Four Coins Ch 02 Ralph One

"Is there someplace nearby for breakfast?"

"Yes even at one in the afternoon, sweetie," the clerk answered with a smile. "They'll fix you up in the bar downstairs. They'll fix you up for all sorts of things down there. I'd say you look like you didn't get a lick of sleep last night, but I'll bet you always look drop-dead gorgeous."

Nathan reddened up some on that. The clerk was being quite a bit friskier than he was yesterday. Of course Nathan didn't know that was because the night clerk had given him a report on the couple in room 21. Bruce hadn't quite pinned this Thorne guy down when he'd checked in. Nathan had been reserved and a bit frigid. But only one night here and the night clerk repeating some of what he'd heard through the thin walls—even over that coming from the other rooms—and how frequently the brass headboard on the queen in the loft of room 21 started up banging against the wall again . . . that told Bruce that the guy obviously was a player.

And he was a hunk too—a standout even here on Duval Street, where all the prime queers in the nation gathered. A sunshine blond with movie star looks, a smile to die for now that he was flashing it, and the body of an Apollo. It was a crime what he was wearing now. He should either not be wearing shorts and a T that showed every contour of him or just go whole hog and walk around jay naked. And looking so different from the afternoon before. Standing up straight now and looking real fine—looking tired, yes, but looking sleek and satisfied, like he'd gotten something last night that he hadn't gotten in a long time and needed. Well fucked. Yep, maybe he just needed to get fucked like the night clerk described was happening in that room—throughout the night.

"You were right about the music downstairs," Nathan said, the slight defensiveness recognizable in his voice. "It went on all night."

"As did the noise from some of the rooms up here, honey, the way I heard it from the night clerk." Bruce rarely held back from being direct when he thought he'd gotten a guest's number. He wasn't sure about this guy last night, but he was now, after what the night clerk reported. The first night. Fucking all night. Bruce wondered if Thorne was a pitcher or a catcher. He wouldn't mind catching some of that. Not at all.

Nathan lowered his gaze in embarrassment, and Bruce thought that made him look just that hotter.

"Downstairs in the bar. Ralph will be down there. He'll take care of you—in about any way you can handle—and here," Bruce said, raising up a baseball ball from behind the counter far enough for Nathan to see it. "You might want to take this with you to beat off the guys lurking around the entrance down there to the pub."

Nathan looked up with a quizzical look on his face that Bruce immediately added to the list of the looks that made the guy come across as super hot.

"Uh, why?"

"Honey, if you don't know why, then lord help you here in Key West."

* * * *

"What'll it be? Beer or something stronger?" the hulking black guy behind the bar, leaning over the counter with both of his beefy arms outstretched, asked Nathan as the young man saddled up to the bar in the Bourbon Street Pub. Nathan turned a bit wary as he saw that the guy had tight black leather bands around his wrists with silver studs running all the way around them.

"I was told to ask for Ralph," Nathan responded. "I'm staying upstairs at the New Orleans House, and the clerk said that Ralph down here would fix me up with some breakfast."

"Ralph. That's me. What'll it be? We can do eggs and bacon or pancakes. What'll it be? In the meantime I'd recommend strong coffee."

"I look that bad, do I?" Nathan said. "But, yes, strong coffee and a lot of it, please."

"Don't think you'd ever look bad," Ralph responded, echoing what Nathan had just heard upstairs and making him hang his head, "but you look like you've been humping—or humped—all night long. Or maybe both?" The man was giving Nathan a wry smile.

Nathan went red again. Was it that apparent? Was everyone here so open about this?

As if he could read Nathan's mind, Ralph quickly said, "No reason to worry, sweetheart. You're in the Bourbon Street Pub and staying at the New Orleans House in the middle of Queer Street USA. We don't bother with pretenses here. You had a fuckin' good night, didn't you? And now you need refueled. Nothing wrong with that."

"OK, you're right," Nathan said, straightening up on the stool and giving Ralph a radiant smile.

"Now you're lookin' good," Ralph said as he poured out the coffee. "Maybe too good, though. Maybe we should get some food into you before some big bruiser comes in here and pulls you off the stool and carries you back up to that room of yours upstairs—or I get a hankering to do you myself in the back room here. About breakfast. Eggs or pancakes?"

"I'm not sure. Which do you think is better?" Surely this type of bravado was just banter, he thought. But looking at the bruiser looking at him made him not quite so sure.

Ralph humphed and put a big mitt into one of his pockets and came up with a quarter. "Heads eggs; tails pancakes. Heads it is. The eggs are best this morning." He left briefly—long enough to go to a door at the end of the bar and yell Nathan's order back into the kitchen—and then he was back, leaning over the bar, arms spread out in either direction and watching Nathan's coffee cup for signs that it needed refilling.

"You always make decisions with a flip of a coin?" Nathan asked, with a laugh.

"I find it as reliable as most decisions folks make. And it's a hell of a lot faster. You'll get fed on the coin toss faster than the mulling you would have done. Sometimes the difference between choices don't matter a whole hell of a lot. OK, now, you look like you're fresh to Key West."

"Arrived just yesterday afternoon."

"Just visiting? For how long?"

"Just looking around now; thinking of moving here."

"Running from something or too something? Needn't look at me like that. I've been here a long time and I've seen it all. And guys talk to me. It goes with tending bar. You can talk to me too. You look like you need someone to talk to—and maybe have had that need for a while."

"I guess the answer to your question is both," Nathan said, with a sigh. Why did he feel so comfortable with this guy now? He normally wouldn't with such a hulking black guy. But the guy's innuendo didn't seem to amount to anything really threatening and he seemed so easy to talk to—nonjudgmental, like there was nothing that Nathan could say that would shock him. Maybe it was right about needing someone to talk to and a bartender being a pro listener. He hadn't been able to talk to anyone in New York. Too much baggage and too many competing wants and needs. Too many secrets and feelings of guilt he needed to keep bottled inside in New York. Maybe that's why he'd come to Key West. For someone to talk to. Maybe it wasn't to get fucked, although it was a little late to come to that conclusion.

"One night here, and you let someone you just met fuck you all night, didn't you?"

"Yes," Nathan admitted.

"Hope you got yours back riding his tail."

"Yes, I did," Nathan said. He couldn't help but grin.

"Got a lot bottled up inside you, don't you, son? Came here to let it out, maybe even without realizing that's what you were doing."

"Yes, I guess I did."

"Nothing wrong with that. This is the place. It's the guilt. Bet you're here because of the guilt."

"The guilt?"

"Yes. We don't got that here in Key West—the guilt. If it feels good, do it, and don't guilt yourself over it. That's our motto down here. You got the guilt, I think. That's why you came down here. You got to work on the guilt thing. It's good to think about what you want, what makes you feel good, and to discuss it openly. Nothing wrong about fucking all night—or even with a hunk you've never met before but who turns your fancy. Or even," and here he gave Nathan a sly little look, "somethin' a bit kinky, somethin' that really tests your limits. Key West is probably the best place in the world to scratch that itch. But you might want to hold back a bit until you get your bearings, until you have some idea of what you want now. You're down from a big city, aren't you?"

"Yes, New York."

"You have that expensive city look about you in how you dress and carry yourself. Movie star or model or something like that?"

"Yes, something like that." God, this guy is good, Nathan thought.

"Sort of mixed emotions sliding off you this morning, son. You glow with a look of satisfaction. Bet you got fucked real good last night. But under that, somethin' sad. I can see that you're down here to escape something. But I think that's stronger than having any idea what you want. It's about men and what sort to hook up with is my guess. What sort of man do you want, son?"

And then, finished eating his meal, Nathan told Ralph what sort of men he'd mostly been with, and how hard it was to make a decision of what he wanted there. And he even got into most of the partners he'd had and the reason why he was so sad and conflicted.

Ralph stood there and heard him out. "Seems like you've got a lot of thinking to do, Nathan"—by now they were on first-name terms—"And that first man you had—the one you won't tell me much about. Seems to me you need to work that one out. Either give in to that or get it out of your system. I'm suggesting that you should trot on over to Saloon 1 one of these nights—not right away, though—and just go with the flow there once to see how much you want that. It's just across the street, behind the 801 Bourbon Street club. That's all I'm sayin' now. But feel free to come talk to me anytime you want. Cheaper than a shrink. Just the cost of drink."

"You don't think I was an idiot and crazy? That first guy? And not being able to get it out of my mind?"

"Unless there's more to that first one than you're tellin' me yet, I think you beat yourself up too much over that and the ones after that. None of it was your doing, really. I think you need to let loose of a whole lot of guilt you don't own. But judge you on any form of sex with a guy that turns you on? Nah, I'd be the last one to judge on that. It takes all kinds. Who's to say or judge what turns us on—or should?"

As Nathan stood down from his stool and walked out into the sunshine of Duval Street, Ralph watched him go, his eyes going to the perfect bubble butt and the roll of the orbs under the thin, tight material. God, I'd like to break me off a piece of that, he thought. This one is out of my league. But, shit, I sure would like to fuck that one. I'd take him and bend him good and have him screamin' for it all. Just like I bet happened with that first guy he won't tell me all about.

For Nathan, though, it was time to stock up on food.