jersey."

   "No, I drove six hundred miles in that Tilt-a-whirl of a parish car to
chew your ugly butt awhile.  So stop hedging and start talking.  Spill,
little brother."

   "I'm fine!" Cosmo said, as if turning up the volume might make the words
easier to believe.  "I just changed jobs, Delph.  Aren't people allowed to
change jobs?"

   "You didn't change jobs, Cos, you shot like a rocket out of the work of
your life.  Away from people you'd spent decades with.  That seems to be
the worrying thing."

   "No one should worry.  I'm headed over tomorrow to the Fed`s
orientation. More money, more prestige, less bullshit.  That's my big, sad
story.  Everything`s fine, alright?"

   "Maybe.  But you're here... I'm here.  You have to know I'm gonna talk
some.  I'll take off the God collar, if you want."

   Cosmo shrugged with an air of nothing but uncertainty.  "Naw, leave it
on.  I can't see past your fright mask anyway."

   Adelphos leaned back in the booth, to meet his brother's eyes.  "Look, I
have a... theory of what's going on with you.  No one's around.  Only the
salt and pepper can hear us.  I'd like to just ask you a direct question.
It's because you're my kid brother and I love you and I know you real well,
okay?  Maybe it's instinct or somethin'.  This is just my theory - Mari
didn't mention it and I've said nothing about it to her."

   "Yeah, yeah," Cosmo said, bracing himself for the utterly unknown and
yet strangely half-expected.

   "Okay.  You don't have to tell me obviously.  And you know this is
strictly between us, no matter what you tell me.  And keep in mind you
haven't lied to me -- that I know of -- since you broke my Elysian Fields
Night Games Electric Baseball set when I was 15.  But I'm asking ya.... 
straight out... is there somebody else?"

   Suddenly, Cosmo reconsidered that whole thing about telepathy.

   He retained his poker face and added a grin.  "No, Delph, I swear to
God, I'm not seeing another priest."

   "Can the sarcasm, Cossi.  You know what I mean."

   Renfro avoided his brother`s level stare for a moment.  "What makes you
even think that?"

   Adelphos shrugged.  "Twenty years in the oblong box maybe, who knows?  I
get hunches now and then, like Ma's old rain knee, remember?  So, is that
it?  Level with me.  It's someone else?"

   Renfro exhaled, relieved at the release of pressure in his head, but not
enough to go beyond that point.  "Look, I just got mixed up for awhile.  It
was stupid stuff.  I'm with Mari.  You know me.  I'm just... getting
over... some pretty... powerful hallucinations that I thought I had.  It
was a traumatic illusion or something.  Nothing happened.  I didn't...
sleep with anybody else, okay?  I'll get past this.  No worries."

   "And this is someone from work?" Adelphos asked.

   Cosmo finally nodded a little.  "Yeah.  You know, you should take this
act on the road.  I'm not kiddin'.  Kreskin's got competition now."

   "No mentalist trick, believe me, it's from counseling people.  You're
telling me... or not telling me... you fell madly in love with someone at
work.  You left because you thought you would act on those feelings."

   "It's more complex than that, but that'll do for a thumbnail sketch,
yeah.  But it`s over.  It`s history.  Okay?"

   Adelphos exhaled his own relief.  "Thank God.  Literally.  Uncle Thanos
got it in his head you might be dealing drugs.  He's been watching too many
of these cop reality shows."

   "You think this is better?" Cosmo said, amazed.

   "Hell, yeah.  This isn't your health.  The current familial popular
theory was that you had a terminal disease... this came courtesy of Aunt
Florida, who has been watching too much Lifetime television, I'm thinkin'.
Don't worry; I'm the only one who suspected the potential infidelity angle.
Nobody would ever think that of you... you'd be the last person, you know?"

   Cosmo nodded, chuckled.  He relaxed a little.  Someone on his own side
with whom he could talk... or almost talk... about this.  Someone who was
not dead and gone and haunting his dreams.

   "Okay, Father Brother, that's the story, but it's all over.  You
satisfied?"

   Delph puckered up his face in relative uncertainty.  "I would be if I
thought you weren't lying to yourself.  If it's over, why are you still
messed up?  Why not go back to work?  Why sit here fidgeting with your
napkin?"

   He let the napkin go.  "I don't know.  I just feel awkward, I guess. 
And maybe, you know, it's time to move on."

   Lunch arrived with a waitress smile and then they were left alone again.

   "That collar thing is like some magic totem or other," Cosmo said,
smirking.

   "Sometimes," Delph said, spearing chicken with a fork, tasting it
tentatively.  "Okay, those were the Larry King questions.  Here comes the
hardballs.  You've been friends with or dating or engaged or married to
Marisa since you were a kid.  Literally.  You ever been with other people
in all that time?  Do you even know what it feels like anymore?"

   "My brother the priest is asking me this question?"

   "Yeah, yeah, but I got reason with you.  So answer."

   "Yeah, before Mari and I got engaged, I went out with a lot of girls,
sure.  Marisa and I broke up, we went back together, I dated in between and
a few times not in-between, I must admit.  I never fell in love with any of
`em, but sure, I mean, I was a normal adolescent male."

   "So how do you know what it even feels like anymore?  That's one of the
sweetest moments I remember from your wedding... when you said you'd loved
Marisa so long, you couldn't remember when you didn't love her.  So if
you've always loved Mari, how do you know that what you feel for this
person... okay, what you felt... isn't real?"

   "How do you know, Father?" Cosmo asked, with a gesture as if inspiring
the gods to send him down a side order of patience on the double.

   "Because, falling in love with the Church isn't so different from
falling in love with a person.  Don't give me that look - it isn`t.  You
remember, I was a big stupid jock, right?  My life goal was a great jump
shot.  After my calling, I had purpose.  This love was palpable... I had no
doubt about it... none.  It overcame me and my other little passions quite
simply because nothing could stand in its way.  There was just nowhere to
go but toward that love.  Resisting it was impossible... and pointless.  It
felt like I had been created for this love.  It was like some big, cosmic
bear hug of a force."

   Cosmo's stare relented, wandering through the window to the open summer
sidewalk... to the small bird fountain and its tiny reflected sun.  It
reminded him of the last six months... one constant illusion he fought to
sustain that everything was wonderful... that life was alright.

   He hid his face behind a hand for a long moment.  After the moment, he
brushed something off his face with the back of a finger.

   "I just described what you're going through," Delph said with a smile of
sympathetic sadness, "haven't I?"

   "Yeah," Cosmo said, sniffing, his voice still struggling with sound. 
When he spoke next, he sounded like a man trapped somewhere between
determination and doubt.  "What I went through.  Past tense.  Gone. 
History.  For weeks, I was just swept up in this wave half the frickin'
time, and the rest of the time, I'm dying against the rocks....  "

   "You said I'm dying against the rocks," Delph said.  "Present tense. 
Not gone.  Still here."

   "Don't go Father Freud on me, okay?  This person is in my past.  This
person has to be in my past." Cosmo's eyes shut a moment, as if invoking
resolve.  "I'm with Mari.  Only.  Not... the... person I was talking
about."

   When Cosmo looked back, he realized his now oldest brother was gazing at
him steadily, as if trying to see behind his eyes.

   "Cosmo," Delph said.  "Just then, you were struggling like hell to not
use a pronoun.  And when I asked you what I first asked you, you said it's
more complex than that.  So, I'm thinking... I mean, I`m just asking... "
His voice paused as if before a series of shadowy corners.  "Is it a guy?"

   Cosmo had to look away again before he answered.  He'd gone this far...
why not the rest?

   "Yeah, Delph.  It was a man."

   Adelphos hesitated before speaking.  "Thanks for answering that honestly
anyway...  Dear God, Cossi... " His words sounded like bits of sympathy
broken off before the end of a sentence.

   Cosmo frowned.  "So what's this?  I'm talkin' to the priest now?"

   "Oh, the worry is from your big brother... We already lived through this
once with Nicodemus.  It's hard enough to be an up-right man in a
knuckle-walking world without adding another target.  I already lost my big
brother.  I'm not sacrificing my baby brother, too.  Being gay in this - "

   "I'm not gay," Cosmo said quickly, sharply, looking around to see no one
was listening.  "Lets just get this settled.  I'm no homophobe okay... but
it's a one-time thing.  I mean, it would be, if it was real.  And if it
wasn't over.  Which it is."

   His brother the priest put forth a warm and gently wondering smile. 
"It's Sam Gerard, isn't it?"

   Renfro`s gaze snapped around in his brother`s direction.  His words
slipped out like a shadow on glass.  "Yeah, it's... Sam.  How did you - "

   "Pure deduction, Watson.  Somebody at work.  Somebody who'd matter. 
He's gay, so it's a possibility you`d have to confront.  And hey, he's not
a bad lookin' guy."

   Cosmo actually laughed - like out loud laughter, like without even
faking it a little.  He looked around, to check for an audience and found
none again.  "Jesus, listen to you.  I should call the Sign of Ascension
old busybody league on you."

   "No, I'm serious, he's good-looking.  Don't you think so?"

   Cosmo picked up his napkin again.  "Yeah, I guess."

   "You guess?  You're in love with him and you guess that he's
good-looking?"

   "I'm not in love with him... anymore anyway.  Stop trying to trip me
up."

   "Fine.  Good.  Okay.  I`m just not buying this, Cos.  I think you`re
running.  At least from a good, close friendship.  At worst from, well,
something even more important.  Worst of all, I think you're lying to
yourself."

   "Delph, I love Mari - "

   "I know you do.  This hasn't got anything to do with that.  You can`t
switch this love stuff off and on.  It`s not like a home theatre system or
something... if I knew what the hell that was."

   "Again, direct testimony from an expert.  How do you know, Father?  Who
taught you?"

   "I know because I'm human.  Cossi, nobody tells you the important stuff.
Nobody.  You learn it on your own.  Which is why nobody tells you...
because once you learn it, you're too afraid to tell anyone else because
nobody talks about that kind of stuff in the first place, right?  All of
which is why nobody tells you the important stuff and you have to learn it
on your own."

   "Gonna need my Universal Translator soon here, bro."

   "Seriously, think about it, it's true.  You have to mine all real truth
from your own experience.  You figure out what you feel, how you feel it,
who you feel it for, and what you think you can live with and without. 
Just try to do what you can to make sure nobody gets hurt... yourself
included."

   "Welcome to Fantasy Island."

   "I said try, smart ass."

   "Hey, remember when we were kids ... There is no try, remember?"

   "Yeah, well, now I`m a grown-up priest.  We don't do Zen stuff.  And
Yoda was a Muppet."

   Cosmo laughed a little sadly, staring into the cooling contents of his
untasted tea.  "You being a priest, the... ramifications don't bother you
at all?"

   Adelphos shook his head.  "Cos, I sit in that Confessional, day in and
day out, dispensing mandatory sentencing for such infinitesimal sins.  But
there is no dim sum in the Catholic Cantina.  This leads to this and that
leads to that and with six you get the eggroll of damnation.  According to
the Orders, on gay stuff, I'm to quote Leviticus.  The line where they get
all the anti-gay crap that says two men shall not lie together in a pagan
temple, as if under any other circumstances it's -- hey, fellas, go for the
gold, right?"

   "You're joking..."

   "No.  I'm not.  And the same text directs all men to wear beards - all
men, no exceptions.  Seen the Holy Father sporting chin scrub lately? 
Yeah, me neither.  Oh, for that Leviticus is antiquated, they say.  All the
Kosher food directives all the Christians ignore?  All from Leviticus.  Big
surprise - the Church Fathers cherry-pick their belief systems according to
their prejudices, just as we all do.  But, my brother, Catholic Cantina is
a franchise operation and I gotta serve the corporate menu.  Just as you
have to put up with crap from your supervisors, I gotta deal with the
Powers That Be in Rome.  So I endure the boundaries and I find myself in
the margins.  So, no, I`m worried about your heart, not your soul."

   Cosmo laughed in spite of himself.  "Hate to tell you this, I don't
follow the Church stuff so much anyway.  I gotta admit that if I did we'd
have a thousands kids by now."

   "A thousand little Cosmos," Adelphos said.  "That right there proves the
need for individual conscience to win out over Catholic doctrine."

   "Yeah, yeah, real funny, so what's it come down to?"

   He shrugged.  "Just this.  In these things, I default to the judgment of
my heart.  I think all that's important is that people truly love each
other.  Your love will lift each other to a better place.  Who am I to
judge the things God has created?  I can't even sort out my parish employee
time cards correctly."

   "Wise old man." Cosmo reached across and tapped the side of his head,
like he was checking an eggplant.  "You almost make me sorry I used to whip
your ass at Horse on the old basketball court."

   "Anytime, schmuck - we have a basketball court at Ascension.  I am the
undisputed free throw champion of the All-Jersey Catholic Charities Mission
although Sister Theresa is movin' up fast." He retrieved the fork, for
another pass at his chicken salad.  " Life's about compromise and embracing
our contradictions.  Don't let the collar fool you, I'm still working on my
jump shot."













   Van Buren Street... Jackson Boulevard... and dead ahead, Adams Street...
He was trapped in a maze made of dead President names once again.

   He swung east on Quincy Street and then parked his sincere little
pumpkin-colored Bug headed south on La Salle.  The building he was to
report to was the FMR Building.  The first letter was for Federal as
witnessed by all manner of officious little Bureau insignias on heavily
milk-carved glass doors.  The second letter was for Medical it seemed.  He
didn't really care what the R stood for.

   The renown Greek Dr.  Whatzisfaceiz was on the top floor of the medical
section...the seventh floor in a 22 story building.  His medical secretary
was smiling and eager-eyed.  Young girl on her first job, probably.

   "Renfro," he said lightly, hoping he`d managed to work a little patience
into his impatient smile.  "I have an appointment with Dr....Galouzis."

   She nodded, pointing toward the door.  "He's waiting for you."

   "Just like that?" he asked, squinting around.

   She smiled and nodded.  "Just like that."



   It was your basic doctor's office, in the old and paneled sense. 
Bookcases, Italian leather furniture, strange if arguable objets d'art. 
The doctor's desk was glass and stacked with uneven piles of manilla file
folders, some with cardiographs jutting out of the sides.  The doctor
himself was tilting back in his chair, tugging up a wayward sock as he read
over something before him.

   "Mr.  Renfro, good to see you again," he said, as he glanced up in the
other man's direction.

   Again?  Had he heard that...again?

   He considered him a long moment.  He hardly knew any Greek folk in
Chicago.  But still, he recognized him.

   "I know you from somewhere?" Cosmo asked, as much an epiphany as a
question.

   "Yes, we've met.  During the Kimble investigation."

   That was a word that stopped him soundly in place.  Kimble.  Okay, now
he remembered - one of Kimble's friends whom he'd questioned during the
investigation.

   "Yeah," Cosmo said, only beginning to feel suspicious, "you know
Richard, right?"

   The doctor nodded.  "Yeah, I know Richard.  Good to see you again. 
Actually, I'm sending you for a consult with a colleague of mine."

   "Do I really need one?" Finally, they were easing into more abstract
subject matter.  "I'm a Federal Marshal, Doc, I have ultrasounds every
year. I'm on the damned cardiologist's treadmill for an hour every other
year.  It's a benign heart murmur.  I had it since I was kid.  I'm fine."

   "I know, I know.  But humor us, okay?"

   "Alright," Cosmo said, shaking his head.  "Which way to Mecca?"

   "You can take the elevator right outside the door.  Just hit the button
marked P."

   "This place really likes its alphabet.  What's the p stand for? 
Purgatory?"

   The doctor smiled.  "No.  In this case, it`s for Penthouse."

   "Yeah, well, that figures," Cosmo said.

   The elevator doors closed around him and for the oddest of seconds, he
felt as if he had stepped through some movable barrier of fate.  The hushed
whirr of the elevator ascending gave him a silent moment, but he had only
begun to enjoy its calm and quiet when the elevator doors sprang open
again.

   He had one hell of a view of Lake Michigan, all of a sudden.  A whole
wall of windows overlooking the city's late afternoon.  The air was
brightly seasoned with the moist scent of windflower over water.  There was
a gentle burbling sound of a stream over rocks - a waterfall, at center,
spilled down into a hot tub.

   Some doctor's office, he was going to say aloud, until he felt a
presence behind him.

   "I guess I could opt for a treacle approach and diagnose you with a
broken heart," the voice of Richard Kimble spoke out of nowhere, filling
each and every quandary in Cosmo Renfro's mind.

   Yeah, I know Richard.  Actually, I'm sending you for a consult with a
colleague of mine.

   Wonderful.

   "I've been hoodwinked," Renfro said weakly, shaking his head.  The
elevator doors, as if in answer to his thoughts, closed behind him.

   Kimble moved between Renfro and the elevator call button.

   "Desperate times, as they say, call for desperate measures..." Richard
said, his eyes aglow with hurt and umbrage and a little outright anger all
his own.

   Cosmo flashed him a frustrated if forcibly friendly smile.  "Hey, look,
I know you're cheezed at me, okay?  And I guess, I mean, I know you
probably got good reason.  But honest, luring me down here under false
pretenses...I mean, it's not exactly fair play, you know what I mean?"

   "What else were we supposed to do?" Kimble asked.  "Stand around and
wait for you to come to your senses?"

   "Yeah, well, my senses are fine, Doc, okay?  Look, it's just a big,
stupid misunderstanding... my fault entirely...my fault for not calling. 
Blame it all on me.  We`ll get together for dinner and I`ll explain it. 
But right now if you'll excuse me, I got somewhere important to go."

   He pushed around Richard in the direction of the elevator button, with a
first stage of cold-palm panic he realized had nothing to do with an urge
to reach his appointment on time.  He slapped a hand at the call button,
then twice for good measure, as if it might bring up his mode of escape
faster.

   Finally, the elevator doors parted.  But a quick and sudden arm blocked
his escape.

   He looked away -- there was nowhere else to look.  It was a moment from
which he'd been running consciously for six months...unconsciously, for
heaven knew how long.  It was a moment the very reality of which made him
feel that he'd plunged through a hole in the ice.  All that chill amounting
to all that pain and then to a kind of hurting memory of numbness.  After a
moment, the circle began again.

   "There's nowhere you gotta go, Cosmo," the achingly familiar voice said
at last.  "Nowhere more important than this."

   Ohmygod

   I burn for him all the freakin' time... It's why I can't go back there.

   Renfro fought to control the wilder edge of his panic.  He cleared his
voice.  He hammered down its tone.  He took a steady breath.

   "Sam," he said, as if the name itself hurt to say aloud.  "I've got an
appointment at -- "

   "No.  No, you don't," Sam said gently, a caress across the surface of
his mind.  "Your transfer has been blocked pursuant to Article 41 of the
new Intelligence Disclosure Code for All Applicable US Federalized Law
Enforcement.  Which means you are still a Deputy Marshal.  That probably
won't set well in the long term, but it'll keep you with us long enough
till I can think of something else.  Or maybe even change your goddamned
mind."

   A few steps more were taken toward him.  He could almost feel the sweep
of Sam's gaze as it surveyed his face, just beyond his line of sight.

   "Look at you," Sam said again.  "Twenty damn years together and you
can't even look at me.  Now, I want you to explain this to me.  You tell me
what the hell we`ve been goin` through for the last six months and you tell
me why."

   Cosmo still couldn`t look.  "There's a totally rational explanation -- "

   "I don't want to hear your rationale," Sam said sharply.  "I want to
hear the truth.  From you."

   Cosmo couldn't even see his old friend's eyes, but the only thing that
existed in the world at that moment was Sam Gerard's gaze... Sam's
silence...his waiting even breath.

   "I don't know if I even know," he said at last... and somewhat amazingly
even for Cosmo... truthfully.

   Gerard's voice tugged hard at the center, twisting around each word. 
"Then you do the goddamned best you can."





   Renfro had always wondered who the people were with rock waterfall hot
tubs and fireplaces in their living rooms.  Now he knew.

   So, this was what they meant by penthouse.

   Renfro had been a Marshal so long he always took inventory of every room
he entered.  This wasn't an office - it was their home.  Renfro had gleaned
that much from a study of the walls and the objects displayed in central
places.  He recognized Sam's service awards.  He thought he remembered a
wall-hung pen-and-ink as one of Richard Kimble's.

   The view Renfro had admired from the elevator, was even more amazing
from the room.  Lake Michigan, goldly-tinged as it climbed toward the sun,
filled a whole windowed wall as if a living mural.

   "Hey, now that's beautiful," Cosmo said, trying on for the first time
his Jersey schmooze.

   "You know," Sam said, his voice as riled at him as it had ever sounded.
"I expect if you start your yo goombah bullshit rap on me, I'm likely to
implode.  So why don't you turn around and just look at me for starters?"

   This was an impasse.  There would be no avoiding the battle.

   Renfro commanded himself to turn around.

   Finally, forcefully, Cosmo looked up in Sam's general direction, but
another hand grasped his jaw and guided... embedded... their gazes
together.

   For the first time since his heart had broken up inside him, Cosmo was
staring into the eyes of the man he loved.

   And they were so deep and so kind and so much a part of Sam Gerard that
Renfro thought he had surely misplaced a part of himself inside them a long
time ago.

   Cosmo almost surrendered right there... damn near gave in, just then.

   "The truth?" Renfro coughed out words again, fighting to restore some
balance to his mind.  "I went nuts.  And I'm sorry.  I don't blame you for
bein' mad, like I told ... Richard."

   Sam turned and walked right up to him.  It was such a fast, anxious
movement, the kind Sam used when he was about to observe something for a
specific purpose... a kind of autonomic reaction at the Marshal nerve. 
Through it all, Gerard's dark gaze as it probed Cosmo's face had never
seemed to him so open to light.

   Sam's voice cracked into a hundred different sounds...each sound sadder
than the last.  "Didn't you miss me at all?"

   What was that McCartney lyric meant for his own old beloved adversary?
You couldn't have done a worse thing to me, if you'd run a sword right
through me.  Sam's words alone gave Renfro pause.  Somehow, someway, he
stayed standing.

   With all he felt, he had to look away to say it.  "Like I never missed
anyone or anything in my whole life."

   Sam Gerard nodded, in the obvious aftermath of considerable relief. 
"Good.  Good.  I hope it hurt.  A lot.  `Cause what you did damn near
killed me.  Just ask Richard."

   "Sam, I never intended - "

   "What you intended didn't goddamn matter...it happened anyway." The dark
rage in his eyes was thinned a moment by a bittersweet smile.  The words in
its wake purred low and soft with explicit meaning.  "Now you tell me what
you aim to do make it up to us, because I got all kinds of suggestions."

   Cosmo swallowed as thickly and quickly as he could.  Bone-deep
anticipation followed abject terror mixed with an aching kind of longing.
That was the first time he`d felt this.  He had a feeling it wouldn't be
the last time.

   "You wanted me to explain," Renfro said, with some struggle.  "Why don't
I tell you how I see things?"

   "Okay, this should be right amusing.  For starters anyway.  I'll have a
seat with you, Richard.  Looks like the floor show's about to commence."

   The other man seated himself beside his lover... on the sofa nearest the
deep coastal view.  Renfro wished he had nerve enough to consider the
coastal beauty of the wide swathe of water beyond them.  Right then, he
felt like he was fighting against panic and he could look nowhere but in
the general though not specific direction of their eyes.

   "Okay..." He sighed, nodded, determined, resolved again.  "I mean,
Solomon I ain't but this is how I got it figured."

   Sam didn't nod or smile or sneer or anything.  His arms were folded
across his broad chest.  He looked like someone who already knew the answer
but wanted to hear it for himself anyway.  "Go ahead."

   Cosmo swallowed hard, suppressing a multitude of emotions in favor of
this fairly uninspired façade of calm.  "When all that happened......the DC
thing...I mean, I'm standin' out in the middle of the street, right?  I
just pulled the stand-off, we were in cleanup, and that`s stressful anyway,
you know?  I heard that Blue Cap talking and I thought... what I thought.
That you'd been killed.  It was like what happened with my oldest brother.
So unconsciously or something, I flashed back on Nico and what happened
with him and his partner.  I'd been talkin' about Nic with Richard, okay?
It was all fresh in my head."

   "I've seen this show before, Cosmo," Kimble said.  "I already gave you
my review."

   "I know, I know, but it makes sense, doesn't it?  There was all this
anxiety anyway.  So the coincidence of my going through something like what
Nico went through...coupled with the panic of the moment...it made me think
a bunch of stuff that wasn't necessarily really true.  The stuff that he
thought, but it wasn`t really me.  I had this artificial anxiety thing that
made me think something was true that wasn`t an actual fact.  It happens."

   Sam smiled sadly, gently.  "Not to you."

   "Yeah, sure it does," Cosmo said, laughing more than a little nervously.
"Hey, Sammy, I mean, come on.  I'm not in love with you.  I mean, jeez,
give me a break, right?  It's just stupid."

   "No, Cosmo, it`s not stupid at all," Sam said, his gentle voice saying
the words like a bow-struck melody over soft strings.  He stood up and took
a step toward Renfro.  "As for your theory, you are the biggest barebones
realist I ever met in my life.  It's what makes you a great Marshal.  Baby,
you wouldn't have tolerated that kind of delusion for an instant.  You'd
have laughed in its face."

   Cosmo looked as if he'd been struck by selective lightning.  Moved and
frightened and reviled and a hundred other things at once.

   "Sam, Jesus, don't call me that!" he snapped, as much at himself as
anyone.  "I mean, just stay where you are.  Christ, this is nuts."

   "I know you're afraid.  But what I'm fixing to do now is gonna test your
theory anyway.  Shouldn't be a trace of your temporary panic-created
delusion left after six months." He took two more steps toward Renfro.  "I
should be able to touch you however I want.  You might toss my hand off and
call me queer or something, but hell, it won`t faze you, right?"

   "Sam," Cosmo said haltingly, taking a full step back toward the windowed
wall.  He tossed him a pale attempt at what under different circumstances
would have been a macho smirk.  "Hey, probably not a good idea to do that
to an old Hobo boy, ya know?"

   "Why?  You're a big tough he-man," Sam said, taking two more steps
forward, as if to offset the step back Renfro had taken.  "I touch you...I
kiss you, you'll just push it away....punch me out or something, right?  I
mean, you're not gonna like it.  You won't respond to it.  You won't, you
know, get hot and bothered and all the stuff you`d expect from a man when
the one he loves starts making love to him."

   "Sam..." Cosmo coughed out hard, wishing to hell and back his voice
wasn't bunched up in the base of his throat.  "Shit, don't do this stuff.
We have to think of what`s at stake here."

   "Only thing at stake, Cosmo, is your capacity for denial."

   Before he understood the distance they had traveled in tandem, Renfro
found his back quite literally pressed against a windowed wall.

   "No, shit, listen," he said, like a last ragged plea, at the end of the
line.  "This is just weird, right?  Let's all keep calm.  It`s just crazy."

   "We say it makes perfect sense," Richard commented, from the near
background.

   Sam closed the minimal distance that separated them.  Finally, he locked
his gaze on Cosmo's.  He was close enough to touch.  "Do you know how long
I've been waiting for this moment, Cosmo?"

   "Oh, no.  Oh, my God.  Please... please... don't tell me this..."

   "Ever since that day, when you first walked into my office... Big, ol'
break-your-heart grin, flashing blue eyes, flirting with the whole fucking
world.  I just fell in love right there.  Right there."

   "Sammy." Renfro shook his head hard, like its own form of vertical
prayer.  His words became those of a man dangling off the edge of his life.
"Jesus, please, don't do this.  Okay?  Please.  Don't..."

   "You were hot as a Jersey spitfire.  Shit, the damage you could do in a
pair of tight blue jeans - hell, you still can.  For a long time there, you
got no idea how very bad I wanted to make you do all kinds of things you'd
never done before.  Eventually, I met Calder.  And what I felt for you
pretty much resolved itself into your bein' my best friend.  But in those
early days... oh my God..."

   "Sammy, please tell me you're lying," Cosmo said, as if saying a
feverish prayer.  "For gods sakes, tell me it's a lie -- "

   "No.  It couldn't be more true.  And I should've told you all this a
lifetime ago.  How bad...how hard it was for me to be around you, back
then. And I do mean hard.  I took a lot of cold showers in those days...not
that they helped much.  But in the last six months, I've been finding it
very easy to find my way back to that first place I was in with you.  Only
it's gonna be much better now for all the love that's grown with it ..."

   "Sam... just -- don't -- "

   "No, you listen now, remember?  We're both glad for the way it happened.
For your reasons and for mine." He smiled across as Richard stepped up to
join their circle.  "But for twenty years, I'd have been your man, too, in
a fairer world.  You could almost say you're cheating on me with Marisa.  I
don't mind...I mean, she is your lady, but it's way past time for you to
divvy up to me.  For you to get right with me.  `Cause I`m your man... And
you know it."

   Another sharp twist of the helical heat unleashed on Cosmo gently but
clearly as the words all sunk into his mind.  "Wait, this is getting
totally out of control ... "

   Sam laughed darkly, lifting a hand to the sweep of Cosmo's chin.  "You
think we're outta control now?  Wait about five minutes."

   Cosmo turned his face away, shut his eyes hard - to see red-veined
lightning scattering through the dark.  He could feel his pulse everywhere.
In his eyebrows.  In his teeth.  In the wall behind him.

   He couldn't even think of her name...wouldn't let himself.  Couldn't
think of her face.  Couldn't let himself.  Because he knew... All his
determination, all his midnight vows to the age-darkened wallpaper in their
little room... all his daily promises to random stoplights and afternoon
affirmations to the framed portraits of his family... All of it was fucking
melting away like a cup of light wax on a summer stove.  What was left was
formless and so terribly easy to be molded inside an artful hand... one
particular hand...

   "Cosmo," Sam whispered softly, enclosing the other man with his body. 
His lips moved against Renfro's face.  "You know this is gonna happen ..."

   "No," Cosmo whispered in a tight, haggard whisper.  He was trembling at
the touch of Sam's mouth against skin.  "Don't talk to... don't touch me...
this way..."

   Sam's laugh sounded like something warm and sweetly rough wrapping
around Cosmo's mind.  Sam's finger pressed against the base of the zipper
on Cosmo's slacks, a fingertip flicking past each of the teeth of his fly.
Renfro's crotch bulging harder at each movement.

   Cosmo's murmurs twisted sharply into a groaning plea -- of hope and hard
resistance -- terrified of the very thing it longed for.  Gerard's free
hand dragged open the zipper on Cosmo's slacks, yanked loose the topmost
button.

   "Sam," he whispered hard, shaking his head.  "I can't... Jesus, come on,
we can't..."

   "Sam, tell him," Richard begged softly, just behind him.  "Tell him now.
Tell him how we feel.  It`ll make the difference."

   Gerard nodded to Richard, without looking away from the other man. 
"Richard's right.  It took Richard to teach me to say this again.  I never,
ever thought I would say it again....to anyone.  You are in love with me.
You always have been.  Always.  I know because I feel the same -- "

   "Oh my God, no," Cosmo cried out loudly, as if balancing above some
unseen final precipice.  "Not that, Sam.  Please don`t say that -- "

   "I love you.  Always have.  Always.  I turned away from it, but loving
Richard helped me see it again.  And I am not about to let you turn away
from this, either.  Richard and I both love you enough to stand our ground
and make you see things our way.  This isn`t gonna just be sex.  I`m your
man.  Hell, I guess that goes for all three of us."

   Cosmo could only laugh when the full impact hit him.  It hurt so fucking
bad it was funny.  Funny to the point of agony and tears.  He pushed away
at the shock of it all and how hard it came down on him, all at once.

   "Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me?" he gasped against pain.  He was
crying now.  He knew he was crying.  He sensed the presence of tears,
swiped them away and that just made him laugh and cry at the same time, all
that much harder.  "I've been the walkin' dead from dreaming about this for
six fucking months.  I try to run from it - run from you, but nothing means
more to me than this....  Nothing."

   "C'mon, Cosmo," Richard whispered gently.  "You know this is right."

   "I know, I fucking know, okay?" he said, gasping hard to claim his
revelation.  "Just please tell me when it happens... when we do this... my
whole world won`t fall apart."

   "I swear it won`t," Sam whispered in his gentlest voice, the one word
catching at the top of Sam's throat.  "I swear it.  We won't let it. 
Cosmo... for christssakes, come here..."

   In his own kind of surrender, Renfro took one step forward.  Sam reached
a hand to touch his face, to sweep a thumb across Cosmo's lips and whisk
away a tear collected there.  Cosmo had imagined this moment so many times,
on deep nights when he resisted his visions and in the early mornings when
he had abandoned the fight.  He had imagined passion, but he hadn't
expected tenderness.

   Sam's lips pressed like a tender promise over Cosmo's mouth.  The moment
their lips met, Cosmo felt certain his heart would explode.

   All the stuff he had locked away...an emotional wave without crest that
he had ignored ... for how many years?  Too many goddamned years.  The
simple moist pressure of his lips against Cosmo`s, as Sam's tongue slipped
seductively across tongue, finally made Cosmo lose it.

   He captured Sam's face in both hands.  He drove his tongue through the
other man's teeth.  A kiss like a hungry question without answer.  A kiss
like breathing ... breathing for the first time in his whole goddamned
life.









   It was the most terrifying and most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, all
at once.  All at once.

   The huge bed, seen through the door, seemed like some distortion -- some
vivid hallucination -- as he stood there, looking, seeing, watching,
unbelieving.  His head thudded in time with his heart -- with every aroused
nerve ending in his body.  Oh, Christ, he couldn't do this, and yet somehow
he was...he knew so fucking well that he really was.

   Sam moved around him to begin walking him backward toward the bed.  Sam
touched Cosmo's chest with the back of a hand against the rising heartbeat,
his fingers sweeping down across his belly in an absolute and unmistakable
direction.

   "Oh my god." Cosmo flinching away -- fleeing to the only place there was
to go ... backward into the arms of this boundless bed.  There was no
rising up -- no going back -- no moving anywhere but here.

   Sam suddenly moved over and around him, leaning him back into the bed.
Richard was on the other side of them and there was just nowhere else to
go. Cosmo was surrounded.  It was the last thing he wanted... the only
thing he wanted in the world.  This time, Sam's hand reached its goal,
touching fingers first to move his palm around the warm and rigid swelling
between Cosmo's thighs.

   "I know what you want," Sam whispered to the man who writhed and
trembled at his touch.  "I know what you've been dreaming of.  I know..."

   Sam's lips locked around the bend of Cosmo's throat with a moist and
anxious sucking that worked its way down Cosmo`s chest.  Cosmo's groan
splintered into sharp, breathless gasps that twisted into wild riffs of
sound.  Sam replied by rubbing the other man's crotch that much harder, as
Sam's lips played ambitiously at every muscle in Cosmo's chest until they
took possession of Cosmo's flat belly.

   Cosmo's fists clenched downward at the bed, while his whole body thrust
upward toward the other man's mouth like an arrant necessity.  Richard
responded by tasting each of the third man's hard nipples with his tongue
before deciding which one to suck.  He made his choice and Cosmo abandoned
his battle with the bed behind him to clutch Richard's head to his chest.

   Sam's tongue set a course for Cosmo's navel and onto the hard, throbbing
crotch, He gave the protrusion a flourish of his tongue before he
whispered, "God, I wish I could suck you off right now.  Right now."

   "Sam," Cosmo gasped loudly, a breath on the way to the word. 
"Please..."

   He kissed the pulsing bulge.  "No.  No, I can't.  If you had come
upstairs with Richard, all those months ago, hell, I'd have gone down on
you right there like I never sucked off any man before.  And I'm really
good at it.  Just ask Richard."

   "Like we said, once, he's the best," Richard said.  "At lots of things."

   "Oh, fuck, Sam...please..." Cosmo said, his gasps for air tangling with
each word.

   "No," he said again, kissing firmly the harder protrusion as it pulsed
sharply against his lips.  "I know it's the bi male fantasy.  I know you
been wanting it a long time.  But you made us wait, so you're gonna wait.
Awhile.  Maybe later.  Maybe tomorrow.  It's gonna happen soon, but baby,
you're gonna beg me for it before it happens.  You're gonna beg me hard. 
You just don't want it enough yet."

   "Fuck!" Cosmo yelled out, grasping at Sam's head before the other man
evaded his grasp.  "I want it... enough."

   Sam's throaty laugh leapt up at him.  "No, you don't.  Not yet.  But now
I don't see you wrestling with whether this is gonna happen.  You know it's
happening.  It's just a question of how.  Am I gonna bring you off in your
pants?  Or am I gonna yank out your cock and jack you off like that?  Those
are your choices, baby.  What'll it be?  Tell me now."

   Cosmo's teeth shut tight against each other, at Sam's question, at
Richard's tongue harassing his nipples.  "Sam, I need you to touch me.  I
need it so bad."

   Sam Gerard moved around, to where he had been before, this time staring
deeply into the other man's eyes.

   He jerked down Renfro's zipper.  Sam slipped his hand in to find Cosmo's
cock rigid as hell and purple hot and throbbing mercilessly at Sam`s final
touch.  He gripped it hard.  That was all it took.

   "Sam," Cosmo coughed out through tight teeth, rising up against and away
from every sweet thing that ripped with raw power through his body.

   "It's never been like this before, has it?" Sam whispered,.

   "No," was the only comparatively insignificant word he could muster from
his ravaged throat.  He writhed at full contact, at the hard and beautiful
pumping of Sam's hand around his cock.  He abandoned himself to Richard's
passionate sucking of everything in his body that felt good.

   never been like this before

   Fuck no.  He swore...he swore to god... it was like he had never come
before in his life.  It was that different, that much beyond.  His mouth
had locked onto skin and suddenly Sam was sheltering Cosmo's screams
against him, against his muscular chest, before he swallowed every sound he
made deeply into his mouth.

   After a moment, the moment in time opened its jaws and set him free.

   Nothing had changed.  Nothing had ended.  The clock started ticking
again.

   "You okay?" Sam whispered, beside him.

   Cosmo wondered if the other man's eyes had always been this loving and
he'd just never noticed before, or if this was a gaze only given to that
which Cosmo now was.

   He felt the other men move back a little... near, but away enough to
give him room.  All he could do in the moments that passed was draw up
around the waning sensations, trying to sort out the moments at hand.

   "Hey," one of them said, rubbing at the back of his thigh.  "Why don't
you go in and take a shower?  First left door through the inside hall."



   He could barely recall how he'd walked there... how he'd made it out of
the room and into the hall, let alone where he was.

   As he felt for the light and flicked it on, what appeared was a white
tile palace draped in spa towels and the stuff of people a whole lot richer
than he was.  It was as big as his old dorm room, just the one master bath.


   He was grateful, immediately, of a door he could close and lock.  He was
just as grateful for the shower stall he could walk into and shut against
the wider room.  He stripped off what remained of his clothes and tossed
them across the top of the shower stall, then sat back on the low tile seat
behind him.  It gave him something to do on the way to his nervous
breakdown.

   He wrenched on the shower to a steady flow so that nobody would hear
him. He sat there, the water pounding over him, for what might have been
minutes... even an hour.  It couldn't even begin to wash this away.

   But okay, look, it wasn't really like he'd done anything...anything
really...real.  Sam just jerked you off, right?  What's one hand versus
another really... and it was very hot because it was kinky, right?  Just,
you know, forbidden stuff.  No big deal.

   Cosmo, you're so incredibly full of it.  You'd have sold your fucking
soul to the devil for Sam to go down on you in there and you fucking know
it.

   And you know what's worse, right?  You cheated on Marisa, you lousy
jerk...

   "Shit," he whispered against the spray's soft hiss.  "Mari, christ. 
What the hell did I do?"

   Everything he'd fought for through all his life -- clinging to his
marriage vows against the distinct memory of his father's years of catting
around -- and all Sam had to do was start kissing on him and Cosmo fucking
folded like an old pup tent.  Sam loved him and that suddenly was all that
really counted in the world.

   Outside, the master bath door clicked open.  Someone checking on him, no
doubt, to see if he was circling the drain.

   "You okay?" Richard's voice cast out across the hiss of rushing water, a
line back to dry land.

   "Fine," Renfro called out quickly, brokenly.  What the hell else was
there to say but a lie?

   After a moment, instead of Kimble's retreat, Cosmo heard the other man
enter the bathroom.  A sound of searching through a closet intervened
before the shower door opened a little.

   A very naked Kimble peered inside.  "Yeah?  Funny that you don't look so
fine."

   For some strange reason, Cosmo averted his eyes.  "Don't the people
where you're from knock?"

   "Not on shower doors." He reached in his offering of a towel and a spa
robe draped over an arm.  "But you can cover up if you're shy."

   "Don't mind if I do." Cosmo took the towel and robe quickly, donning one
and roping the other around his neck.  "Thanks.  At least I don't feel
so...exposed, you know?"

   "Relax, I'm a doctor, remember?  And while you're relaxing you can stop
kicking yourself, too."

   Cosmo smiled sadly.  "Oh, yeah?  So who else should I kick?"

   "How about no one?  It's just the way things are.  The way they're going
to be.  You'll learn to make it a part of your life.  "

   "How do I learn to live with myself?"

   "By accepting there was no other choice.  There just wasn't.  This...
the three of us... was going to happen.  And it did.  Maybe it was meant to
be.  Who knows?"

   "If you say so."

   "I say so."

   "You know... it's not just me, I mean.  I'm intruding on you two, right?
I'm invading your relationship.  That can't be right.  I wouldn`t blame you
in the least if you were pissed as hell at me."

   "Oh, no, don't use me as an excuse," Kimble said, grinning.  "Look, pal,
without you and Sam I'd be on Death Row right now waiting for my date with
the needle.  I walked into your relationship, even if you didn't know it at
the time.  In any event, it's our relationship now, all three of us,"
Kimble said, reaching for a length of towel to tug Cosmo closer.  He kissed
his forehead and stepped out of the shower again.  "Now take how ever long
you need to collect yourself.  I went down to your car and brought up your
stuff.  One door out of the bath goes to the guest room where I put your
bag, in case you wanted some time to yourself.  The other door is our
bedroom.  Your choice which you choose, but I wouldn`t take too long in
joining us.  You know as well as I do about pissing off el Scooby grande in
there.."

   "Tell me about it." He thought a moment, then nodded as if a signal to
himself.  "And thanks, Rich."

   "Don't thank me, just take it to heart.  And don't take too long, `cause
he`ll howl at me first."



   One way out went to the guest room ... the other door led into the
bedroom... but the guest room also opened one way into the master suite
again.  There was no door between them ... just a circular breezeway
expanded by an open arched access.  What had once been a suite and sitting
room appeared to have been transformed into two distinct chambers with a
little help from some judiciously placed crown molding.

   So much for privacy, Cosmo thought, as he heard the ardent, raw sounds
spilling into the guest bedroom.  The ferocious, throttled sound of
passion...kissing...at very least.

   Okay, so he looked.

   Sam and Richard were not only kissing, they were intertwined naked heat
sources desperate to converge while all wrapped feverishly around each
other and that was the coolest, palest part of the description.

   christ

   Cosmo dragged in a breath as he turned away.  He made his escape to a
painstaking study of his environs.

   The blackened room's far drapery had been drawn to let in the moonlight
and streetlight shining off the city's central waterway.  The adjoining
rooms were more deep aqua now than truly blue.

   Every time he glanced around the corner they were... still doing what
was driving Cosmo nuts... again... Feeling his face flush with the rising
heat in the rest of his body, Renfro wondered if he and Sam looked like
that when --

   "Cosmo," Sam said from the other room.  He sounded breathless and not
entirely happy.

   Renfro cleared his throat hopelessly... hoping against hope his own
breathless state wouldn't be so obvious.  "Yeah, Sam?"

   "Get your damned robe off, come to bed and stop acting like a Catholic
nun at a strip show.  Now."

   ohmygod

   Okay, so now he not only had to go in there, he had to be in there.  He
had to see hot and naked Sam and Richard -- and he had a front row seat.

   He made himself walk into the room again.  Sam`s hand bagged him with
impunity, towed him into bed, then skillfully returned at once to rampaging
over red-hot Kimbleflesh.

   Renfro then perched himself at the furthest corner and the very bottom
of this bed that seemed big enough to need its own zip code.  Not twelve
inches from him, Sam's and Richard's bodies were hungrily fucking.  Which
is mostly why Cosmo left his goddamned robe on.

   Sure, that's right, I'll just sit here while my male friends screw each
other.  Sure, that's fine...like normal even... You fell through a fuckin
looking glass, Renfro....a fuckin looking glass.  Get real here.

   He rubbed at his eyes, shook his head, but once he'd looked back, it
wasn't possible to look away ever again.

   Heck, no, Sam wasn't good-looking... Sam was hotter than a mid-July
Phoenix Arizona cast iron slide.  Was that a Texanism?  (Naw, too far
southwest... Sam'd have to give him that one).  Everything about Gerard
made the strongest men feel weak beside him.  Cosmo knew that feeling well.
Once upon a time, he'd thought it just meant he felt small in comparison.
He realized now it was always something more.

   Renfro had only once before seen him naked...a changing clothes kinda
thing and even then Renfro had mainly forced his stare to the ceiling,
which really should have clued him in at the time.  This night was the
first time Cosmo had surveyed him fully.  The hard ripple of muscle under
taut skin...down Sam's well-defined back.  This very fine man was, in fact,
all shoulders and hips and legs and oh fuck it.

   Never mind, redirect, look away...somewhere... (couldn't even try)

   And then there was Richard, less visible under Sam, but no less engaging
in his own way.  A weird combination of poet and athlete, Poole had called
him.  Kimble fit easily between the world of ordinary folk and his own
higher citadels of society.  That had been a quote from the Kimble précis
but, to be sure, Richard would have verbally bitch-slapped the person who
wrote it for the "higher citadels of society" stuff.

   Kimble sans clothes was like one of those lounging, grape-feeding male
nudes in David Master's drawings... a confident but unpretentious beauty...
Kimble's hard thighs encasing Sam - his long legs and ankles locked around
the other man - anchoring their bodies together as their mouths ground
ardently against each other -- tongues clearly playing feverishly and
artlessly in the interchange.

   Cosmo wondered if the window was open.

   He reached for it, sliding the glass panel back a little more.  The
added air eased the buzzing in his head a little.

   But then a sound whipped his attention back to the other men.  It was a
raw and voracious sound, ripped out of Kimble, as Gerard cut off their
kiss. Gerard lunged downward to gnaw tenderly down Kimble's chest over the
nerve-tight wall of his body to one place and one place only.  Sam's body
unveiled Richard's steel-stiff erection.  Sam's moving down itself seemed
to cause Richard's whole body to react with a heat that would burn past any
measurement.

   Richard groaned out Sam's name - one raw and ragged breath.  "Sam,
please..."

   "Like we said, once, he's the best," Richard had said.  "At lots of
things."

   Some other time -- where had they been?  At lunch, at some party thing
or somewhere, and Richard was trying to include him in on their discussion.
Anything to break Cosmo's skillful silences, Renfro supposed.  Kimble and
Gerard had been talking in general terms about oral sex.  This of course
had made Renfro, even at that point in time, want to crawl under a cocktail
napkin.  Kimble was explaining how "Catholic boys have this thing about
blowjobs" - obsessed with them and yet terrified, or something to that
effect.  And then he'd said, "Isn't that right, Cosmo?"

   Cosmo had shrugged at the time.  "Not me."

   Richard had grinned.  "You ever had a good one?"

   "Hey, Doc, that's none of your business," Cosmo had responded.

   "In other words, no," Richard had said.

   The fact of the matter was, though Catholic boys might have a thing
about blowjobs, despite one fairly unsuccessful post-prom night gift from
Anna Triacca, Cosmo had never actually had one.  He'd heard the stories, of
course... watched the skin flicks.  But in his stupid youth the act had
seemed, well, somewhat south of sinful to someone from his neck of the
woods.  It wasn't done, among his people, meaning most of the girls he
dated around with in the old neighborhood.  Anna had been Sicilian and, so,
dangerous and exotic in their little concrete Hobo fiefdom.  But Cosmo had
married Marisa and that was that for that.

   Richard's hands raked deeply into Sam's hair, grasping desperately.  His
face knit up with hard pounding pleasure, his whole body responding as if
he'd been struck by some very sweet lightning.  And when Sam's lips rubbed
across Richard's cock with a coterie of promises, Kimble murmured a lot of
pleading and urging within the melted armor of Sam's name.

   Gerard's hands finally wrapped around Richard's rock-solid penis as it
pulsed with new life so near the other man's lips, and in response to his
touch.

   ...and then Sam swallowed Richard's cock into the depths of his mouth.

   The groans torn out of Richard bent beyond recognition.  It was what
bliss with the force of agony might surely sounded like.  Kimble's cries
were just hard, hot sounds pounding mutedly against a door that could never
be opened widely enough.

   When Sam truly went down, it was too powerful to watch - the man sucking
or the one being sucked.  The very sight of it all forced every muscle in
Renfro's gut to clench in envious sympathy... as Sam`s fingers deftly
followed some unknown chart while playing Richard's cock with expert
caresses... a knowing incitement of nerve under skin.  Sam forced the whole
of Richard's very long cock into the depths of his mouth...surely down his
throat.  The escalation provoked a furious series of outbursts from Kimble,
as if Sam was doing something wonderful with his tongue.

   how wonderful it's gonna be... Just ask Richard.

   Cosmo wished to hell and back he had an air conditioner at full blast
right now.  And he wouldn't have minded being packed in a couple of tons of
ice to top it off.  The very idea that someday Sam might possibly...sweet
Jesus, even remotely plausibly ...possibly...

   It's gonna happen soon, but baby, you're gonna beg me for it before it
happens.  You're gonna beg me hard.

   Renfro thought at the time, that had been his easy Chance Card around
the most obvious indicator of male gayness.

   It was the certainty he remembered in Sam's voice that now made Cosmo go
weak and queasy ...that caused his cold palms to sweat hard enough to seal
them to his knees.

   If the wet sound of Sam's wildly ambitious cock-sucking hadn't been
enough to make him tremble, then Richard's eyes had done so.  Hazel eyes
seeking out his attention -- gaining Cosmo's gaze only to lose it as
quickly, when Renfro was forced to look away by the passion in the other
man`s gaze.

   "Cosmo," Richard gasped out, followed by a frenzied moan.  "Look at me.
I want to share this with you..."

   Everything in Cosmo wanted to turn away...from his innate shyness and
his minor battle with jealousy but mainly by the visceral vicarious joy
that was right then searing through him as if every nerve in his body had
become multiple tracks of some fiery thrill ride.  Cosmo's heart beat in
cadence with his cock.  He couldn't look.  He couldn't see from the sweat.
He wouldn't hear.

   Richard's final cry clawed at Cosmo's inhibitions.  It tore through
Renfro's wall of fear.  It wasn't in him to look again.  All he could do
was hear.

   It was a sound of pleasure so clear and profound he could never forget
it, even if he had wanted to.  Not that he ever wanted to forget that
beautiful fucking sound.

   Cosmo turned again to the opened window.  What had once been a gentle
day was empowering a wild, windy night.  He could feel the vibrations of
the bluster running through the window glass.  It felt like the night
itself was trembling.

   He pushed away from his face a mixture of tears and sweat.  He supposed
he'd been crying.  He couldn't recall.

   The next thing he heard was the crisp uncapping of a tube.  It was a
sound he'd heard a hundred times in his life, but never with such
excruciating clarity.  Renfro then heard the sound of the tube being
emptied.  He wouldn't have been able in the least to place what the sound
had been, under any other set of circumstances.  Here, in this place, he
knew it in a moment.

   When Cosmo had no choice but to look, Sam was finishing oiling up the
firmly sculpted lines of Richard's almost painfully gorgeous ass.  Sam's
hand channeled the ointment deep into the cleft, then twisted his fingers
around as if in a flourish.

   He smiled gently back at Cosmo, clearly knowing he had been watched. 
Renfro looked away, but he knew it had been too late.  He knew he must have
seemed a mixed vision of desperate longing and powerful dread.

   "Cosmo," Sam said softly, brandishing a tube then pointing to the other
man's hand.  "We're gonna need your help with something."

   Cosmo mustered a couple of words.  "My help?"

   Sam reached for his hand, then squeezed into the palm a measure of the
ointment from the tube.  Before Cosmo could say anything, Sam leaned in to
capture his lips in a deep and lasting kiss.  Thinking during this kiss
wasn't an option until Renfro felt his ointment-filled hand enclosed by
another hand and then wrapped around Sam's substantial cock.

   Renfro's own reaction surprised even him.  No homophobic mortal fear,
just a sweet moment of passage.  Like an invitation to trust.  Sam's own
fist made Cosmo's hand lather the staff.  Renfro had been reluctant to let
it go.

   "Cosmo," Sam said sharply, suddenly pulling away the other man's hand.
"Leave something for Richard."

   "Oh," Renfro said shortly....more than a little shaken.  "Sorry."

   "No, no, nothing like that.  If you'd kept doing it, this would be
over," Sam said, touching Renfro's face to stop a sweat drop there.  He
passed the tube to Cosmo.  "Now give that to Rich."

   "What for?" Cosmo said quickly... a little too quickly.

   "Don`t worry," Sam said, looking at Renfro with enough love to scare the
hell out of him.  He yanked open the other man's robe.  "Nobody's
deflowering you but me.  Understand?  Just go up where Richard can reach
you."

   Cosmo fell back into the corner beside Richard - not so much of his own
volition, but in a tightly controlled fall in response to Gerard`s words.
He was trying to move away from the very idea and how terrifyingly pleasant
it sounded.  Sam was behind Richard, but Kimble was dragging Cosmo down his
own vantage.  He made him face him, and kissed him for the very first time.

   "This you are going to share with me," Richard whispered, staring deeply
into the other man's eyes.  Kimble looked very much like a man about to
enter paradise.  "It's so vital it be all three of us.  That we share this.
That's the purpose of making love.  It joins people where there isn`t a
connection.  It creates unions.  I know it scares you, Cosmo, but we have
to share this....  All three of us -- "

   Cosmo managed to nod, while fighting to quiet his breathing.  "I guess."

   Richard opened Renfro`s robe and smiled at the contents.  "You're a very
pretty boy, Mr.  Renfro.  Just like Sam said.  It's a damned shame,
restricting yourself to women all these years.  You are gay male prime
rib."

   "I am?" Cosmo said, not knowing entirely what to say to that.

   Sam laughed huskily, nodding.  "You most definitely are."

   Richard brushed his finger tips across Cosmo's cock, which was avowedly
rigid again, if it had ever gone soft at all.  Cosmo gasped like a bench
billows at the breath of contact.

   "We need you to jerk yourself off, Cosmo," Richard said, his eyes
glowing across his cock and up into Renfro's eyes.  "Nice and steady, but
pace yourself with us.  We want you to come with us, as close to the same
time as possible.  I'm going to make sure you do."

   Cosmo was trying to rein back his racing heart again, fighting to see
Richard reach away from Cosmo's penis to take the tube from Sam's hand. 
Richard squeezed the contents along his own long-fingered surgeon's hands
then reached under Cosmo.  Before Renfro could react, Richard's slick
fingers had probed expertly up the other man's ass to tenderly caress what
Renfro knew was his prostate.  Oh, his prostate he'd been introduced to,
but never quite like that.  He fought to settle on some nice, dignified
point of pleasure, but Kimble was probing beyond that.  It was a constant
and growing stream that didn't seem to want to quit.

   Renfro gave way to trembling.  It just wasn't going to stop.

   "Calm down," Richard whispered, grinning.

   As sweet as that felt, as profoundly as it shook him, Cosmo still
immediately could only see the other men as Sam thrust his moist cock
between Richard's ass cheeks.

   Kimble's body contorted at the thrust.  His face tensed, his teeth
gnashed, his jaw clenched.  Something very sweet had laid claim to him
utterly and wasn't letting go an inch.  The other man's body enclosed him
completely, then Sam bit tenderly and firmly into the thick of Richard's
shoulder, whimpering his name.

   Richard's eyes slowly glimpsed some inner lovely avalanche bearing down
on him...bursting blindly through him.  Richard screamed out Sam's name. 
It was nothing but a scream - a soul-choking and blissful anguish,
beautiful, wild.

   The love between them was more than obvious... more than even love.  How
in the world could Cosmo factor in?  It's our relationship now, Kimble had
said.  As if to answer his quandary, Richard's fingers probed expertly
again to goad him toward pleasure.  They were going to bring him with them.

   "Jerk yourself off, Cosmo," Richard whispered in gasps.  "You have to
come with us.  Please."

   Renfro couldn't think clearly enough to hear, to comprehend.  He only
understood the directive when he saw Sam and Richard finally pull apart,
Sam pouncing in one direction, Richard rolling toward the other.

   Kimble's lips captured Cosmo's left nipple, his fingers clutching at the
right.  And Cosmo thought for fucking sure he was going to explode as his
nipples were tormented sweetly for the first time in his life.

   He heard his own gasp coughed out through tight teeth, as Sam's hand
grasped hard at Cosmo's seemingly unflagging erection.  Gerard was playing
Cosmo's cock like no one else ever had, with shrewd touches in calculated
succession that swept him along with it, no matter how hard or high.

   Renfro had just come harder than he'd ever had in all his fucking life.
And now, again, mere minutes later, he was headed toward another personal
best.  It promised to rip through him at every seam.

   "Cosmo," Sam whispered like a summons.

   Renfro stared downward through sweat and the fevered haze in his eyes.
He watched as Sam tenderly blew across the head of Renfro's cock, then
tenderly licked the whole of its head.

   That kicked the whole fucking world out from under him.

   He wanted to find a dark corner to breathe again, but he had two men
wrapped around him.  When he looked up and around to find them, he saw them
wrapped around each other in the center of the bed.  His hand was being
grasped by Sam, as if in fear he might float away.

   The room was hushed in a kind of mixed filtration sound - the breathing
in and breathing out of the world.



   Cosmo found the tie for his robe and refastened it around him.  He
walked down into the room from which they had originally walked, with its
rock waterfall bound hot tub, its considerable view of the bay.  The sky
was nothing but dark with night.  The digital wall clocked glowed 9:13 PM.

   "Where are my clothes?" he asked the quiet, remembering something about
a shower, but before he could move anywhere, a pair of arms encircled him
from behind.

   Sam tightened his arms.  "You don't need clothes."

   "I gotta go home, Sam," Cosmo said, in a kind of vague confusion.  He
turned around toward the other man and to the window behind him: to the
whole crazy world stretching out at a distance.  "Mari's gotta be worried
-- "

   "Mari knew you were coming here," Sam said.  "I mean, she doesn't know
about us, of course.  She just thinks I was gonna talk you into coming back
to the Marshal.  She was in on that much.  She knows you'll be here for a
couple of days.  That`s all she needs to know for now."

   Cosmo listened until he was relieved enough to stand still.  "Okay. 
Okay on that.  For now."

   Sam said gently, "You're gonna have to tell her eventually."

   "I know."

   "Do you?"

   "Of course."

   Sam moved closer to Renfro, then sat slowly on the ottoman across from
him.  "Maybe I'm thinking you might be hopin' you got this all out of your
system, so you can just go home now.  I gotta warn you, it doesn't work
that way.  Just in case you're thinking that, I mean.  It only lasts a
little while, then pretty soon you start needing again.  And each time you
drink, the thirst is stronger.  The only thing worse than the thirst is
never letting yourself feel it.  So in case you think you can go play house
with your nice family, then come back here to wrap your legs around me -- "

   "How dare you!" Cosmo snapped.  "How can you even say that to me?  Who
the fuck are you talkin' to here, Gerard?  Have I ever once let you down?"

   "Yes," Sam said, looking over at him without flinching.

   Renfro winced at the evident pain in the other man`s eyes.  "Other than
that time, I mean."

   "That time was all it took.  That woke up feelings I had quashed down
fifteen years ago.  You stirred up my whole life.  When I should have been
happy, what you did made me feel like I wanted to die.  So I gotta ask if
you're gonna stay.  If you're not, I have to warn you.  With what I'm
feeling, we will fight you every step of the way.  Every single step. 
Richard and I love you not one bit less than Mari does.  We might even love
you more.  And I swear to you we will not give up easily."

   Cosmo finally caved against each wall of restraint.  "There is no
getting what just happened in there out of my system.  When you were
doing... what you were doing to Richard... Jesus Christ, it scared me so
damned much because I wanted it so fucking bad.  Shit, I never, ever
thought I could need anything that much.  So badly it hurt all the way
through my body.  And then the three of us?  I didn't have any fuckin'
notion in the world that anything could feel that good... honest to Christ,
Sam.  I had no clue.  How`s that for openness?  There's no getting this out
of my system ever.  Mari's my heart.  She's my home.  But you are my love
and my life, Sam.  That`s all the fuck I know.  So you tell me, what the
hell I do with that?"

   Sam pulled him toward him, gathered him as closely in his arms as he had
ever held him.  "You bring it right here to me, like you always have.  God,
it's so good to finally hold you this way.  And I promise we`ll find our
way, the three of us, together."

   Cosmo melted against him, closing his eyes as his head found solace
against Sam's steady shoulder.  "Just don't doubt me, Sam.  I got so much
to figure out.  I can't deal with you doubting me, too."

   "Doubt you?  Shit." Sam grinned down at him but found he was smiling to
himself - the other man's eyes were closed.  He softened his voice to make
the point.  "You know the first thing headquarters told me about you, way
back before the dawn of the dinosaurs?"

   Renfro laughed against the shoulder that cradled him.  "That I was a
champion smart ass?"

   "Naw, that came after.  Camp Beau first told me you second-guessed
yourself too much.  They said you doubted your own mind a lot.  And I said,
shit, any man wise enough to doubt himself first, is a man I want on my
team."

   "And you been payin` for it ever since."

   "No," Sam said, lifting his chin up to consider his eyes.  "Not once. 
Not even a little.  There's the truth for you.  In all our years, I never
once doubted that you'd do the right thing, Cosmo.  Just like I know you'll
do the right thing by Mari.  I know it.  You and Richard are the two finest
people I have ever known.  But I gotta say you are the champion smart ass."

   Renfro rubbed at an eye, laughing a little like a broken wind up toy. 
"Yeah, so I've been told."

   Somewhere, in another room, a phone rang.  There was the distant
muttering of a voice in obvious exchange with someone at the other end of
the call.

   Richard walked into the door that bridged the rooms.  "It's for you,
Cosmo.  It's your daughter.  Something about good night stars?"

   "Oh, yeah.  It's Daddy duty stuff," Renfro said, reaching for the phone,
then standing away.  He turned to give himself an edge of privacy.

   "Hi, bunny.  Sure.  You by the window?  Okay, here we go.  I'm making
good night wishes on good night stars that all your good night dreams come
true where ever we are.  I am always there with you because I can see the
stars and you can, too.  Look at them and I'm seeing you.  Yeah,
sweetheart, me, too." He was fighting to keep his voice from coming apart
as he managed to whisper, "Night, bunny."

   There was no fighting the tears then.  He didn't even try.  He felt two
hands on his shoulders, only half realizing one belonged to each man. 
"What in the fucking hell am I gonna do?"



   

   Chapter Two Breathe

   For two hours, he sat with his back toward them as they finally fell
asleep.  His thoughts had been elsewhere while they spoke in a steady sound
of blended words, mixed with an occasional murmur of laughter.  They had
tried several times to goad him into bed with them, but Cosmo with his own
grey thoughts preferred to keep his distance for the meantime.  Still and
all, Sam had fallen asleep soundly clinging to one of Cosmo`s hands.

   The two other men slept as one entangled unit - an intriguing sight for
anyone who didn't know Sam Gerard as well as Renfro did.  Richard was the
constant oasis in Sam's usually fitful dreams.  Cosmo had bunked with the
Big Dawg enough to know that Sam slept with one eye open, but then so did
Cosmo.  It was part of the law enforcement Tao of things.

   After awhile, he gingerly extracted his hand from Sam's sleeping grip
and quietly moved away to the guest room.

   He'd watched the satellites out dance stars beyond the guest bed window
until he'd somehow, sometime fallen asleep.

   His mind had surfaced a little to the play of sunlight on his eyelids,
but he'd awakened when someone with a precise and gentle touch was seeking
to remove a lash from the corner of Cosmo's eye.

   "Good morning, oh timid one," said a low, burr of a voice with a
surprising light of affection.  Kimble was smiling into Cosmo's eyes.  "Why
are you in here?"

   Renfro shook his head a little, sitting up to squint about at the first
swirls of morning.  "What time is it?"

   "Quarter of eight.  Why are you in here?"

   Cosmo cleared his throat, moved back a little, even unconsciously,
because Kimble was leaning over him.  "I just needed some time to myself, I
guess."

   Kimble expression was doubtful.  "You guess?"

   "And, well, I felt like I was intruding or something."

   "The idea was to have you in there with us," Kimble said, reaching to
pull him close again.  "Not floating out here beating yourself up inside."

   "Except," spoke a Texan at the door, "I shall shortly need the both of
you on the rooftop for the ritual grilling of the not-dogs.  As my Nana
Donnelly might have said, we're puttin' on the Sunday feedbag for company."

   Kimble pouted, pulling a face.  "Oh, yeah, Warren and Jeff.  I forgot."

   Samuel folded his arms.  "Well, I am sure our good friends would be
quite happy at the generous wealth of your enthusiasm."

   Kimble hurled a neck pillow toward him.  "Oh, I like them, you know
that. I just forgot about it.  I was kind of hoping the three of us could
make copious, passionate love all day."

   "Richard Kimble, there is more to life than sex, although I must admit
not many things more pleasant.  Life is about balance, Richard.  So we
gonna have some guests over.  Friends.  Jeff Gulley and Warren Pace."

   "Wait, whoa, just a minute.  Warren and Jeff from the Marshal?" Cosmo
said, leaning up at the first fresh start of alarm.

   "Don`t bunch your BVD`s, Cosmo.  Jeff and Warren are in a relationship.
They're in our shoes.  They know to be discrete."

   Renfro`s jaw descended its full measure to hang open for at least a
minute.  "Are you telling' me that Jeff Gulley and Warren Pace from Team
Indy are...well, you know...?"

   "Yes, sir, they are most definitely and sincerely well, you know."

   Renfro shook his head hard, to help the very idea sink in.  "No, it
can't be!  I mean, Warren maybe, but Jeff Gulley?  Can't be the same guy.
He's married to Jillian.  They got two kids.  Jill's a teacher like Mari.
We see them at district parties and fundraisers and crap all the time."

   Sam nodded, grinning.  "I reckon so.  Just like you're there with Mari,
right?"

   The truth finally made its way past Renfro's internal defense systems.
"Holy shit.  Man, you think you know people.  Hell, he probably thinks he
knows me.  You're serious here, Sam?"

   "No, Cosmo, I always bullshit about other peoples` sex lives.  Of
course, I'm serious.  They been together four years now."

   "And Jeff is still with Jill?"

   "It would seem so."

   "But how?"

   Sam shrugged.  "They worked it out.  That's kinda why they're coming
over.  Hint, hint.  But don't worry, they don't know about the three of us,
they only know that I'm with Richard.  I figure they might advise the three
of us somewhat on how to ride this particular river."

   Cosmo settled back against Richard again.  He smiled to himself.  "Jeff
and Warren....son of a gun, you just never know."

   "You can never tell about the hidden hearts of people, in the words of
my dear, late Nana Donnelly."

   "Since you're channeling Nana Donnelly today," Kimble said, poking the
other man with a strategic toe, "you might ask her what she would think of
the three of us."

   "Us?  Shoot, this wouldn't have bothered her any.  Although she might've
had a problem with you both being Yankees."

   Richard looked to Cosmo and smiled.  "We could try to change."

   "No, no," Sam said.  "We all fall short of the glory of the lord,
Richard.  Rise and shine, my loves.  We've got textured vegetable protein
to grill... Although why in the hell we bother to do so I am not at all
certain."









   The skyline felt like it was watching him, sitting where he was in this
odd place and time.  He could see large segments of familiar rooftops.  He
could identify buildings and exactly where they were in relation to his
home.  It almost felt like a kind of emotional disequilibrium, he was
caught by, trapped between his worlds - the old one and this strange and
strangely new one.

   He pushed around at whatever was on his plate.  Everyone else had eaten,
having already pressed on through some desert thing with a side of desert
champagne.  He occasionally lifted the champagne flute in his hand to stare
into the golden peach liquid.  Cristal cuvée.  Something Cosmo heard about
but sure as hell couldn't afford.

   Warren and Jeff.  Sweet and gentle Jesus.  Talk about a big surprise. 
Cosmo supposed it was no more surprising than Sam and...

   Cosmo looked beside him at the two men at his right - Richard and Sam,
an undeniable unit.  And yeah, Renfro supposed that was a self-pitying
cop-out.  Warren and Jeff, clasping hands across from them as calmly as
Cosmo and Mari might have held hands at the movies.  He had seen Jeff sit
with Jill that way, too.

   So the two couples had gone on chatting easily, amiably, and Cosmo had
sat there feeling like a fifth wheel after a whole day as merely the third.
He'd stared determinedly into his glass.

   On one side of his heart, was Mari.  On the other side, Sam and Richard.
Cosmo had, oddly, never felt so alone in his life.

   Sam had nudged him gently.  Cosmo had looked toward him.  The smile
warmed him as much as it could have at the moment.  Gerard poked his
shoulder with a finger.  "Say something," he whispered.

   Renfro shrugged.  "Nothin' to say."

   "How's your champagne?"

   "Haven't tasted it," he said.

   "You haven't tasted anything.  You okay?"

   Renfro shrugged.  "Yeah, fine.  Just... you know... "

   "I know," Sam said, about to go further, but another voice chimed in
from the other side.  Jeff Gulley, Renfro supposed, probably sensing
Cosmo's awkwardness.

   "So, Cosmo," Jeff said.  "Sam ever tell you about the great Phantom of
the Opera brouhaha he caused?"

   "It was not a brouhaha," Sam said.

   "Oh, yes it was," Richard replied.

   Renfro perked up a little, as if called upon in a class through which
he'd mainly been dozing.  He answered the question put to him.  "No.  No...
I mean, I don't think so."

   Gerard laughed shook his head.  "Okay, go ahead, Richard, tell Cosmo
your distorted version of events."

   "Distorted?" Kimble said.  "Not in the least, my love.  You should just
admit that it was payback for Pinter and be done with it."

   "It was not," Gerard said firmly.

   "Yes, it was," Kimble answered, firmer still.

   Gerard smirked.  "No, it was not but while we are on the topic --
Richard, you are my life, but did I not say to you I hated Harold Pinter?"

   "I didn't remember it that way, okay?  I thought you said you liked
Pinter."

   "Nobody likes Harold Pinter.  Pinter doesn't even like Pinter.  You ask
him, `Hey, whaddya wanna see, Harold, the Matchseller or Streetcar, and
he'd go with Tennessee every time.  I said anybody but Harold Pinter.  Who
did we go see, Richard?"

   "I`m sorry, I messed up.  But you have to admit we had terrific seats."

   "Say, Chef de Rang, your food is bad but hey, you do give generous
portions."

   "All right, smart guy," Kimble said, grinning, "you had your revenge at
Phantom."

   "That was not revenge."

   "It was revenge -- "

   "That was not revenge.  It was trenchant criticism from the perspective
of a Texas boy -- "

   "Oh, this I gotta hear," Cosmo said, at his own impetus at last.

   "Phantom of the Opera, right?" Kimble went on, leaning across Sam to
Cosmo, "The pause point, right after the Phantom sings to Christine, as the
music draws down to quiet before it swells back up, Deputy Marshal Samuel
Gerard says, in full voice, `Why the hell doesn`t he just screw her and
shut the hell up about it?'"

   "I had a point," Sam said.  "The guy behind us agreed."

   "The guy behind us was terrified.  You'd intimidate Paul Bunyan, Sam,
he`d have agreed to do your laundry with the look you gave him."

   Cosmo supposed it was a combination of nerves and the dizzying
tilt-a-wheel day and night and maybe even the fumes from the flute, but he
laughed harder than he knew he could, given the circumstances.

   He shook his head, saying before he even knew it was said, "Shit, Sammy,
I love you so fucking much."

   Sam Gerard's eyes were among the most formidable of fortresses known to
man, Renfro had often thought.  When he didn't want you to, you couldn't
burn past them with a laser.  But anyone Sam loved knew the full range of
gentle nuances available to the language of his eyes.  And the look he
turned to give to Cosmo, could have melted a heart on Mars.  It was a look
that beheld something, long hoped for, but which he'd never hoped to see.

   Sam's eyes were shining more than a little.  "I love you, too, Cosmo,"
he said, softly.  Then he leaned into press his lips to the other man's.

   Renfro had had a couple of choices.  Certainly he could have laughed
off, pretended Sam was being funny.  But the look in Sam's eyes wouldn't
let him.  And anyway, it was a kind of moment of truth.  There they were
and there he was and across from them sat eyes directly attached to the
rest of the world.  So what do we do, sport?  Do we cop to it all or do we
shuck and jive for the 1000th goddamned time?

   Cosmo met him halfway to the kiss.  A tilt of his head and a merging of
mouths and Sam's gentle tickle of tongue against his teeth.  They hungrily
deepened the kiss until there could be no possible interpretation beyond
the obvious.  In that instant, Cosmo's worlds had converged into one.

   "Jesus, guys, get a room," Jeff said, laughing.

   Sam broke the kiss to give Cosmo a soul-warming smile.  Then Gerard
tossed a faintly embarrassed grin over at the others.  "We already got one.
We`ll use it later."

   "Pay up," Warren added, extending his palm to his partner.

   "You were right," Jeff said, pulling odd bills out of his pocket and
plucking out a couple for the other man.  "Warren knew it was a three way
thing with you guys.  I said, no, no way Cosmo Renfro."

   Richard laughed.  "Yeah, that's pretty much what he said about you,
Jeff."

   With what looked like a sudden memory, Gulley was checking his watch. 
"Shit, look at the time.  We've got your fuckin' ballet to go to, Warren."

   "My fuckin' ballet?  Hey, you made a deal.  I sat through Riverdance."

   "Now that," Sam said, "is love."

   "I liked Riverdance," Kimble added.

   Sam smiled.  "And we love you anyway, Richard."

   The world still spinning in Cosmo's head, he suddenly sipped something
from the wine flute.  Anything to do something to steady his nerves. 
Before he could move the glass away, Sam was leaning over toward it.

   "How's it taste?" he whispered, staring straight into Renfro's eyes.

   "Not bad," Cosmo said casually, shrugging.

   Sam Gerard reached for one of Renfro's fingers, dipping his tip into the
liquid.  Before Cosmo knew what had happened, Sam was lifting the finger to
his lips and sucking it greedily into his mouth.  He sucked on it for a
full moist moment, in an act more erotic than any Cosmo had ever known.  It
bricked up Cosmo's airway somewhere near his larynx.

   Sam then leaned across to whisper in his ear, while cupping Renfro`s
hand around the flute as if to steady both.  "The instant the three of us
are alone, I am gonna hit my knees in front of you and I am not gonna
pray."

   The crystal glass slipped from Renfro's fingers, grasping numbly as the
stem slipped past the reach of even Sam's hand.  "Oh.  My.  God," Cosmo
said, in a kind of gasping whisper.

   "I will be right back," Sam whispered, with a look fraught with meaning,
then tossed a more casual smile to Richard as he was seeing their friends
toward the rooftop's street access elevator.

   Somewhere... on some distant planet... Cosmo heard voices trade back and
forth in final partings.



   He grabbed a napkin to half-heartedly dab the remnants of champagne from
his blue jeans.  Then he reached for a plate or a saucer or another
half-known thing with dim illusions of clearing it or something...
anything... to not think about what Sam had just said.  What Sam had just
promised.

   Suddenly, other familiar hands removed the dish from his grasp, tossing
it back to the table.  They turned him around.

   Gerard was looking into him -- no distance between them but the space of
their eyes.  "You're really with us, aren`t you?  You really aren't gonna
get fag fright and run off to your home.  You're really part of us."

   "Of course," Cosmo said, feeling like he was holding his breath and yet
couldn`t breathe at all.  "Didn't you know that?"

   Sam closed his eyes for a moment, leaning his forehead against his head
to whisper.  "Not till now.  Not really.  But now I want you to go in with
Richard and get ready.  I'm gonna stay up here for a minute.  Cool down a
little.  Ease back a bit.  But then I am coming in there and I will go down
on you like I've never blown another man in my life.  You don't know what
you just gave me and Richard.  You have no idea."

   "Jesus," Cosmo whispered, feeling a weird rush of tears form under his
eyes.  He could sense he was trembling again, even in the steady presence
of Sam's arms.

   Then Kimble's arms laced around him from behind.  "I am so fucking proud
of you," he said.

   "Got it from here, Richard?" Sam asked, with a heavy measure of haunted
words.

   "Got it from here, Sam."







   The rooftop flight ended at the back hall, feeding into the opposing
bedrooms.  Cosmo tried to remember where the hell he was... what he was
doing ... tried to preserve some threadbare decorum in the interim.

   Suddenly, Richard was turning him around and undressing him, like some
long-delayed well-wrapped present.  Once his shirt and pants were stripped
-- Cosmo sort of half-dazed while allowing him - Kimble's hand tenderly
engaged the swelling still trapped in Cosmo's briefs.  He was smiling at
the presence beneath his fingers, tenderly encouraging it along.

   "You know, I think it's going to be almost as hot to watch Sam suck you
off as it will be to... well, I don't think I'd go that far..." Richard
said, smiling gently into his eyes.  "You are one lucky man, Cosmo.  Your
first and it's from Sam Gerard."

   A shy smile was tugging hard at the edges of Cosmo`s mouth as he was
responding to Kimble`s touch.  "How do you know its my first?"

   From the look in your eyes while Sam was sucking me.  And when Sam told
you a minute ago what was going to happen.  And from the way you're
trembling right now, waiting for it."

   "Come on," Cosmo said, gulping air, fighting for a normal voice while he
laughed away the edge of a weird kind of happy panic.  "No fair tryin' to
spook me here -"

   "It`s the truth, Cosmo.  And you have no idea - "

   From the quickness of his breathing, he hadn't heard the third man's
footsteps, but he did hear them finally stop in the doorway to the bedroom.


   Sam scanned the scene, and with a smile filled with more than just
mischief, he yanked free the buttons on his shirt.  "Richard, you knew how
naked I wanted him to be.  Why the hell has he still got clothes on?"

   "Sorry, Sam, I thought I'd leave the last bit to you," Richard said,
grinning, stepping around to the bed to leave the other two men facing each
other.

   "Okay," Sam said, walking directly in slow, long steps to Cosmo.  Gerard
was finishing the shedding of his blue jeans, beneath which he wore
nothing. "Best to have everyone naked.  When I go down on a man, I make
damn sure things get good and messy for all the right reasons.  So we need
to do something about these." Sam's left hand gripped the band of Cosmo's
briefs, while the big man's other hand reached down beneath the Y vent. 
With a hard yank, Gerard ripped the vent away.

   Cosmo grabbed for his shoulder, to brace himself against the impact of
the moment - the sensual one, not the literal one.  Sam used the leverage
to tug away the rest of the other man's briefs and toss them away.  He
rubbed the knotted naked muscle on the inside of Cosmo's thigh.  Cosmo
gasped a little harder with every advance of the other man's hand.

   "You know what you got that I want?" Sam whispered.

   "I got a good idea," Cosmo gasped back.

   Gerard laughed softly.  "Yeah, I bet.  And I know exactly what you want.
Even if you don't." Sam sunk his teeth tenderly into the nape of his neck,
holding Cosmo still.  He kissed the marks away and whispered to an ear,
"Sit down on the edge of the bed in front of Richard."

   When Kimble's arms firmly enclosed him, Cosmo felt like he was
hopelessly trapped in the only place in the world he wanted to be.

   "You really have no idea," Richard whispered to his ear.

   "Very funny," Cosmo gasped out, gulping at air.  "I'm tense enough here,
Rich, no need to tease me more."

   "Not teasing, Cosmo.  Not even a little.  It's the absolute truth. 
First time Sam blew me?  Goodgod... I can't even find words.  And I have
had dozens of blowjobs... some fantastic ones, too.  And this is your
first..."

   "Stop telling him that, Rich," Sam said, kneeling slowly, then leaning
forward to use as leverage the edge of the bed on either side of the man.
"I don't want him prepared at all.  I want every single goddamned moment of
this whole experience to be a total surprise.  And he already has no damned
idea how much he needs this... let alone how good it`s gonna be."

   "Sammy," Cosmo said, his once semi-firm voice now thin and weakening.

   Kimble's legs hooked around Renfro's, tenderly easing the trapped man's
legs apart.  "We have to give the master room to work.  Say Cosmo, did you
know men can have multiple orgasms." One of Richard's hands articulated
their intentions to Cosmo's left nipple while Kimble's other hand stroked
Cosmo's belly, in sync with his words.  "It's a matter of carefully delayed
sexual response.  Careful, continuous sexual stimulation until you're
almost... almost... almost there and then... you stop.  You let off the
intensity just a little, just enough, and then once again you start with
the sexual stimulation until you're almost, almost, almost, almost there -
and then, not that time either.  You keep going on and on and on until,
well.  ... " Kimble laughed softly.  "I did this with Sam the first time we
fucked.  Now Sam has kind of combined the two approaches.  "

   Cosmo's fevered, anxious, struggling mind fought to follow the words and
almost did until Renfro felt Sam Gerard's breath warm his inner thigh.

   Cosmo's cries struggled against restraint - as his lungs fought to keep
from screaming - fighting a lost battle in hard, breathy spurts through his
teeth.

   "Sam," he whimpered like a prayer, sinking heavily into Richard who was
holding him even more tightly than before.

   Gerard looked up to make certain he had Renfro's complete attention. 
Then he licked a twisting path up the interior thigh, just to where the
path became his groin.

   "Sam," Cosmo begged again, in a raw and twisted whisper.

   Sam's tongue teased each small involuntary muscle as the series of them
rippled against his lips like individual pleas.

   "What do you want from me, Cosmo?" Sam said, his own breathing at a
steady gallop.  "Tell me what you want."

   "Please," Cosmo whispered.

   "All you gotta do is ask.  Just ask.  That's all," Sam said, reaching up
for his prize - Cosmo's cock now pulsing bright, deep red and on the
twitching edge of eruption.  Gerard blew tenderly over the glans.  "Just
ask."

   "Suck me," Cosmo pleaded softly.

   "Suck what?"

   "Suck my cock, Sam, please..." he groaned loudly, clearly way beyond
giving a fuck about dignity, when it came to what Sam was doing to him. 
"For fucking christsakes, just suck it !"

   Sam rammed the whole of Cosmo's erection down his throat.

   A big racking, throttled scream of joy wrenched out in fits and starts
from Cosmo as he writhed in Richard's arms, lurching blindly up to thrust
his cock even further against Sam's relentless tongue.

   For all that Renfro knew ... that he used to know or he thought he knew
and then some... Sam was pumping pleasure out of reservoirs Cosmo hadn't
dreamed existed.  A bit and then a bit more and finally, Sam had conjured
yet another sudden deluge of pleasure out of flesh.  Those sensations
continued only to be merged and intensified by another and another.  The
field of delight mounted so intensely and quickly, Cosmo could barely span
the edges in the onslaught.

   Sam's mouth kept right on sucking with a hard, nasty hunger and every
time Sam sucked, Cosmo knew for fucking sure he'd hit the top, but then the
summit moved higher.

   And Gerard stopped.

   A very sweet cramp of denial gripped at Cosmo from within, causing him
to cry out his need.

   "Sam, fuck... please..."

   Richard murmured soft, soothing things into Renfro's hair, tenderly
sliding a hand across the hard plane of Cosmo's belly.

   Gerard moved back on his heels a second, swallowing air.  He backhanded
sweat from his eyes.  His free hand moved down to his very hard erection
bulging in wine-red exacting fullness already.  He touched it longingly,
staring deeply into their third lover`s eyes.

   "I want to do you so badly, Cosmo."

   The very idea caused a tremor that jerked sharply through him, causing
pre-cum to bead on the tender head of what was now Cosmo's mercilessly hard
cock.  "... anything... Sammy, you know, it's all yours..."

   "It hurts some at first."

   Renfro shook his head like a refusal of any possible reply.  "I don't
care.  I don't fucking care."

   Sam pounced again, Cosmo's still fully erect penis jammed down into the
depths of his mouth.

   Sam's lip and jaw muscles at once inspired the reawakening of pleasure
centers that had never really relaxed, and then brought to life a whole
constellation of new ones.  Every new wave cascaded a flow of sensations
for Cosmo to revel in - but the sheer act of receiving... Of feeling... of
being enraptured by each one was maddening, exhausting, exhilarating,
enthralling.

   "We love you, Cosmo," Richard murmured, continuing to strum the other
man`s nipples.  "You don`t want Sam to stop again, do you?"

   "No," Cosmo cried out, between one groan and the next.

   "I didn't think so," Richard said.  "Then you'd better urge him on.  If
you want to come in his mouth... as much as I know you do... you`d better
tell him.  Let him know."

   Sammy, please..." Cosmo sobbed out, as his body was wracked again by
another wave of bliss.

   Richard moaned hotly in his ear, "Gotta do better than that, Cos."

   Renfro yelled out, "Sammy... baby... please..."

   Sam's answer was a wild, loving groan filled with meaning, and a final,
hungry act of sucking that made Cosmo`s body, mind and soul collapse
utterly into something more wonderful than bliss.  It was madness, it was
so great.  It spun through him, like some hurricane on a sweet trip of
vengeance that didn't quit until a full minute and then Sam was drawing up
beside him, as Richard lay along the other side.  He was ready to descend,
to remember, to breathe again.

   But Sam was smiling like the sun and his hand maintained a relentless
fucking rhythm on his cock.  "You're not finished," he whispered, sucking
at his upturned throat as if a message of its own.

   And he wasn't.  Richard's lips closed down over one of Renfro's nipple
while his fingers continued playing with the other.  Then Sam's hand once
against summoned from Renfro's body something even bigger... Another lovely
hurricane rising across every artery, every nerve, every conduit for joy.

   "This is how much we love you, Cosmo," Richard whispered.

   "Feel it," Sam added, in agreement, "That`s our love."

   Feel it, he did.  For a minute.  For a hundred years.  It was too
tremendous to reach for its edges.  No way to count or to measure.

   Air moved first into his lungs, a little at a time.

   What wasn't aching divinely, was weak beyond words.  Nothing hurt in the
least - he was just a cord of pleasure tied up with springy twine.

   He remembered himself again amid the calm, cool drone of the world.  The
two men above him were regarding him with loving eyes almost too intense to
stare into.  Kind of twin solar eclipses, passing through each others'
orbit.

   "Feel good?" Sam said, grinning.

   Cosmo heard the words as they filtered through.  He smirked dreamily at
the very silly suggestion of it all.

   "Oh, hell, no.  Charles Lindberg felt good.  Neil Armstrong felt good. I
feel fucking terrific."

   "Did that make sense?" Richard asked Sam.

   "Not much, no, but the boy's a little woozy." Sam leaned down nearer
Cosmo.  The next words were just as kind, but gentler and more sure-footed,
as if the walker knew he was treading on much more sensitive terrain.  "You
know now?"

   Cosmo grinned again, a hazy-eyed amazement coupled with a wince of
recognition that only made him chuckle again.  He nodded dramatically.

   "Oh, yeah.  I know now.  Holy fuck, do I know."

   "It didn`t take much to persuade you, pal," Kimble said, flashing his
broken grin.

   "Ya big smart ass.  I like that in a man." Renfro leaned up to land a
healthy kiss on Kimble's forehead, which was received with a pleasantly
surprised smile.  "You're a wraios goiteftikos omorfos, Richard."

   "Is that a good thing?" Richard asked Sam.

   "How the hell would I know?"

   "Yeah, well, we didn't do Greek in Indiana much either."

   Renfro pinched at Kimble's nose.  "Listen to you two.  It's a great
thing.  Jeez, there ain't no fuckin' way I can sit up."

   Sam swept his hair back out of his eyes.  "Then why don't you just lie
there awhile?"

   "But what about you?" Cosmo said, shining his gaze up at Sam for a long
moment.

   "I got all I need and more, my love," Sam said.

   Cosmo kept the gaze shining at him fully, then rolled toward the steady
certainty of Sam`s shoulder.  He couldn't look him in the eye to ask this.

   "Sammy, can I ask you a question?"

   "You mean another one?"

   Cosmo chuckled.  "Yeah...another." "Sure, shoot."

   "Fifteen kids in my family, right?" He paused, shut his eyes, took a
breath of courage.  "How many gay ones ya think?"

   Sam kissed the wealth of hair, then smoothed it back into place.  "Don't
know all of `em, but of the ones I know, I'd say... one."

   "Yeah?"

   "Yeah.  From what you've told me about all the acrimony between him and
his ex-wife, sounds to me like Nico was bisexual."

   After a moment, Cosmo settled his face heavily into Sam's shoulder.  The
first sob was drawn deep from within, where it had been buried for a very
long time.  The second shook all the way through him, body and soul.

   "I know," Sam whispered softly.  "I know."









   His father had done many things for a living during Cosmo Renfro`s
childhood.  To think of the old man rising every day and going out and
working at who knew how many shitty jobs, and then coming home to fifteen
children?  Now that was courage.  Cosmo had watched Marisa give birth to
both their children, and that had sure as hell been no walk around the
park. But for his mother, Euphrosyne, fifteen times?  Fifteen?

   The usual family joke was that his mother, upon seeing Cosmo, decided
right then and there - no more babies.  So maybe, in his own way, Cosmo
thought he might have been a blessing.

   Bastiaan Renfro had been the son of Greek merchants who had come to the
US for the usual reasons when their oldest son was barely four years old.
He had little recollection of the voyage and not a one of home.  One of the
things that had drawn Bastiaan to Euphrosyne Eusebio had been the fact she
clearly remembered Greece -- she had been all of 14 when her family left
the homeland.  They would sit at night on her parents' porch and she would
talk to Bastiaan, softly, of places she remembered.  She would describe
hills and ruins and old places.  Old, old places - old as a god was old.

   Bastiaan and Euphrosyne would go together to New York museums, fragments
and relics of their common birthright under glass -- pictures and effigies
-- myths and legends.  But the pool of time was always too shallow to
quench his thirst completely.

   Instead Bastiaan would long for shadows he had never seen, as Euphrosyne
sketched these unseen landscapes in his mind.

   Euphrosyne's stroke stole her ability to speak, just before her youngest
son Cosmo's nineteenth birthday.

   His father stopped speaking of Greece altogether... with one exception.

   Through the years, Cosmo had become the default family comedian.  The
one to kid his father out of gloom.  Even when he had moved away and
married, Cosmo would bring Marisa back for family dinners, and it would
still be his job to make his father laugh.  Most times, it worked.

   The last time, his father had come to a quiet moment then looked up and
simply asked Cosmo and Marisa, "You two ever thought of going to Greece?"

   "Greece, Pop?  What like, Europe?" Cosmo had heard himself rejoin too
quickly... too sharply... in retrospect.  "We're Americans.  I wanna go
somewhere I'm universally hated, I'll go to my in-laws.  I don`t gotta
leave the freakin` country."

   It had been a funny joke -- everyone had laughed, except for his father.
Renfro had actually watched as some failing light had blinked out in the
old man's eyes.  It was one of those moments Cosmo could never have
forgotten and, in this case, that wasn`t a good thing.

   After being lectured all the way home on the fact his in-laws adored him
and on the further impassioned topic of did your father really need to hear
that, Cosmo called his father as soon as they were home.

   "I don't really think they all hate us, Pop.  I mean, they don`t even
know you, right?" he'd said to his father, struggling for something better
to add as Marisa scowled from the corner.  "It was a dumb joke, okay?"

   But Renfro men didn't walk over touchy territory together since it
required a mutual lifting of walls.  For Cosmo to have fully redeemed
himself, his father would have had to admit that the joke had mattered. 
And Bastiaan could never have admitted that anything mattered that much. 
He had that much in common with his youngest son.

   When Nico had died the way he had died, something deep in Bastiaan had
shattered completely -- broken as if it were crystal shattering from cold.
He had spent hours with a bottle of Ouzo in one hand and Nico's picture in
the other, sobbing in Greek the lengths of which Cosmo could seldom
understand.  He grasped the old man was screaming at someone unseen.  He
caught wrenched feverish shards of words -- faggot, queer, the usual.  The
words were never so much flung in anger as they were set afloat on oceans
of grief.  Cosmo had always wondered at which unseen person his father had
been yelling.

   His wife and one son gone, Cosmo's father died by inches.  He sank into
his armchair and rarely moved.  Being alone had always been Bastiaan's
greatest fear and it seemed to Cosmo as if his father's nightmare was
complete.  Between the remaining kids, they tried to manage his solitude.

   On the morning after the first day of the rest of Cosmo Renfro's life,
he had awakened with the memory of finding his father dead on the old man's
sun-facing porch.  He had died with Pilcher's Fundamental Guide to Ancient
and Modern Greece laying open, under his hand.

   Cosmo awoke by himself.

   He leaned up to look around the room.  He was alone with another night
newly risen outside a strange window, beyond the vague lengths of day.  He
guessed he'd cried himself to sleep.  Almost surely, hours had passed. 
Maybe he'd slept from the psychosexual roller coaster of the last eleven
hours.  Or maybe he simply slept because he had been tired.  Just tired
from six months of insomnia laced with living hell.

   His muscles complained as he finally sat up.

   He was in the bed, with a blanket over him and two pillows under him. 
He could hear, somewhere, low men's voices too distorted by distance to be
understood.

   Sam's earlier words still reverberated like a low knell jangling through
his mind.

   Okay, Cosmo wasn't a dumb boy, he got the gist.  Was it possible?  Well,
yeah, of course it's possible.  But was it true?

   He liked girls.  He really liked girls.  He felt emotionally close to
girls.  All that type of stuff.  But it's also true that he'd had more than
a few complex, problematic feelings about a couple of guys in his life --
most notably, and principally, and predominately, Sam Gerard.  Okay, on the
one hand, we have a lot of girls he had been with, and Marisa whom had
always been his best friend.  And then there was Sam, who had always been a
lot more than any word he could come up with.  And Richard, whom he had
kept at a distance for all those same troubling reasons coupled with a
healthy dose of... well, he had to admit it... jealousy.  Did that make a
guy gay?

   What the fuck does it matter what label you put on it, dumbshit?

   So maybe he could keep up this relationship with Sam and Richard, right?
So maybe he could.  Talk to Mari and square it with her -- somehow.  Jeff
and Jill did it, right?  Why not them?  But with what time was he going to
do this?

   Whenever he was with Sam and Rich, anything seemed possible.  He would
follow them to the edge of the world without a single hesitation, just as
he always had with Sam.

   But the minute he was alone?  He was adrift in doubt.

   He could see now clearly why his brother had swallowed the bullet.  He
could see the impasse -- a quagmire without solution, at least for Nico. 
The one he loved was gone.  (But Sam is here)

   But wasn't it selfish as hell to launch into this new three-way
relationship when Cosmo barely had time for his present one?  And what
about your kids, Mr.  Brain Trust?  When will you have time for them?

   Maybe if Nico had just worked on his marriage with Jenny, Cosmo could
remember his father saying more than a couple of times.

   Cosmo knew that was crap now.  He also knew his own marriage was fine.
Mari was perfect.  Mari was sweet and gentle and good and beautiful, she
just wasn't --

   Enough.

   Fuck all that, she wasn't Sam and Rich.

   Selfish bastard, he challenged himself from inside, crawling away from
his thoughts and toward his small suitcase innocently packed with clothes
when he thought he was just going to Frisbieville.

   He dragged on some slacks and a sweater.

   Just as he was about to close the case, he saw the picture.

   It was the one he carried, in the field.  Marisa, Alec, and Mattie at
Rohner's America Theme Park.  Alec's birthday, when Cosmo had to be away.
They had the picture taken at Uncle Shutterbug's booth to send to him.

   He kissed it once and tucked it away in his pocket, along with his
jumble of regrets.

   Seeking somewhere away from this lonely place, Cosmo followed the
direction of the men's distant voices.

   A polite fire had been inspired in the rock wall hearth: a flickering of
flame and a warming breath.  The hot tub still hummed on by itself -- the
sound of water flowed.  And he could see the two men seated between the hot
tub and the hearth place.  They were talking together in gentle, muted
tones -- like watercolor voices run together.

   Cosmo felt in an instant like he was intruding on a private
conversation. He supposed he also realized how dumb an assumption that was,
but without reconsideration he turned to leave until he heard his own name
spoken.

   "Cosmo won't like it," Richard said.

   "It has to be done," Sam said.

   "It's going to put us back a couple of paces with him.  At least."

   "We just gotta make him understand."

   "Yeah, well, that's a big array of imperative moods to throw at somebody
in a couple of days."

   "What else can we do?  I don`t have a magic wand, do you?"

   Renfro stepped aside to the edge of the planter, on the far side of the
hot tub.  It rose up high enough to hide him where he was seated, still
close enough to hear.

   Eavesdropping?  Well, not quite, since he wasn't hanging in any eaves.
He was just listening.

   There was a long quiet on Kimble's side.  He was rustling at a large
surface area of paper.  "Okay, back to the plans.  I like putting the front
of the house toward Lake Geneva."

   "I kinda like the breakfast nook toward the water.  I mean, the view
would be amazing in the morning."

   "We'll spend more time in the family room than in the breakfast nook,"
Richard said.

   "I know, I know, but... Hell, I'll probably end up wanting to move the
damned thing anyway.  You choose."

   "My thought exactly," Kimble said, laughing.  After a second, the laugh
fell away to silence.  "I`ll just be so fucking glad to get out of this
city."

   "Yeah, I know it, Richard.  I know it," Sam said gently.  "It was good
of you to stay as long as you did."

   "You weren't going to leave Cosmo.  I wasn't about to leave you.  After
awhile, I didn't want to leave him either.  Speaking of which, Lake Geneva
is some commute, you know."

   "Cosmo and I and the kids will play field about half the time anyway. 
Taking in the train the other half won't be a big deal, if it makes you
happy.  I can get some work done."

   "Yeah, you with a briefcase and a cell phone.  That I'd like to see."
Kimble laughed.  "You could stay in the city during the week, and then come
home on weekends.  That way you`d be near Cosmo, in case he gets uncertain
about things."

   "Naw, Cosmo's a grown man.  He's not as tender-hearted as all that."

   "Maybe not before, but in this situation?  All of this that has happened
with us?"

   "Well, I'll see him every work day anyway, now that he`s back in
harness. Monday through Sunday, I`d rather come home to you whenever I
can."

   And that had been the first of the sentences that had run right through
Cosmo Renfro.

   "So what do we do about the three of us?" Richard asked.

   "I guess he'll come down whenever he can.  Ninety minute drive is not
that big a deal."

   "You can tell you're from Texas."

   "Yeah, well, I'll see him during the week, then maybe we can schedule
out two weekends a month for the three of us."

   "If I go in as chief of surgery at Geneva Hope, my schedule is going to
be dicey."

   "We'll just have to make it work."

   "Gonna be one hell of a scheduling hassle," Richard said softly.

   And now, Renfro, you're a scheduling problem?

   Just hours before he had never felt closer to any two people in his
life. And now suddenly the both of them seemed to be floating away on a
downstream current.

   With what I'm feeling, we will fight you every step of the way.  Every
single step.  Richard and I love you not one bit less than Mari does.  We
might even love you more.  And I swear to you we will not give up easily.

   Cosmo's a grown man.  I'll see him every work day anyway.  Monday
through Sunday, I`d rather come home to you whenever I can...

   Somehow the two just didn't go together.  So was the second one some
braggadocio Big Dawg talk to reassure Kimble?  Or had the whole thing been
a chapter in pity the poor closet case?  Maybe Richard had just gone along?
Maybe you're just reading too much into it, Cosmo, and you're bouncing your
heart off every available surface.  So quit feeling sorry for yourself and
grow the fuck up.

   But it brought to the surface one essential problem.  They had to face
reality.

   How the hell was this supposed to work?

   He plucked from his pocket the photograph of his family.

   Sam had Richard... Richard had Sam.  All Cosmo truly had in the world
for his own was Marisa... and Marisa thought the same of him.  Cosmo was
putting everything on the line.  Everything.  And so what were Sam and
Richard gambling?  What had they to lose?  They'd always have each other.

   There was just no similar element of risk for them.  It would be easy
for them to choose, because there just wasn`t a question.

   Looking at their picture, Cosmo recalled how nearly he had missed
getting home in time to cut Alec's cake.

   Daddy, I knew you'd get here, his oldest had said that day, grasping to
his neck like a friendly young python.  Cosmo had reached home just in
time. The margin had been measured in minutes -- by the mercy of all the
lights being with him and the traffic being fairly sparse, he had made it
home to confirm his little boy's faith in him.

   I barely got time in my life for my family, how do I fit in all this?

   He kissed the picture again and pocketed it away.

   Get your head together, he told himself, lowering his face into his
hands.  You're not in a relationship with two men.  You're in a
relationship with a couple.  These men are, first and foremost, together.
You get that, right?  That is obviously still the case -- hell, Sam had
just said it, hadn`t he?  Okay, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but
it was nevertheless the truth.  Cosmo just knew it, he'd always known it,
from the moment those Greek eyes had beheld Richard Kimble.  It had been
clear to Renfro that, so far as Sam was concerned, Cosmo had turned into
yesterday's news.

   Okay, so what if all this went well -- what the hell?  What if the three
of them went on in gay connubial bliss for a while, but then things got
bad? If he locked horns with Richard, no doubt Kimble would vote him out.
And Sam would choose Richard.  It was just the way it was.  He couldn't
blame them for their own choices, even if both of them would have chosen
each other over him.

   Cosmo would be alone.  He might lose Mari.  He would lose Sam and Rich.
Simple as that.

   What is this?  What is this really?  So you're gonna be what?  Like a
third wheel, going along with them?  So when is this going to happen?  Two
weekends a month, when they can "fit you in"?  And what happens when they
can`t?  When the weeks turn to months?  And if they did find time -- you
don't have time now for a life.

   "Get real," he said sharply, and it took him a second to realize he had
spoken the words aloud.

   It didn't take long before he was being stared down at by two men
walking around to his side.

   "Where'd you come from?" Sam asked.

   He shrugged, batting away an escaped tear.  "I woke up, came in here, I
guess.  Just taking a minute of personal time, is that okay?"

   "Yeah, but we all need to talk." Sam motioned him to follow.  "Were you
listening to what we said?"

   "Well, I`m sitting here, I heard it, I wasn't really listening... well,
I was sort of," Cosmo said, standing, trying to look a lot more casual than
he felt.  He darted around the other two men, toward where they had been
sitting.  Then he parked himself on the neutral corner ottoman, on the
other side away from where Sam and Richard returned to sitting on the sofa.
"Heard you say something about moving."

   "That's right," Richard said, reaching to pour Cosmo a glass from a
pitcher of quartered limes and sparkling water, which he then returned to
the table just to the side of them all.  "We're building a house on Lake
Geneva.  I have to get out of this city, Cosmo.  It has too many bad
memories for me.  This way, Sam and I can make a fresh start together."

   "Yeah, I know.  It makes sense.  Really.  Perfect sense.  For you and
Sam.  Good for you."

   "Good for us, the three of us."

   "No, not really.  It pretty much makes impossible the three of us, in
fact." Cosmo rubbed at his nose, hoping the itch didn't presage tears.  He
shrugged his shoulders, like a man with many burdens.  "Not that it was
even really possible to begin with.  At least this brought me to my
senses."

   Richard groaned, looking aside to Sam.  "I told you this would be a
problem."

   "Hey, I'm not gonna be anybody's problem," Renfro said.

   "I didn't mean you," Richard snapped.  "Look, Lake Geneva is a distance,
I know, but it's close enough that we can all see each other without too
much effort."

   "Hey, look, don't make any efforts on my account," Cosmo said, trying to
laugh as if it had been a joke and failing utterly.  "Look, you two
should've told me before we started this whole thing.  I mean, I understand
about your moving.  It makes good sense for you, but not for me.  And I had
a right to know, okay?"

   "Cosmo, it doesn't change anything," Sam said.

   "It changes everything.  You two actually got me thinking it was
possible.  I was ready to put it all on the line for the three of us -- but
this isn't the three of us you're talking about here.  It would be you two
and me sometimes.  Sam, you said yourself that you'd rather come home to
Rich whenever you can.  Rich, you just told me you wanted you and Sam...
you and Sam... to make a fresh start.  I don't hear me in there anywhere.
And maybe that's a good thing.  There isn`t any time for me to be there."

   "There's all the time we need.  And you took what I said out of
context," Sam said.  "My point was I see you every day.  If I go home at
night, at least I`ll see Richard in the evening."

   "Mine was just a lousy choice of words," Richard said.

   Cosmo forced himself to look away.  "No, it was just the truth.  Listen,
okay, I love you guys.  The last two days, hell, I won't lie.  They've been
two of the best days of my life.  Probably the best.  I don't really wanna
leave the Marshal.  I'll stay on.  But I'm thinking' maybe people are meant
to be in pairs.  This three thing is just... weird, you know?  It's even
maybe wrong ... I dunno.  You each have each other and that's good.  I got
Marisa and she has me.  With you guys, you're first line with each other,
but I'm not with either of you."

   "That's not true," Richard said, firmly, evenly, at the point of tears.

   "Yes, it is.  And I gotta think about me and mine.  I barely got time
now to be a father the way I should be.  Sam, you know the struggles I've
had.  The missed birthdays, the school plays.  This other thing, I admit,
it's a wonderful, beautiful dream, but it's not real.  I'm the biggest
barebones realist you ever met in your life, right, Sam?  Well, I won't
tolerate this illusion any more either.  If I try, it's gonna bust me up
bad in the end and I can`t take that."

   "You're grossly simplifying everything!" Richard snapped, standing out
of anger on the edge of rage.  "Life is a lot more complex than that.  It
doesn't have straight edges.  It's filled with wavy lines."

   "Yeah, Doc?  Well, talk to your husband there, coz it needs its vertical
hold adjusted," Cosmo said, looking away.

   At that point, Richard blindly picked up his glass of sparkling water
and splashed the contents at Renfro's face.

   Cosmo didn't really react.  He just looked down at his wet shirt,
dripping.  He shook his head slowly.

   "How dare you make fun of this?" Richard snapped, his voice clouding up
with his eyes.  "How dare you take what has happened here and cheapen it
with a smart ass remark like that?  And while you`re at it, you can stuff
that your husband crap, as if it should de facto exclude you."

   Renfro smiled as if it hurt him to do so.  "Look, it was a cheap shot.
I'm sorry.  If I can get a towel, I'll dry off and I'll get out of your
hair."

   "Hell, no," Kimble said.  "You're sitting right there.  Were you in that
bed with us today at all?  Do you even remember what we shared together in
there?  I've never had an experience like that in my life and that, believe
me, is saying one helluva lot.  And it happened between the three of us."

   Cosmo swallowed hard at the memory.  "I know, I was there."

   "Good," Sam said, sitting forward out of his silence, to fix his eyes
totally on Cosmo.  "Then you look at me and tell me that you really don't
believe in the three of us anymore.  You look at me directly and you say
that."

   Renfro drew a long and tortured breath.  He was holding back a lot more
than tears.  "It doesn't matter what I say, Sam, not even you two can bend
time and space."

   Kimble folded his arms, affixing him with his own stare of steady
certainty.  "Then we'll buy a private jet.  Or a helicopter."

   "Come on," Cosmo said.  "Who buys shit like that?"

   "I do.  I can, remember?  I will, if it's necessary.  I'll call right
now and buy one, in fact, with you sitting here.  Your choice of colors. 
I'll have a fucking landing pad or an airstrip built near your house, if I
have to.  We'll shuttle you back and forth.  Hell, you and Sam can fly home
every evening when you're in the field.  You can be with us every night
you're in the field and weekends at home with your kids.  You'll see your
family more often.  Next?"

   Cosmo swallowed harder.  "I won't let you do that."

   "You won't be able to stop me.  Did you forget who you're dealing with
here?  And you've got us both on the same side."

   "Oh, sure," Cosmo said standing.  "That's the whole problem.  You're on
the same side and I'm over here.  That leaves the question of what happens
when I have a falling out with you, Rich?  You and I lock horns a lot.  Sam
and me, we have worked through enough shit that we know how to live around
each other.  I might lose Marisa through all this.  And I'll be the odd man
out with you two.  I'll be left alone."

   "What's that supposed to mean?" Sam said sharply.

   "Exactly what it said.  If it came down to a choice between me and Rich,
you'd choose Rich and you know you would.  Rich would choose you."

   "No, I'd slap you both upside the head and make you talk it out.  I
wouldn't make a choice."

   "You already made that choice together when you decided to move.  When
you move, you see Rich more, you see me less.  End of story.  Funny how
that works out, huh?"

   Renfro was almost at the door to the room to grab his suitcase to leave
when he felt hands grip him from behind, then sling him against a wall.

   Kimble was suddenly glowering at him.  "That's what this is about. 
You're jealous.  You think I'm moving Sam away on purpose?"

   "Yeah, to be honest, pretty much.  But like the man said, all's fair in
love and all that stuff.  I'm going back to Mari like nothing happened and
I'm just gonna do what my old man always did.  I'm gonna stuff what I feel
so far down that maybe one day I'll convince myself that nothing really
matters."

   "There`s just one problem," Richard said in firm and even tones.  "We.
Love.  You.  Not some idea of you, or some preconceived thought of you, but
you."

   Renfro felt the first sharp jolt of memory at those words -- another
place another voice.  His own voice just made it over the barrier to
"aloud".  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

   Richard focused his stare again on Cosmo - unflinching, not giving an
inch.  "It means it's too late, Cosmo."

   "I warned you," Sam said, in a voice so gentle, it might have been
remembered like the wind.  "We would fight you every step of the way.  You
think we didn't know you'd start bucking us off as time passed?  We knew
this house thing would be a deal breaker.  There is just no way in the
world we're letting you go, Cosmo, any more than you really want to leave."

   "While you were sleeping," Kimble said gently, "I went over to your
house.  I sat down with Mari.  And I told her.  Everything."

   "You what?" Cosmo snarled, flinging himself forward only to be grabbed
by Sam before he could reach Richard.  Renfro still fought blindly against
the arms that held him back, but he was still too terrified to have much
fight.  "How dare you?  That is my family.  My wife.  My business."

   Richard reached out to gently urge Sam away.  "Oh, yeah?  Well, you're
our business, too, Cosmo.  Or has that somehow eluded you till now?  It's
all over.  There's nothing to hide anymore."

   Renfro stepped back from both men, turning as if to look around the room
for his answers.  His words stumbled against everything he was holding back
and more.  "How could you do that?"

   "Because I knew you wouldn't.  You might have genuinely meant to, but
you'd make yourself stop every time you reached the point.  You'd be too
afraid of losing her... of hurting her to tell her.  You said as much
yourself.  And I knew if anyone could make her understand what you're going
through, it was me.  And I did, Cosmo.  She understands.  Do you hear me?
Marisa understands."

   Cosmo reached back to the ottoman now behind him, feeling for the
impossible reality of the world in which he suddenly found himself.  He
surrendered himself to the seat, crossing his arms over cold terror coiled
in his gut at the same time his whole body was burning with promise.  "Mari
knows." he said, testing the words aloud for truth.  "You told her."

   "Yes," Richard went on.  "I explained to her what the three of us feel
for each other and how it's different and vital and essential to all of our
lives.  I told her how happy you've seemed the last two days -- a kind of
happiness Sam says he's never seen in you.  And most importantly, I told
her how much you love her and how terrified you are that you might lose her
and the kids.  And she promised me she would stick it out with you.  She
promised me we'd all work it out, together."

   Cosmo's eyes closed, as he felt Sam kneel beside him, an arm behind him.
"What did she -- How did she take it -- Was she -- "

   "She was fine," Richard said, kneeling on the other side.  "She acted
stunned but not surprised.  She cried a little.  We talked it through.  I
asked your brother Delph to be there with us, when I told her."

   He shook his head to clear the path to a cogent thought.  "You actually
told Mari.  It's done.  And she's okay?"

   Richard smiled.  "Yes, Cosmo, on all fronts."

   Renfro touched a hand to Richard's face, then looked over at Sam, to run
his finger along the length of his smile.  "I mean, this was a dream,
right? This can't really happen, can it?  I mean, for real?"

   "It looks as if already has, Cosmo," Sam said gently.

   Cosmo smiled again at Richard.  "I don't know whether to kiss you hard
or punch your lights out."

   "Can I choose?" Kimble said, with a broken grin.  "You saved my life,
Cosmo.  You and Sam.  That created a bond between us, even then.  And what
it has become, is just never going to end.  We won`t let it end."

   "You sweet son of a bitch," Cosmo said.

   "Does that mean you're not going to slug me?"

   Cosmo pinched at his cheek.  "Naw," he said laughing, almost giddy. 
Thinking.  Finally, he looked around, as if seeking direction.  "I gotta
talk to Mari.  Shit, I mean, like right now."

   Sam playfully slapped at his knee.  "There's this Scotsman named Bell
who invented this little deal called a telephone?" Sam said.  "We just
happen to have one right over there."

   Richard reached for it, conveying it to Cosmo.  "Mari said she'd be
there waiting to talk to you."

   Cosmo stared at the cordless object in his hand, as if at the edge of a
precipice that was both a place from which to fly and a place to plunge to
his doom.  The hand he clutched the phone in was trembling.  "Jesus, I'm
gonna call Mari and look at me, I'm terrified."

   Sam swept a hand through his hair.  "You want us to go and give you some
privacy?"

   "No," Cosmo said, quickly, grabbing onto him as if to stop him.  "No, I
need you both here.  A whole lot."

   "Then we'll be here," Richard said.

   Cosmo pecked through the most familiar phone number in the world,
inhaling with each new button pressed.  When finally, he was out of them,
he almost winced at the sound of the ring.  It picked up after one.

   He heard her voice and almost couldn't speak, but then he made himself.
He just held his breath and forced out the word.

   "Mari?"

   "Cossi!" she gasped quickly, as if hearing a voice from the dead, her
tears thickening every word.  "Thank God you called."

   "Baby girl," he said gently.  "Are you okay?"

   "I guess," she said.

   "Rich told me... he talked to you," Cosmo said.  "And he said what he
said."

   "Yeah." Marisa started first, her tight voice barely fitting the
description of a whisper.  "Cossi, you know ... if you want to leave..."

   "No, I don't want to leave!" he said quickly, grasping the phone more
tightly than ever.  "I never, ever want to leave.  I love you.  I love our
children.  I love Mamme.  I love our home.  Well, I love everything in the
home, the house itself is a pile of crap, but christ, how do I make you see
this -- "

   "It's okay," she said gently, sighing with noticeable relief.  "I'm just
glad.  It's a big relief.  All I know is... I love you.  I don't want to
lose what we have.  We're so much a part of each other -- "

   "That will never change," Cosmo said carefully, evenly.  "Look, I know
this isn't fair to you.  I feel selfish and greedy and I wouldn't blame you
in a kazillion years if you never wanted to see me again, but my hand to
God, Marisa, I would die if I lost you.  I mean, I just couldn't live. 
Simple as that."

   She sighed in audible relief.  "You know, to be honest, with the rumors
slinging around your family, I'm also somewhat relieved by this all."

   "Yeah, I heard Aunt Florida thought I was dying of something."

   "And Uncle Thanos thought you were in with the mob.  Then again he prays
to the spirit of the wildflowers when he trims them, too.  Delphie thought
you were running around with another woman.  He didn't tell me that, but I
could tell by the way he kept insisting to me that you weren't running
around with another woman."

   Cosmo laughed.  "Yeah, I know."

   "I gotta tell you, another woman would have really busted me up.  I'm a
little in shock, but I'm not really surprised.  If it had been somebody
else, yes, but you've always loved Sam.  He's always been the other woman,
now it's just a little more... literal than before.  And I want you to be
happy, Cossi.  I don't want you ending up like Nico.  You know I've been
scared to death the last few months.  So if it means getting my husband's
spirit back into the walking cadaver I've been living with for half a year,
then I am with you.  All the way."

   "I don't expect you to be okay with this overnight," Cosmo said.

   "Good, I won`t be.  But I believe that I will be.  In a few days, more
than I am now.  In time, mostly.  As angry as I was at you, what terrified
me most was losing you.  Just tell me you're eventually comin' home. 
That's all I want to hear."

   "Every day of my life, baby girl," Cosmo said, his eyes finally filling
up.  "I swear to God."

   "I'll hold you to that.  One thing - I think we should keep it away from
the kids till they're older at least."

   "Of course."

   "Good.  And I'd like some time alone tonight.  To sort things out.  My
sister took the kids for a big sleepover at Auntie's house.  They were
thrilled.  And I guess you guys need time together, too." She left a long
silence between sentences.  "Are you gonna be okay?"

   "Now I am, yeah.  How about you?"

   "I'll get there.  So don't be such a frowny face.  Let's pretend you're
in the field like every other time.  Tell me one of your funny stories."

   Cosmo Renfro only had to think for a minute.  "You wanna hear something
really amazing?  You know Jeff Gulley?  Married to Jillian, right?  Jeff is
friends, if you know what I mean, with his partner Warren!"

   She snorted out a laugh as if she couldn`t believe her ears.  "Cosmo,
everybody knows about Jeff and Warren."

   "What?  You did?  I didn't!"

   "You don't attend Marshal wives parties.  That's nothing.  I know stuff
that would make a Westie City streetwalker blush."

   "Coulda knocked me over with a feather, I swear to God."

   "You're such a kid sometimes.  Oh and while we're on the subject of
public embarrassment, your bra and panties, Cos?  Didja really have to tell
that to the head witch of Endor?"

   Cosmo laughed, remembering.  "Yeah, well, she kinda forced me into it."

   "She stuck a gun to your head?  I didn't know Mrs.  Crabtree was packing
heat."

   He laughed as if delivered of a burden beyond time and space.  "You know
you'll always be my girl.  And I promise I ain't borrowing your undies."

   "Oh, I know that," she said, chuckling.  "You are way too big for my
stuff." She paused, as if afraid for a moment to say the next thing.  "So,
I'll see you tomorrow?"

   "On my life.  I love you, Marisa," Cosmo said, as if those were among
the most important words in the world.

   "I know," Marisa said laughing.  "Richard's been teachin' me his lines."

   "Cosmo," Sam said, holding out his hand toward the phone.

   Renfro slowly placed it onto his palm.

   Sam put the phone to his ear.  "Mari," he said, as softly as any word
Sam Gerard had ever said.  "I would hate myself forever if I did anything
to hurt you." Sam nodded.  "That's good to hear.  I love you, too.  We'll
see you then."

   Sam released the line.  He set the phone aside, reaching across to sweep
a stray hair from Cosmo's eyes, as if to see into his face.  "You okay,
baby?"

   "Yeah," Cosmo said, laughing through newly shining eyes.  He exhaled a
ton of relinquished fear and closed his eyes.  "Jesus, in a weird way, I
feel like its it's that scene at the end of the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy
dreams that great dream and wakes up to find all those people really around
her all the time."

   "Well, there`s an unusual declaration to the men you love," Kimble said,
still wearing the odd grin tilting his lips he had throughout the phone
call.  "Makes me wonder which of us is Auntie Em and who is Uncle Henry."

   "Makes me wonder why you got that big, sloppy smile on your face. 
You've had it a while now.  You up to something?"

   Richard shrugged.  "It's nothing.  I just have an idea."

   "Uh-oh."

   "What does that mean?"

   "Oh, nothing.  Just that one of your little ideas was jumpin' off the
face of a hydroelectric dam, as you might recall."

   "You just can't let that go, can you?"

   "Not likely, no."

   Richard smirked.  "Well, maybe we can discuss the idea later... But I'm
starved.  And we need a celebration, not to mention sustenance for ...
other things in the night.  Time for dinner, so I call Thai."

   Gerard shook his head.  "Not Thai."

   "Thai," Richard said again.

   "Not Thai."

   The two men looked toward Renfro for a third opinion.

   "Oh, no," Cosmo said, still dizzy from all the moments before.  "Don't
get me between you two.  I'm not gonna be the Thai breaker."

   Sam winced visibly toward Cosmo, as if he couldn`t believe his ears.

   "Hey," Cosmo said, "once in a lifetime you get a set-up line like that,
okay?  So shoot me."

   "So call it," Kimble said.  "To Thai or not to Thai?"

   Renfro shrugged.  "Thai."

   Sam pulled a sour face.  "What, again?"

   "Yeah, well, with you, Mr.  Vegetarian, we don't got a lot of choices,
do we?" Cosmo said.

   "Hey," Sam said, "you grow up in cattle country and tell me how you feel
about it, okay?"























   

   Chapter Four

   Unfinished Business

   So he found himself sitting there at the floating table between sofas,
eating between two men trading affectionate barbs back and forth with the
rapid-fire timing of two warm-up comics.  And Cosmo was thinking of Mari,
and yet entirely comfortable here, despite sitting there without a shirt on
and being more than a little chilly.  Richard had conveyed Cosmo's shirt to
the dryer, following Kimble's free-form baptism of Renfro with the cup of
sparkling water.

   So Cosmo was sitting there, still worrying a little about Mari, forking
his way through pretty good curry when he caught sight of Sam's eyes
smiling at him through the candlelight.

   "Yeah?" Cosmo said, looking around, feeling more than a little awkward
at the steady weight of his stare.  "What?"

   Sam smiled, a dreamy look to his eyes.  "Nothing, just admiring the
view."

   Cosmo grinned, wondering if it was obvious he was blushing from Sam's
frankly inquiring stare.  "What view?"

   He leaned his chin against his hand and sighed softly, a glad surrender
in his voice.  "My, my, my, my, my.  Costilla primera de gay hombre, that
is all there is to it.  No way that God made you for women alone."

   Cosmo got the picture and turned a distinct and pervasive red.  "Hey,
Sam, I'm feeling a little awkward here."

   "Too bad."

   "Well, can I at least put my shirt back on?"

   "No." Sam's smile increased by a factor of ten.

   "It's kinda cold in here.  I might get sick or something."

   "That's a myth," Kimble said, finishing his wine.  "A little cold is
good for you.  And it makes your nipples hard which is great for me and
Sam."

   "Rich!" Cosmo said, laughing again while he crossed his arms over his
chest.  "Help me out here."

   "Hell, no.  I agree with Sam.  We want to feast our eyes on your naked
manly shoulders while we're dining.  Your fault for your little
back-sliding incident.  So sit there and look hot.  Doctor`s orders."

   Renfro smiled even more nervously.  "What do I get to look at?"

   "Oh, nothing.  That's the idea.  You're the object of lust." Sam's voice
was simple and direct and friendly, but never losing the thrust of
authority.  "And quit acting like you`re not enjoying the holy hell out of
it."

   Cosmo said, grinning in embarrassed amazement, "Hey, you're the ones
enjoying my feeling like a half-naked idiot here."

   "You know, Sam," Kimble said, glancing under the table.  "He's right
about that.  He is only half-naked."

   Sam's eyes went sparkly with mischief yet again as he glanced down at
Renfro`s legs, still under slacks.  "You are correct, sir.  Now, Deputy
Marshal, you will immediately divest yourself of your pants and whatever
you got under them."

   "What?" He looked from one man to the other.  "I'm not done eating
here."

   "Clothes are not required to swallow.  That's a medical fact, isn't that
right, Doctor?"

   Kimble nodded, smiling with enthusiasm.  "It's true.  So do what the man
said."

   Sam's stare, once dreamy, now turned very bright and very clear and very
certain of their target.  "You know what, Cosmo, I'm making that an order."

   "Whoa, wait, Samantha, did you say an order?"

   Gerard considered his words.  He grinned with a merry certainty.  "Yup,
that`s what I said."

   Cosmo swallowed thickly and deeply.  "You're pulling rank on me here?"

   "Oh yes," Sam said.  "So get naked.  And be right quick about it, too."

   Renfro wondered where from the invisible blast furnace had come and why
it was aimed at him.  He suddenly was hotter than he knew it was possible
to be.  He pushed away from the table, inhaling composure.

   He yanked open his belt, then stripped off his slacks and briefs with a
kind of surrender, before pitching them behind him and returning to his
chair.  "That better, Chief?"





   Sam grinned heartily.  "You have no idea how much.  You still got a
couple of florets of broccoli on your plate there.  Our dear and glorious
physician here says you don't get enough fruits and vegetables and I never
argue with our physician."

   "Like hell you don't," Richard said, lifting his wine.  "However, in way
of shutting up Sam and easing Cosmo's discomfiture, I would like to drink a
toast."

   "Shit, I knew we'd have to do at least one of these damned things," Sam
said, lifting his glass.  "What are we drinkin to this time?"

   Richard bent a smile toward him.  "To the two fine men who saved my life
in more ways than one, even if one of them did call me something in Greek
earlier he hasn't translated yet."

   Cosmo grinned, happy for a topic that didn`t concern his naked flesh. 
"Handsome guy, okay?"

   Richard returned the compliment with a flirtatious smile.  "And lastly,
while I still have the glass in hand, to love... or amore ... or however
you translate it in Greek..."

   "Yeah, Amore.  Romanikos.  Agape.  Stuff like that," Renfro said, trying
to defuse the intensity of the moment.  "Samuel, what is it in backgammon,
that Irish Scottish redneck pig Latin language thing you can`t talk so
good?"

   Sam wrinkled his brow thoroughly, casting him over a terse smirk.  "In
the language of my grandmother's proud and ancient people, you mean?  I
believe it is grá.  I think it's the same thing in Irish, isn't it,
Richard?"

   "You're asking me?" Kimble said.  "My family left Ireland during the
Belfast rebellion.  Don't ask me for directions around Derry either.  But
yeah, now that you mention it, I think it's grá."

   "Graw?" Cosmo said, squinting from one man to the other as if he must
have heard wrong.

   "Yeah, grá." Richard nodded.

   "That ain't much, is it?"

   "Well, next to romanikos," Richard said, "the word love doesn't have a
lot going for it either.  Sam, you're part English, why don't you have a
word with the Queen?"

   "Hell, she hasn't taken my calls in years," Gerard said, lifting his own
glass at last.  "To romanikos or grá or love, in whatever its language -- "

   "We're heading into Hallmark territory fast here, Sam," Cosmo said,
lifting his own glass.

   Gerard nodded.  "I know, I know, but we're doin' our silly toasts now
and I got one goin'."

   "Okay, okay, but hurry.  I`m the only one naked here and I feel really
stupid."

   "You may as well get used to it, coz it's not changing anytime soon. 
But I will make the next toast to Dr.  Richard Kimble," Sam said, turning
to Richard.  "A man I love so much it sometimes hurts, who transformed my
life from everything it had to be into all the things it should have been
and more.  A man of such great dignity and decency and compassion, with
such outstanding taste in men, wine, and art, that he can be forgiven his
deficits when it comes to theatre and poetry, to say nothing of the fact he
actually owns the Harry Connick, Jr.  complete collection.  That we have
come this far together is itself nothing less than a miracle.  One can only
wonder at the wonders that shall never cease."

   Kimble smiled tenderly, his eyes lighting up as they turned toward Sam.
"Which poet was that, Sam Gerard?" Richard asked.

   "Sure as hell wasn't Rod McKuen."

   "Here we go on him again." Kimble said to Cosmo, "I confess, that's my
dark secret, I like Rod McKuen."

   "Not to mention Riverdance," Sam said.

   "Riverdance is Irish folk dancing."

   "And you would know this how, Dr.  Lace Curtain Irish?  I come in part
from dirt poor Scots-Irish people - those trailer parks aren't nothin but
shanty towns with wheels on `em, Richard.  We were the folk dancing down by
the riverside kind, and I still consider that the silliest piece of
gimcrack I've ever seen in all my born days.  I about half thought I'd
drunk a couple too many and hallucinated the whole damned thing."

   Kimble grinned, clearly enjoying this immensely.  "Which is why you
bought tickets for us again two days later, smart guy?"

   "Yeah, well, at least I didn't buy tickets to a two hour play about a
fly stuck in a jelly jar."

   "There you go about Pinter again.  I took you to see Les Mis the next
day, didn`t I?"

   "Was that supposed to be a compensation?"

   The crisp larrup of words lobbed back and forth at a steady clip across
the table until they came to a sudden stop as Renfro set down his glass.

   The other two men immediately looked over at him.

   "What?" Renfro said, mildly annoyed and clearly more than a little hurt
by his exclusion from the toast.  "It looked like this set was goin' on for
awhile, so I put down my glass.  So what?"

   "So pick up your glass," Sam said.

   Cosmo looked at the standing flute, still awash with the wine he hadn't
even tasted let alone consumed.  He wasn`t a wine guy, but he lifted it up.
"Sorry, I just thought `cause you`re not drinking a toast to me that I
could, but I can clearly see I have breached some frickin` toastmaster
etiquette.  So what are we drinking to now?"

   "Not to you, that's for sure," Sam said, sounding a little hurt himself.
"Instead, I will drink to Nicodemus Renfro, who made an awful choice one
very dark night because he knew for sure the man he loved was gone and was
never coming back.  I know in too many ways what that feels like.  But
without that awful choice, his brother might never have seen the truth. 
And that truth brought the love of my youth back to me when I thought he
was lost forever.  Tonight, because of Nico's sacrifice, I will have one
hell of a honeymoon with the two great loves of my life."

   Okay, so he'd made a vow to never really cry in front of Sam.  Not
really.  But this was just a flood of them that caught him totally
off-guard but which made him laugh in the sure and certain knowledge that
they weren't about to stop - not for a moment.  They were tears a long time
in coming.

   He had every intention of pushing them away and saying sarcastic, but
that had never been an option from the moment Sam`s words had begun.

   "There, ya had to go and do it.  You had to make me cry," he said,
blotting at his eyes with a napkin.  He shook his head at the thought of
it, his smile wandering after his words.  "You know how I wanted so badly
to believe before?  To believe everything you said?"

   "I remember," Sam said tenderly.

   Cosmo laughed at the impossible truth of it.  At a fact he could barely
grasp himself.  "I think I really do believe it.  I really do love you. 
And if you say I know, I am gonna kick your ever-lovin' ass."

   "Hey, man, me and Rich said it already.  You're the yellow-belly one on
this deal.  But I love you, Cosmo.  We both do.  Just for the record." Sam
looked very deeply into his eyes.  "You get that this is forever, right?  I
mean, you understand that this isn`t goin` away."

   Cosmo laughed.  "Oh, no, Sammy, I`m sitting here in tears from what you
just said 'cause for me it's a one night stand.  Of course I know.  And it
ain`t goin` nowhere for me either, about either of you."

   In that moment, the lights were doused, a soft blue-green tint glowing
enough from the water lamps to bring to light the edges of a room.

   "That goes for three of us," Richard said, joining the circle.

   "Where did you get to after my lovely toast?" Sam said, squinting over
at the third man he hooked with an arm and dragged toward him.

   "A little sensual staging.  Setting the mood."

   "I already got the mood," Sam said, grasping the back of Richard's head
to tow him over into a kiss.  His mouth encompassed Richard's, only to have
Kimble shift his head to redirect the kiss.

   To Cosmo, it almost looked like a contest as much as a kiss, but then
Sam's and Richard's life together was a deeply loving competition -- an
achingly erotic challenge -- that burned along the edges of their lives. 
Love you so much it hurts.  Absolutely.  Sam Gerard's love was an
overpowering vice grip in which you could be happily trapped forever. 
Cosmo knew that too well.  And Richard Kimble had dragged Sam to his
limits, defied all his boundaries, then compelled him to lay down his arms
on battlefields on which he'd never before surrendered.

   Kimble grabbed at Sam's jeans, yanking free the top button.  He dragged
the fly down.  He forced their mouths apart.

   "I bet I know," Richard said, his smoky voice rising, "what you want. 
You won't ask for it.  But I will."

   So Cosmo pretended to drink his wine and sit there, wondering where he
should be looking when he felt a hand grab him and drag him across.

   Richard wrapped Renfro tightly against him, through a wickedly hard and
thorough kiss that left Cosmo gasping when it was done.

   He nibbled gingerly at Cosmo's ear and whispered.  "Sam wants to feel
his cock in your mouth."

   Cosmo grasped onto Richard's shoulders, out of Cosmo`s clear concern he
might melt on the spot.

   Renfro nodded avidly, smiling his challenge.  "Hey, Chief, what say I
hit my knees in front of you and not pray?"

   "Cosmo, you are playing with very serious fire," Sam said with a heated
laugh as he peeled off his own sweater so he could drag Cosmo hard against
his chest.

   Cosmo's mouth closed down on the wall of Sam's chest, his lips
descending with a kind of rapt attention to instinct and intuition and just
making it the fuck up as he went along.  His tongue insinuated hungrily
down the muscular wall to his navel, relishing the tenderly tormented
noises each attention paid by Renfro's mouth dragged out of Sam, until at
last Cosmo's knees hit the floor.  His fingers rubbed up the stirring, warm
tension beneath the half-opened zipper of the other man's jeans.

   "Hey, Sammy," Cosmo whispered coyly.  "So, what's it like a big, hot gay
turn-on to have a virgin suck you or something?"

   Sam groaned against clenched teeth as Richard chewed gently down on one
of Gerard's nipples.  Sam nodded.  "It is for me."

   "I`ll bet," Cosmo said, exhaling hot breath all over what emerged as he
finished unzipping Sam's jeans.  He reached into a wealth of coarse brown
hair to free Sam's cock -- a rigid, veined promise pulsing in his hand. 
Cosmo's words curled up in teasing tones along his softly purring voice. 
"I'm gonna go slow here, `cause I don't know what I'm doing, right?  I
mean, I've never had a cock in my mouth before."

   "You keep talking like that," Sam whispered feverishly, a rush of hunger
blocking his throat, "you best be ready for what you're gonna get along
with it."

   "So," Cosmo said, petting his hand up the length of the shaft that was
now the hottest fucking thing he'd ever seen in his life.  "I just lick my
tongue around the head, right?  Lick it gently and then put it in my mouth,
right?  And then I suck?"

   "We've got a virgin tease, Sam," Richard said, grinning with a white
heat down at Cosmo.  "God, I love a virgin tease."

   "Yes," Sam gasped at Kimble.  "And you're not helping matters."

   "Yeah," Rich said.  "I know.  Go ahead, Cosmo, first time for
everything."

   The minute Cosmo's tongue connected, the sounds of Sam's happy torment
swelled.  And Renfro sensed the brush of his lips as he opened his mouth to
take in Sam's cock was going to drive fire through every inch of Gerard's
body.  Just the nearness of Renfro's mouth had triggered a sharpening of
each and every groan out of Sam.  Sensing the depth of the other man's
desire had driven away a lot of Cosmo's fear.

   "You know, I think I want some more," Cosmo said in a crisp, dry
whisper, then sucked.  Hard.

   The action dragged a moan out of Sam that sounded like anguish in the
shape of pleasure.  He backed away to break the contact, grabbing back for
the shoulders of a chair.

   Sam fought for enough air to speak.  "Cosmo -- if that kept going, I was
gonna come faster than I have since I was a teenager."

   Cosmo sat back on his heels, grinning, clearly pleased with himself. 
"Would that have been so bad?"

   "No, it would not," Sam said.  "But we have some more pressing
unfinished business."

   Richard knelt beside Cosmo, tipping a bottle of something shining like
gossamer liquid in the glow of water lights.  "Hold out your hands," Kimble
said gently.

   Cosmo cupped them both together, watching as Richard spilled the lavish
ointment into his open palms.

   "You have to get me ready," Sam said.

   "I know the routine," Cosmo said, fighting to moderate his own
respiration.  He wrapped both his oiled hands firmly around Sam's cock.  "I
got you ready for Rich the last time, remember?"

   "Yeah, I remember," Sam said, smiling with secrets all his own.  "But
this time, baby, it isn't for Rich."

   Cosmo was hit with a sudden rush of vivid understanding.  He wiped away
sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, exhaling as he settled
back again.  "Fuck, Sammy.  That`s all I want in the world right now."

   "It's going to hurt some ... at first," Gerard said.

   "I don't care.  I just want you on me and in me and around me.  All of
that.  I want it so bad."

   Sam grasped Cosmo's slickest hand in a firm fist and pulled him in a
moment to his feet.  Sam stared deeply into the other man's eyes.  "Turn
around and face that pretty view of the city," Gerard said smiling.

   Cosmo turned to face the wall of distant windows in a room so dark it
merged with the deep night sky.  Unbending.  Unending.  There were city
lights, but they were softer than starlight and more distant.  He breathed
in all of it until Sam's hands touched his shoulders and gently kissed the
upsweep of his throat.

   Richard had seated himself in the midst of a sea of pillows.  He reached
a hand toward Renfro and motioned him toward him.

   "Mind if I share this with you at least?" Richard said dryly with a half
smile.

   Renfro took the hand Richard offered as if his answer.  He found himself
drawn down to his knees, to share the cushions across the floor.  Richard
yanked one of the cushions out from under him to hasten his ascent.

   "That was real clever," Cosmo said, laughing roughly and a little
nervously.

   "I thought so," Kimble said, leaning down so he could smile up into
Renfro's eyes.  He was holding something above Cosmo and behind him, just
beyond the reclining man's view.  After a second, a comforting spill of
something thick and cool cascaded like one long insinuation down the cleft
of Renfro's ass.  Behind him, Sam's strong hands guided his thighs apart.

   "Try to relax," Richard said, pinching away another stream of sweat from
Renfro`s face.  "Just remember, pain or no pain, by the time Sam completely
deflowers your incredibly hot virgin ass, you're going to be a very, very,
very happy man.  And my hand is here for you to grab."

   "I can do pain without holding your hand, Rich," Renfro gasped.

   "Oh, you won't be grabbing my hand because of the pain," Richard said
and smiled.

   "Cosmo," Sam said softly, like a question.

   Renfro swallowed hard and gripped harder to Richard`s hand that he was
still holding.  "Do it, Sam."

   Sam restrained his own attempts at gasping for air.  "I`m gonna fight
like hell to do this as slowly as I can -- "

   "Just do it, Sam, please.  I've been waiting for this I think since the
moment I met you.  I don't want to wait anymore."

   What scares people about pain, Richard once told Cosmo and Sam during
some dinner hour epiphany, was not how much it hurt at the moment, but how
much it might hurt the next.  Cosmo was actually surprised the pain was so
minimal.  After hearing about it all those years, he supposed he thought it
would tear open the night at the implosion, and even so, he welcomed it for
what it meant.

   But after the first hard prodding pain of Sam's rigid cock moving
steadily, tenderly forward, the thing that hit him hardest wasn't the pain
at all, but the expanding, pumping, throbbing urgent pleasure screaming
deep in his groin.  It wasn't even close to anything he'd felt before.  And
it was so good that what really scared him was how good it might feel, then
it cleared that hurdle and pressed on.

   It was Sam and he was doing it.  Sam was doing it -- making him feel
this way.  There was a kind of warm unfolding of his spirit in the lack of
all control... of the choice being taken from him.

   Renfro grabbed out blindly for Richard's hand, which was waiting and
ready to return his grasp.

   There wasn't anything to be said: everything he wanted to say in the
world was rising to his lips, but he couldn't force a sound.  It was the
shock of the moment and his muscles tightening and the tears spilling out
of him, all at an instant.  It was a kind of deep earth tremor that showed
no promise of stopping.  It had Cosmo in its grip and it wasn't going away.

   "Cos," Richard whispered quickly, tasting the other man`s hand that he
gripped tightly.  He licked up the length of his index finger until the
other man's eyes shifted momentarily toward him.  Then he said to the other
man, "Sam."

   Renfro barely knew what had happened before he felt Gerard's arms draw
him up and backward -- a Marshal battle roll.  It dislodged them for only a
moment, but then gravity alone thrust Sam higher into him.

   "Cosmo," Sam whispered, beneath him and around him, his voice warm and
moist against his ear.  "Twenty years, I wanted this.  Twenty fucking
years. I never thought it would ever... ever... "

   Still beyond speech, Cosmo turned toward Sam's voice, pressing his face
against Sam's, against the touch of his lips and the glow of his skin.  He
wanted to say so much, but there was too much to say and no way to say it.

   "Guess what Richard is about to do," Sam murmured into his hair.

   Cosmo felt the kiss against his cock before he knew what was happening.
"Here's one of the best things about three-ways," Richard said, before his
lips went after bigger game.

   Sam was thrusting and Richard was sucking and Cosmo thought he was about
to lose his mind between the two attacks.  Renfro's whole body contorted
between both men, toward one and away and then in reverse.  It was
something he wanted to escape immediately and something he never wanted to
end.

   "Baby," Sam whispered, hard and hot against his ear.

   Cosmo's groan forced out of him all at once, a wild breach, a snow blind
sweet violence that confessed every thing he was feeling to the other two
men and more.

   "Baby," Sam moaned from his loving torment, like he was speaking the
name of something long thought impossible.

   It wasn't his own pleasure Cosmo first remembered, it was the feeling of
Sam coming inside him, because of him -- an explosion hot and warm, filling
Cosmo with the wholeness of utterly knowing that here was the one place in
the world that Cosmo should be.

   But then Richard's mouth and tongue were dragging him hungrily to the
finish line.  The circuit of pleasure built from the ever-growing throb
deep inside him until it moved to merge with what was happening to his
cock.

   No way on earth did he think anything could feel better than the second
time ... but then he had thought that of the first time, hadn`t he?

   But third time was most definitely the charm.

   Cosmo felt it was all cocooned in memory in which he'd only be able to
discover it bit by bit, in his own time and space.  It couldn't be
accounted for all at once.  In the moment itself, he felt like he'd been
smelted down and poured back into a Cosmo mould again.

   "Holy shit," Cosmo said, when the whole world had shifted off of him and
he could breathe enough to remember what English was and how the fuck to
use it.

   He suddenly had two men smiling into his eyes again.  It had happened at
least once before.  "Happy?" one of them asked.

   "Happy?" he laughed at the idiotic suggestion.  "Naw, the Iditarod is
happy.  The space shuttle was happy.  I'm fucking euphoric."

   "The Iditarod is happy?" Kimble asked, looking quizzically toward Sam.

   "I expect it made sense when his brain put it together." Sam looked back
into his eyes.  "You get your breath, baby.  Join us when you're ready. 
I've got an appointment on top of our doctor here."

   "Hold on to that dream, Sam," Kimble laughed, before he was tackled
against the cushions.

   Cosmo watched as Sam's hands forced their way into Richard's slacks to
find his cock, and then set about sucking it.  Renfro only needed a couple
of breaths before he was hurling himself forward toward the other two men.

   His mouth went straight toward Sam's where it was swallowing Richard's
cock.  Cosmo wasn't sure what delighted him more -- the hard slickness of
the cock sliding between his lips and Sam's, or the groan it dragged out of
Richard.

   "Looks like our virgin's not teasing now," Sam said, as his tongue wove
once more around Kimble's penis and into Cosmo's mouth.

   Cosmo founded himself hungrily going after Richard's cock and Sam's
tongue at the same time, while Sam's own tongue responded in kind.  Then he
backed away to watch and nodded for Cosmo to go on.

   "Not bad for a first-timer, right, Rich?" Sam said, grinning.

   Not that Kimble was about to respond.  One hand had anchored Cosmo's
mouth to his cock and the other grabbed blindly for Sam.

   Cosmo kept sucking in a kind of focused fury, as if he'd been doing this
forever.  And this time, he wasn't ever going to stop.

   Richard's hardest cry was sharp and quick, followed by a louder groan of
helplessness at the first sound of Cosmo swallowing.

   Renfro finished with a grin on his face, then rolled onto his side, to
settle against Sam's shoulder, his ear strategically over the other man's
heart.  Cosmo felt arms enclose him from behind, and a chin balance on his
shoulder.

   Sam squinted a little to stare into Renfro`s eyes.  "Well, don't you
look pleased with yourself," Sam said.

   Cosmo laughed a little, smiled more.  "That would be because I am." He
was quiet again, listening to the sound of Sam's heart, to Richard's gentle
breathing on his shoulder, feeling someone's hand wandering through his
hair.  Too gentle and lithe to be Sam's touch, he thought -- had to be
Richard's.

   The room was dark and everything was quiet and the sound of the water
might have lulled him to sleep.  Which was probably why he sighed.

   "Hey," Sam said.  "What's wrong?"

   "Nothing."

   "Don't give us that," Richard said.  "We heard the sigh.  Out with it."
Cosmo's smile wilted a little.  "I guess I was just thinking that it would
be so nice if this didn't have to end.  If reality didn't have to intrude.
If we could go on like this forever."

   "Who says we can't?" Sam asked, lifting his chin so his eyes would rise
to meet his own.

   "The real world says it.  The three hour drive says it.  Dr.  Chopper
here, or not.  We've got some reality to face ahead of us."

   There was a significant silence from the man leaning against his own
shoulder.  "Now, Sam?" Richard said at last.

   Cosmo looked from face to face.  "Now what?"

   Gerard shook his head.  "We just made love.  None of us smoke, but we
can't have some cigarette time anyway?"

   "Come on, I waited," Kimble said, almost sounding like an impatient kid.

   "All right, all right." Sam sat up, reaching for the remote for the
lights.  He dialed up a light that expanded to engulf the three of them
just enough.  "But, I warn you, if you got up your sleeve what I think you
got up your sleeve, this whole thing is going to take a lot of talking."

   "What whole thing?" Cosmo said.

   Kimble reached for the house plan, still waiting near the floating
table. He flicked it open and pressed it out against his knee.

   "Okay, we're building a house, right?  Why not build two?  There'll be
no commute at all.  We can build one house for your family and one for the
three of us.  Cosmo, you can sort of float between the two.  It keeps our
relationship private, out of Mari's way and away from the kids in keeping
with her wishes."

   "Rich," Cosmo said, laughing.  "That's a beautiful idea, but no way can
I afford a house in that area on my family`s income.  I mean, Lake Geneva,
Wisconsin?  Jesus.  Hell, we couldn't afford the one we're in now if we
tried to buy it either."

   Kimble leaned forward, to meet his gaze.  "You wouldn't be buying,
Cosmo, I would."

   Renfro`s mouth dropped open.  Gob smacked - he always wondered what the
hell that looked like and now he knew what it meant.  Thunderstruck, too.
And throw in abject surprise.

   "No, " he said.  "No way.  Richard, that's real nice and all, but I
can't let you do that.  I'll take care of my family.  I always have."

   "You're my family.  Can I at least take care of you?  And by extension
your family?"

   "No.  Just no.  We don't do that where I'm from.  Rich, I understand you
mean well and your heart's in the right place, but I just can't do that.  I
was brought up that men stand on their own feet and take care of their own
people."

   "You were also taught that men don't fall in love with other men."

   Renfro paused a moment, confessed a smile.  "Yeah, okay, you got me
there.  Maybe a lot of that stuff was crap.  But this just... I don't know.
It's a pride thing."

   "What about a rational thing?" Kimble said.  "I've got more money than
God.  I inherited Helen's family estate and my own family's estate.  I let
it sit there and accrue interest, doing nothing but make some investment
banker wealthier than is probably good for him.  And on top of it, I make a
great... I mean a great... living.  I don't like cars.  I don't travel more
than once a year.  I don't do drugs.  I don't collect art other than my
own. God knows Sam won't let me spoil him.  And you can tell my taste in
clothing does not run to William Fioravanti."

   `Who?" Cosmo said.

   "Some clothing guy we can't afford," Sam explained.

   Richard reached out for one hand from each man, clinging to them both.
"So let me do this.  This is a way for me to use it in a way that benefits
us all.  This is the only thing that really matters to me anymore... the
people I love.  Nothing else does."

   Cosmo kissed the Kimble hand he held.  "Okay, look, even if I said okay
about the house, there's Mari.  Her job."

   "I hear they got schools in Lake Geneva," Sam said.  "Indoor plumbing,
too."

   Cosmo nodded.  "Yeah, but Mari's been at Norman Meadows for like a
hundred years."

   "Yeah, but she hates her principal," Richard said, "she has never gotten
along with a couple of the teachers there, and she's been thinking of going
back for her masters."

   "Wait, how do you know all that?"

   "Okay.  I already spoke with her about it.  I know, I know.  Don't give
me the Cosmo cross look.  I know I was probably overstepping the bounds of
social etiquette -- "

   "Since when has that stopped you?" Sam said, using the hand to tow
Richard toward them.

   "I know," Kimble said.  "But I knew Mari would listen to reason before
Cosmo would.  And don't argue with me, either of you, you know it's true.
But Cosmo think of how you worry when you're both in the field and they're
at home.  Well, I'll be right next door, in case something happens. 
Instant doctor, too.  C'mon, admit it.  It's the perfect solution.  And
it's the best thing for your family."

   Gerard grinned, pinching at Cosmo's nose.  "He's got you Alamo'd and you
know it."

   Cosmo took it all in, every glinting corner of each thought seeming to
light up a little more of his heart.  "Okay, hell, why not?" he said,
laughing, not quite believing the sound of his own voice.  "Why the hell
not?  Rich, this is just so damned -- "

   "None of that, none of that, no thanks necessary," Kimble said, waving a
finger.  "C'mon, this is just part of ongoing procedure with the three of
us from now on, okay?  This admonition includes the next bit of
information, which you will accept and that's an order, too.  That leads us
to our big surprise.  Sam?"

   "What now?" Cosmo said.  "What the hell could be bigger than this?"

   Sam took to his feet long enough to grab up an envelope from the small
secretary that fit between the table and the hot tub alcove.  He returned
to see in the circle of men.  He gently handed the envelope over to Renfro.

   "In that envelope, you will find two smaller envelopes," Sam said. 
"Both involve cruise tickets for the three of us and your whole family to
tour various parts of Europe.  Richard is bound and determined to drag me
back to examine my roots at the same time as he's tracing his.  We'll be
trooping through Great Britain, I'm sure to the chagrin of the friendly
natives, whom I`m given to understand are not unlike us."

   Richard's broken smile surfaced a moment.  He shared it behind a hand
toward Cosmo.  "Gee, can you tell Sam's not thrilled?"

   "I am thrilled to bits, my darling man, however your people left the
mother country in a lot better situation than did mine.  If the bodies of
my ancestors rise up from the grave to run me out of town, don't say I did
not warn you."

   Richard smirked.  "If the bodies of your ancestors rise up from the
grave, Sam, we'll have a lot bigger problems than being run out of town."

   "Touche."

   Cosmo smiled at the envelope in his hand.  "Man, this sounds terrific. I
always wanted to take my family somewhere like this.  Rich, this is --
okay, I can't thank you, I know, but thank you anyway, okay?"

   Kimble laughed.  "Okay.  But that brings us to the second envelope."

   "What's in that?"

   Richard's smirk softened considerably.  "That's the second leg of the
cruise.  The Mediterranean one.  We're going to stop first on the
Peloponnese Peninsula."

   Cosmo swallowed, unbelieving utterly and completely, despite his
willingness to do so.  It couldn't be, could it?  I mean, not really.

   "You don't mean Nafplio?" he said, his eyes stinging again, at the very
possibility.

   Kimble nodded.  "We want to take you to Greece, Cosmo.  To the place
your folks came from.  Your father can't go there now, but you can see it
for him.  His grandchildren can see it, too.  And don`t you don`t you dare
say thank you."

   Cosmo shook his head at the objects in his hand ... at the amazing road
that had unfolded for him, beyond one cold night beside a train wreck and
toward one escaped convict.  And with him all the while, the man he had
unknowingly loved most of his life, more than his life.

   Renfro smiled bigger than he knew how to.  "Can I at least say I love
you?"

   Richard nodded.  "Okay, you can say that, because I love you, too."

   There was a silence between them.  The third man looked from one man to
the other.  "Hey, what about me?"

   "You?  You got dead Irishmen after you," Cosmo laughed, before pouncing
warmly in the direction of one Samuel Gerard.  "Me and Rich, we ain't
takin' any chances."