Unconditional

694

87,150 words.

Unconditional follows A Time Peace.

---

* * *

PROLOGUE

“You guys still up at that farm?”

Hutch’s father looked at both men when he asked the question, but Starsky had been relatively quiet from the moment the family reunion began, and Hutch was left to catch up his elder on the machinations of their lives. “We even planted a couple of rows of new fruit trees,” Hutch proudly said. “I think we’re finally putting down our roots.”

“Funny one,” Starsky mumbled with a chuckle, making brief eye contact with Hutch. “Trees. Roots.”

Hutch winked in affectionate reply.

“He’s a riot,” Richard playfully said. He slid an opened bag of pistachios toward his son and followed it with an empty bowl for their shells. “And you’re still running that halfway house, too?”

“It’s a safe house, Pop,” Hutch corrected him. He cracked open the large pistachios and ate while he spoke, sending his mother a grateful nod for the snack. “But, yeah, it’s still running.”

“There’s a difference? Halfway . . . safe. . .?”

“One is for recently paroled convicts; the other for safe harbor.”

Richard pretended to be edified. “I see.” He smiled at Starsky. “He doesn’t know when his leg is being pulled, does he?”

“Maybe you should pull the other one,” Starsky suggested, popping a pistachio in his mouth and tossing its shell into the waste bowl. He then thanked Karen for the beer she handed him.

“Nah,” Richard teasingly replied. “I wouldn’t want to cripple him.”

Hutch noticed that Starsky averted his eyes from contact with both of his parents—and Hutch thought he understood why, so he gently kicked Starsky under the table and winked again when he got the brief acknowledgement. “Lighten up, will ya?” he silently said.

They’d been sitting at the family dining table for half an hour, having come straight from the airport before noon on a mission to comfort a once-grieving mother. Hutch’s entire family—his parents and sister, his near and distant relatives—were eager to lay eyes on him after learning of his miraculous life after death; there would be a celebration that evening.

In the meantime, Hutch sat at the head of the table, with Starsky and Richard to either side of him. Karen finally joined them at the other end with freshly sliced pineapple on a cutting board, and obviously happy to just be looking at her long-lost son. They’d known about the mistaken identity that had made them believe Hutch had been killed in Bolivia, learning of his abduction only on the day he’d been found, but seeing him alive and in-person was the gift of a lifetime for which they could not get enough. Karen simply beamed at him, sometimes with tears of joy in her eyes, as she listened to the men banter around the small talk.

“Well, I’m only going to say this once,” Richard said, not unkindly. “You boys have to visit more often—and don’t use a proof-of-life excuse to come out here, okay? Your mom and I are getting too old to fly across the country.”

“I hear you,” Hutch quietly said, speaking again for Starsky and himself, despite that he knew the order was directed at him. “I’m not making excuses, but it has been a rough—”

“Fifteen years,” Starsky joked. He cracked pistachios, sipped beer, ate pineapple chunks, and only occasionally made eye contact with someone at the table. But he also looked relaxed, dressed as he was in a light gray crewneck sweater and jeans, clean-shaven and groomed, appearing rested, despite the long flight he’d just gotten off of only a couple of hours earlier. “Things are slowing down, though,” he added, hinting at future promises. “I guess Hutch and me are getting older, too.”

“Is it too early for you boys to retire?” Richard asked.

Hutch exchanged glances with Starsky, waiting for him to answer the man, and then spoke when Starsky didn’t. “We’re actually looking into a different line of work.”

“Oh? What are you thinking about doing?”

“We haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“How far into the ‘looking into’ have you gotten?”

“Not far,” Hutch said, reflecting silently on those conversations about their futures. . .

* * *

HINDSIGHT

“You’re not listening to me,” Starsky whined.

Hutch disagreed. “I’ve heard every word you’ve said.”

“How can you dig holes and hear me at the same time, hm?”

“I’m a magical being.”

“You’re definitely a bean, but I’m not sure of the magic.”

Hutch didn’t even want to guess at the meaning behind Starsky’s crack; it didn’t make sense except to figure his partner used it as leverage to make him actually give Starsky his undivided attention. Hutch wiped his brow, leaned on the shovel, and made eye contact. Oh, those beautiful, sultry eyes, Hutch noticed about his man—even when they were frustrated. “You don’t want to do this anymore,” he concluded.

“Did you hear why I don’t?”

“Every word, Starsk. I didn’t realize you were waiting for a reply.”

“I don’t want this cop job anymore,” Starsky repeated himself.

“I said I heard you.”

“I don’t want to be shot again . . . I don’t want you to be shot again.”

Hutch finally appreciated that he needed to keep his mouth shut while Starsky purged his thoughts, even if Starsky had already done it once through. They had agreed to dig a row of holes for new fruit trees, mostly to help feed the safe house boys, but it seemed Hutch was alone in the task as Starsky lamented about their future.

“We’re getting too old for this game,” Starsky argued, as if there had been a debate; Hutch hadn’t said a word while he grunted and muscled dirt out of the ground. “I know we’ve talked about this before,” Starsky added, “but we’ve never made a decision. I want us to decide now.”

“Right now? I mean, it can’t wait until we’re done here?”

“It’s not like I’m asking you to hold hearings on it.”

“Then what’s the question? Is there one?”

“Do you want to keep getting shot at?”

Hutch laughed. He’d barely dug the first hole and was already in the middle of a dispute he hadn’t expected. “I never wanted to get shot at the first time; let’s start there.” He couldn’t help but notice how sexy Starsky was: intense with his desire to be heard, probably placated, standing nearby in clean jeans and shirt, no sweat on his brow, wearing hiking boots. He’d spent the entire hole-digging task that morning as a spectator.

“So . . . you want to quit this racket then?” Starsky asked, sounding hopeful. “We both know how it feels to lose the other. We need a low-risk job.”

Hutch resumed his shoveling, figuring if he dug while he spoke, he’d make progress on the project solely because Starsky wouldn’t assume he wasn’t listening. “I’m all for whatever you want to do,” he promised between labored breaths. “We’re entering our forties now and it’s probably a wise decision to find something to do with our lives that won’t require a sacrifice like the ones we’ve had.”

“Exactly,” Starsky said excitedly. “So that’s it, then, right? I mean, we’re saying we’re quitting the police force.”

Hutch had only gotten several shovel loads out of the ground before he understood the depth of Starsky’s proposal. He straightened, leaned on the shovel again, and leveled his gaze that time. “I’m not sure we have to go that far, partner. Maybe we find some police job that simply doesn’t put us in harm’s way.”

“Okay, but I’m not doing traffic.”

“I wouldn’t have suggested that.”

“I’m not taking some desk job.”

“What’s your plan then?”

“I haven’t got one. I’m just telling you what I won’t do.”

Hutch returned to shoveling dirt and piling it neatly beside the hole it left behind. “Maybe you should try me on what you will do.”

Starsky sat in the grass close by, cross-legged, elbows on his knees, and watched Hutch dig. “Well, I mean, it has to be something with a high success rate.”

“We rule out door knocking,” Hutch offered, hoping to narrow Starsky’s focus so he could better define a proposition. “No more surprise visits at convicted pedophile homes in search of preyed-on kids?”

“We could still do some of that,” Starsky countered, reflectively. “Even if it’s just our weekend hobby, you know? But I’m saying, for a job, we have to find something that isn’t sure to kill us one day—and sooner than later—yet has to be gratifying, too.”

“Meaning we catch more bad guys than we don’t, right?”

“Something like that.”

Hutch pushed the shovel into the ground using a booted foot and put all of his weight on it, then used it to lean on as he looked over at Starsky. “Tell me more about what our new jobs have to be; let’s focus on the requirements.”

Starsky stared at the grass for half a minute as his mind obviously reeled, and then he lifted his eyes to Hutch’s when he got an idea. “It doesn’t have to be police work, but it has to be low-risk, high success, be meaningful, and save lives.”

“Saving lives is meaningful.”

“I haven’t got more than that.”

“I’m assuming you’re not suggesting we work at the local animal shelter.”

“I couldn’t handle it, but c’mon. . . get serious with me.”

Hutch stepped off the shovel and dropped a new load of dirt onto the pile, after which he walked fifteen feet to begin the next hole. A cherry tree, he dreamed. He heard Starsky grunt behind him as Starsky pushed off the ground, followed by the sounds of Starsky’s reluctant footsteps in the grass, before Hutch turned to face him. “Shall we rule out working for animals altogether?” Hutch asked. He watched Starsky get comfortable in the grass again and realized he wouldn’t snag the physical help he’d hoped for on that hole, either. “You’re not looking to start a wildlife sanctuary or anything, are you?”

“I’m thinking something to do with people. We can donate to animal stuff, but I couldn’t handle hands-on, not after what we’ve seen.”

“Good—because I was beginning to imagine us doing something like that—a farmed animal rescue—and I’d be the one to do all the physical work.”

“I’ll dig the next two holes,” Starsky promised, “and then we can split the last two in this row, okay? Same on the next row. But hear me out.”

“I haven’t stopped listening.”

“Something to do with people, something to kick the bad guys in the ass, like we’re good at, police or no police, but in a way that doesn’t put us in the line of fire anymore.”

Hutch broke ground on the cherry tree hole. “So, you still want to be a cop? Kicking ‘bad guys in the ass’ is police work.”

“Well, okay, I guess it’s what we’re good at, isn’t it?”

“Then how about we continue to do what we do; let’s just do it without guns.”

“Hutch,” Starsky said with a reprimanding tone.

Hutch tore up the ground with short stabs into the dirt. He knew he hadn’t helped Starsky figure anything out. But, in his defense, he’d broken a sweat on the first hole, even though the weather was relatively cool, so he was at least working on something. And he definitely needed to get back into better shape. Since he’d returned from Bolivia, he’d allowed his exercise routine to lapse.

“Hutch.”

What better way was there for Hutch to use his muscle than to finally be back into the art of farming? He sure had missed that kind of freedom and mindless tasking. Nothing like fresh air, singing birds, leafing trees, and grunt work to get his juices flowing again.

“Hutch,” Starsky said more loudly, that time sounding annoyed.

Hutch couldn’t ignore him. He stopped digging, leaned on the shovel, faced his partner. “What?”

Starsky’s return stare was firm; he’d grown outwardly sober in that last minute. “I can’t afford to lose you again,” he solemnly said. “I’m not playing around with this. We need to find another angle on our work . . . one that won’t kill you.”

“We were in Bolivia on vacation.”

“But that’s not my point. We came home to the same old job that puts us back in front of bullets again. Losing you is losing you, no matter how.”

Hutch finally heard the overall message in Starsky’s concern. And, of course, he fully understood it. “Okay,” he said agreeably, dropping the shovel on the ground. “We’ve made the decision to get out of the work we do, guns or no guns, and now we put our minds into figuring out a policing job that’s not traffic or behind a desk, but is also low-risk, highly successful, and meaningful. Did I hear you right?”

Starsky broke eye contact and picked at the grass. “For once,” he mumbled. He wasn’t serious, but he did sound appreciative of Hutch’s compliance, despite his light-hearted jab.

“Starsky?”

“What?”

When Hutch got his partner’s full attention again, he gently said, “I love you, too. But pick up the goddamn shovel and dig us a hole, will ya?”

* * *

“Hey, c’mon, copper, let me in.”

They were snuggled in bed later that night; the blankets and sheet had been kicked to the foot of the mattress when their bodies became entwined in kisses and caresses and jockeying for position. Hutch eventually got behind Starsky, with one arm folded under his own head, the other over Starsky’s hip—where he gently pumped his lover’s enlarging penis in slow, but firm and oiled strokes. He didn’t notice Starsky’s less than enthusiastic erection because he himself was desperate for sexual fulfillment.

“You can get in,” Starsky replied, convincingly. “Push harder.”

Hutch slid the tip and then the length of his penis into the crevice of Starsky’s buttocks, enjoying the slippery slide of his heated skin to his partner’s warmth and the titillating sensation it gave him. He pushed into the indentation on the return stroke, finding the opening he had already attempted to enter, but that time with Starsky’s permission to be more assertive. The tight ring barely allowed the crown to make itself known—despite the almond oil—and Hutch was emotionally incapable of applying more pressure when he met its resistance. He squeezed Starsky’s penis, heard his responsive moan of pleasure, and tried the entry again with a degree of self-assurance.

But it didn’t help him, so he kissed Starsky’s shoulder with wet, stimulating kisses as he tried to relax him, and continued to stroke Starsky’s shaft; it could have been firmer, but Starsky was still obviously aroused and enjoying himself. Their labored breathing and their soft moans and their gentle caresses with each other were proof enough. Yet, somehow, the invitation still wasn’t as fluid.

“I need me some penetration,” Hutch said playfully. Starsky’s skin was damp from his perspiration and Hutch’s moist lips. It smelled good, too—the perfect amount of cologne mixed with sweat and the overall familiar scent of his masculinity. “Can you relax a bit more for me?” Hutch pleadingly asked.

“I want you to fuck me, Hutch. I’m not trying to stop you.”

“Maybe things have closed down since we last did this,” Hutch joked. He’d pushed in again, but the ring was too tight, not accommodating, not enough for him to feel comfortable proceeding. “Is that even possible?”

“You’re saying my ass is closing up?”

Starsky sounded too serious for Hutch to play any longer. He couldn’t even laugh at the question. He stopped his pushing, ended his physical and verbal requests, and slowed his appeasing stroke of Starsky’s erection, realizing only then that his lover wasn’t as erect as he believed he’d been. “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?” Hutch suggested, speaking softly into Starsky’s ear as he pressed his length lovingly along Starsky’s back and legs, still enjoying their warmth and the buzz between them. “Your mouth is saying one thing, but your body is telling me something else.”

“Then it’s lying to you.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“But I want you to fuck me.”

“We’re on the same page there.”

“I don’t know, Hutch,” Starsky said with a breath of frustration.

Hutch kissed his shoulder and along his arm, small, wet, tender, uncountable kisses, and gently replied, “Then I don’t know, either.”

They were quiet for several minutes. Hutch didn’t stop the slow but rather tender stroke of Starsky’s penis; he loved the meaty feel of it in his oiled hand even if it wasn’t nearly as hard as it had been a minute earlier. And he basked in the warmth of their bodies while he puzzled over the quietness of the unexpected and slightly strained predicament. “Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to tell me?” he asked—when he couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Are you mad at me about something?”

“No.”

“Hey, c’mon,” Hutch encouraged him; Starsky’s one-word answer sounded plaintive, as if Starsky was on the verge of tears. “It’s me here, Starsk. I’m not going to continue with this until you’re a hundred percent into it. So, it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me now, but do tell me soon, okay?”

“I don’t deserve you,” Starsky blurted.

Those words alarmed Hutch. He actually froze when he heard them, as if he’d been hit by a bus. His mind raced in every direction. Had Starsky done something that he felt guilty about and needed to confess? Or did he feel that way because he had failed to deliver for Hutch that night? Hutch gave him a gentle nudge. “You’re the only one who deserves me,” he replied, hoping he also sounded inviting, non-threatening, and open to whatever it was Starsky needed to tell him.

“I know what you’re going to say, Hutch.”

“About what?”

“About Bolivia.”

Hutch laughed, confused. “Bolivia isn’t on my mind.” He did notice that there was no erection left to stroke; Starsky had completely lost it. So Hutch squeezed Starsky’s bicep instead. “In fact, I don’t think I was thinking about anything all afternoon and tonight except being inside you. It’s been a while.”

“Because of Bolivia?”

“Well, since then, anyway. But that’s not a thought in my mind, not the way you’re hearing it.”

Starsky turned partway, looked over his shoulder at Hutch, so they made eye contact. His expression was one of concern and regret, pain and sorry. And Hutch understood in an instant.

“You think I should not forgive you,” Hutch assumed. “You heard me tell you that I’m not holding a grudge, that the pain was worse for you than it was for me, that we’re even on the ‘oops, I forgot my partner’ scoreboard—but I still shouldn’t forgive you.”

“You had government officials and film to convince you I was dead,” Starsky explained, his voice breaking when he spoke, but he managed to keep talking. “No one would have thought seven people got out of that plane alive and swam to an island before it drifted away and sunk. But as soon as you knew you didn’t have a body—”

“I shouldn’t have waited to learn I didn’t have a body.”

“It’s not the same, Hutch.”

“You haven’t convinced me. Try again.”

“You didn’t have a nagging in your gut telling you that something was off—and ignored it anyway.”

Hutch wished he hadn’t encouraged Starsky to ‘try again’ because he succeeded that time. He also noticed the wet in Starsky’s eyes. He made another attempt to lessen the burden of Starsky’s pain. “A man needs penetration,” he said, kindly. “Can we agree on that?”

Starsky stared at him for a moment, as if Hutch hadn’t heard him, as if Hutch could only think about getting laid, but then he seemed to realize he was about to be escorted to Hutch’s rationalization through a different kind of back door. “Okay,” he said carefully. “A man has to get penetration. I agree with that.”

“And I haven’t had any since . . . first week of October?”

Starsky seemed to calculate it in his mind and then agreed by his silence.

“That’s a long time to go without, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Especially when he’s got a lover who loves the sex as much as he does, right?”

“Right.”

“And I don’t want to go anywhere else to get it,” Hutch reminded him. “You believe that, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“So, if you don’t deserve me,” Hutch concluded, sheepishly—because he knew it was a silly attempt to force Starsky out of his funk, “then how’m I going to get that penetration? I mean, is there a timer on this feeling you’re having, an end date I can look forward to—or do you think maybe you could get past it real soon and I can have something I’ve really been wanting lately without having to wait too much longer for it?”

Hutch’s playful perspective did seem to ease Starsky’s grief. His eyes never spilled actual tears and his expression softened—from his pain and sorry to one of willing acceptance. “Well, I don’t really want to hold you up,” Starsky pretended to admit.

“So, how do we put your self-abusing notions to rest?”

“I ignored my gut, Hutch.”

“Okay. Tell me why you did.”

“I don’t know why.”

“Could your mind have been a bit fucked up from altitude sickness?”

Starsky broke eye contact to look beyond Hutch into the past, considering it, examining it closely, before he returned the mutual gaze. “I suppose.”

“Beyond a reasonable doubt?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Is it also possible that we were up against someone who was both cunning and powerful during a time when our guards were down?”

“We were on vacation,” Starsky remembered, echoing Hutch’s earlier comment. “I guess maybe we weren’t being so careful.”

“We never saw it coming, did we?”

“No.”

“It was so out-of-the-blue, all you were left with was circumstantial evidence that was, on its surface, quite compelling.”

“If you think so.”

“There wasn’t anything in any thing we did to make us believe we were being followed and watched.”

“That’s true.”

Hutch brushed the plastered hair away from Starsky’s damp forehead, and looked longingly into his sexy blue eyes. “We knew how dangerous the road was and that deadly accidents happen regularly on it, didn’t we?”

“We knew that.”

“We didn’t speak the native language all that well.”

“You’re being kind. I didn’t speak the native language all that well.”

“Communication was more difficult for you,” Hutch concluded.

“Yeah, but I found translators.”

“Not enough or the kind to help you navigate the predicament.”

Starsky rolled all the way over, as if he’d been given permission to face Hutch without as much shame. “I needed you to tell me what to do sometimes—and you weren’t there.”

“Together we would have figured it out,” Hutch agreed, noticing that his light-hearted comment brought a shine to Starsky’s eyes. “We’re good on our own, Starsk, but we’re great as a team.”

“But my gut, Hutch.”

“It wasn’t strong enough to overcome the compelling evidence.”

“Yeah, but, why not?”

“Because the circumstances were simply stronger. Let me put this to you another way. If you had believed for a second that I hadn’t left that town, gotten on that bus, been that body on the edge of the road, would you have gone home?”

“No,” Starsky replied empathically, but that time his pain pushed the tears into his eyes and onto his face. “I would never have left you in Bolivia.”

“I know you wouldn’t have,” Hutch said, so sorry for Starsky, and stroking his cheek, wiping away the tears with his thumb, speaking softly and from his heart. “You would never have left Bolivia if you believed there was a chance I was alive.”

Starsky held Hutch’s hand to his warm and wet face, tightly closed his eyes, and audibly cried.

“Ryker was a clever man, Starsk. He never said it, but it’s possible Thomas was a captive without a chain. Who knows how many others Ryker captured in his lifetime? He was good at it. Didn’t he prove that much? It’s okay to admit that there are smarter men in the world.”

Starsky opened his eyes, only briefly, to look into Hutch’s, to fully know his partner wasn’t being facetious. In the next moment, he put his arm around Hutch’s neck and pulled him close. He repeatedly told Hutch, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Hutch let him cry; maybe that’s all Starsky needed: one good purge of his sorrow and regret, and he could go back to being his usual playful, affectionate, sexy, sex-driven, intelligent self. “We make mistakes,” Hutch admittedly said, holding Starsky as close in return, “and some are bigger than others. You were so convinced by the ‘evidence’ that you got dropped to your knees. Circumstantial. Corroborating, even. Multiple players in Ryker’s game. It rolled right over me and right over you.”

Starsky’s embrace was too tight to leave it, even if Hutch wanted to. “I’m so sorry,” he continued to say.

Hutch inhaled the aroma of Starsky’s cologne, felt his strong and naked body alongside his own, snug in each other’s arms. He heard Starsky’s plaintive apologies and his breathless cry, felt his warmth and his aliveness, and was reminded all over again just how deeply he’d once believed Starsky was dead—and forever gone. No pain, bar none, could compete. Why couldn’t Starsky appreciate that he’d already paid the price of his weak moment—and forgive himself for it? What would it take?

“You could put a knife in my back yourself, Starsk,” Hutch said, “and I’d figure you had good reason.” His loyalty backfired because it got taken the wrong way; Starsky repeated his first conclusion: “I don’t deserve you.”

“I meant that I can forgive you for anything.”

“I got that,” Starsky insisted, letting Hutch go, wiping his eyes, looking into Hutch’s, and adding, “but all the more I don’t deserve you.”

“We’re not going to recover from this if you can’t forgive yourself.”

“Why should I?”

“So a guy can get a little penetration around here?”

Starsky laughed, but sadly. “I didn’t realize I was keeping you out.”

“Your mind is preoccupied.”

“Not consciously.”

“But just the same.”

“Not on purpose.”

“I didn’t think that for a minute.”

“You haven’t been in since we played at the Rock Wall?”

“I’ve been in,” Hutch reminded him, licking his lips, “but not inside.”

Starsky seemed to reflect over the past four months as he remembered fellatio. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s been a while. How come?”

“It just hasn’t gone down that way—until tonight. No reason.”

“I’ll let you in now, Hutch. I’ll make extra effort.”

“I don’t want in right now, especially if it’s an effort. If the only way to get you over your guilt is to give you an ultimatum, then here it is: I’m staying out until we get past this. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

Starsky studied him, concern furrowing his brow. “Seems like that’s the kind of ultimatum that’s only going to hurt you,” he decided.

“Oh, yeah,” Hutch said, excitedly, and with a wink, “but that’s the plan: to hurt me. Because I know how much you hate it.”

* * *

“Got a question for you.”

“Shoot,” Starsky said. He lightly laughed when he apparently realized his choice of words. “I mean, go ahead.”

Hutch shifted in his seat to face Starsky, hung his forearm over the steering wheel, strummed his fingers on the dashboard, and looked out the windshield. “Last night in the middle of us playing around,” he began, easing into the question, “what made you think you didn’t deserve me?”

They were killing time at the nursery, waiting for the forklift to bring their trees, parked in Hutch’s truck, having knocked around small talk until they fell silent—and the door was open for Hutch’s deeper thoughts. “Why did you even think about that then, huh?” He looked over at Starsky, noticed that his partner stared out his window, and didn’t show any signs of having heard Hutch, let alone intentions to answer him, so Hutch gave him a minute to corner his thoughts.

“I don’t know,” Starsky finally said, letting out a sigh of frustration. “It just came to me.”

“We were feeling so good together,” Hutch remembered. Starsky’s arousal had been apparent, even if it hadn’t been at its max. What had Hutch missed in that exchange? Did Starsky even know?

Starsky dropped his vision from the outside to the glove box as he gave his mind over to obvious personal detective work. Eventually, he said, “That’s why, I guess.”

“What’s why?”

“I ended up feeling that way because I was feeling good.”

“You grow a hard-on and that led to self-abusive—”

“I mean, it started earlier than that.”

“So the sex last night was an act?”

Starsky tore his eyes away from his silent considerations and rested them on Hutch’s face. “Do you really think I could fake a boner?”

“You could fake the good feelings.”

“Do you think I’d do that?”

“I don’t know, Starsk. I don’t understand what led you to begin feeling you don’t deserve me, so I’m reaching for answers.” He sounded as kind as he felt. He didn’t want Starsky to hurt, even if it was self-inflicted.

“I wouldn’t fake how I feel,” Starsky promised. “I didn’t even know I was down in the dumps until you noticed it. I thought we’d have done what we set out to do.”

“Me inside of you.”

“Yeah.”

“You said it started earlier, those feelings you’ve been having.”

“Earlier in the day,” Starsky remembered, looking off to recall where and how. “After we dug all those holes, you made me lunch.”

“I made us both lunch.”

“Then you sucked my dick for me.”

Hutch laughed, somewhat confused by Starsky’s direction. “I had a good come myself, I recall.”

“Then you washed me in the shower afterward.”

“Had to get my cum off ya.”

“You took me to a movie when we got our second wind.”

“We went to the movies.”

“You bought me popcorn.”

“I bought me popcorn—and tried not to give you any.”

“When we got home, you made me a fruit plate.”

“We shared it.”

“And got me some wine.”

“We drank out of the same bottle,” Hutch reminded him, “no glass. Neither of us had more than the other. Split it, fifty-fifty.”

“Then you made love to me—or started to—when we went to bed.”

“That was also meant to be a mutually satisfying experience.”

Starsky looked at Hutch again, into his eyes, having pretty much ignored everything Hutch had countered him, and explained. “You took care of me, Hutch. All day yesterday and right up through this morning, you took care of me. You’ve taken special care of me since we got back from Bolivia.”

“You took care of me the night you found me in the middle of the Death Road. We take care of each other.”

“You rolled with the punches when I had altitude sickness. You made sure I got the right food and water, and then got me to a lower altitude.”

“We take care of each other,” Hutch repeated.

“I felt so good yesterday,” Starsky continued, “even though we had some heavy duty talks, or maybe because we did.” It was another sunny day and his eyes shone with the bright light that reflected his life. He couldn’t possibly know how beautiful and sexy he was, and how much Hutch got from him, how satisfying Starsky had been for his partner—emotionally, intellectually, intimately—and for so long a time. Starsky spoke as if the love and the caring had been one-sided.

“I felt good yesterday,” he said, expounding on his sentiment. “I felt good because you took care of me and fed me and wined and dined me and made love to me. Then I got to feeling sexual good . . . and it just seemed like no man should be this happy in life—especially not one who fucked up as bad as I did.”

Hutch’s eye contact with Starsky was unwavering. He didn’t have words to convince Starsky that everything he’d just said were judgements Hutch understood and, in his own life, had felt just as keenly about himself. But maybe he could convey to Starsky, through the deeper and silent dialogue in his eyes, that they also had those misconceptions in common and none of it had any bearing on their love.

“You asked me how I’d come to that place last night,” Starsky said with a shrug, hearing the unspoken words between them, but obviously bypassing them for his present truth. “I’m thinking that’s what did it. I was feeling extra good yesterday—despite all our heavy talk. I loved everything about you and everything you did.”

* * *

THE DAY BEFORE

Starsky had been preoccupied with his own effort to find a less life-threatening job for them that day, as much as he was distracted by the visual of his partner digging holes in the ground. In those minutes, Hutch had been all animal.

The mid-morning sunlight glistened off Hutch’s perspiring skin and more definitively showcased his well-muscled arms; he made the strain of shoveling dirt out of a five-foot diameter hole, four feet deep, seem effortless. Starsky wasn’t sure he could match the ease with which Hutch broke ground, piling shovel load upon shovel load of dirt to the side, all while deepening and widening the gape, without slowing. Sure, his man did grunt, and he had obviously broken a sweat, but those physical transformations only made Starsky feel sexually hungry for him.

He lowered himself to the grass, set the side of his head in his palm, and picked at its blades as he carefully studied Hutch, devouring every nuance and movement he saw into his soul and into his psyche through each of his senses. “Anybody ever tell you you look beautiful when you work out?” He was mindful of Hutch’s beefy build, the proportions of his legs and arms, his tousled blond hair, and those crystal blue eyes, concentrating as they did on the task before him. Hutch was a formidable alpha male; he exuded animalness in his every pore.

But, of course, he was no match for a bullet.

“Maybe we should start a landscaping business,” Starsky suggested, not giving Hutch time to answer his question about how beautiful he looked shoveling dirt. “It would keep us in shape, don’t you think?”

Hutch didn’t miss a beat. He was bent on the job and not all that interested in Starsky’s suppositions. “It would, at least, keep me physically fit,” he said between pants of breath. “You, on the other hand, would atrophy in no time—just as you’re doing while we speak.”

Starsky laughed at Hutch’s wisecrack. “I said I’d dig the next two holes in this row—and half in the next. You don’t believe me?”

“Not until I see it.”

“I’ll finish that one for you, too, if you want; I’ll have a head start on the others.”

Hutch winked at him. “I refuse to give you bragging rights.”

Starsky watched Hutch continue to shovel dirt out of the ground. His partner was dressed in snug-fitting jeans, a short-sleeved blue denim shirt, and work boots. A blond beauty, by anyone’s imagination. “You’re a pretty boy, Hutch. How’d I get so lucky?”

“You have the sexiest ass in the world.”

“Yeah, maybe, but you didn’t know that when we first met.”

“Sure, I did. I followed you to the cafeteria, remember?”

Starsky laughed as he tried to recall the order of that day, their inaugural journey at the Academy. “But when we first met, I mean, we did it with our eyes. I was sitting in a chair at the table and you couldn’t even see my ass then.”

“Are we really going to argue this?”

“What do you mean?”

“We didn’t notice those details about each other until last summer. I’m pulling your leg.”

“But I knew long before last summer that you’re a pretty boy.”

“Not pretty enough to fuck. Not then.”

“No, but I knew you were a good soul from Day One. And what I’m asking you is, how’d I get so lucky?”

“I see,” Hutch said on a barely audible exhale. He had finished the hole and straightened, faced Starsky, made bonding eye contact. “I guess for the same reason I got so lucky.”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know. That’s the question: How did we?”

“Look at you, Hutch. I know what you got inside those pants—the full size of your hard cock. I know every inch of it.”

Hutch bit his lip at Starsky’s word choice; it had apparently caught him off-guard, but he seemed appreciative of it, too, because it lent itself to Hutch’s wish to disarm the reference. They paused to silently acknowledge their understanding of Starsky’s intent. A shy smile came to Hutch’s flawless face. “But what’s your point, buddy?”

“That I know more about you than what’s on the surface.”

“And?”

“That I got lucky enough to find somebody—because it sure wasn’t on purpose—that I get everything in life from. We know each other that well—the good, the bad, and the . . . beautiful.”

Hutch’s smile broadened. “I know you’re not talking just about the sex.”

“I’m talking about all of it. I know what’s in your pants as well as I know what’s in your heart.”

“You wax poetic this morning, partner. How much deeper into the grass do you plan to go?”

“Take a break.”

“I plan to—while you’re digging the next two holes.”

“C’mon. Sit here with me for a minute. Engage me.”

“I thought we were married,” Hutch playfully said as he dropped the shovel. “I think you meant, ‘indulge’ me.”

“Both ways sound sexual.”

Hutch sat in the grass beside him. “You could turn any phrase into a sexual reference.”

“And you’d let me.”

“I might even encourage it,” Hutch said with a laugh. He picked a few blades of grass and tossed them at Starsky. “But there’s something else on your mind. Landscaping, was it?”

Starsky took that moment to enjoy the visual beauty of his boy again, that time more closely. Hutch had such a refreshed look about him, an aliveness brought on by his muscled work coupled with his intense focus on Starsky in silent reply. Hutch was primal and fierce, even in his relaxed posture. ‘Wild’ would have been the word Starsky used if asked. Hutch had never been more powerful on every front as he was in that minute.

Starsky also couldn’t help but remember, at record speed, all those confrontations they’d had with adversaries over the years, the good and the bad guys—from street thugs to showdowns with official brass. The stairs they’d climbed, fences they’d jumped, strides they’d run, miles they’d driven. The fist fights and the shootouts. The serious injuries and the near-death experiences. For fifteen years, they’d towed the line despite its bias, operating sometimes to a higher calling, on occasion rendering their own justice. But they were never wrong. It was impossible to be mistaken. Hutch’s heart was as pure as gold and Starsky respected him as much because their ethics and morals aligned on every point.

That purity shone again and always in Hutch’s blue eyes, ones that were, on that late morning, alive and attentive, free from the dangers and the influences of their past. From the shapes of his fingers to the hint of smile on his face, Hutch was the consummate beauty—as much in his appearance as in his soul.

“Give me a kiss,” Starsky said as he dropped a brief glance to Hutch’s parted and full lips, and imagined the warm contact. He needed to feel the man in that unexpectedly emotional moment, despite knowing Hutch wouldn’t show him such affection in the outdoors, especially that close to another residence.

But Hutch pushed off his seat and leaned forward onto his hands—blue jeans, blue shirt, blue eyes, clean-shaven and breathless—tilted his head and touched his welcomed mouth to Starsky’s. There had been no hesitancy.

The kiss was sensual, long-lasting, filled with familiarity and desire, intensified by their immediate pants of deep breaths, spurred by their ratcheting want for something deeper, more rewarding. Starsky could feel his own heat, not just the increasing warmth that radiated from his partner. He sucked on Hutch’s wet and penetrating tongue, enjoying the intimate taste of his saliva and the fluidness with which they traded the erotic sensations.

Starsky feared Hutch would withdraw too soon; he gripped the back of Hutch’s neck to hold them in the sexy lip lock, but Hutch leaned in on his own volition, seeming as hungry for the contact and the feelings it elicited in him. He let Starsky suck his tongue for half a minute before he sucked Starsky’s in return, just as eager and passionate, as heated and honest.

The sound and the smell of Hutch, his deep breathing and soft moans, the faint hint of cologne beneath his sweat, that and more, and Starsky’s erection began to form. Maybe it did likewise for Hutch, but Starsky was unable to confirm it; the moment he reached for Hutch’s crotch, Hutch broke the kiss, sat back to his heels, palms still planted in the grass, licked his lips, flashed an eyebrow at Starsky—to say he’d enjoyed himself and trusted Starsky had, too—while he panted off his steamy affection with an audible exhale.

“I can’t believe you actually did that,” Starsky admitted, referring to the kiss, catching his breath. “I mean, you’ve never let us do that out here before.”

“Beg to differ,” Hutch said, reminiscing. “First time you kissed me and I kissed you back was ‘out here.’”

“Yeah, but, I mean, there are people around now.”

“Do you want me to take it back?”

“I’m just saying I can’t believe you did it, that’s all.”

“The only window on this side of The Grace House is the upstairs master bedroom. I don’t think Davis would care if he saw us kiss.”

“Would he care if he saw us fuck?”

Hutch laughed. “Nice try.”

Starsky winked at him. It was a lame attempt, but he was glad Hutch had enjoyed his effort. “I like that you kissed me out here. I just couldn’t believe you did it. What made you come around?”

“The compelling look on your face.”

“What did it tell you?”

“That you love me.”

Starsky had to silently admit that those were the exact thoughts he’d been having, remembering his and Hutch’s exploits over the years, being mindful of the implicit trust and undying loyalty that kept them together. “I can’t lose you again,” he said solemnly.

Hutch perceptively nodded.

“We’ve both had a taste of that now,” Starsky continued. The blood had left his stiffening penis and he was able to think again. “We’ve been through shit over the years, thinking we’d lost the other, believing we’d lose him if it wasn’t for grace—and I don’t mean Grace—but we have something now far greater than we did when those other times nearly broke us.”

Hutch ended their eye contact, sat back to his seat, dropped his head with a slight nod, and stared through his lap into the past with Starsky. “Maybe we’ve done our time in heartbreak.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We have to find something in life to minimize those odds, know what I mean? You have to help me figure it out.”

Hutch lifted his head, met Starsky’s eyes with his own, shining with sincerity. “Okay,” he quietly promised. “Let’s put our heads together and come up with something.”

“Oh, the sexy things you say,” Starsky snickered, succeeding in his effort to lighten the moment as he affectionately hit Hutch’s knee. “I love it when our heads come up with something.”

* * *

“Do you want to go to a movie after lunch?” Hutch asked, sounding hopeful. He stood near the stove and chopped vegetables or fruit or whatever it was he did there.

Starsky sat on a stool at the breakfast bar and prepared a salad. He’d dragged a variety of ingredients for it out of the refrigerator and pantry and covered the counter with an assortment of nuts and vegetables, seeds and other toppings, a smorgasbord of colorful items spread out before him for which he planned to make use of it all. “A movie, you said?” he replied, hearing Hutch’s question nearly a minute after it had been voiced.

“Like a date,” Hutch explained. “Something normal and simple for a change.”

“And romantic? Were you thinking something romantic, too?”

“First and foremost.”

Starsky liked the idea. They hadn’t been to a movie in a while, a long while, and his past memories of those experiences were relatively fond. “Did you have a particular one in mind?”

“I have no idea what’s playing. We’ll figure it out when we get there.”

“Wine and dine me, afterward?” Starsky asked, his time to sound hopeful.

“If you like.”

“I like.”

“Fuck you later, too, if I may?” Hutch quipped.

Starsky laughed, chopped tomatoes, and didn’t look up. “You never have to ask.” He listened to Hutch hum a tune, and refocused on his salad-making task, enjoying the visual of its vibrant colors and healthy greens. After a minute, an internal warmth washed over him when he remembered the kiss they’d shared in the grass less than an hour earlier.

Everything about it had been sexy and sensual, warm and inviting, relaxed and natural—all the things he would have given to have felt the first time they kissed in the grass the previous summer, right where the Grace House now stood. In that same notation, Starsky realized the kiss they engaged in that early afternoon, the one after they found themselves planning for a movie, had been a first kiss of a kind in itself.

Hutch had leaned into it, never hesitated, didn’t overthink it—didn’t think at all, actually; maybe he’d even hoped for it. They couldn’t have what could never have been—the openness of intimate affection in the outdoors—because there had been too many variables in play, not the least of which was their own trepidations. But those were long gone now. Starsky asked for a kiss and Hutch gave him one without a second thought. That was a first. Starsky would take it and not be greedy another minute.

He listened to Hutch’s hum slowly evolve into song, lyrics he could barely hear because Hutch’s sweet voice was quite low; he sang softly, but just as flawlessly as ever—the purity of it so perfect it made Starsky feel warmer still. He stole only a couple of glances at Hutch, to read where he was in the meal preparation, while he continued to chop vegetables and mix them up with seeds and nuts and croutons in a large ceramic bowl. “When was the last time you played a guitar?” he asked, throwing the question over to Hutch without an ulterior motive. But it was Hutch’s pause before his answer that made Starsky think he’d asked the wrong thing.

“I guess a couple of months,” Hutch said. Perhaps he had only calculated and that explained the delay in his reply. Or maybe he was just that engrossed in making a dish for them, the way Starsky had been when Hutch asked him if he wanted to go to a movie after lunch, and Starsky didn’t really hear him for a minute.

Starsky’s detective mind caught up. “A couple of months? That means, you haven’t played it since . . . you were in Bolivia, hm?”

“I suppose not.”

“And what about the piano?”

“Same.”

“When was the last time you sang a song?”

“Figuratively or literally?”

“What do you mean?”

“Every time I come in your mouth—as recently as this morning, I believe—I sing a different kind of—”

“C’mon. You knew what I meant.”

Hutch had his profile to Starsky and appeared to be spreading a condiment over slices of toasted bread with a knife. Maybe he was distracted.

“Did you hear me?”

“I’m trying to remember,” Hutch said.

“When you played the guitar and the piano . . . was that the last time you sang?”

“Probably.”

“So you haven’t done anything musical since we left Bolivia.” It wasn’t a question.

“I guess not,” Hutch repeated. He’d steamed something on the stove, which had come ready, and turned his back to Starsky when he carried the pot to the sink and emptied its contents into a colander. “I haven’t been not singing for any particular reason,” Hutch added, explaining his absence from his second love. “I’ve been too busy catching up on the sex.”

Starsky laughed, not because he was amused, but because he was pleased. He tossed carrots he’d shredded into the leaf-filled salad bowl and began cutting the canned artichoke hearts he’d earlier drained. “Are you just not in the mood?”

“For sex?”

“For singing.”

“I have no idea,” Hutch replied, not sounding annoyed, but definitely preoccupied. “I’ll give it some thought and get back to you.”

Starsky rolled his eyes, but he didn’t push it, at least not then. He didn’t say another word while he finished creating the vegetable-chocked garden salad and slid the bowl into the center of the counter to make room for the lunch plates. He then put away the leftover groceries, returning them to their proper places in the refrigerator and the pantry. On one of his passes behind Hutch, he grabbed his partner’s buttocks and gave him a firm squeeze, eliciting the encouraging moan he expected. On another, he stopped long enough to lean over Hutch’s shoulder and study his doings. “What are you making?”

“Lunch.”

“I can see that, Jack. I’m guessing we’re having sandwiches?”

“Is the salad ready?”

“The best you’ll ever eat.”

When Hutch didn’t tell him what kind of sandwiches he was making, Starsky kissed Hutch’s cheek, pushed away from him, and returned to the kitchen counter with a bottle of beer. “It smells good, whatever it is.”

Hutch joined him less than a minute later, winked at Starsky while he slid a plate with a sandwich over to him. “It’s hot, so give it some cool time.”

“Are you back to talking about your . . . cock?”

Hutch laughed. “Maybe so,” he playfully mumbled. He sat on a stool at the end of the bar, faced Starsky, presumably to make friendly eye contact, and popped the lid off the beer. “My Bad Boy has been quite warm since he got back from Bolivia; you haven’t let him cool off for a minute.”

Starsky couldn’t help but think Hutch wanted him to talk about Bolivia; he had sensed Starsky’s underlying concern, and apparently decided to put it on the table between them, to not let it fester, whatever it was. Starsky accepted the invitation and took the bait. “Did you sing for Ryker?”

“Not for him,” Hutch clarified after a long sip of the cold brew. “I did sing, but not for him.”

Starsky tossed the salad in its bowl with a made-from-scratch vinegary dressing, realizing he’d forgotten to bring them separate bowls, but deciding it didn’t matter when Hutch picked a cucumber slice out of the arrangement and ate it with his fingers. Starsky would do likewise. “But, I mean,” he said, easing into his question more carefully—and only because he was somewhat afraid of the answer, “did you sing while you were down there at his place?”

“At ‘his place’?” Hutch laughed with dismay. “I did sing when I was chained up in that room,” he admitted, not leaving eye contact, and not seeming brave, but definitely open to answering every question that came his way, “if that’s what you’re asking. It eased my burden.”

Starsky averted his eyes; he felt embarrassed to have thought otherwise, but not so ashamed that he didn’t ask his next dumb question. “Did you play a guitar for him?”

“I played a guitar, usually while he was gone. I didn’t play the piano he gave me until around Christmas—and only then to lure him over.”

“So you could kill him?”

“I wanted him to trust me . . . to fall in love with me, the person, and not just me, the . . . cock.”

Starsky tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t help but be amused by Hutch’s effort to neutralize the word. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from making too much fun, and summarized. “You used your beauty—your talents and your body—to force him into a false security, hm?”

Hutch began eating his sandwich, nodding an affirmative, then speaking while he chewed. “What’s not to love about me, right?”

“Did he fall in love with your mind?”

“He didn’t know my mind. I didn’t talk to him all that time, remember?”

“He put two-and-two together, don’t you think?”

“In some ways, but not enough to know I wouldn’t murder him.”

Starsky nodded, feeling stupid for his questions. What did he expect to hear, that Hutch had romanced his captor and then killed him in a heat of angry passion? He peeked into his sandwich. “What’s in here?”

“Deviled potatoes.”

“The hell you say.”

“Like deviled eggs,” Hutch said with a light laugh at Starsky’s crack, “but with potatoes instead.”

Starsky took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “It’s good, Hutch. Real good. I like it.” He ate purposefully.

“I love this salad,” Hutch replied as affectionately, taking a handful of lettuce, vegetables, nuts, and dressing in his fingers and shoving them into his mouth. He moaned with the pleasure it gave his palate and smiled at Starsky with his eyes.

They ate in silence for a while, sharing the beer, eating salad from the bowl with their hands, devouring the sandwiches. It was Hutch who spoke first.

“Are you more bothered by my singing and my playing the guitar and piano in his presence than you are that I jacked off in front of him?”

“I don’t know,” Starsky said honestly, staring through the countertop into his thoughts. “I mean, both of those things are intimate.”

“Which one rattled your cage more?”

“It’s different.”

“How so?”

“You jacking off for him made me feel sorry for you—and made me sick.”

“Jealous?”

“Sick. Sick to my stomach and sick in my heart.”

“Okay.”

“You playing for him and singing with him . . . that makes me feel . . . yeah, I guess that makes me feel jealous. But which is worse? Jealousy, or feeling sick to stomach and heart? I don’t know. They both suck.”

“I didn’t sing love songs.”

“What then?”

“Mostly Christmas songs.”

“They’re love songs, aren’t they?”

Hutch picked at the crumbs on his plate and avoided eye contact with Starsky. He was wordless. Starsky couldn’t read him.

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Starsky said quickly, hoping to ease the apparent discomfort he’d caused Hutch. “I know you had to do what you had to do. I know you hated him enough to kill him—”

“And loved you enough to not wait a second longer to do it.”

Starsky hung his head in shame. “You kissed me in the grass today,” he explained. “Everything about it was perfect, mostly because it was spur of the moment and . . . with such feeling. I hate when I’m reminded of how the world cuts in between us. Something that natural for us shouldn’t be a prize we have to earn; it should be our right.”

“That’s some heavy duty thinking, Plato,” Hutch said, his voice trying for lightness. “But I’m hearing you, too. Know this in your heart: that everything I did in Bolivia, I did because I had to as part of an overall plan to get home. And then also know in your heart that I’d do anything anywhere with you if I could. I’ve always said: if we can’t fully be ourselves and play within the rules everyone else does—but we still get to play—or not get to play with you because it isn’t fair that we have to abide by a different set of rules, then I’ll take the former over the latter any day.”

“I know,” Starsky said in absolute agreement. “Me, too.”

“You’ve wanted more of that—to just be us in places where most everyone else gets to be themselves.”

Starsky nodded, finishing his sandwich, and not speaking—because he didn’t want to muddy the puddle any further.

“Because you can’t have that,” Hutch continued, “you despise it when others interfere in what you do have with me—such as sick fucks like Ryker who steal some of my intimacy from you.”

“Yeah.”

“But he didn’t interfere.”

“He interrupted.”

“A difference.”

“Not by much.”

“I’ll get back to singing and playing the piano and—”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

“I’ll do it just the same.”

“You’re so beautiful, Hutch,” Starsky blurted. He couldn’t help but notice, again, the ways in which his partner shined: his outward beauty—eyes, face, build—but also the warmth he exuded, the convictions of his heart, his intelligence, and his forgiveness. “I don’t want to share you with the world when the world doesn’t—”

“I belong to you,” Hutch said flatly. “Do you understand me? Not with you, although that’s true, too. I belong to you. You’ve said so yourself, that we’re one mind, one heart, one body.”

“I was mostly being silly.”

“No, you weren’t. We belong to each other—just the way your car belongs to you, I do, also.”

Starsky laughed, not entertained, but Hutch was serious.

“And just like you’d rightfully be angry and possessive with anyone fucking with your car, you feel likewise when they fuck with me.”

Starsky had deeper feelings for Hutch than he did for his car, and that was saying a lot. “That’s true,” he mumbled, mostly to himself. “But I’ve always felt that way when it comes to you, that nobody better fuck with you.”

“Except now we have a different relationship.”

“Not that different.” When Starsky realized what he said, that their intimate relationship was far different from their friendship—that it had gone from gentle and warm physical affection to pleasuring each other sexually, manually, orally, and anally—he busted up laughing with Hutch. “Okay, so we have a different relationship now.”

“We own each other,” Hutch affirmed, “in ways we didn’t before.”

“I can get behind that.”

“You’d have helped me murder Ryker.”

“I would have.”

“But you never got the chance to.”

“You beat me to it.”

“I’d have given you first crack at the deed.”

Starsky knew Hutch was about to make his closing argument, and he waited for it.

“Your anger is still alive and kicking, Starsk,” Hutch concluded, drinking several swallows of beer before he finished, “whereas mine got buried when Ryker was planted in the ground. So, give yourself a break. Don’t hold back. In the meantime, rest assured that I can take the punches.”

* * *

The lunch had been so satisfying that Starsky would be hard pressed to eat popcorn when they got to the theater, but maybe before the movie ended, he’d manage half a box of it. Hutch said he’d do the driving into the city because he wanted practice behind the wheel again; if they left right after their mutual visits to the bathroom, they could catch an earlier show before traffic got too heavy.

While Starsky emptied his bladder into the guest bathroom toilet, he heard the one on the other side of the wall flush soon after. Hutch was anxious to get on with their date, Starsky mused, chuckling to himself. The man was such a romantic. He then heard his partner’s footsteps in the hallway, but Hutch didn’t pressure him to hurry up.

They would need their jackets because the outside air promised to be cool by the time they left the theater; Starsky hoped he’d remember to grab their windbreakers from the coat rack on their way out the front door. He was actually excited about going to a movie with Hutch; it would be an ordinary thing, and yet something they hadn’t done together in a long while. He had to laugh at himself because he realized he was anxious, too, flushing the toilet toward the end of his urine stream to speed things along.

A quick tuck of his penis inside the jeans fly, a firm pull on the zipper to close it, and he was ready to roll. As he turned on his heel, however, he unexpectedly saw Hutch across the hallway inside the guest bedroom, looking out the window, hands on his hips.

Starsky cautiously approached him, suspicious that Hutch was feeling emotional or sentimental or reflective, painfully remembering some of the ordeal he’d undergone in Ryker’s hands, having his memory triggered by Starsky’s intrusive questions. “What are you doing in here?” he timidly asked as he neared Hutch.

Hutch turned to face him when he heard Starsky’s voice, gave Starsky a warm smile under that head of translucent blond hair and those sparkling blue eyes, and replied, “Waiting for you.” He spun Starsky by his shoulders into a half-turn and effectually pushed him onto the bed behind him.

Starsky landed on his butt with a bounce, surprised, but unharmed.

“I saw your dick as I walked by the doorway,” Hutch explained, laughing as he leaned into Starsky and pushed him back against the blanketed mattress. “Can’t seem to help myself now.”

“You saw my cock?” Starsky asked, charmed and gazing into Hutch’s anticipating eyes, himself feeling suddenly warm and aroused, as well as quite thrilled by the change in plans. “Is that what you mean by my ‘dick’?”

Hutch straddled him, pinned Starsky’s wrists to the mattress above his head, and sat over his groin. “I did mean that,” he playfully confessed. “I saw your cock as I walked by the door—and now I just can’t wait to suck it off.”

“Who’s stopping you?”

“I’m fairly sure you won’t.”

“I wouldn’t even dream of it.”

They kissed—as naturally and passionately and affectionately as they had in the grass earlier that day. Starsky could feel the presence of Hutch’s radiating heat, smell his alluring cologne and his hours-old sweat, see his dreamily closed eyes and the relaxed expression on his face—one filled with desire and love and nothing less.

He liked that Hutch held his wrists in his strong hands, firm against the mattress, with an unbreakable grip, allowing Starsky to feel helpless and not greedy, to be compliant and not directive. He did not need to ask, not even silently, with hope plainly in his eyes, for the pleasure he was about to receive—even after Hutch ended the kiss, sat back, and let him go. Starsky knew orgasmic pleasure was forthcoming, as sure as night followed day.

The underlying dialogue that passed between them motivated Starsky into looking expectantly and deeply into Hutch’s eyes, to hear the unspoken cue to maneuver further onto the mattress while Hutch followed him—all while Hutch lowered the zipper on Starsky’s jeans. “You need my cock, doncha, buddy?” Starsky teasingly coaxed, mostly to spur Hutch along as the excitement rolled over them. Cool air entered the opening in Starsky’s fly and tickled his hardening penis. “You need it, want it, can’t wait to get it, hm, Hutch?”

“Every inch of it,” Hutch swore. He leaned over and engaged them in another lengthy and sensual kiss while he unbuttoned Starsky’s shirt, without watching his fingers, and Starsky awkwardly removed his shoes and his jeans and succeeded in tossing them to the floor. Their lips never separated despite the balancing act, and the room filled with breathless kisses, low-level grunts, and occasional giggles and quiet laughter. “Every inch,” Hutch reiterated when he eventually sat back to his heels and clasped Starsky’s enlarged and still-growing penis in his squeezing, stroking hand, laying eyes on it and admiring it in the daylight shadows.

The warmth of Hutch’s touch, coupled with its snugness and determination, disengaged Starsky’s mind from his brain. He pushed his head back, closed his eyes, momentarily enjoyed only the tactile sensations, was thoughtless, driven purely by want and the need for the inevitable. All he could manage to tell Hutch was how much he loved the sexual feelings that had begun to stir in him. “That feels good,” he whispered to Hutch’s perfect stroke—both in its arousing pace and its ever-so pleasing tightness. “My . . . my dick . . . Hutch . . . oh, it’s . . . so . . .” He bathed in the pleasure his partner created for him, unable to speak another senseless word.

But Hutch let him go at the right time; any further along and the break between them may have been cruel. Hutch needed to undress, too, which he did quickly after sliding off the bed to stand long enough to remove his clothes, and to free his own penis into the cooling air. “Don’t you go anywhere,” he warned Starsky, eyeing Starsky’s obvious erection with hunger in his eyes; they knew Starsky wouldn’t move a muscle.

When Hutch climbed back onto the mattress, he bunched the pillows at the headboard, and said in that whispery voice of his, “C’mon up here, sexy boy. Sit against these.”

Still wearing his unbuttoned shirt, Starsky pressed his neck and shoulders into the pillows, and desperately drank in the visual of Hutch’s bared skin, erect nipples, stiffened penis, patch of hair, rounded sac. He couldn’t see enough; nothing aroused him more than his partner’s enthusiasm. That Hutch could summon his own flesh into such excitement, and so instantly, warmed Starsky from his penis to the depth of his heart. Starsky needed to feel him, but Hutch was out of reach. He looked at Hutch to silently ask why, and Hutch replied with just his eyes. “Relax, calm down, take it easy.”

Neither of them was going anywhere any time soon.

They smelled of commingled sweat from the hours-long task of digging holes for trees earlier in the day, but they didn’t care. It was all-things-Hutch that Starsky could smell: familiar and heated and alive with sexual desire. There wasn’t anything about his man that didn’t excite him. After Hutch leaned over for another kiss, Starsky eagerly sucked on his tongue, imagining for a minute that it was Hutch’s penis he could feel at his lips, picturing the crown’s emergence from its foreskin, its smooth and reddened surface, the half-inch slit in its cap, its tissue engorged with blood and sensitivity, seeking carnal pleasure.

Starsky couldn’t help but want to feel it in his hand, too, to touch its shape and its firmness as he’d just witnessed it, to give it the same satisfactory indulgence that his own genital ached for in similar silence. But Hutch suddenly leaned back, maneuvered himself between Starsky’s feet, bent over him, and slid Starsky’s swollen crown past his own lips, the titillating touch heightened by the moisture from their kissing. He sucked Starsky deeply into his mouth, licking him along the slide in, coating pre-cum and saliva over the tumescent and highly sensitive skin of Starsky’s shaft with his tongue.

Starsky closed his eyes and hissed from the exquisite sensation; his organ internally throbbed, and nearly erupted. Only the beat of a single pause in Hutch’s action enabled him to pull it back from the edge. He opened his eyes to momentarily stare at the ceiling and give himself that extra suspension in time to stall the inevitable. He barely dared to look at his lover, let alone touch him. Hutch must have sensed it, too, because he sat up, abandoned Starsky for half a minute.

They locked eyes, smiled at each other.

Hutch was so beautiful: shy and happy, aroused and excited, shining in the light, both on his skin and on his face. Starsky felt Hutch’s strong hands caress the inside of his thighs. He knew more play awaited him, but he was also thankful for the reprieve he’d been given. He never wanted to be greedy. “I almost came,” he admitted. “Sometimes these . . . these unplanned moments . . . they ratchet me up faster.”

“I know,” Hutch said, knowingly. It should never have surprised Starsky that Hutch could read him better than he could himself. He watched Hutch’s eyes sweep over him, seeming to devour the look of Starsky’s appearance; but, of course, he did. Starsky’s nipples, too, were as erect as his penis; he’d broken a sweat, appeared as breathless as he felt, was as overcome with sexual neediness and want, shared the same enthusiasm. How could Hutch not notice and not be pleased to see it? No one else gave them the liberty and acceptance of their sexuality the way they did for each other.

“I want to return the favor,” Starsky said. He felt love and it came through in his voice.

“I know,” Hutch repeated, smiling again, wittingly. He gently stroked himself while he kept his eyes on Starsky’s look: his build and his nudity, his haired chest and hairier belly, his erection as it lay upright against him; no doubt, Hutch even appreciated that Starsky still wore his shirt. He probably relished the look of its light blue color contrasted to Starsky’s darker skin. That was also the Hutch Starsky knew.

“You love me,” Starsky concluded, especially when Hutch didn’t make a move to let him provide in kind. “You want me to come.”

“And hard,” Hutch said. He got to his hands and knees, didn’t leave eye contact, licked his lips, lowered himself to his elbows and, without touching Starsky, deeply inhaled the scent of Starsky’s penis in an audible breath.

Starsky could feel the heat of Hutch’s passion against his skin in the length of Hutch’s exhale. The kisses began: small, wet ones, over Starsky’s belly, along his hips, near his sac, occasionally on his penis—teasing and tender. He gulped for air, pushed his pelvis forward, begged in body and breath alone for the moist tightness of Hutch’s mouth around his swelled shaft. “Please . . . suck me.”

Hutch obliged.

“Oh, my dick, Hutch!” Starsky softly cried, his voice filled with excitement and amazement, when Hutch finally resumed the fellatio, and as if he’d never felt anything quite like it before. Maybe he hadn’t. There was something slightly different in the delivery, wasn’t there? It took Starsky half a minute to realize it: on every entry into Hutch’s mouth, there was an abetting hand on the downstroke, a technique they’d learned to use on each other, one that mimicked the welcoming snugness of a vagina, and heightened the urgency and sensitivity of their aching sex muscles. But, on this occasion, with each upstroke, Starsky realized Hutch had penetrated his anus with a finger, deeply sliding it in each time he went down on Starsky, retreating when he withdrew—but never breaking contact; Hutch had slipped in so easily, Starsky had barely noticed. He must have wanted the titillating insertion that much.

The dual sensations were also tantalizing and head-spinning. Starsky could barely catch his breath. Finger and penis in, finger and penis out, over and again in tandem, repeatedly and without hesitation, deeply and without resistance, slick overall with a viscous wetness, and extremely skilled. Starsky loved to feel the drool, and his sweat, no doubt, played a role, too. “Oh . . . you fuck me . . . suck me . . . so good. . .” His words were plaintive, his voice begging with the same ache that filled his entire groin from deep inside his anus with every penetration to the tip of his crown with every teasing lick.

“You have to stop, Hutch,” he reluctantly warned him in fewer than two minutes. His crest approached again rather quickly. Hutch could never have kept the pace with him; he would be left behind if Starsky didn’t stall them. Another minute of the noisy sucking and those slick attending penetrations, then two fingers thick, and Starsky would be over the edge before Hutch would realize the result.

But Hutch didn’t stop—and Starsky knew he’d been heard in more ways than just his words. “I’m gonna come,” Starsky then swore, letting himself go when he realized the command to cease had been futile. He wouldn’t waste energy on a battle he was sure to lose. He crested. So carried away by his orgasm, he wouldn’t realize until it began to subside that Hutch had frozen all action to allow him the uninterrupted enormity of his climactic joy.

Starsky’s head spun. The world shut down behind his closed eyes. He was completely helpless in those moments, sitting against the pillows at the headboard, having allowed his penis to be sucked into unpreventable orgasm, filling Hutch’s mouth with mounds of pulsing semen. He moaned and cried out, whimpered and laughed, rolled his head from side to side, heard his own breath, felt his heart pound away in his chest as if it might explode. It had been a perfectly delivered, professionally timed, most satisfying annihilation.

Only when he was able to catch his breath, let alone open his eyes, did Starsky sense that Hutch had neared the end of his own ejaculation. He heard his partner break into a steady cadence of, “Oh, oh, oh,” and he felt the bed rhythmically roll under him. Reality returned in an instant and just in time to see Hutch throw back his head as delirium finally overtook him, too—opening his mouth in a lengthy and expressive moan of erotic reward. Hutch’s skin glistened in the daylight, his fully engorged penis, long-emerged from its foreskin and snug in his pumping hand, deposited spurts of semen over Starsky’s haired chest and belly—and probably his shirt, too.

And then Hutch about did the unthinkable. In the throes of his overwhelming ecstasy, he lost his balance and began to fall backward. He would have landed on the mattress, but may have hit his head on the footboard. “Hey!” Starsky yelled at the last second, grabbing Hutch by his arms to quickly pull him toward him instead, and snapping Hutch out of his blissful trance—or at least Starsky hoped he had.

Hutch fell forward, laughing, barely stopping himself before he slumped all his weight against Starsky, keeping most of it on the mattress, his still-hard penis trapped between them. Hutch was also obviously still in the ebbing throes of his orgasm because his mouth immediately found Starsky’s, and he engaged another lengthy sucking kiss with him. Starsky indulged his lover until the last of his need faded and Hutch buried his face in Starsky’s neck instead, moaning with satisfaction and apparent contentment.

Their respiration eased and their heartbeats slowed, sweat dried, and the moans and deep sighs eventually passed. Starsky woke from his doze only because Hutch’s relaxed weight threatened to silence him forever. “Hey, buddy,” he gently said.

Hutch shifted off of him, to Starsky’s side, still draped over his thigh, his arm around Starsky’s waist.

Starsky realized he was somewhat pinned and couldn’t hug Hutch the way he wanted to, so he wrapped his leg around Hutch’s hip and pulled him closer that way. “You pushed me over the edge,” he noted, accusingly playful. “You know how much I wanted to help you get off.”

“I obviously didn’t need the help.”

“But, I mean, it’s always better to have an extra hand, right?”

“I had all the hands I needed,” Hutch insisted with a giggle. He was buried alongside Starsky, speaking quietly into his ear, seeming to have no intention of ever leaving that position. “Everything about your experience benefits mine.”

Starsky wouldn’t argue. What was the point? They turned each other on, never let the other one go hungry, satisfied that primal ache for the other—that much was forever true however it was accomplished. They were entangled in each other’s bodies as much as they were in each other’s lives. “You’re an amazing lover,” Starsky whispered. “The things you do to me and how you do them.”

“Just following my heart.”

“Exactly.”

“Because I love you.”

Starsky laughed, amused, but also touched. “It shows.”

“Don’t ever think I’m lacking sexually just because it ends the way it sometimes does.”

“You’d tell me if you needed more, wouldn’t you, Hutch?”

Starsky expected Hutch to lecture him about how he’d never let sex play out between them in which he didn’t get as much from it as Starsky apparently did. But Hutch’s frame of mind was somewhere else. Instead, he said, “If you never touched me, I’d still get off on you in more satisfying ways than anyone else could ever do me.”

“I’m talking sex.”

“So was I.”

Starsky about choked. “You swell my heart, too, Hutch.”

“That’s my point,” Hutch replied; he still spoke into Starsky’s ear, his face nuzzled against Starsky’s neck, snug and wet, his breath warm at Starsky’s skin. “Sex with you is the most beautiful sex I’ve ever had—and not just because you let me be the animal I am or because you’re the maxed-out animal you are—but because I’ve never trusted anyone enough to be this vulnerable with, in these ways, with this kind of total freedom. It’s not just how my body feels; it’s how my heart feels, too.”

Starsky didn’t know what to say in reply, so he said nothing. He loved the sound of Hutch’s voice, buttery soft in its perfection, and the feel of Hutch’s body relaxed over his, entwined with his, naked and bared, bathed in the aromas of sweat and semen, saliva and cologne, smeared in Hutch’s ejaculate, being reminded of his mouth and his penis, his fingers and his breath. “Amazing lover” had been an understatement. Starsky wasn’t good with words, not the way Hutch was. How could he possibly ever tell Hutch just how fortunate a man he’d become—not just to have Hutch, but to have him back again?

Hutch finally stirred, climbed to his elbow, and looked sleepily at him. He then seemed to notice the wordless emotion in Starsky’s eyes. “I was wondering if you understood me,” Hutch said with a distinct kindness in his voice, “but I see I don’t have to ask.”

Starsky wiped his face. “You’re everything to me,” he said.

Hutch squeezed him close. “Well, you know what they say. . .”

Starsky dried his eyes and looked expectantly at Hutch. When he didn’t get the answer to his silent question, he voiced it. “What do they say?”

“Ditto.”

Starsky laughed; he knew Hutch simply wanted to break him out of his emotional moment. ‘Ditto.’ The word had enormous meaning for them. “Yeah,” he whispered in reply. “I hear that’s what they say.”

“So tell me something, Starsk: Is there any fantasy you’ve had that you haven’t lived that you’d like to experience with me?”

“Yeah,” Starsky said, “but it’s not physically possible.”

Hutch cocked his head. “Try me.”

“It’s not possible, Hutch,” Starsky insisted, finally able to get his arm out from under his partner; he caressed Hutch’s buttocks, enjoying their roundness and warmth, and the intimacy of their nudity.

Hutch’s gaze began to wander, as if he would figure it out on his own. “I’m under the distinct impression that it involves my ass.”

Starsky laughed again. “That’s not it at all. You’re way off.”

“Then what? What’s so impossible?”

“I’d love for you to fuck me and suck me at the same time,” Starsky blurted, not wasting another minute on the stupid idea. “You see that, right, Hutch, that it’s not physically possible?”

Hutch laughed. “I kind of did that to you just now, though, didn’t I? Fucked and sucked you?”

“With your cock,” Starsky said. “Fuck me with your cock while you suck me.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Not possible. Any other secret wishes lurking in that lame brain that, at the very least, involve an earthling?”

“If I think of any, I’ll get back to you. But, same question, cowboy.”

“Same answer,” Hutch said, sounding certain, and giving Starsky a friendly kiss on the cheek. “If I think of any, I’ll get back to you. Now, c’mon, let’s get a shower. We’re late for a movie.”

* * *

Starsky stood patiently in the shower stall while hot water drenched him, and Hutch lathered his skin in soapy suds. The feel of Hutch’s hands over his nude body was both cleansing and comforting, but Starsky got more joy out of the intent look on his partner’s face while Hutch bathed him than he was from the actual cleanse.

“Let’s get this mess off of you,” Hutch had said, presumably about his semen, and scrubbing parts of Starsky’s wet, haired chest with his nails as if it had been caked on. The rest of his wash-down was softer, gentler. “You know what I mean,” he mumbled when Starsky told him he didn’t think Hutch’s ejaculate was anywhere close to being a ‘mess.’

“I eat that stuff, after all,” Starsky explained. He stood dutifully with Hutch in the two-person shower, behind its steamed glass door, and passively allowed Hutch to turn him this way and then that way while Hutch made certain to cleanse every inch of his dark-haired buddy, including under his arms. “You just want an excuse to feel my pecs.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Hutch jokingly asked, using the cue to thoroughly wash Starsky’s flaccid penis and sac, and handling them much more gently than he had Starsky’s pectoral muscles. He looked Starsky in the eye the entire time he carefully shampooed his phallus, as if daring Starsky to summon an erection so soon after the one he’d just discharged.

Despite how good the soapy wash felt in Hutch’s attentive hands, they knew neither of them could pull off another ejaculation in so short an intermission, but it was a sexy idea. “Maybe we should have had our shower first,” Starsky suggested, too late. He did love the look of Hutch, all wet and steamy. “But keep that up and all you’ll do is get me frustrated.”

Hutch laughed, surrendering, and turned Starsky around by his elbow to wash his backside instead. “There’s always later,” Hutch sang. “Always later.” He was more engrossed in his bathing task than his made-up lyrics, and his voice eventually trailed away with water down the drain.

“Did you sing in the shower?” Starsky wondered aloud. He felt that familiar pang of hurt rise up in him.

“When?”

“In Bolivia.”

“No.”

“Not even when you were by yourself in there?”

“I was never not by myself in the shower.”

“I mean, like, you sang in the shower . . . and he was in the room . . . outside or somewhere, listening?”

“No, Starsk. I never sang in the shower. I was never in that mood.”

Starsky felt Hutch’s hands lather his buttocks with soap and couldn’t help but think Hutch did it purely to distract him from his line of questions. Maybe Hutch was right, and he should just let it go. Somehow, he couldn’t. “Could you have sang in the shower, but you just don’t remember you did?”

Hutch stepped up close behind him, set his chin on Starsky’s shoulder, and his cheek tightly to Starsky’s face, while his fingers found their way between Starsky’s buttocks to gently wash his anus.

Starsky didn’t like the intimacy because he thought Hutch tried again to derail him—but he didn’t stop Hutch. Somehow that seemed like a stupid thing to do, something even more unfair and childish. He endured it instead, and hated himself for his irrepressible insecurity.

Hutch’s quiet breath was audible in his ear when he spoke. “Suppose I come at you from this direction, huh? Does this get your pecs hard?” He laughed at his silliness, his obviously dumb attempt at word play, and then washed Starsky’s legs down to his feet when Starsky didn’t reply.

Neither said a word for the remainder of the bath. When Hutch was done with Starsky, he let Starsky rinse himself while he soaped his own body and washed his hair. After he finished, they faced each other under the nozzle, still enjoying the feel of the hot water and the purification of its steam.

Starsky spoke first, looking into Hutch’s expectant blue eyes. “There are times I’ve wanted to crack your head open on a cement sidewalk,” he confessed, using figurative terms. “Times I’ve wanted to be anywhere where you weren’t.”

Hutch’s expression sobered and he straightened, not leaving eye contact.

“You can be so mean sometimes,” Starsky continued. His voice was leveled, not angry, not even hostile, more matter-of-fact. “You get it in your mind that your way and your way alone is how things are going to be done. Push you a little too hard and we see that temper.”

Hutch withstood the verbal disclosures in silence.

“I could trust you with my life,” Starsky added, reflecting on the past fifteen years, “but I couldn’t always trust you with my car . . . or a woman.”

“I have no idea where you’re going with this.”

“For most of our time together, we haven’t agreed on religion or politics or . . . food. Sometimes I felt as if we were as different as night and day, as black and white, so much that we walked on thin ice over our common ground.”

“You’re beginning to scare me,” Hutch said with a light exhale, showing his apprehension in its subtlety. He got that expression on his face, one so familiar to Starsky, a kind of weakness of sorts—especially for a man that formidable.

“You can be so shy,” Starsky observed, unable to find another word for it than the one that just erupted from his mouth. “Shy and passive. Like a reprimanded little boy.”

Hutch nervously licked his lips, settled back, momentarily broke eye contact. “And you’re punishing me . . . because?”

“Oh, I don’t mean to punish you. I’m just telling you like it is. Like who you are. All those things I just said. But, you know, cross you and you’ll put anyone face down on the ground in a heartbeat. Don’t underestimate Ken Hutchinson.”

Hutch turned the lever on the water faucet and lowered the pressure of its stream through the shower head. But he didn’t leave the stall. He made eye contact with Starsky again, that time with a certain protective steeling Starsky could see, not just feel. “You’re trying to provoke me into something,” Hutch concluded. “I don’t know what, but whatever it is, it’s not going to work.”

“Let’s say I am,” Starsky said, following his gut, because he didn’t understand it, either. “Why won’t it work?”

“Because it’s coming from somewhere I can’t quite place,” Hutch replied, “but it’s not without reason.” He still seemed shy, but guarded. “Maybe you can clue me in.”

“I wanted to prove to myself again that I could tell you anything. I can be honest with you about everything—including the ways I see you that aren’t all that flattering sometimes.”

“Okay.”

“I wanted to see what I thought I’d see: you, taking what I’m telling you and not cracking my head open on the hard wall, know what I mean? I can tell you what I think, what I see, what I know, how I feel . . . and you’ll stand here with me and listen. I mean, when you have to listen, you listen; you tried getting away a couple of times there, but when you realized you couldn’t, you faced me.”

“Where am I to go, Starsk? You’re ‘home is where the heart is’ when it comes to me.”

“And I need to keep remembering that, so I don’t let my stupid jealousy get the better of me. There’s nothing I could say or do—not anymore, is there?—that would put us at odds again?”

“We’ve run the gamut.”

“I was angry at you for Kira.”

“I deserved it.”

“But this is different, I guess. I mean, I’m not angry at you at all. I’m hurt, I think. It seems you could have found other, different, ways to convince Ryker he was safe enough to not be murdered by you.”

“Other ways, you mean, than my playing the piano and singing songs with him.”

“Yeah. I mean, he didn’t know you could do those things, so it wasn’t like he needed them in order to be crazy about you.”

Hutch turned off the shower completely, and wiped the water from his face. “You’re all over the place here, Starsky. I’m not able to follow. You’re bringing up a distant past and tying it somehow to things I did in Bolivia—”

Starsky clasped Hutch’s neck, wet skin and hair, in both his hands, and forced Hutch to look him in the eye. “What I’m trying to tell you is about me—how I have felt about you from Day One until this moment. All we’ve come through together. That we’ve overcome. That I never think we’ll deal with again—because we’re in a completely different frame of mind and heart, ever since we discovered that we could get everything we need in life from each other.”

Hutch seemed to agree; his acquiescence emerged in the softer, less protective look in his eyes, that he appreciated and understood Starsky’s purge. He slowly exhaled his uneasiness. “Okay.”

“But here I am after all of that,” Starsky furthered, “and knowing, as I just proved again to myself, that I can tell you anything, be anything, pour my heart out to you and be safe doing it, no matter what I say . . . and yet I still feel I lost something down there.” He tried not to let his hurt show as much as he felt it, because he wasn’t sure himself how deep it went, but the disappointment and pain appeared in his eyes, and he knew Hutch could see them.

“You need to blame me for what happened to us in Bolivia,” Hutch assumed.

“It’s me I blame,” Starsky corrected him. “I can’t handle being let up for what happened. I have something coming to me. Maybe you have to keep on singing—because nothing hurts me more than knowing you gave something to someone else that I think you didn’t have to give, something that belonged to only me.”

Hutch pulled Starsky’s hands from around his neck, breaking them apart. He then gently shoved Starsky against the wet tile at his back and leaned into him, his blue eye contact intense and demanding, holding Starsky’s arms to the wall above his head, much the way he’d done on the guest bed before sex that early afternoon.

But pleasure wasn’t what either of them sought. All Hutch had to do in that delicate moment was raise his knee, and he’d drop Starsky to both of his. In his heart of hearts, Starsky knew Hutch would never retaliate in that way, despite how much he wished Hutch would. An incapacitating blow to the testicles, and Starsky could feel the reprimand he craved. But Hutch didn’t move a muscle; he didn’t indulge him. In fact, Hutch backed up his no-intentions with words, not just with inaction.

“I’m not going to hurt you, pal,” he firmly said. “I know that’s what you want, Starsk, but I’m not doing it. I’ll take all your punches. I said I would. And nice try, but I’m not retaliating. You aren’t to blame—and you can’t change my mind on that—so find some other way out of this.”

“I don’t know how, Hutch. Every time I hear you sing, I get to feeling like . . . shit. Every time I smell potatoes cooking or see a butterfly. Every time I realize all over again that I have you back and what you went through to get here. . .”

Hutch pressed his forehead to Starsky’s, audibly exhaled, and relaxed into him. “You’ll never be able to stop those kinds of triggers,” he quietly noted, a certain sorry in his voice. Then, it seemed, to lighten the moment, he added, “You’re going to have to come up with something else, buddy. I’m not falling for any of it.”

“You almost did,” Starsky said, pushing into his frustration as if he could break its grip that way, but allowing himself the direction Hutch had just given him. “I almost got you to go along with me on this.”

“Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

Starsky couldn’t help his laugh. “The shit you say.”

Hutch let him go so they could embrace, still wet and warm in the shower stall, arms tightly around each other, tenaciously and with all the love in the world between them, until they had nearly dripped dry. Starsky’s attempt to be punished for his role in Hutch’s ordeal had completely and totally backfired.

* * *

“I need new shoes, Hutch.”

He sat in the chair in the room near the closet and pulled on his socks, having already climbed into his jeans and shirt. Hutch was still in the bathroom, fussing with his face. They had finally left the shower stall—after their lengthy embrace and a friendly kiss to end it. Hutch handed Starsky his towel when they eventually emerged, which Starsky barely needed to use, and Hutch began to dry off his own hair, telling Starsky they could hit the road as soon as they got dressed.

“I said I need new shoes,” he repeated when he didn’t get a reply to his first comment. “You want me to look pretty when we’re out, don’t you?”

Hutch came into the room, laughing, but not because Starsky was funny; it sounded more as if he thought Starsky’s crack was dumb. “You’ve got plenty of shoes,” he observed, dragging a pair of his own out of the closet and tossing them in Starsky’s direction.

“Those are yours.”

“They’ll fit you.”

“You know they won’t. Besides, they’re old man shoes.”

“And yet I’m younger than you.”

“They look like your dad’s.”

“Who’s the clothes horse between us, huh?”

Starsky frowned, kicked Hutch’s shoes away, and continued to tighten and lace what he had on. “I need some new ones is all I’m saying,” he complained. “I can’t keep wearing farm boots and dirt kickers, you know? I mean, I need something to wear to a movie.”

Hutch was busy getting dressed; Starsky didn’t watch him, but he could hear Hutch rummaging through his dresser, pulling jeans over his legs, clanking around in his coin dish. “Are you listening to me?” Starsky impatiently asked.

“What’s to hear?” Hutch said with a laugh. “You need shoes. How many more ways do you feel you have to say it?”

Starsky rolled his eyes. “All I’m hearing from you is an argument.”

“We’ll get you some shoes,” Hutch promised.

“Was that too hard to say the first time?”

Hutch laughed again, finally amused. “One of the things I love you about you, pal, is how you keep me on my toes.”

“So, after the movie, we’ll buy me some shoes, right?”

“We can stop at the mall and get you the perfect pair. How’s that sound?”

Starsky was ready to leave. “Like a plan.”

“But, don’t think I didn’t notice that you said ‘we’ll’ buy you some shoes. I read that to mean I’ll be the one paying for them.”

“I got your life insurance payout still,” Starsky reminded him. He stood and faced Hutch—who was facing him, as ready to leave as Starsky was, unintentionally surprising Starsky by how quickly he’d gotten dressed. “We’ll use some of that payout to get me some shoes, hm?”

“Don’t we have to pay that payout back?”

“Do we?”

They made eye contact for a minute as they contemplated the answer in their own time. Hutch eventually spoke first. “I think we could cash out—if we need the money.”

“Well, I mean, we both know the other gets everything else . . . so we won’t be homeless. Maybe we cash out the insurance policy and then have ourselves a nest egg for whatever we may need in the future, know what I mean?”

“Did you already have something particular in mind?”

Starsky thought for a moment, and then turned on his heel to exit the room, Hutch behind him, and whimsically said, “Shoes, Hutch. I need shoes.”

* * *

“What?” Hutch asked. “You’ve never seen a grown man drive before?”

Starsky noticed that Hutch hadn’t looked at him, that he’d purely sensed Starsky’s keen study of him without even laying eyes on Starsky, and he either felt uncomfortable by the examination or he was amused.

In any event, Hutch’s observation snapped Starsky out of his trance and made him laugh; he felt caught in a private moment, despite that there wasn’t anything secretive between them to matter. “I’m impressed to see you keep it on this side of the line,” Starsky wisecracked. Hutch hadn’t been behind the wheel of a vehicle since before their trip to Bolivia.

Coupled with his sometimes disbelief that Hutch was alive and well—and in his presence—Hutch’s exceptional beauty was also on full display; he was freshly showered, dressed in blue denim from head to foot, his blond hair tossed by the wind that came through the driver’s window, and his blue eyes and expression were intent on the winding country road. Everything about him—his posture, his muscled build, the shapes of his fingers, right down to his well-used hiking shoes—was a sight to behold.

Starsky’s mind wandered and he lost his train of thought. “Have you ever noticed, Hutch. . .?”

“That you often fail to finish a sentence?”

Starsky remembered because he’d just been cued. “That we’re not as mean to each other as we’ve been for most of our lives together?”

“Meaning, we’re nicer to each other now?”

“Meaning . . . we’re not as mean as we were.”

“Why do you think?”

“It depends.

“On what?”

“Whether you agree with me.”

They were silent for a minute while Hutch ruminated and Starsky watched the passing scenery and waited for him. In many ways, their lives were quite different from the previous years they’d been together: what they ate, where they lived, how they loved.

“How far back are we going?” Hutch eventually asked. “To when we masturbated each other on the area rug in front of the fireplace?”

“Even after that. You weren’t exactly nice to me when I asked you to fuck me the first time, remember?”

Hutch laughed, sounding dismayed with himself by the memory. He then analyzed the new information Starsky had given him and said, “You’re wondering if we’ve been ‘less mean’ to each other in the last, say, six months then?”

“I actually meant to say that you’ve been less mean; you’re the meaner one between us.”

“I won’t argue that point.”

“You’re making my case for me. So, what do you think? Are things ‘softer’ with us now?”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t get as annoyed with me as you used to.”

“Same for you about me?”

“Yeah, probably, but mostly you.”

“Why do you suppose?”

Starsky studied the outside scenery, enjoying its sunlit visuals and the feel in the spring air of his opened window. Sex and a shower had done him good. “I suppose it’s because we’re lovers now, bona fide.”

“Haven’t we been bona fide lovers since the first time you stroked my dick?”

Starsky laughed; he also enjoyed Hutch’s snappy comebacks—they made for feisty conversation. “I remind you that you didn’t call us ‘lovers’ until we had the kind of sex you defined as sex: ‘penetration into a body orifice below the waist, required.’”

“Oh, that’s right,” Hutch remembered. He braked the truck to a stop at the southern end of the county road where it T-joined the highway that would take them to an Oceanside movie theater. “Well,” Hutch mused, “I was wrong about that, lover boy, about how to define sex. You were right all along.”

“Are you waiting for me to tell you which way to turn?” Starsky had to ask. He noticed Hutch had stalled at the stop sign for longer than necessary, and Starsky couldn’t help but poke his partner with sarcasm. But he also felt suddenly hurt again by that all-too-familiar jealousy he’d inexplicably begun to experience.

Hutch entered the highway after a lone car passed and they lazily headed west to the city. When he seemed to realize that Starsky hadn’t expressed victory for having been right about his definition of sex after all those months, Hutch poked him back. “Are my words of apology not enough to fill you with enormous pride? Do I need to repent in some other way for all the trouble I caused you?”

Starsky slumped against his door and propped his heel on the dashboard, raising his knee to shield himself from Hutch. He mumbled an “I don’t care,” as if that, too, would change the subject, but it only muddied the emotional waters.

“I said the wrong thing,” Hutch concluded, sounding genuinely sorry. “I meant to put one more ‘mean’ thing behind us, but I guess it backfired?”

Ryker was on Starsky’s mind and he dared not speak of him lest he say something he’d live to regret. They were supposed to be having a friendly afternoon: sex, shower, movie, dinner . . . probably even more sex before sleep. And Hutch was so beautiful, strong, able . . . alive. Starsky grit his teeth to keep himself from uttering a single word until his feelings passed—as they always seemed to—but Hutch didn’t grant him the reprieve.

“I’m willing to say we were bona fide lovers from the very first kiss,” Hutch said, obviously trying to ease the tension he felt he’d caused, “if that’s what you need me to say.”

Starsky turned his head toward his window. Farms and open fields passed his gaze as he continued to bite down on his unfounded emotions. He knew he was being stupid, but he couldn’t seem to keep himself from acting on it.

“Hey?” Hutch asked, nudging him with a soft voice, just above the sound of wind in the windows. When that failed, Hutch clasped Starsky’s knee and gave his leg a wobble. “C’mon, buddy. Spit it out. This detective needs at least one clue.”

“Bolivia,” Starsky blurted. He did love the feel of Hutch’s hand on him; he could never tire of Hutch’s affection, and Hutch apparently knew it because he gave Starsky an extra squeeze as if to reward him for finally speaking. “Bolivia,” Starsky repeated in a calmer voice—and drawing a deep breath. He held Hutch’s warm hand where Hutch held him, and they grew silent for a minute while Hutch drove and deciphered the clues.

“What I did in front of Ryker wasn’t sex,” Hutch inevitably explained. “It was a means to an end.”

“I know it,” Starsky said, certain of his beliefs. “I know all of that in my head. I know what he did was sexual assault, but the heart of me keeps saying . . . ‘well, sex assaults don’t usually end in orgasms by the victims, do they?’”

“It was you I was thinking of when I acted out; I had to be careful not to say your name while I was jerking off.”

“You’ve never used my name during sex.”

“You’ve never not been there while I was dreaming of sex with you.”

“Okay, I get that my head is right and my heart is wrong on this one,” Starsky continued, bypassing Hutch’s defense for a justification of his own resentment and jealousy. “I’ve been sick to my stomach thinking about what he forced you into doing—but just the same, it ended in you always feeling good.”

“Would it have made a difference if you knew it could have been worse—and that I made those decisions about masturbating on the overall facts, not on fun?”

“How’s that?”

“He threatened to have Elena tie my arms and legs to the chair—and she’d do the honors on his behalf.”

Starsky abruptly looked at Hutch to gauge his seriousness—which was quite apparent. “He’d have had the girl get you off?”

“He implied that he would. ‘If you won’t do it for you, I’ll find someone who will; after all, Elena sure has grown fond of you.’ And I just couldn’t . . . she was so young, Starsk. It would have been sexual assault on top of sexual assault.”

“That just makes me feel sicker, Hutch—and angrier at myself.”

“You have to know I did the best I could.”

“I do know that. It’s the part where I didn’t do my best that pisses me off.”

“But let’s get back to your point, buddy,” Hutch said, to focus their thoughts in his apparent effort to reach an understanding. “We need to be clear on what we’re going to call lovers, okay? I’m agreeing that our first kiss was sex and we were lovers from that moment forward—but that was consensual behavior; it wasn’t coerced.”

“Yeah, okay. But, if defining lovers is what we’re doing here,” Starsky followed, “then I’m going to go further back and say we were lovers of the heart long before we locked lips.”

Hutch lightly laughed; he seemed to want to be serious, but Starsky wasn’t holding to the means, or so Hutch seemed to believe. “Lovers of the heart,” he mulled, repeating the phrase several times before agreeing with Starsky’s assessment. “My nervousness that very first day at the Academy when you invited me for coffee in the cafeteria . . . that was probably my deep inner self feeling something it didn’t know how to process at the time.”

“Right?”

“Then, what are we arguing about?”

“We’re less mean to each other—and by that, I’m saying you’re less mean than I’m less mean—since we no longer have other lovers before us. I’m talking about . . . after Grace died . . . and we knew it was only going to be the two of us—you and me—for the rest of our lives. We became bona fide then.”

“Okay—but you probably mean ‘exclusive.’”

“But since then . . . and no fault of your own . . . you’ve had orgasms with other guys—”

“One other guy—and not with him, technically, but in his presence.”

“—and I guess it pisses me off even though there’s nothing I can blame you for under those circumstances.”

“Are we forgetting about your—how shall I say this?—‘rendezvous’ with a young girl named Ashlee at the farm sanctuary one afternoon in the not-too-distant past?”

Starsky didn’t have a defense, despite how he struggled to create one. Or at least to explain himself. Or to justify his offended feelings. He’d forgotten about the fling he’d had since he and Hutch had become ‘bona fide’; all the more reason Hutch should have kicked him in the testicles when they were naked in the shower.

But Hutch seemed to let it go; the topic was Starsky’s feelings, not Hutch’s, and he understood the fine-line difference. “We’re talking about two things here, right?” he asked, seeking clarification. He let go of Starsky to put both hands on the wheel as traffic became denser the closer they got to the city. “One, that we’re not as mean to each other since Grace died, and me more than you, and two, that you’re angry I experienced the good feelings of orgasms in the presence of another man, even though it wasn’t my fault that I did.”

“With a few nips and tucks, that sums it up.”

“Do you think you’re more pissed off than I am that I had to perform like some stud horse for Ryker?”

Starsky looked over at Hutch; the question triggered a supposition he hadn’t considered before. “Okay. Maybe it’s that I don’t see you being all that mad about what he made you do.”

“I took my anger out on him first chance I got—and I’ve had nothing left to give since then.”

Starsky evaluated that reply, too. “So, maybe it’s that I didn’t get a chance to take it out on him like you did—because I sure would have liked to, you know?”

“Are you angry at me because I didn’t give you the opportunity to punch his lights out?”

“Not at you, but at the way things ended up.”

He watched Hutch drive in silence for a minute before he turned his attention to outside his window. Neither of them could do anything about ‘the way things ended up,’ so what was the purpose of Starsky’s anger? He thought he then knew.

“I think maybe I wouldn’t feel so mad at myself if I’d gotten to smash his face in for you. It would have meant I did something about that situation, something I made a mistake about letting happen in the first place—that you spent three months down there with him because I was too stupid to follow my gut about the clues.”

“You give yourself way too much credit.”

“And if I’m mad at you at all, it’s because you’re not paying me back for that stupidity.”

“Starsky—”

“I don’t want to hear it. You’ve made it clear what you think and how you feel, but this is my cross to bear. There has to be some way I can be made to pay for my mistake.”

“You’re only hurting yourself, Detective. Nobody else cares about this except you, so why are you beating yourself to death over it?”

Starsky dropped his foot from the dashboard and sat up, but didn’t take his eyes off the scenery; he felt too ashamed to look at Hutch. Deep in his gut, and maybe even in his heart, he knew Hutch was intellectually right about his self-loathing, but he simply couldn’t shake it. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he said with a huff, squeezing his hands between his knees to purge himself of the conversation. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay,” Hutch reluctantly replied, “what else do you have in mind?”

“Let’s talk about . . . sex.”

“Well, there’s a completely different subject, if ever I heard one.”

“I mean, let’s talk about sex sex, not about having sex.”

“Speak to me in English.”

Starsky was frustrated for that reason, too. He didn’t feel sufficiently articulate, but he knew Hutch could figure it out as they went along, so he put the first thought out there. “We play rough, don’t we?”

“In a good way.”

“I mean, we play in a way that we never have with others, wouldn’t you say?”

“I recall you liked rough sex on occasion with the right lady.”

“Yeah, but that was just role-playing.”

“And that’s different from our rough play?”

“Because ours is genuine. Mine with you is, anyway.”

“I see. So, we get rambunctious with each other because it’s how we feel in the moment, whereas what you’ve done in the past was by a set of agreed-upon rules or pre-scripted story boarding?”

“Whatever that means. I’m saying, yeah, you and me play rough because we feel that much for each other—and not because we’re trying to make each other . . . hotter.”

“I don’t know,” Hutch mused, obviously giving Starsky’s evaluation serious consideration. “I believe you were trying to ratchet things up for me that first time you tied me to a bed—and every other time you’ve done it.”

“I’m talking about since we’ve become bona fide lovers.”

“You’re not making sense, Starsky boy. A minute ago we were discussing past relationship sex.”

“I’m just trying to find something we’ve got now that we’ve never had with anybody else.”

Hutch hit the turn signal and slowly drove into the shoulder of the highway, turning onto a small, deserted street he’d apparently just discovered. Once out of traffic, he stopped in the gravel of a turnaround, shifted the gear into park, and killed the engine. He then faced Starsky.

Starsky looked out the window, avoiding him. “I know what you’re going to say,” he insisted. “Let’s just go to the movie, okay?”

Hutch didn’t budge.

Starsky believed he couldn’t feel stupider than he already did. Hutch would only tell him that their chemistry was unmatched in their lives, that what they had together was a rare and special bond, so strong they’d lay down their lives for the other. No sex, no other friendship, no family ties, could supersede the love and loyalty they’d devoted their hearts to. “Can we just go to the movie?” he impatiently asked again, feeling frustrated—but also very frail in that moment, too—as if he desperately wanted an affirmation of his certainty about Hutch’s reply, that he needed it to balance out the punishment he felt he was due.

“We have sex every morning,” Hutch said—in that quiet, soft, buttery, friendly way he had.

Starsky thought he might laugh, at least smile, because Hutch’s words weren’t exactly the esoteric and magical ones he expected.

“And every morning,” Hutch continued, despite that Starsky wasn’t looking at him, “we shower afterward. Together. Not always. But more than sometimes. Usually.”

Starsky dropped his focus from the distant horizon across the undeveloped field to the top strand of the barbed wire fence alongside the truck. He tried to guess where Hutch took him—but couldn’t.

“All those years with women,” Hutch furthered, “I maybe took a shower with someone now and again . . . but I never bathed her. Don’t know why. I guess it just wasn’t . . . what I wanted to do.”

Starsky fixated then on the side view mirror attached to his door. The deduction was that Hutch’s behavior differed when it came to Starsky: in most of the showers they took together, which was part of their morning ritual, Hutch almost always bathed Starsky—washing him from head to foot, thoroughly under his arms, gently over his sac, sensually soaping his flaccid penis. Starsky loved the wash; it was mesmerizing and affirming. He felt loved in ways beyond the sexual and the affectionate, that someone cared for him, safeguarded him, attended to his needs, reminded him he was wanted.

He rarely bathed Hutch in kind—and not because the desire wasn’t there, but because the morning wash had become an extended gift Hutch gave Starsky, the little-needier-boy between them.

“Almost as often,” Hutch said, continuing on his thought, “when we’re home, that is, I make us breakfast. You’re a grown man: you can fend for yourself; you did so by-and-large for the first fourteen years we were together. But I like making things for you to eat—even if they aren’t the things I might eat, like the way you dump sugar in coffee.”

Starsky shifted his eyes to past his knees to stare unseeing at the keyed button on the glovebox. He loved Hutch’s meals, sometimes especially the ones he didn’t think he’d like, but always turned out to be tasty and filling and healthy. He loved to watch Hutch make breakfast—and lunch and dinner—to be in the kitchen with him, waiting at the counter, studying Hutch’s every move, his ease with a chopping knife, a sink and a stove.

The single wine glass.

“You’re good at the more physical work,” Hutch said, sounding pleased with his assessment, “so I don’t mind doing the laundry and dusting the furniture and washing the dishes.”

Starsky sometimes helped with those, but he preferred to use his muscle: repairing a fence board, hanging a shelf, moving a desk. Or the regular specialties of keeping the hot tub clean or mowing the wild grass—although that gave him the added pleasure of riding the tractor, truth be told. He was fairly sure Hutch was about to walk them through the rituals of their daily routines—all reminders that they lived together, loved together, slept together, and had done those things for much longer than either of them had spent with anyone else; not even Hutch’s marriage had lasted as long or been as mutually satisfying.

Hutch was going to tell him that maybe they sometimes strayed from the course they’d silently defined for themselves, but that it was the overall arch of their lives, complete with its subtleties and simplicities, that made their unique and extraordinary relationship the uncommon gift it had become.

Starsky didn’t want to waste Hutch’s time; Hutch was the victim of a sexual assault. He’d done his best to maneuver through its delicate web of deceit and violation to be alive and in that moment. Starsky didn’t intend to put the burden on his partner. That had never been his plan. What he wanted was to be held accountable for the costly blunder he’d made. Hutch couldn’t possibly be as forgiving as he sometimes appeared to be. He still operated under a blanket of denial and shock; how else could Starsky explain it?

“So . . . you cook, you clean, you do the dishes,” he said, hoping his next words would reprieve them both—and that they would still let Hutch know he heard him, even the things he hadn’t yet said. Bravely turning his head, he looked deeply into Hutch’s blue eyes, and saw an immediate welcoming expression greet him. “What are you really trying to tell me?” Starsky asked. “That you’re the girl in this relationship?”

Hutch threw a playful punch in Starsky’s direction, purposefully missing his chin. “I feel my mean streak coming back,” he joked.

Starsky caught Hutch’s fist in both his hands and quickly pressed it to his lips, closing his eyes to immerse himself in his partner’s strength and warmth, and kissed Hutch’s hand. “It’s what I need from you, Hutch—to get through this.”

“What’s that, buddy?”

“Your mean streak. It’s been missing.”

He let go of Hutch’s hand when Hutch took it back, straightened in his seat, and turned the key in the ignition, bringing the truck to life. “Then, c’mon,” Hutch said, making the U-turn toward the highway, “let’s go watch that movie. You can beg me the entire time for popcorn—and I won’t give you any.”

* * *

“How are you liking those new shoes?” Hutch asked. He sat across the table from Starsky at the Thai food restaurant while they waited for dishes to be served—and the blond still looked as beautiful as ever.

Starsky was also glad for the small talk. He’d hoped Hutch wouldn’t ask him to help analyze Witness, the movie they’d watched at the theater; some of it had hit too close to home. “That Harry guy is all right,” Starsky had said—which was half a dozen words too many already. He could tell Hutch liked the film—just for its cinematic quality, if nothing else, saying afterward that it was probably an Oscar contender. But Starsky was put off by the movie early on because an undercover police officer was viciously murdered in a public men’s room, and he couldn’t shake the effect it had on him. Perhaps Hutch heard Starsky’s reluctance to discuss the movie simply from the tone in Starsky’s hesitant voice when the picture finally ended. With time on their hands that evening, Hutch asked about Starsky’s shoes instead.

“They’re like walking barefoot in clouds,” Starsky whimsically replied. The theater was just outside a shopping mall. When they decided which movie to watch, they had nearly an hour to kill, so they spent it buying new shoes—which they traded out for their work boots during a brief visit to the truck before the movie began. “How do you like yours?” Starsky asked in kind.

Hutch smiled at him, saying nothing more. But Starsky already knew how pleased Hutch was with his unplanned purchase; he’d spent enough time in the shoe store trying on nearly every possible pair not to know the degree of his satisfaction when he confidentially chose a comfortable walking shoe. Starsky, on the other hand, had gone right to the ones he planned to buy the second he entered the store.

“Are you going to try them on first?” Hutch had asked, pushing Starsky with his shoulder toward a seat and mirror. “What if they don’t fit? It’s a long way from the farm, this place.”

Starsky was certain the size and style he’d chosen right off the shelf were perfect, but Hutch continued to harass him about trying them on first, so he finally broke down and indulged the man. After tying the laces and walking around the empty aisle with Hutch watching him, he got into Hutch’s face. “Like I said,” he growled, “these are perfect.”

It was Hutch for whom they spent nearly an hour deciding on shoes.

“What did you get us to eat?” Starsky asked, dismissing his thoughts about shoe shopping and focusing instead on the status of his stomach. “Anything special?”

“Vegetarian coconut curry,” Hutch said, licking his lips. “Quinoa meatballs. Sesame sweet potatoes and tofu. Some other stuff you’ll love.”

Starsky was impressed. “I’m already more in love with it than I am with you.”

Hutch smirked at him, then shrugged. “I admit it: I can be sweet and sour, too.”

Starsky’s turn to lick his lips and flash his eyebrows. “But that makes me want to ask you something. Serious answers only.”

Hutch poured them tea and silently invited Starsky to verbalize his question.

“How come you’ve never asked me for your ring back?”

Hutch didn’t seem to miss a beat. He only glanced at Starsky while he continued to fill their small cups with the hot brew, as if he wasn’t sure at first that Starsky was himself serious. “I’ve known where it’s been all along,” Hutch eventually said, setting the teapot on the table when he finished and pushing Starsky’s cup toward him. “Seems it’s safer on your hand than mine.”

“That can’t possibly be your answer.”

“Why? Is it missing big words?”

“Because it’s a dumb excuse.”

“It’s no excuse. It’s an explanation.”

They tried small sips of their tea for temperature and then, simultaneously, drank from their cups when it proved not to be too hot to drink.

Starsky then twirled Hutch’s ring around his middle finger—and made firm eye contact with Hutch. Only after half a minute did Hutch seem to notice and look back at him, appearing sheepish.

“What do you want me to say, Starsk? That I no longer love you enough to have taken it back? That, deep down, it’s my way of punishing you for all the wrongdoing you insist on having done?”

“If that’s the reason.”

“It isn’t.”

“What is it then?”

“What I told you it was: safekeeping.”

Starsky squinted at him.

“Okay, truth?” Hutch asked.

“It’s what I expect from you.”

“I’ve liked the look of it on you.”

“Come again?”

“It’s my ring.”

“I know that, numb nuts.”

“And you’re wearing it.”

“Obviously. Do you have shit for brains?”

“It’s like . . . saying . . . I belong to you.”

“I told you that months ago, dummy.”

“I remember. That’s why I’m repeating it. And you wearing my ring is the visual part of that fact.”

Starsky took a second look at his left hand—with both their rings on it; his own on his ring finger, Hutch’s on his middle finger, identical except in size. Maybe there was truth to Hutch’s comment: he did, after all, own Hutch.

Just as Hutch owned him.

Starsky was about to belabor that point when two young Thai waitresses arrived with half a dozen dishes of freshly cooked and steaming Thai-sauced vegetables, beans, and grains between them—and inadvertently interrupted Starsky’s thoughts, derailing his intentions.

* * *

REAL TIME

“What?” Hutch asked again, that time with a light laugh. “You’ve never seen a grown man drive home before?”

They were on their way back to the farm from the nursery, a full load of new trees in the truck bed. Starsky was lost in his thoughts, fueled by Hutch’s beauty, relaxed by their lazy day, and overwhelmed by a parade of memories he thoroughly enjoyed reliving. He was slumped against the passenger door, foot on the bench seat between them, leg against the back rest, hands in his lap, facing Hutch—and despite the warning he’d gotten from his partner, several times, that the door could suddenly open and throw him onto the highway before he knew what hit him. Starsky wasn’t interested in changing his position, let alone his dreamy mood. Besides, “It’s locked, dummy.”

Hutch had asked him what caused his self-abusing behavior the night before, and Starsky felt he’d explained it that morning rather well: from the romantic enjoyment of each other’s physical work digging holes in the orchard to the fruit plate and night cap they shared when they got home late from dinner after the movie: he was in love with Hutch all over again and didn’t feel he deserved him.

“I like watching you drive,” he said after a while—when Hutch had nothing to add and seemed to then ignore him; it was one way to get the man’s attention: tell him he was beautiful in so many words. A truck suited Hutch, Starsky believed. “I also think about how much I trust you to keep us safe out here on the highway—and it’s kind of . . . um . . . a resemblance—”

“Metaphor.”

“—for how I feel about you in life.”

“But not something I can say about you in reverse.”

Starsky heard the veiled insult to his own driving, but shrugged it off in pursuit of his declarations. “It’s not every day I get to sit back and watch you do the things you do, you know? I mean, I watch you in the kitchen. Sometimes I watch you in the garden when you don’t know I’m watching.”

Hutch didn’t show any interest in Starsky’s statements; he kept his eyes and his focus on the road.

“Sometimes—because I already got mine—I watch you come.”

Still no reaction from Hutch.

“Did you hear me, cowboy?”

Hutch didn’t even smile. He rode comfortably seated, one hand at the bottom of the steering wheel, the other draped over its top. They moved at a medium speed on the county road in very light traffic. Even the wind noise was merely a backdrop.

“I said, sometimes I watch you come.”

No reply.

“Does that embarrass you?” Starsky asked, provoking Hutch in another way, and succeeding.

“No.”

“Then why aren’t you saying anything?”

“I’m listening.”

“Okay. So, I’m watching.”

He went back to doing just that: studying Hutch’s posture, his profile, his muscled arms and legs, that blond, fluttering hair, the expression on his face while he concentrated on maneuvering the truck around the bends in the road. He trusted Hutch behind the wheel of any vehicle—even though Starsky believed himself to be the better driver. He could outrun any bad guy, weave his way through heavy traffic, dodge an oncoming and out-of-control car coming at them, faster than Hutch could. But, of course, Hutch would rarely get them into that kind of trouble.

It wasn’t often Starsky got a minute to feast on the visuals of Hutch’s formidable self. Even in the kitchen, he was distracted by his hunger while he eagerly waited for the meals to be served; in the bedroom, he was usually drained of his sharper senses by the time Hutch reached a climax. But, on that day, in particular, and probably because he was all the more aware of Hutch’s aliveness, Starsky was gifted the time to simply watch Hutch drive.

How often did either of them get to explore the other’s doings without the sidetrack of talking to each other or busying themselves with some task or case investigation? The suspension in their lives at that minute—on the drive home from the nursery—gave Starsky the opportunity to think, too: to reminisce, to ponder, to replay the reasons he felt he didn’t deserve Hutch.

His thoughts evolved into speech even before he heard himself. “What does being married mean to you?”

Hutch glanced over at him, made eye contact, and then looked back through the windshield. It’s only when Starsky asked the second time, as if he, too, had just heard the question, that Hutch finally said something.

“C’mon, Starsk. Get off the door.”

If that was the only way to put Hutch on the same page with him, Starsky reluctantly dropped his feet to the floor of the cab and pushed himself into a seated position, exhaling his frustration to refocus. “I’ve done my part. Do yours and answer me about marriage.”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t marry you,” Hutch replied, mocking indignation.

“I wasn’t asking.”

“Then why are we talking marriage?”

“But that begs the question: why wouldn’t you marry me?”

“I can’t.”

“If you could.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Starsky realized Hutch teased him. “I’m about to punch you in the mouth,” he warned his partner.

Hutch laughed, sounding pleased that the ribbing had lasted as long as it did. “What’s your question?”

“What does being married mean to you? I mean, why did you marry Vanessa?”

Hutch silently examined his answer—or his reasons. He drove more slowly, which mattered not on the country road, but showed itself to reflect how deeply into thought Hutch had gone. He probably wound his entire relationship with Vanessa through his mind because he came to a conclusion rather than an assessment. “To have someone to grow old with.”

“And not because you loved her?”

“That’s all in there, isn’t it? Love, companionship, friendship, to spend time with someone you love, to share the routines of daily life and the fantastic moments it has to offer with someone who’s more than just your friend?” He thought further and added, “To depend on and care for someone . . . and to grow old with someone.”

“But then you divorced her.”

“She wasn’t the someone for me.”

“And, yet, you wouldn’t marry me—someone who is all those things you just listed. What’s with that?”

Hutch looked over at him again, made longer eye contact; he could afford to do so because he drove slowly along a rare stretch of straight road. “You weren’t serious,” he replied as he set his eyes back to the view in front of them. “And, even if you were, we can’t.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“So you said.”

“I know you would if we could; you haven’t got me fooled for a second. But I was wondering why you got married and you listed all the reasons you did—reasons, mind you, that apply to me. So that’s why I asked something I’m not asking.”

“Are you fearing I’ll divorce you because I divorced her despite all those reasons?”

“No,” Starsky said with a laugh of absurdity. “We’re not even married.”

“I was figuratively speaking.”

“Are you asking if I think you’ll figuratively divorce me?”

“Are you afraid I might?” Hutch replied, pushing Starsky into a firm answer.

“No.”

“You don’t think I’ll leave you?”

“I don’t think it anymore.”

“Since when?”

“Since . . . the day we fell in love. We’ve been through way too much shit since then—so much shit that, if you were going to leave me, you’da done it by now.”

“‘The day we fell in love,’” Hutch mused, echoing Starsky’s sentiment. “Remind me again: what day was that?”

“Day One.”

Hutch tried not to smile.

“C’mon,” Starsky argued. “You know it and I know it.”

“I wasn’t disagreeing.”

“What’s so funny over there then, hm?”

“I was enjoying the idea that we’ve been in love since the day we met.”

Starsky had misread Hutch’s reactions; his partner was distracted by driving and somehow that made it more difficult for Starsky to fully read him. He should have known by then that Hutch pretty much felt the way Starsky did when it came to each other—right down to being married, if they could. Why was Starsky questioning it? In fact, it wasn’t even his intent. He wanted to know Hutch’s thoughts about marriage; somehow that got hijacked by their shared feelings.

But maybe they should put the long-term ones to rest.

“I’m the one you want to grow old with now, right, Hutch?”

“It’s not a ‘now’ thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve known for years that I want to grow old with you.”

“Do you remember when you first felt that way?”

“I do.”

Starsky waited; it should have been obvious that Starsky expected a fleshed-out answer, but Hutch was silent. “Are you fucking with me again?”

“I’m wrestling up my mean streak—the one you said you wanted.”

“Yeah? Good for me. But let me know when you’re willing to tell me when you knew I was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.”

Hutch sobered, settled in his seat. “When Gunther had you gunned down,” he said solemnly. “That was the first time I came that close to losing you.”

“I’d been shot before.”

“Wounded, but not near death. The heart monitor never flatlined.”

Starsky hadn’t meant to remind them of such a grave moment. He tried to lighten it with a slightly less serious memory. “I was poisoned and almost died.”

“But we had time to fix it—and no time to think about what I had to lose. That, and we weren’t as close then as we’ve become since you were shot in the back. There’s something to what you say, Starsk: that it may be time to stop dodging bullets.”

They’d been lucky, really. So many brushes with death—including bullet wounds—and yet they had lived to tell the tales. At what point would their luck run out if they didn’t stop taking the risks?

“In these past couple of years,” Hutch continued, only once looking out the driver’s window to seemingly admire the passing scenery—or to reflect into their recent past, “I’ve come to understand that my relationship with you is one I’ll never have with another human being—and couldn’t have had with anyone else. It is much deeper and more long-lasting than I ever dreamed it could be.”

“It’s like . . . destiny.”

“Like destiny,” Hutch echoed.

“From Day One,” Starsky said matter-of-factly.

Hutch smiled with a nod.

“And you see that we were in love from the moment our eyes met, right, Hutch? You believe that, don’t you?”

“I believe that, Starsk. I didn’t for a long time, but I do now.”

Starsky already believed it in his heart-of-hearts, but it sure was refreshing and comforting to hear Hutch agree with him. A certain heaviness lifted, one he didn’t know had weighed on him, and he heard himself breathe.

“Why are you asking about these things?” Hutch wondered. They’d reached the driveway to the farm and he slowed way down to make the left-hand turn. “How’d you go from wanting me to beat your fine ass—and I don’t mean in a good way—to talking about love and marriage?”

“I don’t know,” Starsky said honestly. He was glad they were home, so he wouldn’t have to give it much more thought. “Thinking about the last four months got me to thinking about the last fourteen years, I guess.”

“Fifteen,” Hutch corrected him.

“Fifteen,” Starsky said under his breath. How the time did fly.

* * *

“You boys need a hand?” Davis asked. He’d jogged over from the Grace House to the family orchard when he saw the truck had returned to the farm. But even before he got an answer from either man, he began helping them unload the large fruit trees from the pickup bed.

Neither Starsky nor Hutch minded the assistance; in fact, they liked spending time with their friend—and it was such a nice day for outside work. It was understood that the tree-planting chore would be a team effort. While Hutch gave Starsky the six-foot PVC pipes to cut into smaller pieces—which Starsky did on the tailgate with a handsaw he’d quickly dug out of the Grace House garage—Davis and Hutch set the trees in front of each of their previously-dug holes.

“What are these for, Hutch?” Starsky asked, purposefully sounding as annoyed as he felt confused; he thought it might get him a direct answer if he grumbled. He truly didn’t understand their use—despite the fact that Hutch had obviously purchased them at the same time he bought the trees.

“I have ‘this thing’ for holes,” Hutch said on one of his passes by the vehicle to lug a tree with Davis’ help to its forever home—and blowing an air kiss at Starsky as he walked past him.

Starsky rolled his eyes. The job of cutting the pipes did take some muscle; he figured his left arm might even be sore by the time he was done with all eighteen. But he liked that Hutch gave him the more strenuous work; it meant his partner appreciated his carpentry skills. He worked quickly; still, by the time he had cut the tenth pipe, he noticed that Hutch and Davis had finished their tree placements and rested while they watched him.

“Haven’t you guys got more productive things to do?” he asked. He wiped sweat from his brow and collected the next pipe from the bed of the truck, skillfully pinned it under his knee on the tailgate, and began sawing—having eyed-in the middle mark.

“I love watching you cut things in half,” Hutch eventually said to him.

Starsky paused in his sawing action to momentarily glare at Hutch. He knew he was being baited.

“Inside joke?” Davis asked.

“He likes to watch me drive,” Hutch explained with a wink at Starsky. “I’m just returning the favor.”

“But you still haven’t told me why you want these pipes—or rather, why you want them cut,” Starsky said with a fake and facetious snarl. “They’re going to be too short to run from tree-to-tree.” He deliberately leaned extra muscle into splitting the pipe in half so he could impress Hutch further. “Having ‘a thing’ for holes isn’t an explanation.”

“So, it is an inside joke,” Davis observed with a light laugh. “You boys need a room?”

“Nah,” Hutch said casually. “Starsky would love to get it on out here in the open.”

Starsky tossed the last of his finished collection of pipes on the ground a few feet from the back of the truck. “I’ll let you tell us what to do with them,” he said to Hutch. “And if you suggest that I shove them up my ass, I’ll kick yours into next week.”

“Tough guy,” Hutch laughed. “But I’d never just shove something up your ass,” he mocked defensiveness, taking three cut pipes to the first tree. “Give me some credit, will you, Starsk? I’d ease it in. Don’t I always?”

“You boys really do need a room,” Davis swore. He followed Hutch to the first hole to wait for further instructions.

Starsky wasn’t serious. He was curious about what they were going to do with the PVC pipes, but he wasn’t really annoyed; he just liked playing as if he were. It made for salacious dialogue, too, and the talk didn’t really seem to offend Davis.

All three men knelt in the grass around the first of a dozen trees that they would plant that afternoon. Hutch explained how they would lower each tree into its hole—after they removed it from its 10-gallon container—and he would set three pipes in beside it, making certain to keep them upright while the other two men simultaneously pushed the dirt in around the tree, careful not to get any into the pipes themselves.

“Ah,” Davis said, as the light apparently went off in his head, “it’s some kind of irrigation technique.”

“He’s got water on the brain,” Starsky joked. He nudged Hutch’s shoulder with his own as he positioned himself on all fours beside him. “Either that, or a hose fetish.”

“A really big hose,” Davis noted with a snicker.

“When did you tell him about your ‘big hose’?” Starsky asked Hutch, incredulously. He figured some things had to be private between them—and the size of their penises was definitely one of those, especially Hutch’s.

“I didn’t,” Hutch said, reprimandingly, shaking his head at Starsky for his faux pas. “You did—just now.”

Starsky blinked back his shock—and was left feeling stupid, foolish, and embarrassed all at once.

“Not that I needed that information,” Davis cracked, trying to ease the otherwise delicate moment, “but in my defense, I was only talking about the PVC pipes, Starsky, not the—”

“We get it,” Starsky said, interrupting him. One more word about it and he’d feel all the stupider.

Hutch nudged Starsky hard enough to push him into momentarily sitting back on his heels. “You should just keep your mouth shut the rest of today, partner. It keeps getting you into trouble.”

They busied themselves with the planting of the first tree, some of it requiring grunt work and a test-run at coordination, but it went smoothly overall—and they had nowhere to go but to perfect the process as they planted each tree. A dozen holes took them roughly an hour-and-a-half to fill, and Hutch and Davis were left sprawled in the grass beneath the shade of a large tree near the community picnic table when all was done—while Starsky went into the house and returned with three ice-cold beers. Talk soon turned to the practicalities of farm life.

“We’re doing well,” Davis said with pride, but also amazement, when he was asked how the Grace House management fared. “Megan has raised a sizable amount of money from a bunch of different events she’s organized—like raffles and dinner parties—to get us out of the red. The city support will finally keep us breaking even. And we got $14,000 a few weeks back from an anonymous donor that’ll put us into the black.”

“Nice!” Starsky exclaimed, toasting the news with the tap of his beer bottle to each of theirs. “What do you plan to do with all that money?”

“We’re thinking about getting a computer to help us run the place, something to keep records and make invitations and things like that. Megan’s been a godsend in more ways than one,” he added, seeming to stare off into space as he silently recalled the ways, light twinkling in his eyes. He then stretched his legs out in front of him as he got comfortable with his revelation. “She and I were meant to be.”

Hutch and Starsky sat cross-legged across from each other and exchanged gazes as they silently told themselves the same about their chance meeting some fifteen years earlier. Starsky then puckered his lips at Hutch in a silent kiss—and got back a warm smile.

“I’m going to go home,” Hutch said after several minutes of silence. He, too, stared momentarily off into a past or a future, his eyes filled with a certain fondness.

“You are home,” Starsky reminded him, hoping to get Hutch’s attention again, but failing. Hutch seemed absentminded—which made Starsky feel as if there was more to Hutch’s declaration than appeared on the surface. “Or doesn’t ‘where the heart is’ mean much to you anymore, hm?”

“You know better than that,” Hutch warned him, briefly glancing at Starsky, obviously not liking what he’d heard. He repeatedly pulled at his shirt collar to ventilate his still-perspiring chest and ignored Starsky’s dumb comment in pursuit of his own agenda. “Do you think you guys can hold down the fort? Water the trees? All that good stuff?”

Starsky felt his heart begin to pound. Why was Hutch leaving him—and to where so abruptly?

“Sure thing,” Davis said. “How long will be you be gone?”

“We’ll be gone a week, maybe ten days,” Hutch decided, looking at Starsky—at first to get a confirmation or agreement on the duration of the trip, but seeing Starsky’s alarm, squinted at him instead. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Starsky said quickly, mostly to hide his earlier misread of Hutch’s intentions. “I didn’t know we were going anywhere. Took me by surprise.”

“Because I just thought of it,” Hutch explained between swallows of beer. “I know my mom wants to see me in the flesh; she said that just hearing my voice isn’t enough after my . . . you know . . . demise.” The word or the idea of it made him chuckle.

But Starsky felt a different pain course through him. He broke eye contact with Hutch, stared at the grass, tried to corral his runaway emotions, as if doing so would enable him to better pinpoint what they were.

“When do you leave?” Davis wanted to know. “I’ll mark it on the calendar. And, if you guys need a ride to the airport, count on me for one.”

“Maybe next week,” Hutch suggested, patting Davis’ arm to thank him for his offer. “What do you think, Starsk? Can we be gone for a week or ten days any time soon?”

“Sure,” Starsky replied, forcing his serious voice, as if he had never tripped over his stupid thoughts. “After our meeting with Dobey on Tuesday, we don’t have any plans.”

* * *

Starsky nuzzled Hutch’s ear while he feared the worst. “Are you going to sleep?”

“I think so,” Hutch replied in a voice that faded with each word he spoke. He sounded on the precipice of a deep slumber.

“I don’t get a goodnight kiss?” Starsky begged, snuggling up behind Hutch to remind his partner of his full nudity and the promise of its pleasure. He intertwined their legs, hugged Hutch closer, caressed his warm skin and his fleshy buttocks, kissed the back of his neck, and hoped his physical seduction would succeed. “Not even a little one?”

Hutch eventually reached over his hip and gently plied Starsky’s hand from his butt. He then pulled Starsky’s arm around him and tenderly pressed Starsky’s fingers to his lips, but only managed half a kiss before he seemed to fall helplessly into sleep.

“Hutch?”

Starsky heard Hutch’s deep breathing in unintentional reply and figured he’d probably lost the battle. But it didn’t stop him from one last try; Hutch’s wet, half-kiss to his fingers had warmed Starsky from his penis up through his beating heart. “Is your buddy awake?” He pulled his hand free from Hutch’s forgiving clasp to fondle his partner’s flaccid penis and sac. “Hm, Hutch? Wakey, wakey.”

But Hutch was definitely gone; his breathing was audibly heavy and intermittent, his penis disinterested and unresponsive. Or was Hutch mad at Starsky and pretending to be asleep?

They’d had a delicate conversation after their late lunch/early dinner, together in the kitchen washing dishes and tidying up after the meal. Starsky had felt the knot in his stomach since their time in the grass sharing beers with Davis after they finished the team task of planting trees and installing irrigation. Starsky knew, even before he spoke those strained words to Hutch later that day, that he was opening a difficult exchange between them, but his more pressing fear spurred him forward.

“This idea about going to see your folks,” he began, easing out each syllable as if he had only recently learned English. Hutch was busy at the sink soaping dishes, his back to Starsky, inadvertently making it easier for Starsky to speak his mind, but he did grunt to encourage Starsky to continue. “Well, I mean, there’s not really any reason why I need to go with you, is there?” Starsky carefully asked.

As predicted, Hutch abruptly looked over at him, appearing as bewildered as he probably felt. Starsky used the cue to put a pot into the cupboard near the stove and distance himself as much as possible from his forthcoming explanation.

“I mean, Hutch, you’re going to see your family—months after they thought you were dead—and that seems like you oughta go alone, don’t you think?”

“You are my family,” Hutch argued, turning again to the sink. “You know they know it, too. Try again.”

Hutch was no fool; he’d apparently figured out that there was some other reason Starsky was reluctant to join him on the trip. There’d be no lying to his partner—and not that Starsky wanted to or would; there was some truth in his position, so perhaps Starsky should have used the phrase, “immediate family.”

“Is your sister going to be there?” he asked, not meaning to imply anything by the question about her, in particular, but Hutch couldn’t know that.

“What have you got against my sister?”

“Nuthin’. Just wondering.”

“The family will be there,” Hutch furthered. He rinsed plates and utensils and stacked them in the dish drainer for Starsky to dry and put away. “My folks, my sister . . . cousins and aunts and long-lost uncles. Maybe a family dog or two. You can’t possibly think you don’t qualify.”

“As a family dog?”

Hutch chuckled, amused. “As my family.”

“Your original family, I meant. By blood.”

“Sister will probably bring her boyfriend; I hear she doesn’t go anywhere without him these days.”

“A full house, hm?”

“Do crowds make you nervous?” Hutch joked.

Starsky stood beside Hutch at the sink and began to towel-dry the washed dishes. He stacked them on the counter afterward, to do the drying first and the placement second. He really didn’t want to create a problem where there wasn’t one already, and he certainly didn’t want to make Hutch feel uncomfortable at his parents’ house, so he fudged a little on his deeper reason for wishing to stay behind at the farm.

“You’re planning for us to be gone a week, right, Hutch?”

“Give or take a few days, but there’s no point in going all that way just for a weekend.”

Starsky needed to be more blunt, or maybe Hutch was purposefully elusive. “Who’s going to sleep on the sofa?” he pointedly asked. “Do we flip for it?”

“Heads I win, tails you lose,” Hutch said in a singsong voice.

Sarcasm hadn’t worked either, Starsky noted. He looked over at Hutch’s profile to better read him; Hutch didn’t seem to be playing a game. He genuinely appeared honest in his answers, including the silly ones. “I mean, Hutch, we’re going to be a week without each other.”

“You mean, if you stay home?”

“I mean, one of us will be sleeping on the sofa at your folks’ house.”

There. He said it.

Hutch merely glanced at Starsky, as if he, too, needed a better read. “We’ve been gone longer than that from each other,” Hutch then noted, focusing again on the task of washing dishes.

“Not on purpose,” Starsky argued, “not since we’ve been living together, bona fide.”

“Well, there were those three months I spent in Bolivia.”

“Don’t remind me. But, I mean, we haven’t been apart by our own free will since we’ve become bona fide.”

Hutch squinted at him. “What’s bugging you?”

“How’s it going to feel for a week, Hutch, while you’re on the sofa every night and I’m in the bedroom?”

“Who says it’ll be me on the sofa?”

“C’mon, you know what I’m saying. But, for the record, you also know it’ll be you on the sofa because your parents aren’t going to let your partner—your ‘houseguest’—sleep anywhere else, but in your bedroom . . . without you.”

“You’re not my houseguest. In fact, I wouldn’t put that definition on anything you are to me.”

“Will you get serious with me for a minute?”

“I’m trying to,” Hutch defensively replied, “but you’re not being rational. It’s just a week out of our lives; we’ve gone longer without sex.”

“It’s more than just about the sex—and you know it.”

Hutch finished washing the last dish and dropped it in the drainer. He didn’t say anything.

Frustrated, Starsky turned away to put dried dishes into the cupboard, carefully stacking them, while he searched his mind for his best argument. Having found it, he posed his next question. “Does your sister get to sleep with her boyfriend in her bedroom while they’re there?”

When Starsky didn’t get a reply, he faced Hutch, and found him leaning against the counter, arms crossed, making eye contact, as if Starsky had finally hit on a valid point.

“Okay,” Hutch said, surrendering, “I understand what you’re saying, and I wish I had a better answer for you than all the ones you know I have. Who knows where anybody is going to be sleeping at the house anyway? But what are you getting at? that we’re better off not even being in the same house if we can’t sleep in the same bed?”

That was the part of Starsky’s argument that he knew didn’t hold water. But there was a compromise in there somewhere—between the avoidance of his deeper fears and a week-long separation from Hutch—if only he could find it.

Hutch found it for him. “Let’s get a hotel room,” he suggested. “We can say we have work to do in the early afternoons.”

“How are you going to explain us having one hotel room?”

“They’ll assume we got two rooms.”

“They’ll be mad you spent that kind of money.”

“We’ll rent a car from the airport, and I’ll tell them it was a package deal. They won’t even have to pick us up or drop us off there. I’ll tell them I wanted to make things easier for all concerned, given that the family will come in from everywhere that week, and we wanted to ease the burden on the old folks.”

“They’ll insist we stay at the house.”

“I won’t tell them we booked a hotel until we see them. Let them assume we got two rooms.”

“Suppose they still insist?”

“We’ll be sure to get a hotel within walking distance and you stay there; I’ll have ‘business’ reasons to pay you visits at random times.”

“I’m saying, suppose they really don’t understand why we can’t stay at their house and still do business? At what point do our explanations start to become suspicious and unravel?”

“Then let’s play it by ear,” Hutch concluded. “We’ll get a hotel room just the same. If we end up sleeping at the house—me on the sofa, you in my room—we can find reasons to leave together and instead check into our room for an hour or so. Get groceries for the family, stop by for a fuck. Drop a cousin at the airport, stop by for a suck.”

Starsky glared at him. The plan didn’t solve his problem of not wanting to be at the family reunion, but it did mitigate the amount of time he’d be in everyone’s presence. And it did enable him to sexually and intimately play with Hutch, even if it didn’t end up being on every day of their trip. “Okay,” he said under his breath, committing to going with Hutch. “I didn’t want this to be a pain in the ass.”

Hutch winked. “If we do it right, there’ll be no pain.”

The conversation and the arrangement seemed to have ended on a good note that evening, so Starsky wasn’t convinced that night, when Hutch fell asleep before finishing a single kiss, that he was angry at Starsky for his earlier complaints. But Starsky fared no better in getting sex or intimacy the following morning, either.

In fact, things only got worse.

* * *

“Crap!” Starsky cussed. He winced, too, when he felt the sharp pain shoot through his arm. He knew he’d be sore the next day, but hadn’t figured on it hurting that much.

Hutch seemed to think it was funny because he was about to get a nice stroking from Starsky’s oiled hand—only to have it derailed at a critical moment—and instead wisecracked. “What’s the matter, pal? Is my dick electrified?”

“My arm hurts from all that PVC pipe-sawing I did yesterday,” Starsky whined, massaging his bicep. “No joke.”

“Are you still left-handed?”

“I’d be just as sore if I’d used my right arm, you idiot.”

“Except that your left hand is the better one for my dick. You can’t fix that defect after all these years? Maybe your hand jobs would be significantly better if you used your right.”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

Hutch held out his hand, palm up. “Spot me some oil. I’ll do the job for you.”

“I just have to be more careful,” Starsky explained, about babying his arm. He was sure he could deliver a satisfying hand job; besides, he had planned to evolve it into fellatio anyway. Still, he squeezed a few drops of almond oil into Hutch’s hand and recapped the bottle. “You’re so impatient.”

They were on their backs in bed that morning. Starsky had awakened Hutch with slippery, tender kisses along his shoulder after having drizzled oil over his naked skin, sensations that eventually brought his partner out of slumber and rolling in Starsky’s direction—just as Starsky had scripted it. But when Starsky reached to take Hutch’s meaty shaft in his light and lubricated grip, he suffered an unexpected muscle spasm throughout his entire arm. The insult to injury was Hutch asking for the oil—and coating himself with it, as if he never needed Starsky’s help in the first place.

Starsky wasn’t deterred. He snugged to Hutch’s length, from his shoulder to his feet, and purposefully used his warmth and the sounds of his own arousal—low moans, deep breaths—to ratchet Hutch’s desire. Carefully maneuvering his arm to avoid further pain, he was finally able to take Hutch’s hardening penis in hand—and discovered that it had stiffened quite nicely under Hutch’s guidance.

The evidence of Hutch’s promise of sex intensified Starsky’s excitement, and he pressed his hips into Hutch’s thigh, enjoying the pressure it gave him in his own phallus. He moaned in expressive want. Hutch’s erection was firm; the feel of his heated skin, and his fingers in tandem with Starsky’s, deepened the titillation.

“I’ll take it from here,” Hutch said after a minute and in between his labored breaths, pushing Starsky’s hand off of him. “I can get myself there faster. Don’t waste your time.” He continued to pleasure himself using shorter and faster strokes.

Starsky was taken aback, as much as he was genuinely confused. Even the rejection stung more than his arm had pained him. “I was going to suck you, too,” he weakly explained, feeling disappointed on top of his hurt.

“Not . . . necessary.”

Normally, Starsky would have enjoyed Hutch’s masturbation along with him. He liked the look of bliss on Hutch’s face when his man was in the throes of sexually satisfying behavior, even the self-induced kind. When he wasn’t so wrapped up in his own need for fulfillment, Starsky could sit back and watch Hutch’s sexual aliveness—egg him on, as it were, and be happy for him at the same time, something he was only conscious of after the fact when they brought each other to orgasm. But in that instance, Starsky was dumbfounded. Hutch had gone to sleep early the night before without even a goodnight kiss between them. Instead of enjoying themselves when they woke in the morning, Hutch was apparently interested in his own welfare, not his partner’s.

Disgusted and hurt, Starsky rolled away from him and shuffled off the bed. He didn’t want to be in the same room with Hutch while Hutch climaxed; where was the fun in being nothing more than an idle spectator?

Hutch’s rudeness also forced Starsky to close the door to the bathroom so he didn’t have to hear Hutch’s wail of pleasure when he finally ejaculated—nor see it. If Hutch was going to be self-serving and selfish, Starsky didn’t want any part of it. He’d rather do what he did then: urinate into the toilet—one more way he could drown the noise from the bedroom. Maybe he angered Hutch the night before when he had tried, without success, to get out of the family reunion trip, and Hutch only pretended to be okay with him.

But Starsky was even wrong about that idea.

He’d no sooner emptied his bladder and flushed the toilet when the door flew open—having been forcefully punched—and Hutch abruptly entered the bathroom as if he had every right to be in it, despite what Starsky may have been communicating by having closed it. Almost too startled to move, Starsky barely got to face Hutch, to confront Hutch’s sudden and uninvited entrance, before Hutch grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him away from the toilet, and shoved him up against the wall.

Starsky realized they were beside the towel rings Hutch had installed months earlier—and to which he’d bound Starsky for his first-ever bondage sex with him as the dom. Had Hutch come into the room for a repeat performance of that sexy experience?

Starsky was wrong on that point, too. Hutch was, instead, right in his face—and he was outwardly not happy. Anger burned in his eyes, and his body was stiff with a threatening hostility. He’d effectively pinned Starsky’s arms to the wall—and there’d be no getting past him without a blood-letting struggle.

“Why’d you leave me in Bolivia for three months, huh?” Hutch demanded to know. His blue eyes narrowed and were on fire, his voice filled with tangible resentment.

Starsky didn’t want to have that conversation right then—nor was it unfolding in the way he wanted to have it. He felt vulnerable, both because he was immobilized and further because he was nude—despite that his partner was fully naked, too. He stared into Hutch’s eyes as he swallowed hard to hide his apprehension and fought to find words he never expected to have to use. But his stall tried Hutch’s patience; Hutch shook him, demanding an answer by his aggressive action alone.

“I thought you were dead,” Starsky immediately said, not knowing what else to tell Hutch except what he knew to be true. He feared he’d finally be kicked in the groin if he remained silent—and, yet, a brutal punishment was long overdue and quite deserving.

“I’m not dead,” Hutch growled. “That fact can’t be any more obvious.”

“But I believed it at the time.”

“On what evidence?”

Starsky searched Hutch’s heated blue eyes in a subsequently failed effort to determine Hutch’s direction, or his purpose, or to tell whether Hutch was serious by any stretch. Hutch didn’t let up. He leaned into Starsky, the reminder that Starsky would never escape his partner’s grip, even if he fiercely tried. Hutch’s breath was shallow, keeping cadence with his palpitating temper. If Starsky listened closely enough, he could hear Hutch’s heartbeat, not just feel it—but it could never outmatch the pounding in his own chest.

“What evidence?” Hutch repeated in an edgy voice, sounding as if he repressed an unspent fury that could be unleashed at any second. “How could you possibly believe evidence that I was dead when I’m clearly the fuck not?”

“C’mon,” Starsky pleaded with him. He’d begun to feel the hardness of the wall at his back—and he didn’t like the look of increasing irritation on Hutch’s face, whether it was real or otherwise. “You know this score.”

“Yeah, I’ve known this score, and I’ve done my best to put it behind me, but you can’t seem to let it go. Did it ever fucking occur to you that every time you bring it up, you drag me back in with you and I’m trying to forget it?”

“Because I want your help.”

“You’re the only one who can stop you from feeling sorry for yourself. Besides, Bolivia happened to me, not you.”

“It happened to me, too,” Starsky argued, but it got him nowhere.

“I’ve tried to get past not holding you responsible,” Hutch retaliated, “but I’m done faking how I feel. You even left me in bed just now to jack myself off as if I meant no more to you than I did to Ryker.”

“You’re not serious,” Starsky implored him, as if doing so would make his observation a true one. Or maybe Hutch was serious; he certainly looked the part. Starsky felt the internal heat of his sweat as it broke over his skin, and the knot in his stomach tightened. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” he said defensively—or perhaps he did flounder in self-pity. “It’s never sat right with me. None of it.”

“Then how did you buy into it, huh?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do know.”

“I had no reason not to believe her,” Starsky said impulsively when Hutch pushed him harder into the wall. Had the pressure been any stronger, it would have squeezed the breath out of him. He found the rest of his sentence. “She said you got on the bus. Why would she lie to me, Hutch? Why would any of those people lie to me—complete strangers to each other?”

“Let me get this straight,” Hutch replied, easing off his anger only slightly, less so from the brunt of his physical posture. “You took the word of complete strangers over—”

“It wasn’t just that.”

“What else was there? and I’m not asking that facetiously. How could anyone or anything else take precedence over who you know me to be?”

“You didn’t come back to the hotel.”

“So what?”

“I looked for you for hours.”

“Proving that some woman was wrong about who I am, that what she claims she saw went against everything about me as you believe it? You know better than to rely on eyewitnesses for facts.”

“Not finding a trace of you proved to me that you were missing. So, when she said you’d gotten on the bus, what else did I have to go on?”

“Sounds like you had your gut to go on—but you ignored it. Know what I think?”

“What?”

“That when you ignored your gut, you ignored me.”

Starsky looked deeply into Hutch’s eyes; behind their disgust of him, there was hurt, too. “All I could think about was you,” he managed to say, expecting Hutch would slug him for misreading him; he didn’t intend to sound patronizing, but he braced for the blow just the same. It never came. At least, not then. “I looked everywhere for you—until I was sick.”

“Sick of looking?”

“I mean, I was beside myself.”

“Back to feeling sorry for you, are we?”

“I’m explaining—”

“I’ve tried my best to let this go, Starsky, to put your failure to follow the most basic rules of investigation behind me. I wouldn’t trade you for the world,” he added, his voice emotionally breaking on those words, “so much that I have devoted myself to forgiveness, but the lid is off, no thanks to you. It turns out, you’ve been justified in your shame. You fucked up and it cost us both.”

Starsky felt Hutch’s squeeze on him loosen, although Hutch didn’t seem to move a muscle. The anger still shone in his partner’s eyes, and his face was ugly with his repressed rage. Their nudity exposed Starsky beyond the surface. Hutch’s words were ones he’d needed, yet he could never have prepared himself for the pain they caused.

“I was at my wit’s end,” he explained, quickly adding, “and that’s not feeling sorry for myself. I’m just telling you why it went down the way it did.” He was relieved when Hutch let him up completely, freeing his arms, but Hutch didn’t back away, and he appeared no less formidable and pissed off.

“When I couldn’t find you, after all those hours I spent looking, I had nothing else: no clues, no leads, no direction. That woman gave me one. It didn’t matter what I believed. I needed something, anything, to point me somewhere.”

“So, ignore your gut, ignore me, and follow her lie right over the cliff? Being fed the wrong information was better than any other supposition?”

“I don’t know if you’re pulling my leg here,” Starsky said, “but you know better than to think I’d ignore you.”

Hutch’s voice rose in anger, though he didn’t threaten Starsky with bodily harm that time. “Do I look like I’m playing games?”

“You’ve done it before.”

“Fuck you, Starsky. I get taken and held hostage and believe—I believed—that you knew better than to leave me in Bolivia, and I’m the one playing games?”

“I’ve never treated this like some game, Hutch.”

“You didn’t have a body.”

“I thought I did.”

“Based on what, Starsk? The convenience of a burned-beyond-recognition corpse?”

“It wasn’t just that.”

“I’ll ask you again then: what else was it?”

“They went through the pockets—”

“For items they’d obviously planted.”

“Those were your clothes.”

“On somebody else. Which part of this are you missing?”

“I saw them take your wallet and your badge out of—”

“You never saw a face, Starsk. You fell for bullshit. I thought I knew you better,” he said with an insincere and disappointed laugh. “The you I knew wouldn’t have fallen for the ruse.”

“I found your ring in that coin pocket,” Starsky remembered. He felt its chill even then. “And then the almond oil bottle.”

Hutch finally stepped back, began to turn away. “You’re not listening to me,” he said bitterly. “It was all circumstantial—”

“You went missing,” Starsky tried again when Hutch wordlessly promised to physically injure him if he heard what he believed to be another excuse; none of what Starsky told him was to forgive himself, but to explain—because ignoring Hutch, as Hutch had told it, had never been his intent.

“You went missing and I looked for you for hours. I looked for you all night long. I walked every street a hundred times. I went to the hospital and the police station and back and forth to the hotel. You didn’t leave any notes or messages with anyone. You weren’t anywhere on the outskirts, dead or alive. In the morning, the street woman said you got on the bus. I thought maybe. . .”

“You thought what, maybe?”

“That you had amnesia somehow, or that you were hurt so bad they had to take you to the city hospital, or that . . . maybe you thought I’d left town, that I was stupid enough to think we were to meet at the La Paz hotel if we got separated.”

“I can think of a hundred other suppositions, but none of them could possibly be true. You know why that is, Detective?”

Starsky blinked at him. He knew the answer; he even knew it was rhetorical. But Hutch seemed to want to hear it just the same because Hutch didn’t back down. Yet before Starsky could utter a word, Hutch did it for him.

“Because I’m obviously not dead. That makes all roads except the right one—the only one—the dead ends they were. You didn’t do your homework.”

“All those people, Hutch. . .”

“What about them?”

“All of them in on the kidnapping. How could it occur to anyone that so many people were part of this elaborate plan to abduct a blond, blue-eyed Americano in broad daylight and whisk him away without a trace, hm? The entire goddamn town was in on it. The hospital. The police. The hotel staff. How could I ever have figured that one? From the food vendors to the woman and the bus to the cab driver to the guy in the cowboy hat, and then some.”

Hutch shifted his weight, settled back for half a step. Maybe it was Starsky’s observation, the first time he’d ever verbalized it, that gave Hutch pause. Or maybe it was the cry in Starsky’s voice, the pleading nature of his words, that he at least be understood—not forgiven, but understood.

Hutch soon straightened. Whatever receptive assessment he gave Starsky’s explanation was short-lived. “I’m glad you finally figured out what happened to me,” he said, turning toward the door, “but it doesn’t negate the fact that you abandoned me when your heart-of-hearts told you not to.”

“Preponderance of evidence,” Starsky hurriedly said, pushing his weight off the wall as the words burst from his mouth without pre-thought. They stopped Hutch in his tracks, which was Starsky’s intent, but he had no follow up. Everything about that moment was purely emotional. He couldn’t think fast enough.

Hutch faced him from the doorway. He seemed to consider, and then dismiss, Starsky’s conclusion. “You may as well flip a coin,” he dryly noted. “I need beyond reasonable doubt.”

Starsky couldn’t give him such a condition. There had been doubt. Doubt had become the thing that kept Starsky on his knees, that fueled his shame and his guilt, his fear and his unending desire to be held accountable, that very thing for which he’d begged for retribution.

When he couldn’t make that promise, Hutch began to leave the bathroom again.

“Clear and convincing,” Starsky renegotiated. His determination stopped Hutch for the second time; it brought him back into the room, to stand in front of Starsky. Neither of them paid the other’s nudity any notice. They were on a different mission.

“By what percentage?” Hutch asked, squinting, as if prepared for another stupid answer, but willing to hear his partner out first.

“Ninety-two,” Starsky estimated, quickly computing the so-called facts against his then-reservations. There were the lies, but there were also certain truths. Combined, he made decisions he’d given anything in hindsight to recalculate. “Ninety-three,” he said after a second of reexamination, especially when he remembered how convincing that crumpled bottle of almond oil from Hutch’s jeans pocket had been. “Maybe ninety-four.”

Hutch steadied his gaze. Ninety-four seemed to be a reasonable number, and he visibly eased off his rage, dropped his shoulders, slightly nodded, and then whispered, “Okay,” as he began to leave the room again. But then he froze in the doorway, his back to Starsky, and didn’t say a word for more than a minute.

‘Clear and convincing evidence,’ even at a ninety-four percentage, still didn’t change the fact that Hutch had been abandoned in Bolivia for a painful three months. Starsky knew that; it was his point, after all. But he did want Hutch to know why he’d fallen victim to the so-called facts. He never meant for Hutch to think he’d purposefully left him there. That powerful knee to his sensitive groin was probably inevitable. He could feel the pain even without the actual contact.

Hutch returned to Starsky, seeming to have relinquished all of his anger and disappointment, looked Starsky in the eye, and said, “Did it ever occur to you, partner, that maybe I didn’t want to be found?”

“The shit you say,” Starsky blurted. His brow creased with his annoyance and it was his turn to burn with fire. He didn’t want to be played, not about something like that. “You’re baiting me.”

“Gourmet food,” Hutch reminded him.

“No.”

“The finest wines.”

“No.”

“To live forever in the lap of luxury.”

“No,” Starsky insisted, stepping toward him. Did Hutch want a fist fight? Would that make it easier for him to knee Starsky’s sac and drop him to the tiled floor?

“Sex whenever I needed it,” Hutch said, almost whimsically, “provided either by Ryker or at his direction.”

“No, Hutch.”

“I probably stood to inherit the plantation, too.”

“No.”

“I’d never have to work another day in my life.”

“No, no, no.”

“Why all the ‘no’s, Starsky? What’s so hard to believe about that?”

“Because I know you.”

“Maybe not as well as you think you do.”

Starsky didn’t even have to consider it. “Wrong, Hutch. I do know you as well as I think I do. And that’s not you.”

“What’s missing from something like that?”

“Me.”

“I would have gotten off that chain eventually. I’d have sent you a telegram. We would have lived in that lap of luxury together.”

And still pay the price of allowing another man to masturbate or penetrate Hutch? Not on Starsky’s life, not if he could help it. “No,” he said, hoping it would be his final time. “Not even then. We have the life we want. We do the work we believe in. We don’t need anything else. I do know you.”

Hutch exhaled, as if his attempt to convince Starsky otherwise had obviously failed and they both knew it. He winked at Starsky. “Then you know me well enough to know that everything I’ve said and done this morning was just to fuck with you.”

Starsky was rattled to his core. “Goddamnit, Hutch! Why do you do this to me, hm? What the hell is the matter with you?” It was he who threw a punch, successfully and squarely landing it on Hutch’s shoulder, hard enough to momentarily knock him off balance, but not really hurt him. “I could kill you!”

“Idle threats,” Hutch said, repressing his smile. “Why’d I do it? Did you hear yourself for the past ten minutes? If you didn’t, give it a while: it’ll sink in.” He tousled Starsky’s hair as if it would wipe the anger off his face, and then finally did leave the bathroom. “It’s a shame I’m too pretty to be an actor,” he said in his departure, “because I think I’m Oscar material. Ah, well . . . can’t have everything. Underwear model, maybe.”

Starsky watched him go, only then noticing Hutch’s bared buttocks, naked body, walking off toward the bed and not a dresser. “Where are you going?” he called after him, following when he saw Hutch climb onto the mattress.

“To finish what we started this morning,” Hutch said with conviction. “You coming? Oh, wait. Let me rephrase: if you join me, we can both come.”

Hutch hadn’t even masturbated that morning. Had Starsky heard himself while he’d been put through the wringer—and as Hutch had anticipated? Maybe. Whatever he’d learned, he couldn’t wrap his mind around it, not when that beautiful blond Americano sprawled over the mattress, pillows behind his head, his shining blue eyes melting Starsky, opened his legs, and fondled his bulging sac and already engorging penis, stealing every single thought Starsky could possibly summon at that second.

* * *

“OH, HUTCH!”

Starsky tentatively pressed a fingertip to the middle of Hutch’s forehead.

Hutch didn’t even blink, so Starsky followed an invisible trail over the bridge to the tip of Hutch’s nose, then across his philtrum, coming to rest on his closed lips.

They lay on the bed beside each other, having finally roused from a rambunctious morning of sexual gratification in which they had completely immersed themselves in their love and lust, and waking only when their vitals returned to normal.

“Tell me something,” Starsky eventually said. Somehow, he thought Hutch would speak if he tickled his nose and mouth, touched his face, physically prodded him, but Hutch didn’t say a word. He didn’t even kiss Starsky’s finger.

“I love you,” Hutch finally replied, his eyes still closed.

“I mean, besides that.”

“Something fierce.”

Starsky laughed; he did love Hutch’s affection. “I mean, tell me you didn’t really think about staying in Bolivia. You didn’t want to, did you?”

A long pause of noticeable silence followed. Starsky could tell Hutch hadn’t gone back to sleep because Hutch didn’t breathe the way he did when he was asleep; that, and Hutch’s pensive expression conveyed an internal evaluation of his thoughts. Starsky nudged him. “It should be a simple ‘no’ to that question, Hutch, don’t you think?”

Hutch opened his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked toward the ceiling, but seemed to gaze past it. “I had an experience at the plantation that never came up in the interrogation. That doesn’t mean I wanted to stay in Bolivia,” he quickly said, “but that I had more allies than I knew I did. If I hadn’t been so rattled about escaping—or having you save me, or being bent on ending your grief—maybe I’d have come to like La Paz, who knows? I don’t mean the Ryker part, but the Bolivia part.” He rolled to his side and looked into Starsky’s eyes. “Of course, I wouldn’t have wanted to be down there without you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Starsky didn’t know what he heard first, but he knew what he wanted to talk about foremost. Luckily, Hutch’s lazy posture kept him from overreacting when he said, “Back up, partner. You had an experience down there that never made it into the interrogation? What’s that supposed to mean, hm?”

“Just that I wasn’t as alone as I often felt I was. I may have been able to get out of there sooner—and without killing Ryker—if I’d played my cards differently.”

“And still you haven’t explained yourself.”

Hutch gently smiled, amused with Starsky’s impatience. “I’d have been let off the chain eventually. And Ryker would have paid your way back to Bolivia if he knew how much you meant to me—and how.”

“Did he do something to you that I don’t know about?”

“You and I would have lived like kings down there,” Hutch added quietly, “and I believe you said so yourself when we were visiting. Maybe we could have wrestled Coroico away from him.”

“But what about the experience I don’t know about?”

“We could have found a new meaning in life by helping the people out of abject poverty and into sustainable . . . poverty.”

“You’re not hearing my question,” Starsky whined, ignoring Hutch’s lame assessment.

“You remember Carlos?” Hutch asked.

“Carlos, the Cowboy?”

“That guy.”

“What about him?”

“He lied in the interrogation—at the Embassy, to the police.”

“What about?”

“He said he hadn’t seen me since the day Ryker hired him to hang the painting in the room, remember?”

So much of that past had become a blur for Starsky. He only remembered what he knew the facts to be regarding Hutch’s experience, and had to push his memory to recall Carlos’ testimony. “He said he hadn’t seen you in over a month, I think.”

“Except he helped deliver the piano to my room—just before Christmas.”

“Why would he lie about that?”

“Because he was embarrassed.”

Hutch’s abbreviated answers got Starsky’s blood warm again. “Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

“Ryker summoned him to my room one night after dinner—when Elena was finished with her chores and had gone to bed.”

Starsky’s heart began to pound.

“Ryker wanted Carlos to get something out of my area that he himself didn’t feel safe getting. I know it embarrassed Carlos. I wondered if he’d mention it during the interrogation, but he didn’t.” Hutch sighed, audibly. “It was just as well; I didn’t want to relive that night, either—especially in front of a bunch of strangers. Carlos and I apparently had a silent agreement that we’d take what happened to our graves.”

“A secret you’ve kept from me?”

“Not maliciously.”

“But just the same?”

“I wanted to bury it, Starsk.”

“Well, now you get to dig it up, Mr. Shovel Man. So, tell me. And don’t leave anything out, no matter what it is.”

* * *

“You liked the wine, Michael,” Ryker noted approvingly while he sipped what was left in his own glass. “But do not drink any more tonight. I need you to have your wits about you.”

Hutch didn’t plan to drink more wine. He was already relaxed. It had been an uneventful day in the scheme of what had become his mundane life, and he hoped Ryker would keep the night’s visit short, so he could get to bed. Hutch had murderous plans to strategize, he inwardly mused; Ryker’s days were numbered, if Hutch should have his way.

Ryker was visibly comfortable in his armchair, seated across from Hutch, still out of Hutch’s reach, dressed in his usual robe and slippers, barefoot, but recently showered, shaved, and neatly groomed. It was a week before Christmas and he appeared to already be dreaming about the upcoming new year. “You seem at peace tonight, Michael,” he further observed, himself slouched against his armrest. “I like that you are accepting our special friendship, no matter how long it may take to make it ours.”

Hutch gave Ryker no opinion on the assessment; he simply made eye contact and knew, as he’d come to recently learn, that everything about him was perfection in Ryker’s eyes—even his dissatisfaction—so what difference would his beliefs make anyway?

“I have a special treat for us tonight,” Ryker said. He sounded more excited than he appeared; the wine had made them both passive. “Something to wake us up, Michael!” Ryker laughed, noticing how lazy they’d become. The day had been relatively routine, the meal quite filling, and the wine, impeccable.

Of course, Hutch was still chained to a wall by his wrist; nothing was perfect.

On this particular night, he was also as comfortable in his armchair as Ryker seemed to be. Dressed in both pajamas and his robe, likewise barefoot, Hutch had settled into the notion that he would not be asked to perform for Ryker after dinner. Some nights were like that, especially those immediately following a spectacular performance. Ryker had remained true to his word: he needed several days to refuel from an ejaculation. But, although it had been a couple of nights since his last release, he hadn’t shown any signs—or expressed even an innuendo—about playing with Hutch after dinner.

Instead, Ryker told Hutch stories: about his childhood growing up in Germany, about his schooling and his teachers, about his break from the imposed confines of religion and culture. They drove him first to Africa and then to South America, he said, where he eventually made a home for himself near Coroico in Bolivia. It seemed to get past him that he’d caught and held captive—to more restrictive confines than religion and culture—an innocent man from whom he expected love and adoration.

Hutch twirled a cork on the table and listened as he stared into the distance between them. Making Ryker believe he was interested had become part of his elaborate plan to gain the trust of a man he endeavored to one day kill.

“I discovered I favored boys late in life,” Ryker explained, sounding disappointed that it took him so long. “Oh, I suspect I was drawn to them, but could not bring myself to admit it, from quite the early age. I suppose it was the leaving off of what society expected and wanted of me that enabled me to eventually liberate my mind enough to find my true self.”

Hutch subtlety nodded; he’d taken a similar journey himself—except that his attraction was only to one man. That reminder tugged at his heart and he had to shift in his chair to elude it. Ryker may have otherwise noticed and questioned Hutch’s abrupt change in posture had there not been a sudden knock on the door at that minute.

“Come in, Carlos!” Ryker barked. “¡Adelante!”

The door opened and the Bolivian in a cowboy hat that Hutch had come to recognize as Ryker’s right-hand man entered the room. He spoke in Spanish to Ryker—and Ryker likewise in return—so quickly that Hutch couldn’t translate the specificities of their words, except to understand that Ryker was happy Carlos had arrived on time. He asked Carlos to position a dining chair in the space between himself and Hutch—and to then sit in it.

“Michael, you know Carlos, yes?”

Carlos made eye contact with Hutch, forced half a smile, then averted his eyes. He’d been guilty of a crime—and it showed. That, or he was uncomfortable in what he may have decided was a salacious game his boss and his boss’ friend had concocted. Still, he was beholden to Ryker, and obviously torn between his own conscience—and perhaps religious beliefs—and obligations to his superior. No doubt Ryker kept him fed, clothed, healthy, sheltered, and then some. Hutch planned to bite the hand that fed him, but Carlos never would.

Hutch continued to spin the cork on the table beside him. He watched both men as they spoke to each other, purely in Spanish, that time in much lower and more halting voices—as if Hutch couldn’t understand them or, if he did, he couldn’t hear them sitting right there in front of him. Ryker spoke fluidly to Carlos, reaching a point in his dialogue wherein Carlos stopped talking and looked to the floor. When he had no reply to what seemed to be a question, Ryker turned his attention to Hutch.

“I have asked him to do something for us, Michael,” Ryker said, seeming to rouse somewhat as he anticipated the task. “But it requires keeping him safe. I do not know yet that you are completely happy here. Until that moment arrives, we must protect all of ourselves, would you not agree?”

Hutch made eye contact with Ryker, conveyed to him that he understood he wasn’t to harm Carlos, but Ryker meant something more secure.

“I am going to have him tie your arms to the chair,” he explained. “This way we can all know you will not take revenge on him for that which is my sole responsibility. He will do whatever I ask, as he did when he brought you to me a few months ago. It is not his fault, Michael.”

The degree of guilt afforded to Ryker’s accomplices wasn’t anything Hutch planned to examine that night. He could have told Ryker—with his voice—that he was trustworthy, that he wouldn’t hurt Carlos, simply to make Ryker’s plans easier, but he hadn’t said but a few words to Ryker in the nearly three months he’d been held by him. He didn’t want to start then, either. So he purposefully leveled his gaze at Ryker and hoped for the best.

From his robe pocket, Ryker removed two short linen straps, about a foot long each, and slowly wound them around his fingers. They reminded Hutch of the four pieces of rope he’d cut for Starsky when they played with bondage that first time, alone together at the cabin on Hutch’s 40th birthday. But he pushed those thoughts and memories from his mind as quickly as he had them lest they send the wrong message to Ryker.

“He will not have to tie you tightly, Michael,” Ryker explained, eventually handing the straps to Carlos—who seemed to reluctantly accept them. “As you can see, they are rather soft, too. I do not wish to harm you. We simply want to be sure no one gets hurt—including yourself. Do you understand this, Michael?”

Hutch’s naturally passive posture sent the message that he was agreeable purely on that condition—that he didn’t want to see himself get hurt. Carlos couldn’t take him down on his own; he was short in stature, but also older, somewhere between Hutch’s and Ryker’s ages. He was probably stronger than the average man because he did spend time on the plantation, doing its physical work; his dark, weathered skin and defined muscles lent themselves to that proposition.

“Átalo,” Ryker said to Carlos. “No te hará daño.” He looked at Hutch. “I have told him to tie you and that you will not hurt him. Please do not make a liar of me, Michael!”

Hutch didn’t help Carlos. He kept his eyes on Ryker while Carlos stood, approached, set Hutch’s right arm to the right armrest, tied a strap around it at the wrist, not too tightly, and then secured his other arm the same way. When Carlos sat back in his chair, Ryker asked Hutch, “Can you break free?” Of course, Hutch was still chained by one wrist to the wall, so ‘free’ was a relative term.

He put his strength against the straps, proving to himself and the other two men that he couldn’t get loose. They would have known he had given it a half-hearted effort if he’d done so; his effort was genuine.

“Wonderful!” Ryker exclaimed. “Oh, Michael, I am now very excited about the special treat I have planned for us.” He removed another two straps from the same robe pocket and handed them to Carlos. “Ahora atadle los pies,” he said, glancing back at Hutch. “I have told him to now tie your feet to the chair legs. I do not want you to kick him.”

Hutch smirked at Ryker. He didn’t like that he’d been fooled into believing he’d only have his wrists tied, and he wanted Ryker to know he was displeased.

“I am sorry, Michael,” Ryker said in reply. “I know it was not fair of me. But until you are speaking to me and until you and I can touch each other without fear, I have no choice but to make certain that we all remain unharmed.”

Ryker’s comment didn’t explain why he let Elena into the room every day, several times a day, without similar restraints. Ryker seemed to read that question in Hutch’s mind because he had an answer for that, too.

“You would never harm a woman, Michael,” he explained. “This I know with all my heart, especially one as young as Elena. You are not a violent man—although you could be dangerous under the right circumstances. It is one of the many things I adore about you. Controlled power. It is, I dare say, an aphrodisiac!”

Hutch endured the tying of his feet to the chair legs—and then demonstrated that he couldn’t get out of them, either. Ryker didn’t have plans to touch Hutch; Hutch was fully dressed in linen pajamas and a silk robe, tied at the waist with a matching sash. So what was Ryker’s ultimate intention?

“Quiero que des desata la banda,” Ryker told Carlos. “I asked him to untie your robe,” he added, translating for Hutch.

Hutch audibly exhaled. He couldn’t keep his façade up any longer. At the same time, he couldn’t do much else to protest. But he did hold his breath when Carlos leaned over him and loosened the knot in his robe sash; he didn’t want to smell Carlos—whether it was a pleasant odor or not. The least Hutch endured, the better for himself overall.

Ryker then removed a pair of large scissors from the other pocket of his robe and gave them, handle-first, to Carlos. “Tendrás que abrirte los pantalones. ¡Ten cuidado de no cortarle!” Ryker laughed, heartily. “I told him to be careful not to cut you! Oh, Michael, I could not live with myself!”

Carlos hesitated only briefly; he seemed to be of the mind that he would do what he was ordered to do—again—and not ask questions. Nor stall. The inevitable was just that and he wouldn’t waste time or effort. He also wouldn’t make eye contact with Hutch when he carefully, and thankfully slowly, cut Hutch’s pajama bottoms from their elasticized waist down each of its legs, partway along the top of Hutch’s thighs, eventually creating a large opening where the fly had been. A few more words from Ryker, and he snipped the last of the fabric that had concealed Hutch’s privates less than a minute earlier.

Hutch was exposed—his uncircumcised penis, snug against his bared sac, and that patch of light blond hair. He tried to stare Ryker into submission after failing to do so with Carlos, but Ryker didn’t—or wouldn’t—look at him. Ryker was mesmerized by the visuals he absorbed from Hutch’s groin. “Oh, Michael,” he said, as he often did when laying eyes on Hutch’s genitalia, his eyes wide with anticipation, “you are still such a beautiful man with a most magnificent cock.” He pulled his chair closer as he eagerly licked his lips. He spoke in Spanish to Carlos, apparently telling him to pull his chair closer, too, and to sit in it.

Hutch could only decipher bits of words and phrases, but he knew enough Spanish to understand that Ryker explained to Carlos just how “beautiful” and “magnificent” Hutch was to him—and why. Carlos wasn’t impressed; in fact, he tried not to look, only doing so when ordered, stealing a glance, and then looking away.

Ryker lifted his eyes to Hutch’s. “My precious boy,” he murmured. “I have asked Carlos to the room because I wish to see someone other than yourself bring you to glorious orgasm. I could not ask Elena, after much consideration, because she is your servant and I did not wish for her to fall in love with you! Carlos will do the job.”

Hutch shifted his attention to Carlos. He’d since taken off his cowboy hat and set it on the table, sitting forward in his chair, still averting his eyes, his hands clasped between his knees, exhibiting all the signs of a reluctant participant. Hutch hoped he could make eye contact with Carlos, to tell him, without words, that they should, together, rise up against their abuser. They could overpower Ryker and be done with the exploitation. But Carlos was a weak man when it came to his provider, if he was anything.

“I shall walk him through it,” Ryker said with excitement. “Just his hands, Michael. I know it would be too offensive for him to place his mouth over your cock. I would not ask that of him. But he is used to jacking off the pigs for insemination. Not that you are a pig, Michael!” he laughed again, pleased but embarrassed by himself and rolling back in his chair. “But you are definitely an animal!”

Even in Ryker’s world, an ‘animal’ incarnate, as he viewed Hutch, was a thrilling concept.

“Carlos’ hands will be as if they are my own on your hard-and-pulsing cock,” Ryker continued. “It will be as if it is I who is giving you such pleasure, milking you of your precious, hot cum. Oh, Michael, I cannot wait! We have shared so much together already and this will be yet another way to bond ourselves. Do you not agree?”

Hutch stared at him in disbelief.

“Oh, come now, Michael,” Ryker reassured him. “This will only feel good for you. Please sit back and be comfortable. You cannot escape, as we have proven to ourselves, so you must enjoy every minute instead. I will instruct Carlos to pump your cock for as long as it takes to come. You will get past your shyness and he his!”

What could Hutch possibly do? Yell and scream, wriggle and writhe, somehow push himself over onto the floor? And then what? Ryker meant business. He would simply masturbate Hutch after Hutch had exhausted himself of his resistance—the way Carlos did the pigs. Perhaps the only way around the assault was through it.

Ryker spoke in an authoritative voice, first to Carlos in Spanish, and then to Hutch in English, so both men understood his instructions. In preparation, Carlos rolled his sleeves to his elbows. He positioned his chair closer still to Hutch, so their knees touched. He pushed the pajama opening he’d created further away from Hutch’s crotch.

“Use the olive oil,” Ryker told him. “Grease up your palm especially,” he suggested, watching Carlos pour the oil from the uncapped bottle into his hands, set the bottle aside, and then rub his palms together, thoroughly coating them. “Michael is going to enjoy the lubricating touch. You shall see. Do not be timid.”

When Hutch first felt Carlos’ greased hand lift his flaccid penis up off his legs, he also felt the anger shoot through him. He grunted to let Carlos know how unhappy he was with the violation, but Carlos ignored him. Hutch then squirmed in his seat, fighting against the straps that attached him to the chair, continued to grunt, but found no relief in any of his resistance.

“He will quiet down,” Ryker told Hutch in translation after he said it to Carlos in Spanish. “Pump his cock, Carlos. Do not let Michael distract you. He simply needs to understand that he is helpless to change our course.” To Hutch, looking him in the eye, he added, “I know it must be difficult to get past whatever religious beliefs you have held, or the upbringing and teachings you were taught by your culture and society, but enjoying pleasure is a human right. It will one day not matter to you who provides it.” With a light laugh and dropping his eyes to the pending action between Hutch’s legs, he gingerly said, “Perhaps you will begin tonight!”

Reluctantly, Hutch stopped struggling, set his head against the back of the chair, closed his eyes, and tried his best to escape into his mind when he couldn’t seem to avoid the intensity of the touch. Carlos oiled his shaft with both his hands, thoroughly coating it in olive oil, then momentarily paused to pour more of the lubricant into his palm. Hutch heard him set the bottle back on the table when he had enough. He then resumed surfacing Hutch’s skin with the emollient. The spreading of the oil over his penis, sac, legs, and lower belly eventually evolved into a massage—and Hutch heard both men breathing deeply.

“Oh, yes, yes, Carlos. You have made him perfectly slippery. He looks delicious. I want to touch him myself, but I cannot!”

Hutch ground his teeth and sucked in air as deeply as he could when he felt Carlos’ slick hand begin its initial slow stroke of his phallus. Carlos had to hold Hutch’s penis upright at its base with one hand while he slowly pumped him with his other. Hutch didn’t have an erection, so Carlos mimicked one in order to get it to build on its own.

“He has beautiful balls, too,” Ryker commented under his breath. “Huge and manly! Oh, Michael, you are such a precious specimen of manhood!”

Carlos’ hands were strong, determined, and without hesitation. Whatever he thought about the order he’d been given to masturbate a chained Americano for the delight of his boss was far from outwardly being shown. Perhaps, like the pig-milker he was known to be, he committed himself to wearing that hat while he finished the deed. Like the man they held captive in that instance, Carlos was bound to his obligations to Ryker. He had no choice in the matter—and it was proven in the skilled way he jacked Hutch’s penis—in a loose, but tight-enough fist, in quick strokes from halfway down his shaft to up over his crown, pausing on occasion to, as quickly, fondle Hutch’s frenulum under circular strokes of his thumb.

“Oh, yes, Carlos!” Ryker blurted, hissing at the exquisiteness of Carlos’ rapid strokes. “But do not let him come too soon! Tease him for me, Carlos! Tease him!”

Carlos followed orders, even then. He pumped Hutch’s penis, tickled his frenulum, massaged his cap, pumped him again, fondled his sac, squeezing each testicle in his palm, hearing Hutch’s gulp or moan or grunt, releasing him to stroke his shaft again—then repeating the actions. He couldn’t not get the rise out of Hutch that he planned, just as the pigs had been helpless to avoid the inevitable drain of their testes.

Hutch’s belly heaved. He rolled his head to one side, away from the men, finally exhaled, long and with a moan that expressed both his displeasure and his surrender.

“Oh, Michael, your cock is getting hard! I knew this would be the case. Dear boy, let yourself go. Enjoy his hands—my hands by proxy! Carlos, you are a master!”

Carlos definitely knew his business. He was able to let go of Hutch’s penis with his previously-steadying hand and to lengthen the strokes with his other as Hutch stiffened under his stewardship. By then, they could all hear the slapping sound of Carlos’ pumps—oiled skin to hardened skin.

Hutch had to also let go of his defiance; orgasmic pleasure had suddenly and unexpectedly overtaken him. He’d broken a sweat as his heart began to pound. So he leaned into the sensations: the strong hand consuming his shaft with every up and downstroke, slickened fingers tantalizing him along its crown, around the sensitive edge of his cap, beneath it to build the hyper-charged ecstasy of its frenulum, the abrupt cessation of all those things for a surprising squeeze and short-lived fondle of his sac—and then the restart of those thrilling tingles, over and again.

Each pass of Carlos’ technique—the briskness of the strokes, loose then tightly, the tease of the isolated thumb rub, edging Hutch so close to ejaculation that Hutch thought he might climax at a second’s notice, the occasional firm grip of his testicles—brought him closer to orgasm than he ever expected he’d be in the hands of a mostly complete stranger.

Hutch could hear Ryker pumping his own penis, a visual he’d seen before, but hadn’t imagined—in his current delirium state—Ryker would do in front of Carlos. But right there and then, Ryker apparently did.

The greased hand diligently slapped Hutch’s heated meat in its firmer and shorter strokes. He rolled his head from side to side as he immersed himself in the eroticism of its conviction, completely thoughtless to the fact that it could stop as suddenly, hoping it wouldn’t, needing it to take him to fruition.

Carlos shifted, but didn’t lose ground. Short, rapid strokes, and off would come his hand, interrupting the flow, making Hutch want more sooner. Then longer strokes, a pause to rub his frenulum, and it alone, followed by a continuance of those other excitements: the warmth at his sac, squeezing him at times enough to make him believe they’d be crushed were Carlos not as tuned as he was to the task.

And then something new: an oiled finger at his anus, titillating its diameter with soft and teasing massages.

“Oh, yes, Carlos!” Ryker shouted. “Fuck his beautiful ass with your fingers. Two, Carlos, two!”

Hutch felt the penetration and nearly came up off his seat when the insertion was timed with the downstroke on his phallus. The wave of an interrupted orgasm shot through him and he cried out to push it over the edge—but had no success.

“Oh, Michael, do not come! I am close, too, and we must spill together! Hold on! There is still so much I want to see! I wish you would open your eyes!”

Hutch couldn’t; he could barely breathe. His heart pounded. Two fingers repeatedly penetrated his anus, deeply and with ease, while another hand swallowed his shaft in a lubricious and tight slide from end to end. Another second and he would have no choice but to ejaculate—a notation Carlos must have made, because he pulled his hand off, while his penetrations continued, and deliberately stopped Hutch from spilling.

“Michael, to see your hard cock—wet and wild, it is! So hard that perhaps it is rock!” Ryker giggled and laughed, moaned and labored his breath. “It rises straight up from your cut pajamas, loving every second of Carlos’ talent! He is so good, is he not, Michael? And to think we had to tie you to this chair, your hands and your feet, Michael, as if you would have resisted! Oh, I think I am going to come!”

Carlos used it as his cue; he fervently pumped Hutch while he, as rapidly, penetrated him with thick fingers, going in as far as he could with each entry, stroking the base of Hutch’s shaft with every downstroke, and then equalizing it on the reverses. Hutch was going to orgasm, too. He could hear it in all three of their panting breaths.

Carlos relinquished Hutch’s penis, but kept his fingers inside Hutch just as the crest inside him fell over itself and the strong contractions of ejaculation consumed him. Hutch moaned a lengthy cry of overwhelming pleasure as the surge of his semen began to make itself known. As soon as the initial creamy spurt appeared, several things happened at once.

Ryker cried and broke into wails of pleasure as he, too, erupted; Hutch could feel his captor’s warm deposits over his sac and thighs while the first of his own landed on his left nipple. All three men heavily panted.

Hutch then felt the sudden and sharp shock when Carlos decidedly slapped his erect penis with the open palm of his free hand. Pain and pleasure rolled over themselves.

Hutch completely emptied, wave after wave, until the last of it had been delivered and Carlos finally sat back and appeared to wait for silence to return to the room. Or for further instructions.

“Oh, you nasty boy, Carlos,” Ryker said, laughing. “It is not Michael’s fault that you enjoyed what you did and saw. You must never take it out on him again.” Ryker didn’t sound serious; in fact, he seemed to like seeing Hutch’s rigid and large penis be slapped.

What didn’t get past Hutch was Ryker’s use of the word ‘again.’

“Untie him before he comes to his senses,” Ryker ordered, pushing back his chair to give Carlos the space to free Hutch from the chair straps. “I will have new pajamas brought to you tomorrow,” he promised Hutch. “Was that not delightful, Michael? I knew you would enjoy it. How could you not? Carlos has years of practice. And you have such a magnificent cock. Even he got caught up in the thrill of making you come! We shall do this to you another day and we shall tie you just for the joy of it. You will know next time how much you loved Carlos’ pumps!”

Hutch didn’t open his eyes. He kept his face turned away from the men as his breathing slowed and his heartbeat softened and the room’s sex-filled air cooled his heated skin.

* * *

“None of that really happened,” Starsky said with conviction. He lay on his side, facing Hutch, his arm bent at the elbow, his temple in his palm, carefully watching his partner, and purposefully sounding half-interested in whatever Hutch would say in reply.

Hutch turned his head against the pillow behind him, made eye contact, shyly smiled. “What was your first clue?”

“The chair,” Starsky said flatly. He pinched Hutch’s nipple in retaliation, his hunch having been confirmed, and deliberately made Hutch flinch.

Hutch slapped Starsky’s hand off of him. “Careful with those, buddy; I’d look weird without them.”

“The chair, Hutch.”

“What about it?”

“Nobody can tie somebody like that to an armchair.”

“No?” Hutch asked playfully, but rubbing himself where Starsky had hurt him as if he was still annoyed by it. Perhaps he was. “Chairs have arms, you know.”

“Not cushioned living room armchairs, and that’s what you told me Ryker gave you early on down there, to make you really comfortable, he said. Remember?”

Hutch grunted, looked back to the ceiling, eventually laughed. “Not buying that part of my story, huh?”

“I’m not buying any of your story. It’s full of holes.”

Hutch twitched an eyebrow. “There was at least one hole.”

“Nice try. But you didn’t fool me for a minute. want to know all the places you went wrong?”

“I get the feeling I’m going to hear about them, regardless.”

Starsky settled even further into the mattress as he committed himself to replaying the story Hutch had just told him—that time in his mind—so he could remember every clue he’d unearthed that proved Carlos had never handled Hutch. If Hutch had given Starsky those explicit details to make him jealous, he failed, miserably. “Okay, so there was the chair,” Starsky mulled, beginning his presentation of the facts as he stared off into them, “and no way could they tie your arms to a cushioned armchair, especially with such short straps.”

“Uh huh,” Hutch replied, not committing either way to the truthfulness in Starsky’s observation. He folded his hands over his naked belly and continued to gaze at the ceiling. “But do enlighten me.”

“I’m going to.”

“And yet you’ve only repeated yourself.”

“I’m just getting started. Stop being so impatient.”

“I have places to go . . . calls to make . . . letters to write . . . hands to shake . . . dogs to pat—”

“Will you listen? There’s no way Carlos could be that good. How could he be better than me, hm?”

“I didn’t say he was.”

“The way you tell it, he was—and there isn’t anybody who can jerk you off better than me.”

“I won’t argue that fact.”

“Besides,” Starsky said, his ego satisfied, not just his certainties, “I met Carlos, remember? No way would that true-blue, Catholic, Bolivian lay a hand on a human dick that wasn’t his own—or he’d burn forever in hell.”

“Well, he did help kidnap somebody; so much for his religious beliefs.”

“Kidnapping. Hand-jobbing. Two different things.” Even Starsky knew it was a lame differentiation, but Hutch laughing at him didn’t help, either. “C’mon, you know my instincts are good,” Starsky whined. “I sized him up the second I saw him, and he’s no Americano masturbator.”

Hutch laughed again, enjoying his amusement.

“He’s a little guy,” Starsky recalled aloud. “He probably has a little dick and—”

“All the more impressed by mine.”

Starsky couldn’t debate Hutch on that point. Anyone laying eyes on Hutch’s erect penis would be awed by it. But he needed to win the war, show Hutch’s story about Carlos masturbating him to be nothing more than his partner’s attempt to prove something—for some reason. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he mumbled, looking into Hutch’s blue eyes when Hutch turned them to Starsky’s face. Hutch raised his eyebrows, waiting for the confession he expected to hear—and Starsky caved.

“Okay, so let’s flatter you: your cock is . . . magnificent!” He poked Hutch in the ribs to get the laugh he’d hoped for that didn’t materialize from the teasing. “You’re playing me,” he decided, when Hutch looked away, pursing his lips as he obviously faked being emotionally wounded. “You’ve been playing me all morning.”

Hutch couldn’t repress his chuckle. “There’s nothing I enjoy more.”

“Except fucking me.”

“Except fucking you,” Hutch agreed with a smile. He was as pleased with himself as he sounded. “But is that all you’ve got, Detective? that I couldn’t have been tied to an armchair, and Carlos is too repressed to jack off a gorgeous, big-dicked, blond and blue-eyed, American stud for his boss?”

“Another good point, Hutch. Ryker would never let some other guy handle his man’s ‘magnificent cock.’ You and he were the only two men in the whole world he’d let do that to you. He told you he was glad you didn’t ‘like men’ so he could be your first. Remember that? You can’t budge me on this point. He’d have never let me visit for just that reason, no matter how much you begged him to let you have me.”

“Maybe.”

“You didn’t change position in that chair, either.”

“So?”

“He couldn’t have gotten access to your ass so easily.”

Hutch laughed, didn’t comment, briefly closed his eyes, and then laughed again, as if he’d pictured it from Starsky’s point of view and concluded the same. Despite that, he baited Starsky. “Carlos had small hands; he could have wiggled his way in.”

“Fat chance. Besides, there’s just no way in any of this that you’d let some guy get you off like that without a fight to the death—tied up or not—let alone stick his finger up your ass.”

Hutch draped his arm over his eyes, hid his face behind the bend in his elbow, and continued to find Starsky amusing. “Let me know when you solve the case, Officer.”

“You were way too willing and eager in that scenario for it to be real,” Starsky said. “The man I know you to be would have put up a tougher fight. You’d have taken a lot longer to succumb—if you gave in at all.”

“You think so?” Hutch asked. He crossed his ankles, exhaled slowly, appeared sleepy, as if he’d lost interest in Starsky’s determinations. “Under the right circumstances, we might all have weaker moments than we’d previously thought.”

“You came too soon,” Starsky added. “For a guy being edged, you went right over it way early. You’ve obviously never had that experience.”

Hutch huffed. “You’ve been promising me that very thing for months and still haven’t delivered.”

Maybe that had been Hutch’s purpose in telling Starsky the Carlos fable. He wanted to be edged, figured if he made up a clumsy story about having gotten such pleasure, Starsky would finally set him straight. But that didn’t sound like Hutch, either, to lead Starsky astray or beat around the bush; he’d come right out and ask for an edging if he wanted one. So what was the point of Hutch’s tale?

“Ryker owned a papaya farm,” Starsky concluded, nudging Hutch’s hip with his knee to keep him awake and listening—and to convince him of the overall truth at the same time, “not a pig farm.”

Hutch lowered his arm, made eye contact with Starsky, smiled shyly again, as if pleased by Starsky’s facts and subsequent conclusions. “Now, there’s my Columbo,” he affectionately said, combing Starsky’s hair with his fingers.

Starsky’s follow-up question was genuine, despite how much he enjoyed Hutch’s touch. “But why are you jerking me around with this?”

Hutch dropped his arm, not leaving his closeness, and spoke with as much sincerity. “I made a decision to give you a dumb answer every time you ask me a dumb question.”

Starsky was floored. “What dumb question did I ask you?”

“You wanted to know if I had second thoughts about coming home. Your exact words were. . . ‘Tell me you didn’t really think about staying in Bolivia. You didn’t want to, did you?’”

Starsky laughed at himself when he realized what Hutch had done—and how justifiable it had been. It was a dumb question; he knew better than to think Hutch wanted to live forever in Bolivia, or that Hutch would want to be anywhere that Starsky wasn’t. But he still didn’t understand Hutch’s purpose.

“C’mon, you knew I knew better; it was kind of a useless question.”

“It was a dumb question,” Hutch insisted.

“And I figured it was a dumb answer, that Carlos pumping your dick didn’t really happen, so why did you take it so far, hm?”

“I thought you’d cut me off sooner,” Hutch said, defensively, laughing at them both. “If you knew it was bogus, why did you let me go on?”

“I don’t know,” Starsky said with a shrug. He subconsciously pressed his bared groin into Hutch’s leg and felt a familiar and sexual craving. “Or maybe I do.”

“Wanna go again, so soon after?”

“Give me a little more time,” Starsky promised, “and I can pull it off. Do you think you might, too?”

“That was a hot story, if I say so myself,” Hutch agreed. He rolled into Starsky and they embraced, but neither was physically aroused; the union was mostly emotional. “Maybe you can tie me to a chair sometime. . .”

“We’ve done a bed,” Starsky recalled, kissing Hutch’s cheek. “Let’s do a chair. Maybe we can work our way through all the household furniture.”

Hutch laughed. “Then we’ll tackle the gym equipment.”

Starsky’s heart sank; at first, he didn’t know why it had, so he followed it until he found words to express his sudden dismay. “How come I went with my hunch on this Carlos/cock story and didn’t let it faze me one bit, but I ignored my gut—in favor of the preponderance of evidence, clear and convincing—when I knew in every fiber of my soul that you would never have left Corkville without me, except by force? I mean, suppose I never looked at that picture Davis commented on in that stack of pictures? Where would we be now if I’d told him to just stick that envelope in the Hutch Room, sight unseen?”

“I know exactly where we’d be,” Hutch promised. He resumed petting Starsky’s hair, looked into his eyes, spoke in a much softer, kinder voice. “Here’s how things would have gone down if you hadn’t looked at that picture and not seen what you saw. . .”

* * *

Hutch was but an hour into his harrowing nighttime escape, heading west on Bolivia’s infamous highway to hell, dodging loose rocks and mud underfoot and cold, humid rain from the forest, mercilessly slamming himself into the hard mountain to hide from the occasional fruit truck that passed—and not certain he’d succeed given how little there was to conceal him—when he finally got a break.

A curve in the road and a produce truck on its way to La Paz seemed to figuratively collide in his favor: he was able to hide behind the bend just long enough to catch a ride, climbing onto the back of the fruit-laden vehicle with the stealth of a jungle cat as it passed. He hung mostly to its driver’s side to keep from being accidentally thrown into the gorge with every rut the truck hit on the road. At the same time, he had to keep from being seen in the side view mirror. It was a delicate and difficult balance—and the trip was long.

By the time the truck reached the intersection between the dirt road and the paved highway, Hutch was nearly faint from the exhaustion of hanging onto the icy, wet ropes that tied the wooden fruit container closed. He had barely been able to stand on the damaged bumper to keep upright. Deciding that he could easily be seen as a stowaway from cars approaching from the rear, he dropped off of it as soon as the pavement gave way to a sloping ditch along a slow-speed bend in the road.

A few practiced rolls he’d learned and used from his academy and workforce days, and he quickly slid unscathed down the embankment far enough to be hidden from passing cars. It was there, in hard gravel and high desert brush, that he was able to take his first replenishing breaths of needed oxygen, drink an abundance of the water he’d brought, and eat some of the fruit. He even gave himself a quarter-hour to rest, figuring he was still ahead of any search party dispatched from Ryker’s plantation; no one would know the German was dead until some time after breakfast hours.

Still, Hutch didn’t want to waste the cover of night or risk his chance to fully escape. He began walking across the sparsely landmarked desert while there was still a black sky. Keeping an eye on the head- and taillights he could see from the highway above him, and listening to the gurgle of water in the river to his left, he was able to follow the route toward the capital city. Elevation was only a thousand feet lower than the plantation’s altitude, but he already felt the difference in his lungs. Despite the lack of dangers posed by the Death Road, his stroll over uneven terrain in the dark of night was an arduous undertaking. Only when the hint of sunrise began to light up the sky did he purposefully find his way back to the pavement. He waited until the road was clear in both directions before he crossed the two-lane highway and adopted the demeanor of a seasoned hitchhiker.

It wasn’t long before a badly damaged pick-up truck pulled onto the shoulder in front of him to give him a ride. As he climbed into its bed, he was met by a welcoming committee of other dubious travelers: a woman and her very young daughter, an elderly and weathered farmer, some kind of beast that was either sheep or goat—or both—and an assortment of chickens, doves, and quail in stacked cages. He nodded in silent greetings at the humans when they made eye contact and then he slumped against the passenger side tailgate to stew in his own thoughts as the others seemed to do likewise in theirs.

Eventually, the crowded city of La Paz loomed on a near horizon just as the sun rose above it, sparkling yellow in the otherwise bluing sky. Hutch hadn’t seen that kind of sunshine in months, because most of what blanketed the plantation came from over a mountain top. In the last half-hour of the trip, he dozed, having become accustomed to the curvy, sometimes bumpy, ride, the wind in his hat-covered ears, the warmth of the dawning sun on his not-long-ago cold body. He could have slept forever if the trip hadn’t ended when it did.

At what seemed to be a tourist stop along the highway—and one he remembered when Starsky and he had taken the journey to Yanacachi—everyone, including the driver, left the truck to buy breakfast snacks and drinks. Hutch stood by one of the vendors on the south side of the road, penniless, and realized there were adobe shacks on the downside of the ridge. They weren’t just humble buildings; they were the poorest kind: makeshift roofs of straw and aluminum, mud-brick walls and broken wooden doors, stray dogs and livestock scavenging about. He also recalled it was there, less than fifty feet to the east, that Starsky had gotten out of the cab to unsuccessfully vomit on the shoulder of the highway, suffering as he did from altitude sickness. Beyond that was the serpentine road that took them to the valley floor, the one they’d followed along the river to Yanacachi, the same road over which, unbeknownst to them at the time, Ryker and his cohorts had trailed them.

Hutch knew then how close he was to the city. In less than an hour, he’d be on American soil. At first, he did think he would have to hitch another ride, but after the travelers bought their refreshments, the driver—a middle-aged Bolivian in dirty, hem-rolled jeans and a well-worn alpaca poncho—motioned everyone back to the truck; it was time to go. Hutch helped the woman and her child first and then climbed in after, securing his place at the tailgate. It hadn’t occurred to him until she offered him water from her bottle that he was quite thirsty again. He accepted a few sips just to be polite and thanked her in Spanish.

In the hustle and bustle of the city, the truck had to slow in crowded traffic, but it made faster progress than he could have made on foot. It wasn’t until the morning rush hour emerged and traffic nearly came to a standstill that everyone else in the truck bed got out of it when it stopped at a light—and Hutch did the same. The driver quickly hung his arm out of the window and banged on the battered door to get Hutch’s attention. “¿A dónde, señor?” he repeatedly asked.

“La embassy de Los Estados Unidos,” Hutch replied as he neared the front of the truck. He didn’t know the Spanish word for “embassy,” but figured the Bolivian understood.

“Entra y te llevaré allí,” his new acquaintance insisted, motioning to the empty truck bed. “Todavía está demasiado lejos para que camines.”

“What the fuck does that mean, hm?” Starsky impatiently asked. He tightly gripped Hutch’s chin and wagged his partner’s head to shake the translation out of him. “Can you just tell me the story in English? Do you have to use words I don’t know?”

Hutch laughed. “Do you want an authentic story or a full-of-shit one?”

“I want one I can understand.”

“Well, this is my story, so suck it up.”

“Careful with that word,” Starsky playfully warned. He was still settled on the bed beside Hutch, both of them stark naked, enjoying the peacefulness of the morning as much as the comfort between them, but he was anxious for this different ending Hutch had promised. It didn’t have to be so difficult to decipher, though, did it? “Tell me what happens. The guy gets you to the Embassy, right?”

“Do you always skip to the end of a story?”

“I don’t read stories. I read fiction.”

“Fiction is stories.”

“Then I read the other kind.”

“Nonfiction?” Hutch asked, sounding purposefully demeaning. “Werewolves and vampire nonfiction?”

Starsky ignored the insult in pursuit of his own explanation. “There’s no point in skipping to the end in nonfiction because those aren’t stories, know what I mean?”

“As if you have to explain it to me.”

“Okay, okay, get back to it. Is the guy going to drive you to the Embassy? Is that what he said?”

“He said it was still too far for me to walk the distance, so I was to get in the truck.”

“And you trust him?”

“No reason not to. I could have easily escaped and disappeared into the crowd.”

“Okay, so he gets you to the Embassy. Then what happens next?”

Hutch leaned against the counter; he was exhausted. It had been a long day and an even longer night. By then, Elena would have discovered that Ryker was missing for breakfast. She would have alerted Carlos—

“The guy who didn’t jerk you off,” Starsky injected with knowing satisfaction.

“I need to talk to the person who was in charge of the David Starsky case about three months ago,” Hutch wearily told the receptionist. “I have some new and compelling evidence that I’m sure will be . . . enlightening.” He was definitely a suspicious looking character, dressed as he was in a thick black sweater and a chullo cap with ear flaps, his blond hair tucked up under the chunky wool. He still had the pillowcase filled with food and water tied to his waist with a robe sash. And he was wearing boots—covered in mud.

“What’s your name?” the seated American woman behind the information desk asked in perfect, accent-less English.

Trying to remember, Hutch blurted, “Michael.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Starsky whined, pinching Hutch’s bicep until he got slapped again. “You wouldn’t say that.”

“It’s what I’d been called for three months.”

“But it’s dumb. You’d remember your name.”

Hutch rubbed the spot where Starsky had tweaked him. “Can you stop hurting me—and shut the fuck up while you’re at it? It’s my story and I’ll tell it the way I see it. Besides, I’m looking forward to Roberts’ expression when he finds out who’s really come to visit.”

Starsky apparently appreciated that idea because he resigned himself to silence, but not without first hanging his leg over Hutch’s thighs, reminding Hutch of his closeness and that he would, despite Hutch’s verbal warning, use force if necessary to retaliate for any further stupid remarks.

“Michael?” she asked, waiting for a last name.

“Just Michael. Whoever was in charge is going to want to hear what I have to say.”

She called a uniformed guard to the desk and asked him to escort Hutch into an interrogation room, telling Hutch she’d notify the proper authority in the interim.

Once seated, Hutch opened his sweater and emptied his stash of food and water onto the table; he left the pillowcase beside his collection, and ate more of his fruit and crackers while he waited. He was hungrier than he realized. But he was also as close to home as he’d been in months; he had no complaints. Even the meal was satisfying in more ways than how it killed his hunger.

Col. Paul Roberts eventually arrived in the room, dressed in a neatly pressed-blue Air Force uniform with all the appropriate epaulets. He’d brought the file on David Starsky, or so it looked like he had, and sat across from Hutch at the small table. A guard stood in the opened doorway as Roberts made eye contact with this unusually dressed American. “How may I help you?” he cautiously asked.

“Nothing about me rings a bell?” Hutch wondered, pulling the wool cap off his head to reveal his blond hair, as disheveled as it was, and forcing a smile. He also looked tired, no doubt, appeared as fatigued as he felt, but inside he was anxious and relieved at once. “Maybe this’ll rattle the cage: I killed Stefan Ryker last night.”

Roberts leaned back in his chair, dumbfounded and confused. In the extended silence Hutch gave him to let it sink in, Roberts eventually opened the folder on the table in front of him and stared at its contents for several minutes. Then he slowly lifted his eyes and looked into Hutch’s. “Well, I’ll be go to hell,” he mumbled under his breath.

“You or me be damned?”

“Meaning . . . I’m truly floored.”

Hutch filled him in—from what he remembered of his well-planned and executed capture in Coroico to that very unbelievable minute in the American Embassy’s interrogation room. Roberts’ eyes filled with tears several times and he wiped them away until he no longer cared that Hutch noticed his dismay. The U.S. Air Force Colonel kept saying, “oh my god” in audible whispers, repeatedly shook his head, and seemed as heartbroken as he was visibly stunned.

Even Starsky felt choked up. He scratched Hutch’s hairless chest with a light touch, mostly to get his partner’s focus on him, but also because he wanted to consciously feel the man alive beneath his fingers again. “Imagine if it had gone down that way,” he said in halting cadence. “Roberts would have been blown away.”

“Can you shut up?”

“You mean, there’s more to this story?”

“I still have to get home, don’t I?”

“Well, yeah, okay. Carry on.”

Roberts had a phone brought into the room, set it on the table, pushed it toward Hutch. “The call is on us,” he said, trying to sound lighthearted in a moment of gravity. He requested his assistant to join them and gave her orders to book a flight to the United States that night while Hutch dialed a familiar number.

His heart pounded harder with each unanswered ring.

“I would have answered,” Starsky insisted.

There was no pick up on the line. One . . . two . . . five rings.

“I would answer, Hutch,” Starsky said, anxious to have the call connected. “C’mon, you know I would have.”

“What were you doing that Saturday, huh?” Hutch asked, as if he knew the facts would support his version of events, and not Starsky’s. “Do you remember?”

Starsky thought hard. “Oh, yeah,” he said in a subdued voice when the memory hit him. “I was moping around the farm; I’d only been back from the cabin a few days.”

Hutch set the receiver in its cradle. “No answer,” he told Roberts. “He’s probably out golfing.”

Starsky nudged him. “I told you: I was at the farm.”

“Besides,” Hutch added, sitting back in his chair and meeting Roberts’ stare, “I suppose we have to arrest me for murder.”

“There’ll be no charges,” Roberts said with authoritative certainty. “You acted in self-defense.”

“I premeditated his murder.”

“You were self-preserving from the moment he took you.”

Hutch couldn’t argue that fact. He was relieved that he wouldn’t be charged. “So, I really do get to go home then?”

“On the next flight out . . . around 9 p.m. In the meantime, we can try to reach Starsky again. But first let’s get you fed and into some appropriate clothes. We will have to issue you a temporary passport and fill out other paperwork, all of which can be done by the time the plane leaves.”

Roberts also booked a day-stay room for Hutch at a nearby hotel where he could mentally unwind, and sleep if he had to, until flight time. Hutch made several trips that afternoon to the Embassy—after he bought new clothes and shoes—to sign off on certain documents, but also, and most importantly, to try to reach Starsky again by phone. But the line was never answered.

“Now you’re pissing me off,” Starsky complained. “I would have eventually answered the phone. I’m not deaf.”

Hutch touched Starsky’s cheek to convey the empathy in his reflections; he wasn’t making fun. “In my story, you came home from the cabin, hid under the blankets for days on our bed, mourning me, and soaked the pillow in your tears.”

“That’s what I would have done,” Starsky solemnly agreed. What incoming calls? He’d barely heard anything during that time—except his own sobs.

By early evening, Hutch abandoned the effort to get Starsky on the phone; in a few hours, he’d be on a plane headed north. He would call Dobey when he landed in the morning, shock his captain into utter disbelief simply for the sheer joy of it, and then nonchalantly ask his superior to arrange a ride for him from the airport to the farm. Although Roberts gave Hutch enough money for clothes and whatever else he might need on the long journey home, both in pesos and American dollars, Hutch hoped the U.S. police department would pay his cab fare upon his arrival in the states.

All of that went according to plan, too. The Boeing 747 lifted off the altiplano tarmac as if it had only one job to do: and that was to get Detective Ken Hutchinson back into the arms of his heartbroken soulmate. The 14-hour flight made a short stop in Lima, Peru, and then there was no turning back from that point on. Hutch admittedly cried when the wheels of that jumbo jet touched real-world American soil.

Dobey wept on the phone when he answered the incoming call that Monday morning and heard Hutch’s unmistakable voice on the other end of the line. Although the story was believable as much as it wasn’t, there was no confusing Hutch with anyone else, not in that instance, both because of his familiar warmth, but also because of his improbable experience—and his desperate effort to get home . . . to Starsky.

It had rained heavily over the weekend and the farm grounds were still wet; water pooled in pockets on the gravel driveway that passed the Grace House and circled in front of the main farmhouse, the one where Hutch lived with Detective David Starsky. Hutch thanked the police officer for the lengthy ride from the airport and waved him off as he pulled away and headed for the road. No one seemed to have heard the squad car arrive because no one came out to greet him.

It was just as well. Hutch was finally on terra firma, the patch he called home, a place where he’d planted trees and flowers, fruit and vegetables, lay in the sun-drenched grass, fed and watered two rescued pigs, bantered and bathed in the warmth of his partner, made love in a tent with that dark-haired boy in the far corner of the property. . .

He inhaled the fresh air, listened momentarily to the serene silence, absorbed the moment he was in, the coming home, the anticipation of what lay ahead for them both. A reunion like no other, not even that far-fetched one on a beach in the South Pacific. Hutch had gone looking for Starsky in that instance because he’d come to suspect that Starsky wasn’t dead after all. But on this day, that morning, as Hutch stood at the foot of the porch steps, the man in the house still believed he’d lost everything, especially and including the single most important thing in the world to him.

Hutch climbed the steps. He opened the screen door. He turned the handle to the front door. Or at least tried. It was locked. So he banged on the door instead—forcefully pounded on it with his fist and repeatedly punched the doorbell. As expected, he could hear Starsky cussing inside the house as he angrily approached.

“Fucking stop it already!” Starsky yelled as he swung open the door. “Will you just—”

And then Starsky immediately froze when he laid eyes on Hutch. At first Starsky was confused, Hutch could tell, not certain he knew what he saw, mentally struggling to figure out what kind of prank was being leveled at him—or hallucination he was having—before his demeanor slowly turned to anger instead. In that fleeting moment, Starsky settled on another untruth: that he was being played somehow by someone—and it wasn’t funny. It was the last thing from funny. He stood straight, dressed in robe and nothing else, barefoot, his hair tousled, sleepy-eyed and unshaven, his thick brows scrunched in annoyance, his eyes narrowed in angry retaliation.

Despite his partner’s hostile appearance, Hutch hadn’t seen anything more beautiful. “Are you going to just stand there,” he quietly asked, “or will you let me in?”

That’s when it hit Starsky: from the sound of Hutch’s voice to his perfect face and his unappreciated sarcasm, coupled with his anticipating posture—his height and his weight, his clothes and his smile, that warmth and formidable confidence—all bathed in Starsky’s deep and desperate want for it to be true and real, that there had simply been an unforgivable mistake. Hutch had never died. He’d simply been stupidly misplaced. Starsky felt weak in the knees; he stumbled backward, pushed by the sudden realization that Hutch was no ghost, no illusion—that he actually stood there, alive and well and in the flesh. Starsky lost his balance, fell on his butt—

“Wait a minute,” Starsky argued, not liking Hutch’s assessment of how that greeting would have unfolded had Starsky written it. “I’m not a wuss. I wouldn’t have landed on my butt. Besides, you’d be crying your eyes out when I opened that door.”

“Yeah?” Hutch asked, laughing at their mutual sentimentality. “How do you figure you would have reacted to opening the door that morning and finding me on the porch? Serious answer only.”

Starsky heard the car turn around in the driveway, but he was too despondent to investigate. It seemed it had come and gone anyway, so what was the point in knowing who it had been? Unless Ken Hutchinson had risen from the dead and miraculously arrived at the farm, Starsky had no interest in anybody else. He’d spent the night in grief all over again, knowing he could have called on his friend Davis for some comfort, but he was too overwhelmed by his sadness to make that call.

Only when he heard the damn banging on the door and the repeated doorbell loudly ringing in the hallway did Starsky figure he had to handle the intruder, if for no other reason than to punch him in the face for the aggravation. But when Starsky got out of bed and went to the door, opening it to bright sunshine that morning, cussing as he did—“Fucking stop it already!”—he discovered that it was Ken Hutchinson, risen from the dead, standing there on the porch, rudely summoning him.

They made eye contact.

That much Starsky knew they would have done. Blue eyes to blue eyes, the way they so often did: wordlessly telling each other what they already knew to be true about themselves and how deeply they felt for each other. He would have opened the door for Hutch, too, let him into the house—or they’d have grabbed the other in the doorway before either of them could cross the threshold. Starsky would hold onto Hutch for dear life, he’d sob and he’d . . .

No. That’s not how it would have transpired. Starsky had to rethink it. He angrily opened the door to find Ken Hutchinson on the porch, as if Hutch hadn’t missed a moment in three months after he’d been declared dead, and by Starsky’s own assessment. Dead and cremated. Stored in a red tin box locked away inside the room at the end of the hall. The Hutch Room—where Starsky had put everything else that reminded him of his partner.

How on earth had Starsky been so wrong about what had happened to Hutch? All that circumstantial evidence. All that preponderance of evidence. All that compelling and convincing evidence. Or maybe that wasn’t Hutch on the porch. It was just someone who looked like him, smiled like him, sounded like him. . . Or Starsky was still dreaming. Or hallucinating. Wanting something so godawful badly that he could almost see and touch it. But would he see it that vividly? The sparkling color of those eyes, that luminous blond hair, the green plaid shirt and blue jeans, Hutch’s warm smile, the light shade of his skin, the shadow behind him. Would Starsky feel the cool air the way he did? Hear the early bird songs? Have heard that car pull up and then drive away? Hutch’s voice, asking if he could come into the house?

Goddammit, that had to be Hutch! Because only Hutch would think to ask such a dumb question in a moment like that.

Starsky felt weak in the knees; he stumbled backward, pushed by the sudden realization that Hutch was no ghost, no illusion—that he actually stood there, alive and well and in the flesh. Starsky lost his balance, fell on his butt.

Hutch laughed with him until Starsky felt duly ridiculed—and then they wrestled on the bed. “I told you that’s what you would have done,” Hutch kept saying. “Gone right down on your ass.” They ended up with Hutch straddling Starsky, pinning Starsky’s arms over his head to the mattress, looking deeply into his eyes. Hutch no longer played. “I’d have come home no matter what you did,” he said, not smugly. “I planned to murder Ryker on that full moon night whether you returned to Bolivia or you didn’t. I’d have gone to the Embassy. I’d have ended up right here with you again.”

Starsky’s eyes filled with tears—or maybe they hadn’t left him from the last time he felt emotional beyond words. “I put you through so much,” he sorrily said. “All that time . . . you performing for him . . . you not knowing I’d gone back to America . . . all that scheming you had to do when you realized I’d left . . . all the grief it caused you to premeditate a murder . . . to plan your escape . . . to get yourself home.”

“I rarely shed a tear,” Hutch confessed. He sat over Starsky’s naked groin, warm skin to warmer skin, careful not to injure their sensitive sacs and penises, yet still snugly holding Starsky between his knees and thighs. “On those rare occasions when I cried,” he added, “I cried for you. Who did you cry for, Starsk?”

Starsky cried even then—for himself. He’d spent months crying. That was the answer to Hutch’s question. His pain had been so much deeper, more devastating, life-altering and hope-destroying. He’d hurt himself. Hutch simply wanted him to realize that the punishment had been self-inflicted . . . and enough.

“Okay,” Starsky whispered, drying his eyes when Hutch released his arms and sat back to let him. “But I get to have a fantasy ending, too, right? I mean, I get to tell you how it should have happened, don’t I, Hutch, hm?”

Hutch crossed his arms as if he planned to sit on Starsky for a while—and would gladly listen. “Be my guest,” he said with a warm and welcoming smile.

Relieved, Starsky looked off to gather his thoughts, then gazed back at Hutch, into those patient blue eyes, and began to tell his story. “Okay, so it’s the day you went missing. . .”

* * *

“It’s not him,” Starsky said flatly. He was both relieved and elated to learn the burnt corpse in the morgue—about to be cremated—wasn’t Ken Hutchinson. But it meant Ken Hutchinson still needed to be found and that made Starsky anxious and desperate on an entirely different level.

Roberts was confused. “What’d you say?”

“It’s not him,” Starsky repeated. He stood in the lobby outside the now-closed door to the coroner’s office and stared at the Colonel. “I thought it was Hutch; all signs pointed in that direction. But it’s not Hutch. I know this like I know anything.”

“I don’t understand,” Roberts said, approaching Starsky, as if he would go past him and into the room to verify for himself what he could never know as well as the detective did. Instead, he stopped a few feet from the door, realizing this truth, and turned his attention to Starsky. “Are you now saying it’s a case of mistaken identity?”

“Oh, somebody wanted me to believe it’s Hutch. That’s why they tried passing this guy off as him: Hutch’s identification, his clothes, his personal effects—even his coloring and build—but it isn’t him.”

“What do you base that on?”

Starsky glanced around the room to size up the audience. He remembered that the female attendant—who was still present—only spoke Spanish, and he knew this because she needed Roberts’ translations to communicate with Starsky about Hutch’s belongings when she inventoried them for him. The other employees were in the morgue preparing a dead body for cremation in time for Starsky’s departure from Bolivia. He felt free to answer Roberts’ question. “It’s not his dick,” he said in a low voice—and not with a hint of whimsy. When he saw the expected dismay in Robert’s expression, Starsky quickly added, “My partner was circumcised.”

“You meant to tell him I wasn’t circumcised,” Hutch corrected Starsky, fondling his penis’ foreskin as evidence. “Do I have to prove it to you? I’ll gladly do it.”

“You can stay out of my story is what you can do,” Starsky replied. “This is between Roberts and me.”

Starsky’s declaration about his partner’s penis left Roberts somewhat speechless.

Starsky stepped closer. “I’ve known the guy for fifteen years,” he explained. “We had some conversations . . . about genital mutilation . . . how they did that to girls in . . . Africa, I think it is . . . and what the differences were for us boys. We talked about what we would do if it had been up to us to decide whether we wanted to be cut or not. He was against it and said he wished he could have been the one to make that decision.”

“Why are you lying to him?” Hutch plaintively asked. He leaned forward, placed his hands on either side of Starsky’s shoulders, looked sternly at him.

“You figure it out, Mr. Mason, sir,” Starsky said, not breaking the playful eye contact. “Or you could keep your mouth shut and let me tell my story.”

“The way you did for mine?”

“C’mon, you know I tell better stories.”

Hutch shifted his weight to Starsky’s hips again, his nonverbal retreat telling Starsky to continue.

Roberts relaxed, rubbed the back of his neck as if he could soothe himself further, and spoke quietly, despite that no one at the morgue could really understand their conversation. “What are you saying, Detective?”

“Hutch couldn’t have grown a foreskin,” Starsky stated the obvious. “If it had been the reverse, okay, maybe he got himself cut later in life and just didn’t tell me about it. But he was already cut. I saw him a couple of times in the locker room, too, you know, in the showers. It wasn’t hard to miss that fact.”

That wasn’t completely true. Sure, they shared the same locker room and often showered after a long day or before a date or following a strenuous workout. But Hutch was shy then—and repressed, so Starsky never really saw—

“Hey,” Hutch interrupted him. “Don’t be mean.”

“I have to convince Roberts of something,” Starsky explained. “Do you want to hear the end of the story or argue with me?” He held Hutch by his elbows to keep him from impatiently pulling away. “Let me tell Roberts what I know the only way I can tell him I know it, okay?”

Hutch repressed his smile.

“Hearing my thoughts is how you can tell I’m lying to him,” Starsky furthered. “But the truth is I never saw you in the shower, not before we started playing around. You’d only wash up if the stalls were empty, remember? Or if the nearest person to the showers was fifty feet away. I saw a lot of your ass, but it was like you were ashamed of that big dick, always hiding it whenever anybody was nearby, including me.”

“Then how’d you know it was big?”

“I’ve seen it since, numb nuts—or have you forgotten?”

“Okay, so I guess I didn’t want anyone to be jealous if they saw how unbelievably huge I am,” Hutch explained, as if it were true, including how he viewed his own size. His shy smile and his looking away when he spoke were evidence that he felt somewhat embarrassed even then. “I was raised by different parents,” he added sincerely, looking at Starsky again, and speaking as if to remind him. “I was never the ‘got it, flaunt it’ boy you are.”

“I’m not passing judgment, buddy. I’m telling you like it is in my story: the facts. Well, I mean, I’m fudging the facts so I can convince Roberts the body isn’t yours.”

“I’ll stay out of it then,” Hutch promised. He settled as if he might actually do what he said.

There simply was no other way to tell Roberts what Starsky knew with every fiber of his being: that the body about to be reduced to ash didn’t belong to Detective Kenneth Hutchinson. Starsky had gone into the cremation room to say a final goodbye, despite how repulsed and devastated he was to lay eyes on the charred corpse. He didn’t plan to look at its non-existent face, but to at least touch Hutch’s hand one more time—the one not burned to a crisp. He even thought he knew Hutch’s hands better than he did; maybe under such duress, Starsky simply hadn’t focused when he saw the man’s remains on the side of the Death Road after the ‘accident’; Starsky had been that stunned.

But once he pulled back the sheet, exposing only the right arm and hand of the body on that wheeled table, he sensed something was off. Hutch had beautiful hands; they’d probably even be beautiful in death. But these weren’t so perfect. The fingers were shorter, maybe even a bit narrower overall. The body itself seemed leaner than he remembered Hutch’s muscled build. And when a stray thought about how much he loved Hutch, and how deeply they expressed that love while lying in the jungle grass beside the Rock Wall, Starsky felt compelled to lift the sheet even further.

It wasn’t a conscious determination. There was no proverbial light that switched on over his head. He simply felt the blood drain to his feet and his heart begin to pound and his breath get knocked out of him. That wasn’t Hutch’s flaccid penis he laid eyes on. He knew it in an instant, instinctively, and long before he made the mental comparisons: less than a third the girth of Hutch’s phallus, at least a couple of inches shorter, and a more pronounced crown enclosed in foreskin.

That wasn’t Hutch’s sac, either: not nearly as bulging, nowhere near the full weight of his maleness. In the thoughts that subsequently flooded Starsky’s mind, he realized it wasn’t Hutch’s leg, nor his knee, not his foot, definitely not his toes. Hutch had such sweet-looking feet, ones that made Starsky enjoy giving foot massages as much as Hutch loved getting them.

There wasn’t an inch of Hutch that Starsky didn’t know privately and intimately. Finally given time to explore the nude cadaver and he immediately realized he’d been deceived. It rattled him to his core: how had he been so stupid not to have noticed before?

“I’m not going to listen to this story if you’re going to beat yourself up,” Hutch said, pulling out of Starsky’s grasp as he proved his intent. He sat back over Starsky’s groin again, carefully, crossed his arms, and stared at his partner. “Is that where you’re going with this?”

Starsky was caught in a place he knew Hutch wouldn’t let him dwell. “Okay . . . I’ll move on.”

“What are you saying, Detective?” Roberts asked again, seeming to fully accept the fact that the Hutch-tagged body in the city morgue wasn’t Starsky’s partner. “Someone wanted Hutch dead, so—”

“If they wanted him dead, they’d have killed him and left him that way. Instead, they had to trick me: burn the face off some guy, dress him in Hutch’s clothes, make sure his identification was still readable, keep his personal things on him, and plant him out in the open where I was sure to stumble on him with the right set of pawns. I walked right into their game and never gave it a second thought.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“Whoever took him. Whoever did this didn’t do it alone.”

“I would argue you have tangible evidence,” Roberts reminded him.

“Except the convenience of Hutch’s face.”

“Why would anyone go through all that trouble to make you think he was dead?”

“So I’d leave the country and never look for him.”

“What would they want with him?”

“How would I know? Why would anyone kidnap somebody? To hold him for ransom.”

“There’s been no call—”

“To sell him for sex.”

“At age forty?”

“He’s still beautiful,” Starsky insisted. “I say that purely from an objective reality.” A phrase he borrowed from Hutch.

“But the sex trade tends to prey on younger and weaker victims,” Roberts debated him.

“Then the labor trade. The entertainment trade. The ‘I just want a pretty boy to play with’ trade. I mean, don’t you think it’s suspicious that I got all those things—his clothes, his ring, his identification—but I never got to see his face?”

“Because it was burned off in the accident.”

“He left that town, if he left it at all, for a reason,” Starsky insisted. “I know Hutch. I mean, I really know Hutch. We have the same mind, not just the same . . . convictions of the heart. That’s what’s bugged me: why didn’t he try to find me? why did he get on that bus? He wouldn’t have left Corkville without me. I just know he wouldn’t have.”

“So, to hell with the tangible evidence? His wallet, his driver’s license, his passport, rings, belt . . . that bottle you recognized that was found in his pocket?”

“I’m not saying those things aren’t his; I’m saying they were planted on somebody else’s corpse—someone already dead or someone they murdered for the prop.”

“Kill someone else rather than kill Hutch?”

“Hutch was the target: wanted alive.”

“And they staged such a scene so you’d go home and stop looking for him? That’s your logic?”

“To hell with logic. I’m going to go with my gut on this one, Colonel.”

Roberts seemed interested in playing the devil’s advocate before he would believe that Starsky’s partner was still alive. Convinced, he immediately ordered the morgue to hold off on cremating the imposter’s body until it could be fingerprinted and its next-of-kin could be contacted—assuming they could figure out who the dead man was. Roberts then signed paperwork to that effect while Starsky paced the floor, anxious to get moving on a search, even though he didn’t know where to look—except to return to the starting point.

“I was going to say you should go back to Coroico,” Hutch injected, not smugly. He had relaxed over Starsky’s groin and sounded excited to help Starsky find him.

“I can do this,” Starsky replied, hoping to be left to his own skill. He squeezed Hutch’s thighs to convince him. “Just listen to me, will you? I have it all worked out.”

“This’ll be fascinating,” Hutch mumbled, a playful glint in his eye. “By the time you get around to the ending, we’ll be refueled for another romp. We’ll never get to breakfast at this rate.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“I was going to make pancakes.”

“You think I’d pass up sex for pancakes?”

“I guess we’ll see.”

“Dream on, buddy. But shut up in the meantime. Let me finish my story, okay? Don’t you want to know how I find you?”

Hutch drew pinched fingers across his lips as if he promised not to open his mouth again until Starsky completed his narrative.

But Roberts first dragged him to a nearby eatery, ordered a couple of coffees, and then began his own interrogation, designed to help them figure out where Hutch was and how to get him home.

“You arrived in La Paz,” Roberts began. “I assume on an early morning flight if you came from California. You went straight to a hotel or a place to eat.”

“Hotel—because I wasn’t feeling so good.”

“Altitude?”

“Hutch dropped me in the room and left me for about an hour to find a way to fix it.”

“I assume you got from the airport to the hotel by cab?”

“It seemed it was a random cab,” Starsky recalled. He twirled his coffee cup, but was too interested in poring over the facts to drink anything. “I was sicker than a dying dog, so Hutch made all of the arrangements; he also speaks better Spanish than me.” On a second thought, and because he figured he should say it before Hutch did, he added, “He speaks better English than me, too.”

Roberts had the same reaction Hutch did: a repressed smile. “And nothing seemed out of the ordinary then? no tone of voice? no confusion or misinterpretations? no overtures or—”

“Honestly? Nothing seemed out of sorts until we got to lower altitude. But that just means my head was upside down those first few hours after we got here. There may have been something going on behind us that not even he was aware of because he was so bent on taking care of me.”

He tried not to reveal the rest of his truth: that Hutch doted on him because they were lovers, not just police partners. At the same time, he wanted Roberts to know everything that needed knowing, so they could solve the crime together.

“You guys were only here a few hours before you left the city and headed for lower ground?”

“Hutch hired a car to Corkville less than an hour after we got to the hotel. We were only there long enough for me to take a shower and get something to eat: fruit and bread and lots of water. But I still dry-heaved on the side of the road.”

“I’m sorry,” Roberts said, empathetically. “Altitude is tough, especially coming from near-sea level to this city’s 13,000 feet.”

“Hutch was fine; he said he’d prepared better than me: ate healthier and stayed hydrated even before we left the States. But it was just as well I got to feeling sick when I did because it was right before a turnoff into the valley. The cab driver told us I’d have been sicker if we’d stayed the route we were on and gone higher yet onto the Death Road.”

Roberts figured it in his mind and concluded, “You must have stopped near Undauvi and taken the switchback down to the river.”

“That’s what we did,” Starsky said excitedly, his memory triggered by Roberts’ assumption. He liked that the Colonel was on the same logistical wavelength about his whereabouts. “To a town called . . . Yanna. . .”

“Yanacachi.”

Starsky snapped his fingers. “Right! We spent two nights there. Laid low. Drank more water. Rested. I was feeling so much better by the time we got to that town.”

“Tell me about the driver who took you there.”

Starsky shrugged. He barely remembered the man. “Bolivian,” he said, to at least narrow down the ethnicity and nationality. “Seemed to know his way around . . . and had no fear driving those cliff-edged roads.” More details rose to the surface. “Hutch said the driver’s name was ‘Raul,’” but it didn’t seem to trigger any recognition with Roberts. “Hutch said Raul spoke a few English words,” Starsky continued, but still no visible signs of conscious perception from Roberts. “Hutch asked him to pull over so we could get out and enjoy the view of the valley—and Raul did that without hesitation. Just a guy showing off his country.”

“Did Raul choose the hotel?”

“I think Hutch got the recommendation from the La Paz hotel. We left most of our stuff there and went off to Yannaville just for the couple of days. And everything is still how we left it at the La Paz hotel; no shady goings-on there, I don’t think.”

“Did you guys see Raul again?”

“Nope. As far as I could tell, and never having been in Bolivia before, all things seemed usual. I mean, it’s been unusual to see bona fide ya-mas in the middle of the street and butterflies as big as your hand, and things like that, but people are the same: waiters and tourists. Oh, wait!”

He remembered the first time he felt things were off. “We met these three guys at one of the restaurants; they came over to our table because . . . well, I mean, they were Australian and British, and we’re Americans, so—”

“Naturally,” Roberts said with noticeable understanding. “Tell me about these guys.”

“They said they were part of a bicycle team that meets every year and rides the Death Road from its summit to Corkville, but the British one, he only came along as a friend to hang out. He was going to wait in town while they did the race—and that’s why they’d come through Yannaville, so he didn’t have to ride the Death Road. We had that in common.”

“Anything off about that or them?”

“Just that the British guy—dammit, I can’t remember his name—well, he couldn’t take his eyes off Hutch, know what I mean?” When he saw Roberts slight nod, Starsky added an aside. “See? Even at forty, Hutch still has it, you know? That Brit guy was probably early twenties, I remember thinking.”

Roberts smiled again, or tried not to, when he seemed to realize that Starsky had proof about Hutch’s beauty.

“I told the Brit that Hutch didn’t swing that way and he was wasting his time dreaming.”

“That was brave.”

“The guy was obviously gay. It wasn’t like all of us didn’t know it, even if he didn’t. But he understood me. He apologized. We had a nice conversation with them, and then Hutch and me talked later about how open the Brit guy was; it’s not often we see that kind of thing.”

“Did you run into those boys again?”

“After we got up to Corkville and Hutch disappeared,” Starsky remembered. “While I was looking for him, I ran into the cyclists in the street; they were doing the tourist thing, you know, looking at all the wares for sale and listening to the music. I asked them if they’d seen Hutch and they struck me as honest when they said they hadn’t. They would let him know I was looking for him if they saw him and he was to meet me back at the hotel. I wish I’d kept in touch with them. I could have used their help.”

“Why did you and Hutch come to Bolivia?”

“Vacation.”

“To Bolivia?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, I know it’s not France or Italy, but we were always joking that someday we’d cut out of the rat race and go hide out in Bolivia. We finally decided to put our money where our mouth was.”

“I can check the airlines,” Roberts suggested, “and find out whether a British guy and his Australian friends are still in Bolivia or have gone home. I think the race ended yesterday.”

“Maybe we try to figure out who has the kind of connections and power to kidnap a can’t-miss-him American cop—in broad daylight—without a trace. It must be someone who has influence over the local people—and the hospital and the police station and the cab drivers, and whoever it was that staged that bus accident. Know anyone who fits that bill, Colonel?”

Roberts stared out the window and into his thoughts. After a minute, Starsky saw the realization wash over him and Roberts’ expression dissolve from perplexed wonderment to sudden and determined conviction. “I do know someone who fits that bill,” he said, sounding as expectant as he appeared. “Stefan Ryker.” He sat back in his chair, stunned by the revelation. “Ryker had a European boyfriend who died recently from some strange illness; he’d been sick a long time, seemed to just waste away. He was young, too, which made it more mysterious. But he was also . . . wait for it, Detective . . . tall, Caucasian, and blond.”

“This Ryker . . . he has means and motive to take Hutch, do you think?”

“Ryker provides for a lot of people in the surrounding jungle towns. Came here years and years ago and throws his wealth around, gives the locals badly needed jobs, health care, shelter, and other provisions. He runs a large papaya plantation with a ton of workers, most of whom live in Coroico, and sell their wares in La Paz. He’s known to be a bit eccentric, but people love him because he’s so generous—to a fault, maybe. I met him once, a couple of summers ago, and decided he was harmless, but I think more than a few of his closest allies would do anything for him—including bring him a tall, blond American male if he asked for one.”

Roberts leaned forward on the table as if he wanted to savor every moment of his next question, especially the answer he seemed to predict. “You didn’t happen to see or run into a fairly good-looking guy in his sixties, almost as tall as you are, who was quite decidedly a German, did you?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have said he was ‘fairly good-looking,’” Hutch argued. He slid off Starsky to rest his butt on the mattress, but kept a leg over Starsky’s hips. “He wasn’t a bad looking guy, don’t get me wrong, but—”

Starsky had been staring into his untouched and still-steaming coffee as he focused purely on Roberts’ description of Ryker—and completely ignored Hutch. He further pushed hard into his mind to remember if he’d bumped into anyone fitting Ryker’s description, but there was no wondering whether he’d seen Roberts’ suspect after he heard the word, ‘German.’

He raised his eyes and handed the Colonel a confirming nod. “I told Hutch that guy struck me as a deviant; something about him didn’t sit right with me from the second I saw him.”

“What made him stand out?”

“He smiled at me from across the room—like he thought we should be friendly. And then he came over to our table at the restaurant and asked us if we spoke German—in German. When I told him we didn’t—even knowing Hutch knew German, because I just had this dislike for Ryker at the start—he apologized for bothering us and left with his Bolivian pals. But now I think he was sizing us up. He wanted to hear Hutch speak English—”

“Because ‘English’ is his second language,” Roberts concluded, “and that made Hutch his favorite kind of man.”

“Exactly,” Starsky said with mutual conviction. He was excited and anxious and on the edge of his seat. “You wouldn’t happen to know where we can find Ryker, would you?”

“I would. His plantation is at the mid-point on the North Yungas Road, which is about halfway between La Paz and Coroico.”

“What road is that?”

“North Yungas. Better known as the Death Road.”

Starsky was suddenly paralyzed. He’d do anything for Hutch, including endure the agony of that terrifying road again, but he sure wished he didn’t have to.

Roberts saw the dread flush Starsky’s face. “You’re in luck, Detective,” he quickly proffered. “We’ll use the helicopter.”

“Starsky, wait,” Hutch said, stopping the story in its tracks. “Do you even know whether a helicopter can fly that high? You’re talking 15,000 feet at the Road’s summit—and that’s just ground level.”

Starsky rolled into Hutch and pushed him to the mattress. It was his turn to posit the dominate position. “A Blackhawk can easily handle that altitude,” he claimed.

“Roberts is U.S. Air Force.”

“It’s on loan from the Army, dummy.”

“In La Paz, Bolivia?”

“It’s an election year and they need the extra security.”

“You have an answer for everything.”

“That’s how I tell good stories. I wrap them up nicely.”

“Okay,” Hutch said with a laugh. He seemed quite fond of Starsky in that moment; his eyes shined with love and admiration. “I’m as glad as you are that you don’t have to travel that road again.”

“See? Happy endings. Now let me finish the story. I still have to get my hands on you.”

“Here we go!” Hutch said with excitement, wrapping his leg over Starsky’s hip as if to hang on. “Make me proud.”

The skids had barely touched ground inside the plantation’s courtyard when Starsky jumped from the helicopter and raced to the wrap-around porch. Ryker had come to the edge of the veranda when he heard the commotion of his uninvited guests and, upon seeing Starsky suddenly emerge from the copter’s interior, had immediately bolted to the front door. He’d obviously recognized his captive’s arriving comrade—and the uniformed authorities he’d brought with him.

Starsky scaled the outside steps in a single bound, driven by his adrenaline and his determination to find Hutch, and was able to catch up with Ryker in the foyer of the large estate. Before Ryker could disappear down a hall or into another room, Starsky grabbed him by his collar, swung him around, and slammed him against the wall. “Where is he?” he barked—in a voice filled with resentment and the threat of great bodily harm if he didn’t get the answer he sought.

Ryker stared into Starsky’s eyes with an expression of sheer bewilderment and apprehension. “!El mio!” he repeatedly wailed.

“What are you trying to say here, Starsk?” Hutch wondered, squeezing Starsky inside his leg, as if to push the right words out of him. “I mean, he knows you speak English.”

“He’s telling me that you belong to him.”

“I got that, but he’d say it in English.”

“He lives in Bolivia—so he’d say it in Spanish.”

“If he’d said it in Spanish, he’d say it in fluent Spanish. Or in German.”

“I don’t know German.”

“So you used butchered Spanish instead?”

“It got the point across, didn’t it? Who cares what language it’s in?”

“Well, yeah, but he’d either speak fluent German to you—in the heat of the moment—or he’d speak English, because he knows you don’t speak his language.”

“Okay, wise guy, how would he say it in German?”

“He belongs to me: Er gehört mir.”

“Where is he?” Starsky bellowed again, dismissing the replay, despite Hutch’s apparent wish that he do otherwise. “What have you done with him?” He set his weight against Ryker to convey the convictions of his demands.

“Please don’t take him from me,” Ryker begged, his arms up against the wall as he struggled to breathe past Starsky’s arm across his throat.

“He wouldn’t say that,” Hutch argued.

“He wouldn’t say what?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t, what?”

“He wouldn’t use the word ‘don’t,’”

“He wouldn’t say ‘don’t’?”

“He didn’t use contractions.”

“The hell you say?”

“He’d say ‘did not’; he wouldn’t say ‘don’t.’”

Starsky rolled his eyes.

“Please do not take him from me,” Ryker begged, his arms up against the wall as he struggled to breathe past Starsky’s arm across his throat. Despite that he was outnumbered and his arrest was inevitable, Ryker made an effort to explain his actions. “Your friend will never be as happy anywhere else.”

Starsky’s eyes narrowed, his anger intensified, and his pounding heart boiled his blood. In a heated, contempt-filled voice, he snarled. “How dare you.”

Ryker seemed compelled to debate his case, despite Starsky’s threats. “He is so beautiful. I can make him so happy. I can give him everything.”

“He has everything he needs.”

“I can give him everything he wants,” Ryker promised.

Starsky snapped back. “He wants me and I’m not yours to give.”

Ryker blinked. If he understood Starsky, he realized in that moment that he’d lost the battle before the war had even been waged.

Starsky was aware that Col. Roberts and other airmen of the USAF, as well as a few Bolivian police officers, were in the foyer with him, allowing him the physical assault on Ryker, notwithstanding the perpetrator’s cultural status and popularity. Starsky also didn’t care what Roberts may have deducted about his relationship with Hutch from his heartfelt comments. The contest was one Starsky privately wrestled with Hutch’s captor—and he was resolute in his position to claim back what rightfully belonged to him.

“Er gehört mir,” Starsky distinctly said, enunciating each word. There’d be no further guessing in Ryker’s mind what Starsky meant—and how.

“Good one,” Hutch noted approvingly, sincerely impressed. He tickled Starsky’s belly. “Well-played, partner.”

“Where is he?” Starsky said again—and he wouldn’t repeat himself. He held Hutch’s hand against his hip to stop him from any more tickling, too. “Tell me where he is or I will take no prisoners.”

Ryker began to cry; he railed and he wailed and he wept. “Please, do not take him from me. I have never seen anyone so beautiful. I will make you both an offer you cannot refuse.”

Starsky hadn’t gotten any answers, but when he was insulted, his anger gave way to his disgust and his pity and his refueled desire to find Hutch. He left Ryker to the police, pushed off the wall, and raced down the hallway to the bedrooms.

“I’m upstairs,” Hutch interjected.

Starsky left Ryker to the police, pushed off the wall, and raced up the stairs. “Huuutttccchhh!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

“The room at the end of the hall,” Hutch added, “but you forgot one thing, Detective.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d have heard the helicopter landing in the courtyard, and I’d be yelling for you from the second I knew it was there.”

“How do you figure? You couldn’t see the ground, you said.”

“I’d have seen it landing. I’d have heard it.”

“And assumed it was me?”

“Seriously, Starsk? A Blackhawk Army helicopter lands on Ryker’s plantation two days after I go missing and I’m supposed to think it’s anybody else?”

“Okay, so how did you want this to go down, Mr. Police Officer, sir? Are you going to write this ending?”

“Let’s just say . . . I began yelling for you around the time you got to yelling for me. Seem fair?”

“Seems like you think you know everything, but I need you to shut up. So, can you just stay out of the ending? I didn’t retell your story, did I?”

“I thought you were in the middle of retelling my story. You didn’t like the way mine ended, so you’re putting a different spin on it.”

“Because your story meant I believed you were dead and went home without you. My story doesn’t end that way, so just shut the fuck up for once, will you, and let’s finish this on a happy note?”

“I’m really giving it my best try.”

“And here you are failing.”

“It’s the detective in me.”

“It’s the idiot in you.”

“You think I’m an idiot?”

Starsky cupped Hutch’s mouth. “Please shut up.”

“I’ll say no more,” Hutch promised when Starsky removed his hand.

“I’ll believe that when I don’t hear it.”

They were silent for a moment, patiently looking into each other’s eyes, waiting for both shoes to drop, or at least one, but none did, so Starsky continued.

He had the strength of two men, bounding up the stairs in leaps of three and four steps, racing at top speed to the room at the end of the hall, pausing only long enough to draw a breath and slam his shoulder—and all of his weight—against the door, forcing it wide open—

“It’s not locked,” Hutch said. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

Starsky stared in disbelief at him. “You couldn’t go a minute, could you?”

“If you want this story to be authentic, use the facts.”

“Fine,” Starsky said with a huff. “Fill me in.”

“I just did. The door isn’t locked. I know that because Ryker and Elena come and go without having to lock and unlock it.”

Mastering the stairs in just a few strides, Starsky raced at top speed to the room at the end of the hall, pausing only long enough to draw a breath, grab the doorknob, and throw the door wide open in a single burst of adrenaline. It was Hutch’s desperate voice he’d heard calling for him. “Starrrssskkkyyy!” They fell silent in unison when their eyes found each other: for Hutch, his long-awaited rescue and his rescuer; for Starsky, the no-longer lost man he’d briefly believed was dead.

“Oh, Hutch,” he said under his breath. The stunning aliveness and the unmatched beauty of his man clad in fine white linen—standing before a four-poster canopy bed dressed in silk sheets, alpaca wool blankets, and satin pillows, and seemingly framed below a sparkling, crystal chandelier, barefoot on a reflective marbled floor—was the embodiment of angelic—

“Nice vision, Starsk, but it wasn’t marble.” Hutch spoke as if he didn’t fear Starsky’s retribution. “And there was no four-poster canopy bed, no silk or satin bedding, no chandelier, let alone a crystal one.”

Irritated, Starsky complained. “You said it was the lap of luxury.”

“For Bolivia.”

“So what does that mean?”

“Picture Fairmont Miramar Hotel.”

“That one where Joey threw a wrench in the works and you pretended to shoot me on the sidewalk?”

“That one.”

“I was never in a room there, Hutch.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Beg then. You’re confusing that hotel with the one where we hung out in Eddie’s room and you played actor in that stupid hat.”

Hutch squinted at him, pressing his memory. “And that wasn’t the Miramar?”

“The Miramar is where I went to the lounge to meet Sid—who happened to be a woman. I know this like I know anything. So, are you wanting me to picture the room where you played actor for a day?” They both knew that the Georgian hotel was in a class above the Miramar, maybe even two.

“Okay,” Hutch gave in, “knowing what you know about the Miramar lounge, imagine a room there. Then compare that to the Beverly Hills Hotel. That’ll be the difference between your visions of chandeliers and the reality of my small table lamp.”

“I was never in that hotel, either, chump.”

“Can you put two-and-two together, Detective?”

“Yeah, and I still come up with you’re an idiot.”

“I don’t want you thinking I lived in that kind of luxury down there and wish I could again.”

“So that’s why you wanted to come home then? because the furnishings weren’t as nice as they could have been?”

“You’re not listening and you’re missing my point,” Hutch said—and with such sincerity that Starsky felt guilty for teasing him. “Wherever you go, Starsk, I’ll follow. I’ll live wherever you want to live and do whatever you want to do. Just say the word.”

“I’m right where I want to be,” Starsky gently replied, speaking for them both, and effectively ending the banter.

They hung on each other’s gaze for a lengthy moment filled with ever-present and mutual affection.

“Okay,” Hutch said again, that time with an acceptance to his delivery. He stroked Starsky’s hair, lovingly scratching his partner’s head with each pass. “Finish your story. But keep in mind I was chained to the wall by my left wrist, that I was barefoot, and I didn’t know until three days in who my captor was. In your version, you’re finding me on Day Two.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Starsky remembered. He rather have bathed in Hutch’s physical touch than think about the rest of his story, but Hutch expected an ending. “Ryker didn’t see you right away because he couldn’t bear to watch you try to escape. So, my getting there when I do keeps him from sexually assaulting you, too.”

“It does,” Hutch agreed, a warmth in his eyes, pleased by the idea. He dropped his arm, held Starsky’s hand, gazed expectantly at him. “So, now that you have all the facts, Officer, tell me how it goes down.”

Starsky could hear Hutch yelling his name from the closed room at the end of the long hallway. After racing up the stairs, he sprinted toward it on legs of heightening excitement and ebbing desperation, slamming into the door with his shoulder and all of his weight—while, at the same time, turning its bronze knob—and the entrance reluctantly gave way. He stumbled a few feet into the large room, but caught his balance just as he laid eyes on Hutch.

Halfway across the room, and confined to the area of the wool rug by a chain clamped to his left wrist, Hutch strained toward Starsky. A wash of sheer relief and absolute surrender was visible throughout Hutch’s posture and in his expressive blue eyes, coupled with a breathless moan substituting for coherent words.

“Oh, Hutch,” Starsky said—never having gazed upon anything as beautiful as he did in that moment, and not knowing what to say except what he subconsciously felt in his heart. To have frantically searched for Hutch—to have believed Hutch had been killed, to later discover that he hadn’t—and to finally lay eyes on him was still an unexpected emotional blow to his already fragile sensibilities; the possibility that he’d be wrong about Hutch’s whereabouts had fueled his underlying panic.

But there Hutch was: dressed in white linen, alive and in the flesh, appearing physically unharmed in the scheme of all Starsky had feared—and obviously wanting Starsky more than he wished for anything else on Earth.

Starsky could still hear the helicopter blades outside the only window in the room as they slowly spun in anticipation of a speedy retreat; behind him, the voices of police officers and Colonel Roberts echoed in the hallway as they presumably dragged Stefan Ryker along with them to Hutch’s room. Above all else, Ryker wailed. “Do not take him from me!” he repeatedly begged.

Starsky only had time to briefly touch Hutch’s cheek when he approached to within his reach. The cacophony of voices burst through the bedroom door just as he momentarily felt Hutch’s warm skin at his fingertips, forcing him to drop his hand, and leaving him to a silent and reaffirming longing that no man could blow asunder.

He never moved from the look in Hutch’s crystal blue eyes, expressive, wet ones, familiar and perfect, rimmed in tears of pure joy and elation, reminding Starsky all over again just how much the man needed, loved, and adored him. No, the reminder hadn’t been worth the pain. Starsky already knew in his heart-of-hearts that Hutch never wished for anyone or anything else than to be right where he was in that moment, despite its significant deficiencies, because where he was was with his soulmate. It’s what Starsky had told himself all along, in those nagging voices from the pit of his brain to the center of his heart: that Hutch would never have left him without force.

“Starsky,” Col. Roberts called out above Ryker’s howling, getting Starsky’s attention. “After what you’ve been through,” Roberts told him, “I would have no qualms allowing you to handle this situation according to your preferences.”

Starsky felt Hutch squeeze his arm; perhaps he, too, gave tacit approval to encouraging Starsky’s rage. But Starsky’s anger had long dissipated. The enormous relief of finding Hutch had melted every other emotion he felt to its core. He looked back into Hutch’s eyes while he listened to Ryker continue to plead for his possession.

“The German guy?” Hutch said in disbelief, having only then realized who’d kidnapped him. “The polite gentleman we ran into while we were in Yanacachi? That’s the mastermind here? He had to have had help.”

Starsky could only laugh, but sadly. That ‘polite gentleman’ had done such immeasurable damage. When the noise rattled his nerves, Starsky finally yelled at Ryker to “Shut the fuck up!” and “Where’s the key?” He’d noticed the lock around Hutch’s wrist, and barked his orders again when Ryker failed to comply with both of his requests. “Shut up and give me the key!”

Ryker dropped to his knees on the wood floor, bent over, and actually groveled at Starsky’s feet. “Please do not take him from me. Please, please. I implore you. I will give you both everything you could possibly ever dream to have.”

“I want the key!”

“Search him,” Roberts ordered his officers, and the men set upon Ryker in earnest. “Apologies to you, Hutch.”

“What for?” Hutch asked. “We’ve never met.”

“I’ll fill you in when we get out of here,” Starsky promised Hutch. He couldn’t leave the urgent look in Hutch’s eyes, even after he heard the police find the key in one of Ryker’s pockets—and Ryker’s resultant sobs—because Hutch was in the midst of telling Starsky, without words, just how overjoyed he felt; his liberation was imminent for them both.

When the small key was pressed into Starsky’s hand by a police officer, he instantly inserted it into the lock, breaking eye contact with Hutch only long enough to find its cylinder. The metal cuff immediately gave way and fell to the floor in a spiraling jingle of heavy chain. Starsky could have embraced Hutch then, but the moment seemed awkward, inappropriate, intrusive. They hugged with their eyes instead, coupled with Hutch’s perceptible nod of understanding. To fully immerse themselves in the joy of their reunion would be an indulgence they planned in private.

“You had no right to take him,” Starsky heatedly said to Ryker. “No right at all.”

“He is so beautiful,” Ryker explained, gulping air to speak past his crying, and seeming to believe his observation about Hutch’s beauty was reason enough to kidnap him. “He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen.”

Starsky couldn’t argue an objective truth. But another truism was in play, too. “You had no right to him. He belongs to me.”

Ryker sat up, still on his knees, lifted his eyes to Starsky. “I invite you both to stay, to live like kings, to be my guests.”

“We’re going home,” Starsky said. “We don’t want anything to do with you.”

Maybe Starsky would have been justified in cracking Ryker’s head open. Maybe it would have made him feel better in the long run to have done just that. But similar to his feelings for the men who’d raped him more than a year earlier, he didn’t wish to spend another minute on the pathetic ravings and rantings of a delusional sexual predator.

Ryker would have crawled up Starsky’s leg to further beg him to reconsider had Roberts not stopped him with a specific word he spoke to Starsky. “Would you prefer to file an international complaint and extradition appeal, Officer, or leave Ryker to the jurisdictions of the Bolivian police?”

“Officer?” Ryker blurted, bewildered, and looking up at Starsky, his mouth agape.

“Detective David Starsky,” Starsky introduced himself, finding some semblance of retribution in his answer. It hadn’t occurred to him until then that Ryker would be floored to learn the identity of the men he’d assaulted.

Shocked, Ryker looked past him to Hutch for confirmation.

“My partner of fifteen years,” Starsky said, dryly, speaking for Hutch. “Detective Sergeant Ken Hutchinson. We’re employed by the Los Angeles Police Department.” He shoved Ryker backward onto his butt with a punch from his knee. “That would be the Los Angeles in California,” Starsky added in a Spanish accent. “United States of America.” Beside him, Starsky heard Hutch say to Ryker, “Yep, ’fraid so; that’d be the one.”

“You were so busy planting evidence,” Starsky said to Ryker, “that you and yours forgot to read the fine print on his passport.” To the Colonel, Starsky answered the question. “I’d like to file an international complaint, but Bolivia can keep him.”

“Is there anything we can do for you, Detective Hutchinson?” Roberts asked. They had Ryker cornered and wallowing in self-pity; he was no danger to them, so the Colonel addressed the victims. “We’ve got plenty of room in the helicopter; I see no reason why we can’t leave immediately.”

“Shoes,” Hutch said, drawing everyone’s attention to his bare feet. He looked up at Starsky, smiled shyly, and furthered, “I could use some shoes.”

* * *

“You didn’t hug me.”

Starsky climbed to his elbow on the mattress to look Hutch in the eye. “Just now?”

“When you found me in Bolivia.”

“Well, yeah, but. . .”

“But, what?”

“I mean, I wanted Ryker to be surprised by the fact that we’re cops.”

“You still could have hugged me,” Hutch said with disappointment. He held eye contact with Starsky, but looked away after half a minute of silence when he realized Starsky wouldn’t elaborate on a defense. “It’s okay,” he decided instead. “You didn’t have to hug me. I was the one who made a federal case out of being careful. I’m just glad you found me.”

The point of Starsky’s story was that he had saved Hutch, brought him home, made love to him on their bed—the way they’d just done for the second time that morning.

Hutch had equally seemed pleased with the ending to Starsky’s tale; he hadn’t said a single disparaging—or even an interrupting—word since they’d made eye contact in the room where Starsky found Hutch chained to a wall. Hutch even looked delighted with the way the Bolivia rescue unfolded: closing his eyes afterward as he lay peacefully on the bed, crossing his arms over his bared chest, and smiling, closed-lipped, with an obvious contentment.

Satisfied with Hutch’s peace of mind, Starsky had lost the battle with his willpower; Hutch was the most beautiful man in the world—lying there as he did, relaxed and naked, all male and in love—and Starsky was the luckiest person ever because he could call Hutch’s affection and loyalty his own.

“Roll over,” he’d said at that point, firmly nudging Hutch away from him. “Up on your knees and down in front.”

Hutch had immediately and obediently followed orders, softly humming with approval as he rolled to his belly and then knelt bent over on the mattress—hugging a pillow under his head for added compliance.

When Starsky positioned himself behind Hutch, he was gifted with the inviting view he loved most in moments like that one: every part of Hutch that was exceptionally private and personal, erotic and sexually promising: Hutch’s bared hips, the pink and puckered indentation between his buttocks, his large and fleshy scrotum, his meaty perineum and, finally, that perfectly shaped, already hardening, blood-filled penis, its beefy shaft, pleasure-giving length, emerging cap, swelling crown, reddening skin.

“Oh, boy,” Starsky whispered. Hutch didn’t have to be bound to himself or furniture to make Starsky believe Hutch was his for the taking. Hutch’s voluntary surrender and willful exposure told Starsky all he needed to know, and the aliveness of Hutch’s hairless and warm skin at his eager fingertips never failed to erase every thought in Starsky’s head, leaving him purely with excitement and desire.

The aroma between Hutch’s legs was a mix of almond oil, sweat, and semen—from their initial-morning sex-making—a familiar and primal scent that titillated Starsky’s senses from his very first purposeful inhale. “Oh, boy,” he said again, more audibly that time, as anticipation and longing that internally heated him and set his penis on fire. He affectionately kissed Hutch’s buttocks—soft, sensual, loving touches—up over Hutch’s hips and lower back, along their crevices, then between Hutch’s legs, allowing only his breath to taunt his lover’s expectations.

It was, and always had been, a kind of awkward position for Starsky—there behind Hutch to fellate him, the both of them on their knees, Starsky also on his elbows—but the rewards were worth whatever mindless discomfort Starsky endured. He planned to stay as long as he could without satisfying his own yearnings.

Hutch’s abrupt, audible, and lengthy moan of sheer enjoyment when Starsky finally pulled his penis back between his legs, and began to suck him, was worth the tease, too. Hutch’s pleasure meant the world to Starsky—evident in Hutch’s expressive sighs and in his still-enlarging penis. Hutch even tasted good, maybe even better during that second helping to sex; the flavor of his erection was coated in the memory of his first ejaculation that morning.

Starsky replied to Hutch’s whispers and moans with similar sounds, but amplified them with his lip-smacking and soft kissing and hungry licking—lavishing Hutch’s skin in wet, warm touches that were sure to please. He drew the large phallus into his mouth, and pumped it between his sucking, kissing, kneading lips, carefully holding Hutch’s penis between his legs with his right hand and using his left to jack Hutch in quick, tight strokes when he took his mouth off him to alternate the sensations.

Each time Starsky resumed the sucking and kissing and licking of Hutch’s rigidness from crown to base and back again, Hutch’s audible noises rose in volume; he apparently loved the slick, slippery glide of the orally delivered tingles twice as much as the firmer hand strokes—all of which tensed his body with visible desire. He soon dripped pre-cum; had Starsky not been so close and as involved as he was, as attentive, focused, and devouring the visual with the same enthusiasm with which he ate Hutch’s manliness, he may have missed the emergence of the clear fluid when it pooled in the slit of Hutch’s crown.

The first bead of ejaculate was about to fall onto the mattress and be gone forever had Starsky not caught it on his tongue at the last second, savored its flavor and its essence, and then used it to fuel his passion for more taste and nourishment. He noisily sucked the penis’ head, drinking in and swallowing the viscous cum before it slipped past him.

“Oh, oh, oh,” he heard Hutch moan—and he knew his partner was close to orgasm. He broke contact to stall it—and succeeded. Remembering Hutch’s lies about how Carlos had manually ejaculated him, he gave Hutch’s shaft a rapid pumping, brought him close again, and then sat back to allow only cooling air to touch Hutch’s quivering skin.

“Shit,” Hutch cussed in a whisper when he realized he’d been abandoned at a critical moment. “Don’t play with me,” he managed to say in a begging voice. “C’mon. Do me, Starsk, and I’ll do you.”

Not finding the almond oil bottle soon enough, Starsky generously spit into his hand. He then covered the head of his own penis in a pleasurable slipperiness, realizing how hard he’d become, and how much he really did want to oblige Hutch, especially for that last part about getting the same enjoyment Hutch would receive. But Starsky did like to play.

“You want me to suck you some more?” he asked. He sat back on the soles of his feet, still kneeling behind Hutch, and looked around Hutch’s hip to his face. Hutch’s eyes were closed in blissful anticipation, his blond hair mussed and plastered to his sweating forehead, his lips parted as he panted from an internal heat. “Hm? You want me to suck you?” Starsky repeated.

“Please.”

“Your balls?”

Hutch laughed, frustrated. But he was no dummy. He knew what Starsky aimed for. “My cock,” Hutch said. “Suck my cock.”

“Ooh,” Starsky replied, laughing as he continued to please himself and imagined filling his mouth again with Hutch’s meat. “You want me to suck your cock—your big, hard cock?”

“Suck it,” Hutch coaxed him, trying anything to get Starsky’s mouth back on him. “Suck my big, hard cock. Is that what you want me to say?”

“Yeah, but if I do that, you’re gonna come.”

“I’ll do you next.”

“Well, yeah, but, I mean . . . if I suck your cock, you’re gonna come. You’re close to it, aren’t you?”

“I was.”

“You still are,” Starsky knowingly said. He lightly tapped Hutch’s erection to demonstrate how stiff Hutch was—and to make Hutch squirm for the excitement of its fleeting duration. “How about you suck my cock now,” Starsky suggested, “and by the time we get back to yours, you’ll be ready to come real hard. You want to come hard, doncha? I know I want you to.” Starsky, at least, wanted to prolong Hutch’s pleasure.

Starsky also wanted to have a deep orgasm himself, and tore his eyes away from the sexual arousal of his partner to momentarily size up his own. “C’mon, buddy,” he encouraged Hutch, gently slapping the inside of Hutch’s leg—quite close to his throbbing penis—“suck my cock for me just for a couple of minutes, and then we’ll go back to yours. I promise.”

Starsky gave Hutch the time he needed to climb down from his euphoria, abandon his palpable frustration, and get his strength back. Like clockwork, Hutch finally disassembled himself, rose to his hands, and made the turn toward Starsky.

“You’re killing me,” he said, making brief eye contact with Starsky before he lowered his line of sight to Starsky’s hardened and wanting erection, staring him daringly in the face. “But I’m not complaining,” Hutch said as if on second thought; he licked his lips. “I trust you to take it like a man, too,” he playfully added.

Starsky lay back on the mattress, locked his arms behind his head, kept his eyes glued to Hutch’s beautiful and desirous expression, opened his legs, rotated his hips, and bounced his penis up off his hairy belly toward Hutch. “Oh, boy,” he said in eager anticipation. “Oh, boy!”

Hutch walked on his hands and knees right into him, pushing Starsky further into the mattress as he bent over and smothered his face in kisses, eventually sucking on Starsky’s mouth and instantly engaging their eager tongues. Their breaths were labored and heated, deep and noisy, adding new urgency to their already aroused and perspiring bodies. Hutch wasted no time in letting Starsky know that his wet, sucking mouth had desire for Starsky’s ambitious and wanting penis, too; he kissed and sucked his way from Starsky’s loving lips to his swelling crown and shaft.

Hutch didn’t play the edging game with Starsky, not even to pay him back for the earlier interruption of his own near-cresting bliss. He gave his man exactly what he wanted, when and how he wanted it, reading and responding to every nuance, breath, and soft moan, and he didn’t let up until Starsky had delivered a mouthful of contented evidence right where it belonged: inside him.

“Oh, Hutch!” Starsky cried out with every convulsive expulsion he experienced, each pass of heightened pleasure consuming his entire body, pulsating with overwhelming abandon. “Oh, Hutch,” he said in repeated whispers, as quakes of orgasmic ecstasy faded into oblivion, each one its own treasure.

Starsky giggled afterward, as was his way. He dropped his arms and his legs open on the mattress in submissive relaxation and panted off the weight of his exertion while his pounding heart slowed its rhythm. Before he dozed, he was able to tell Hutch how much he appreciated the gift he’d been unselfishly given—for the second time that morning. A simple, breathless, “Thank you,” and he believed Hutch understood the depth of his gratitude. No one knew him better.

Only when the cool air began to tickle his skin, and the stillness of the room seemed to move around him, did Starsky realize he’d left Hutch to his own vices. Starsky bolted fully awake and immediately sat up. Sure enough, Hutch lay beside him, pumping his own penis, writhing in the good of his self-pleasure, his eyes closed in dreamy abandonment. Starsky hurriedly bent over him, pulled at Hutch’s arm, and quickly intercepted the inevitable. “No, no,” he said plaintively, at first afraid he was too late, “not like this.” He didn’t want Hutch to orgasm by his own hand. Hutch deserved a heightened experience.

The transition from Hutch’s hands into Starsky’s was smooth and effortless; Hutch didn’t lose ground. When he took Hutch fully into his mouth, the familiar taste of almond oil coated Starsky’s tongue. Hutch had obviously found that bottle. It made Starsky smile, momentarily breaking the seal of his lips around Hutch’s warm and rigid shaft, but Hutch didn’t seem to notice. Sometimes Starsky also forgot just how large a phallus Hutch could summon; it surprised and emotionally impressed him, and he couldn’t help but react with fond amusement. This was one of those times.

He also loved the feel of Hutch’s hands in his hair, stroking him with encouragement and tangible invitation, gently cradling him in his oiled and guiding fingers. Hutch alternated his tentative caresses between Starsky’s head and his face, seeking that sweet spot on his partner, the one that would keep Starsky sucking him while, at the same time, careful not to interfere in the rise and fall of his orally pleasing strokes.

“That feels so good,” Hutch whispered between pants. Starsky was between his legs, snug inside Hutch’s thighs. “You are so good, boy, so good,” Hutch continued. “That feels. . .” He suddenly gripped Starsky—in his hands and with his knees—and abruptly stopped all motion, thrust his hips forward to create his own last stroke, and succumbed. “Oh!” he blurted.

Starsky had sensed the imminent ejaculation just before Hutch exploded; he felt it in the seemingly impossible firmness against his tongue and inside his hand, and knew the impending climax had arrived. He rode its waves with Hutch, trying not to laugh, doing his best not to break their joining—even though Hutch made it almost impossible to hang on; Hutch spasmed and convulsed, rolled and wiggled, all while emptying his ejaculate inside the warmth and wet of Starsky’s mouth.

Starsky genuinely empathized with the absolute preciousness of that exquisite, indescribable ecstasy, the purity of his need for sexual satisfaction, and the welcoming fulfillment of his primal drive—all of that with the person he loved above all others, with whom he felt the most safe, and could be his freest. He hungrily swallowed Hutch’s cum when Hutch finally relaxed, seemed to drift away, and basked in the liberating aftermath.

Starsky then let him go, slid him out of mouth and hand, kissed his still-rigid penis a final goodbye, crawled over him to lay alongside him, pressed himself to Hutch’s length, and wrapped Hutch under his leg and inside his arm. In perfect reply, Hutch took Starsky in an all-consuming embrace. Their wet skin, diminishing erections, the smell of semen and sweat, the warmth and the union of their combined enjoyment, was shared equally between them; of this, Starsky was certain.

Hutch’s loving embrace was so strong, Starsky never felt safer or more at home. He could have died right there in Hutch’s arms. But that’s when, after several minutes of providing refuge to his partner, Hutch more tightly squeezed Starsky to him, broke the silence, and had quietly said, “You could have hugged me.”

Starsky reluctantly climbed to his elbow on the mattress to look Hutch in the eye, not sure what he heard—or why. “Just now?” He thought he did hug Hutch; they were in each other’s arms, after all, naked on the bed together, entwined and joined in loving affection, admiration, and their forever familiarity. Even their hearts beat in the same rhythm; Starsky could feel Hutch’s against his own chest.

When could Starsky have hugged Hutch—and then not?

“When you found me in Bolivia,” Hutch clarified.

“Well, yeah, but. . .”

“But, what?”

“I mean, I wanted Ryker to be surprised by the fact that we’re cops.”

“You still could have hugged me,” Hutch said with disappointment. He held eye contact with Starsky, but looked away after half a minute of silence when he realized Starsky wouldn’t elaborate on a defense. “It’s okay,” he decided instead. “You didn’t have to hug me. I was the one who made a federal case out of being careful. I’m just glad you found me.”

“But now you’re missing out on an ending you wanted,” Starsky concluded. “And we can’t have that.”

* * *

“Shoes,” Hutch said, drawing everyone’s attention to his bare feet. He looked up from the floor at Starsky, smiled shyly, and furthered, “I could use some shoes.”

“Find him a pair of shoes,” Roberts ordered his men—and a couple of them set off into the room, and eventually into Ryker’s, to look for some. “Bring him clothes that might fit, too,” Roberts added. “Warmer ones for the ride back.”

“I dressed you in the finest linen money can buy,” Ryker defended himself. “You have no idea how much I invested.” He remained seated on the hard wood floor, looking sheepishly up at Starsky, and especially at Hutch, still pleading with his eyes that his ultimate wish would be granted.

“You dressed him?” Starsky snapped, his hackles rising.

“Oh, no,” Ryker said quickly. “I myself did not. Elena and her chicas dressed him. I supervised to make certain he was handled with discretion.”

Those words didn’t fare any better with Starsky. “So, you watched them undress him?”

“It was not as ugly as you are implying,” Ryker insisted, sounding indignant, as if it were he who had been violated. “I treasure this man. Am I the only one who sees his beauty?”

Starsky didn’t know what to say in reply; how could he possibly indulge such lunacy? And not that Hutch wasn’t beautiful, but that Ryker could see things so differently. Out of frustration and dismay, Starsky glanced back at Hutch, expecting to feel Hutch’s empathy in a silent exchange of expression, but instead got hit with a cold, hard fact. “You do look good in white,” Starsky had to shamelessly confess, giving Hutch a once-over. “I’ll give him that.”

“You see?” Ryker exclaimed, excited.

Hutch’s mouth dropped open and his eyes narrowed as he aimed them at Starsky. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked—and probably rhetorically. “Where are my clothes?”

Starsky shrugged at him. “Payback’s a bitch.”

“Who’s side are you on here?”

“As if you don’t know that answer.”

“Then act like it.”

But Starsky had a different plan, one he’d already put into play. Less than half an hour earlier, he wasn’t sure Hutch was really alive; he suspected Hutch was somewhere, under dire circumstances, but until he actually laid eyes on him, he wasn’t completely certain. In the end, there Hutch was: alive, relatively unharmed, and his usual sarcastic self. How could Starsky not give credit where it was due?

Of course, Hutch was more than just a kidnapped cop, then found. More than just a travel companion. More than just a friend on a sightseeing trip. He was Starsky’s everything: his partner, his lover, his soulmate. But those in the room—the Bolivian police and the United States Air Force, the plantation workers who’d since gathered in the doorway, and Ryker himself—could only see the two men on its surface.

In the perplexed glint in Hutch’s eyes, Starsky was reminded of all that he already knew—and how supremely fortunate he was to know it. He didn’t waste another moment. To ease Hutch’s bewilderment, and to satisfy his own agenda, Starsky closed the distance between them, took Hutch tightly into his arms, and squeezed him with nearly all his might. He didn’t care what anyone thought.

No. Not true. He secretly wanted Ryker to care.

Hutch instinctively replied in kind, holding Starsky as passionately in his arms as he was held himself.

Their embrace lasted long enough to bring the room to a tangible standstill, amplifying the silence so much that not an ear didn’t hear Starsky tell Hutch—while kissing Hutch’s cheek—“I’m taking you home, partner.” He then broke the embrace to hold Hutch at arm’s length and make longing eye contact with him.

Hutch intuitively replied in kind again. His expression softened, dissolved into the warmth of his affection, while his blue, blue eyes conveyed an unspoken gratitude, one filled with a deep love.

“Oh, my,” they heard Ryker whisper. When he slumped further against the floor, Hutch broke from Starsky and confronted him.

“What did you want with me, huh?” Hutch demanded to know of his former captor. “What was the plan?”

Ryker immediately looked up at him. “Only to make you happy,” he swore.

“He makes me happy,” Hutch told Ryker about Starsky—and in no uncertain terms. “He and him alone.”

“What are you saying?” Ryker whined, dropping his shoulders, and appearing more defeated than he already was. “What do you mean by this?”

“He meant exactly what you heard,” Starsky answered the question. “Are you deaf?”

Ryker looked from Hutch to Starsky and back again, slowly and with dismay. “Do you not understand what I am offering you here?”

“You mean the proposal you laid on the table—by force?”

“My intentions were never to harm him, but to please him.”

“Except for the part where you, what?” Starsky snarled, “knocked him out? drugged him? and dragged him back to whatever you planned for him?”

“His discomfort would only have been temporary.”

“Discomfort?”

“He had everything he needed,” Ryker explained. “He had food and shelter, the finest wines and clothes, and he was safe. I did not plan to see him for another day or two—to give him time to come to terms with his new and happy life.”

“He’s been a very happy man for a long while now—or didn’t you hear him? He’s never needed your help.”

“I believed I could make him happier—and whatever pain he may have endured until that point would have been minimal. I had so much to give him, experiences that would have erased his initial fears and disappointments and for which he would have been thankful to have—no matter how he came to them—and I can still make those happen for him. It is not too late.”

“You really are delusional,” Starsky said with a laugh of disbelief. He didn’t know how to respond to the obsessions of a lunatic—except maybe to pity him.

“I now make this offer to you both,” Ryker promised in a calmer voice, as if only Starsky and Hutch would hear him.

A Bolivian police officer interrupted them to hand Hutch a bundle of clothes. Hutch thanked him in Spanish and went to the bathroom to redress behind the closed door.

“Both of us, hm?” Starsky asked, pretending to be interested in Ryker’s offer while waiting for Hutch.

“I did not realize until today that you were together,” Ryker explained.

“You saw us having lunch, sitting side-by-side.”

“Yes, this is correct, but I did not know you were . . . together.”

Starsky noticed the firm look Ryker gave him, his silent effort to send home the emphasis and different meaning in his words. Starsky was relieved for it; it was right where he wanted Ryker.

Silence enveloped the room; there was no further communication between them until Hutch returned to stand beside Starsky, wearing black jeans—presumably Thomas’—and a green, long-sleeved, cotton shirt, which Starsky noticed Hutch was still buttoning. Perfect: Hutch showing bared chest for Ryker’s feasting eyes and Starsky knowing Ryker could never touch it.

“So how would this work?” Starsky asked the German. “Hutch and me would live here?”

“You will have the house to yourselves,” Ryker explained, holding eye contact with Hutch for as long as Hutch allowed him. “And I will build myself a residence across the courtyard.”

“In exchange for what, I mean?” Starsky wondered. “We live here in exchange for what?”

“To be my companions.”

“What does that mean?”

Ryker shrugged, put on the spot in front of his compatriots and government authorities, but seemed to do his best to explain. “To share the bounties and pleasures of life with me—from the literal to the figurative. And I would supply all you would need for the rest of your lives.”

“That’s an intriguing proposition,” Hutch mumbled. He had finished dressing, sans his shoes, and gave Ryker his attention. “Would we inherit the plantation, too?” he pointedly asked. “I assume we would outlive you.”

“But of course!” Ryker exclaimed, excited again. “And every one of its riches! Do you not appreciate my offer and all it entails? I will happily explain it further, but not in public company.”

“I think we get it,” Starsky replied, sharing a brief eye exchange with Roberts; he wanted the Colonel to know that neither he nor Hutch was serious about Ryker’s invitation. “But what do you get out of it—specifically?”

“To lay eyes on such a magnificent man every day of what is left of my life,” Ryker admitted, realizing he was going to be pressed for details despite the crowd around him. “I would get such emotional pleasure just from gazing upon his beauty.”

“If you think he’s beautiful on the outside,” Starsky said, pleased to have heard Ryker’s comment again, and having waited for that moment, “and I’m definitely not saying he isn’t beautiful—because he obviously is—then you should see him on the inside.”

Ryker’s jaw relaxed. He stared at Starsky. “Please tell me,” he begged, and sounding as if he knew he wouldn’t be disappointed.

“Did he tell you he has a farm?” Starsky asked, knowing Ryker knew nothing about Hutch. “I mean, it’s not as big as your plantation, but it’s big enough. About an hour north of the city where we’re from. A sweet little place in the scheme of things, but with two houses. Hutch grows food there, too: nuts and corn and apples and things like that.”

Ryker’s eyes grew more eager with every word Starsky spoke.

“When I say he grows things, I mean he himself does the growing: he digs the holes, plants the seeds, waters the . . . sprouts or whatever they’re called. He does most of the harvesting, too. Makes our meals. He’s a great cook. Take that from someone who’s quite the picky eater.”

Ryker glanced at Hutch for confirmation and must have believed whatever he saw on Hutch’s face because he quickly looked back at Starsky to learn more.

“He shares the food he grows with the rescued children who live there, a safe house we fixed up for them to restart their lives. We call it the Grace House—named after my late wife.”

Starsky wanted Ryker to know he was straight—but not so straight where Hutch was concerned, because Hutch was that beautiful to him.

“I live in the main house with Hutch,” he added as an aside. “I’ve been there about, what, Hutch? a year now?”

“Year and a half, I think,” Hutch said.

Starsky smirked at Ryker. “Time flies when you’re happy.”

Ryker scooted closer, on his knees, his eyes hanging on every new aspect of Hutch’s life that he learned. “How long have you been. . .?”

“Fifteen years,” Starsky replied, not as cynically. “We met at the police academy. Love at first sight,” he lightly joked, but knowing Ryker gave it the seriousness it was due. “We haven’t been separated since then—except on rare occasion when people like you think they can get between us.”

“I did not know what I was doing,” Ryker admitted. “I would do things differently if I could.”

“Isn’t his voice beautiful, too?” Starsky asked, ignoring Ryker’s regrets in pursuit of the punishment he had planned for the man. “You should hear him read stories and sing. Oh, can he sing! The purest, sweetest, perfect voice you’d ever hear.”

Ryker gasped for breath. “I would give you both anything to listen to him sing. Oh, please indulge me!”

“I’m not sure which he plays better, the piano or the guitar, but he’s fluent in both. We’d give you a concert, but we’ve got a plane to catch.”

“I will pay whatever you wish for you to stay longer.”

“It’s not just what he does, Ryker; don’t get me wrong. It’s not just his growing things and saving children and his singing. He’s really smart. I mean, he’s genius smart. A really educated man—from some of our country’s finest schools. And, like me, he’s also an award-winning detective. Police honors, I’m saying.”

Ryker’s eyes widened with his irrepressible admiration.

“With very few exceptions, we’ve solved every criminal case we’ve been assigned and brought the bad guys up on charges: drug dealers, rapists, child molesters, murderers.” He gave it a beat before he concluded his list with, “Kidnappers.”

“I would give anything for a second chance,” Ryker promised. “You must know by now how sorry I am for my actions.”

“All those things I respect and love him for,” Starsky said. He briefly glanced at Hutch to call on the overall measure of the man, and then more sincerely said, “But it’s the person he is that has my loyalty. You’d have to be lucky enough to have spent nearly every day of the past fifteen years in his company to know and see all I’ve been privileged to witness.”

“I do not think I could treasure him more.”

“And yet there’s so much more to him: he cares about others beyond the call of duty—and I don’t just mean people. He stopped eating animals years before I did because he didn’t want to hurt them. He’s a sensitive man, but also one you never want to cross.”

“I am awed by his complexity.”

“The simpleness of him is just how honorable he is. You could search the world over and not find anyone as trustworthy as he is. As sincere. As respectable. As kind. Kindness is key, Ryker. Kindness is at the other end of the spectrum from what you did to him—and to me, as a consequence.”

“I did not intend to harm anyone.”

“But you took him as if he was yours to have, as if all he was is a token, a pretty face—”

“He is beautiful.”

“—as if his beauty was purely on the outside. As if he had no loyalties, no histories, no bonds to anything or anyone else in his life. You took him without caring how you frightened him and broke his heart—and without knowing how broken you would have made it. He would not have survived losing me.”

Ryker finally lowered his eyes to the floor and whispered a faint apology. “I cannot stress enough how sorry I have become.”

“He’s my everything,” Starsky said in reply, choking on the words when he remembered how deeply he’d believed Hutch was dead. “When you ‘killed’ him, you destroyed two lives, two lives that would have never forgotten the other.” Starsky knew Hutch didn’t fully understand what had transpired before his rescue that late morning, but he suspected Hutch had figured out enough to put the gist of it in place.

Ryker lifted his eyes, that time directly into Starsky’s. “I ask for your forgiveness.”

“I don’t know if I can give you that,” Starsky honestly said. “Maybe in time.”

Ryker then reached to take Hutch’s hand—presumably to apologize to him, as well, but Starsky stepped between them and thwarted the contact. He immediately pulled Hutch to his side to send the message to Ryker that their relatively locked-in position with each other meant Ryker would never be close to Hutch without first going through Starsky.

“You don’t get to touch him,” Starsky said, noticing the obvious disappointment he caused Ryker as the man slumped back to the floor, and not caring that he had; whatever pain Starsky caused Ryker, it paled in comparison to the pain Ryker had unleashed on Starsky. “There are no rewards here for you,” he said, continuing to hold Hutch beside him.

“If I could do it all over again,” Ryker vowed, “I would not be so callous and insensitive to both your needs.”

“That’s the part I don’t understand,” Starsky answered him. “I mean, why couldn’t you have just pulled up a chair, introduced yourself, bought us each a beer, and made us an offer, hm?”

“Do you think your answer would have been affirmative?”

“We won’t know now, will we?”

Ryker unashamedly cried. “And now you break my heart.”

Which was exactly what Starsky had hoped to do.

To add deep insult to serious injury, he reached inside the coin pocket of his jeans and removed Hutch’s diamond-studded gold ring. He then looked Hutch in the eye, making profound contact with those beautiful eyes, deeply and with sheer love and appreciation for being able to call Hutch his forever companion—one of the same body, same mind, same heart. “If you hadn’t slipped this into your pocket when you did,” he said to Hutch, “it could have been stolen or lost in the confusion.” He watched Hutch glance to see the ring, and then he bathed in the beauty of Hutch’s responding smile, the one that warmed his lips as much as it did his eyes.

To Ryker, as he lifted Hutch’s arm to slip the gold band over Hutch’s ring finger, Starsky said, “The reality, Ryker, is that you don’t get to have him. He belongs to me and I will never let him go.”

* * *

“You do have a beautiful voice.”

Hutch didn’t reply with a ‘thank you’—not even a soft one; instead, he seemed to study Starsky’s face, searching for clues to whatever may have triggered his partner’s comment. When that apparently failed, he used words. “What makes you say that right now, buddy boy? I haven’t said a word since—”

“Since you said, ‘Oh, Starsky, baby, honey doll, suck my balls.’”

Hutch laughed. They knew Hutch had never used those words. “C’mon. What are you doing?”

“I was just thinking about you, that’s all,” Starsky replied, disappointed because Hutch didn’t immediately accept the compliment. “I got to thinking about your voice—how perfect and beautiful it is, especially when you sing. Not everything I say has some ulterior motive.”

Hutch lifted an eyebrow at him. “Good to know,” he teased.

They lay on the mattress, facing each other, heads on their pillows, having finally broken out of the brief silence they’d stumbled into after Starsky finished telling the Bolivia story. Its ending had brought Hutch to an emotional cliff edge, and Starsky didn’t have the heart to push him over; it was merely a fantasy, after all. But when Hutch didn’t say anything for a while, Starsky grew impatient to hear him speak, to know he was all right, and that’s when Starsky’s mind wandered into the man’s beauty instead.

“Imagine if you had decided to follow your heart as a singer and not a police officer,” he mused.

“No car chases,” Hutch figured after supposing that idea.

“Million-dollar record contracts,” Starsky countered.

“No fist fights.”

“Sold-out concerts.”

“No bullets whizzing past my head or lodged in my shoulder.”

“Emmy awards.”

“You mean Grammys.”

“Whatever.”

“Big difference.”

“Bigger point I’m making.”

Hutch laughed again, surrendering. He hugged his pillow, gazed affectionately at Starsky, and then stated the obvious. “No you.”

Starsky realized his negligence. “Right,” he said solemnly. “We would never have met.”

“Million-dollar record contracts, sold-out concerts, Grammy awards,” Hutch mulled. “Hard fact, pal: I’d rather have you.”

Starsky spoke Hutch’s last four words at the same time Hutch said them. After Hutch laughed at the tandem-ness of their sentimentality, Starsky explained his echo of the phrase. “That’s what I knew you’d say, that you’d rather have me.”

“Oh,” Hutch replied, surprised. “So it’s not because you’d rather have me that I chose the right path through life?”

“I’m saying that’s how well I know you, that I knew you’d say you would rather have me than have million-dollar record contracts, sold-out concerts, and graham cracker awards.”

Hutch smiled. “Don’t overwhelm yourself.”

“But it’s true. We’re just stating the facts. It doesn’t mean anything other than . . . what do you call those things? Objectivities?”

“Objective realities.”

“Right, so, I mean, who you are is someone who’d rather have me than have the realization of the dream you came to Hollywood for in the first place. Cold, hard fact, right?”

“Okay,” Hutch said in a whisper and a light laugh. “No regrets.”

They were drained from two ejaculations each that morning—coupled with an emotional romp through make-believe stories about how their Bolivia ordeals would have ended if they could go back in time and rewrite them. Despite their hunger for breakfast, they were more content feasting on each other’s faces in lazy romanticism as their bodies regained strength and vitality.

Starsky realized he hadn’t finished what he needed to say—and pancakes could wait. He pressed his fingertip to Hutch’s right temple. “How long you had that? I mean, besides as long as I’ve known you.”

“Had what?”

“This little bump.” He pushed more firmly into Hutch’s skin to draw Hutch’s attention to the exact spot. “You must know you got this dime-sized something here.”

“All my life.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. It hasn’t changed in four decades, so I’ve never worried about it. Why are you asking?”

“You have another one on your butt. Did you know that?”

“Show me where.”

Starsky reached around Hutch, found the small, ever-so-slightly raised cylinder of skin between Hutch’s right butt cheek and the back of his adjoining thigh, and tickled the spot. “Right there,” he noted.

“Is it new?” Hutch wondered, not sounding alarmed as he reached over his hip to feel it, too.

“It’s been there since I can remember,” Starsky replied. “I wouldn’t worry about it if the one on your head doesn’t worry you. I just wondered if you knew what those were.”

“How could you even feel that?” Hutch asked, abandoning the inspection of his barely noticeable skin imperfections. “Were you down there with a flashlight?”

“You’d be amazed what you can find with your tongue,” Starsky answered him with a wink. “But give it a rest. You’ve had the one on your temple your whole life and it hasn’t done you any harm.”

Hutch squinted at him. “You’re up to something.”

Starsky laughed. “Let’s talk about something else then . . . like . . . your cock.”

“What about it?”

“It grows—”

“C’mon. Be serious.”

“I mean, when it seems it can’t get any bigger, it grows—in size and hardness—inside my mouth.”

“Yeah?” Hutch said with a glint in his eye. “You’re stating the obvious, Detective.”

“Am I?”

“You apparently turn me on.”

“But, like, I apparently really turn you on.”

“Don’t I know it?”

“I’m saying, don’t I know it? Who cares what you know?”

“You’re baiting me.”

“I’m not. If you feel baited, that’s on you. I’m just stating some facts. Your cock grows bigger in my mouth—more than it does when it’s in my hands.”

“Okay. So?”

“My sucking you makes you really hard.”

“We just said that.”

“And then you come in my mouth.”

“I think we agree on that, too.”

“And I swallow your cum.”

Hutch squinted at Starsky again, searching for that thing he must have thought he was missing. When it seemed he couldn’t find it, he instead asked, “Regrets?”

“Not a one,” Starsky replied. “I’ll do it again as soon as you refuel.”

“Are you trying to get me horny so soon already? Do you figure the ‘dirty talk’ might do the trick?”

“I wasn’t talking dirty. I was stating facts: you come in my mouth and I swallow your cum.”

“This isn’t a court of law, Officer; no need for burden of proof.”

“I eat your cum, Hutch.”

“I understood you the first time.”

“Think about that.”

“So I’ll get hard again?”

“That’s a pretty intimate thing to do, don’t you think?”

“No argument here.”

Starsky combed Hutch’s hair with his fingers. “I do it because I love everything about you.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

Starsky wasn’t looking for an ego stroke. “You be honest with me now and rank me on a scale of one to ten, ten being the best lover you’ve ever—”

“Ten. But only because you put a cap on it.”

“What makes me so good? My technique?”

Hutch’s expression softened, as if he’d finally decided to just roll with Starsky’s seemingly pointless questions. “Technique,” he agreed. “But all the technique in the world can’t hold a candle to enthusiasm.”

“So, you’d say I like sex.”

“Love it.”

“Technique still counts, though, right? I mean, I could have all the enthusiasm in the world, but I could still be doing it wrong.”

“You couldn’t do it wrong.”

“How do you know? What are you comparing me to?”

“Every other lover I’ve had. But, honestly, Starsk, this is one time when I do know you’re saying something with ulterior motives.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Well, just come out with it then, will you?”

“You’re saying I’m that good because I love sex.”

“That’s part of it.”

“And because I love you.”

“Obviously.”

“Because I have good technique.”

“It goes without saying.”

“And enthusiasm.”

“The driving force.”

“I make you feel like nobody else does.”

“Or has.”

“It’s pretty intimate when I swallow your load.”

Starsky’s crass phrasing expectedly set Hutch back a beat, but he pushed past it, and caught up. “I’m not sure we do anything together that’s more intimate than that. Where are you going with this?”

“Do you need it harder?”

“No.”

“Faster?”

“No.”

“Tighter?”

“No.”

“Slower?”

Hutch didn’t answer that time, and not because, it seemed, that he wished Starsky’s delivery to be slower, but because he was annoyed by the questions. At least that’s what his expression conveyed.

“Gentler?” Starsky continued, tenderly stroking Hutch’s cheek to demonstrate how. “With more love than lust, I mean?”

“They’re rolled up in each other,” Hutch noted.

“What about timing? Edge you less or more often?”

“I’m not answering these questions.”

“Why not?”

“Because what you do to me is perfect.”

“Are you saying I read you so well, I don’t have to change anything?”

“That’s what I’m saying. But, c’mon, Starsky, tell me what you’re really saying. Spit it out.”

“Never. I like its taste.”

They busted up laughing until Hutch rolled his eyes.

“But you can tell me,” Starsky encouraged him. “I mean, if you need me to do it different, say so. It won’t hurt my feelings.”

“I don’t want it ‘different.’”

“I frustrate you sometimes.”

“Like right now.”

“I mean, sexually, I frustrate you.”

“Yeah, in a sexy way.”

“So you don’t wish I wouldn’t do that?”

“I don’t want you to change anything about the way you handle me, suck me, fuck me, edge me. Nothing. Since when do I worry about hurting your feelings? I’m being straight with you.”

They chuckled quietly on that notion—that they were straight while, at the same, they were each sexually satisfying another man.

“Did any woman make you feel the same?” Starsky asked, in pursuit of his underlying intentions. “I mean, were you ever that satisfied with a woman?”

“I’ve told you this before: no one has made me feel freer or more satisfied or been better to and with me than you have. C’mon, Starsky, we’ve known each other fifteen years. We’ve been through it all—every single emotion and experience two people can have in life, and then some. I haven’t even talked to anyone else this explicitly, the way I talk to you about these things. How come you’re asking such questions again as if you don’t know their answers?”

“I thought you knew me better.”

“Yeah, I do: I know this entire conversation is a ruse for something, and you need to stop playing me.” He didn’t say those words unkindly; he spoke more from his frustration and his desire to know specifically what Starsky planned to eventually tell him.

Starsky couldn’t get anything past Hutch. Wasn’t that his point, but in reverse? “You know me pretty good.”

“Better than anyone.”

“Like I know you better than anyone.”

Hutch had that glint in his eye again. His detective mind reeled until it seemed to find a place to land. “You know me better than I know myself,” he confessed. “I have a bump on my butt I didn’t know I had and, according to you, has been there at least a year-and-a-half.”

Starsky winked at him. “I never thought to mention it because . . . well, it’s hard to think when I got my tongue on your ass.”

“But you still haven’t told me where this is all leading.”

“I knew you didn’t get on that bus in Corkville. I knew it like I know everything else about you.”

“Oh, Starsk,” Hutch said with a deep sigh. He didn’t see the punchline in time to intercept it. His voice was tangibly full of sorry and regret for having played along. “You set me up for that.”

“Because I need you to understand the gravity of this situation.”

“I lived three months of it, lover boy; it’s not lost on me.”

“That abduction should have ended the way I rewrote it. You know I’m right about that. I know I’m right about that. I should never have believed what I knew not to be true.”

“You had a couple of days of high-altitude sickness. Don’t make light of its affect on you.”

“Thin air didn’t change what I knew that morning.”

“You were up all night and day looking for me; didn’t sleep and barely ate. You weren’t exactly running on all cylinders.”

“And yet I still knew you didn’t get on the bus.”

“There was all of that compelling evidence.”

“You’re making excuses for me now,” Starsky complained.

“When you came upon that so-called bus accident,” Hutch continued, “you were back at 15,000 feet. Starsk, if you can’t see the combination of factors that led to you believing a well-executed lie, then I really don’t know what else to say.”

“You already said nobody knows you better than I do,” Starsky argued.

“I don’t take it back.”

“Then you know I knew you didn’t get on that bus, ‘well-executed lie’ be damned.”

“It changes nothing.”

“I let what they wanted me to believe overrun what I knew, Hutch.”

“And you paid the price for it, too.”

“I paid a price that cost you. My failure resulted in your ordeal. I know what it means to be sexually assaulted.”

“You were raped, partner. Gang-raped, mind you. What happened to me—technically—I did to myself.”

“Under threat of harm.”

“Do not compare the two. You insult me otherwise.”

Starsky defensively hugged his arm to his chest, and blinked.

“Don’t act like you don’t know the difference,” Hutch warned him. “If you want to make something up to me, then start there. But don’t ever equate those things again, do you hear me?”

Starsky had to find his voice past the shock of Hutch’s reprimand. “You’re just going to let me off the hook then?”

“The only person judging you is you.”

“Like I said.”

“You need to let this go so we can move forward in our lives.”

“And not be accountable for what I did?”

“What do you want me to do, Starsk? Punch you in the face? Sleep in the other room? Withhold sex? What’s the game plan here?”

“I don’t know. I just know it should have ended the way it did: with me finding you before Ryker could ever lay a hand on you.”

“Why stop there?”

“How do you mean?”

“Go further back. We should never have taken a piss in Bolivia without doing it together.”

“Okay. We would have known where each other was at all times.”

After a moment, Hutch spoke more quietly, and said, “Further back, and I should never have bought those airline tickets to that third-world country. We should have gone someplace else.”

“Well,” Starsky debated him, “I mean, we did have some good times in Bolivia.”

“Not enough to warrant the outcome.”

“Okay, that’s true.”

“In fact, we should never have joked over the years about hiding out in Bolivia. We should have learned something from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Bolivia was no romp in the park.”

“We had to joke about heading somewhere,” Starsky defended them.

“Head to the hills,” Hutch said with a laugh. “Beverly Hills.”

“Okay,” Starsky said for the third time, but not certain he liked hearing that they should never have even played with the idea of hiding out in Bolivia. Why did Hutch have to be so difficult and take things to such an extreme? He had his answer in Hutch’s next notation.

“Let’s go further back, buddy,” Hutch suggested. “I should never have accepted your invitation for that cup of coffee in the Academy’s cafeteria that day we met. That way, none of the shit that’s gone down between us would have gone down.”

Starsky pinched Hutch’s bicep, not hard. “Okay, wise guy, now I know you’re just jerking me around.” Hutch’s wink didn’t ease Starsky’s annoyance, and it probably showed. “But Jade would be proud of you for playing the ‘Hindsight is Stupid’ game.”

“Listen here, Starsk,” Hutch said, his smile fading, and he no longer sounded playful. He touched Starsky’s cheek and deepened their connection, probably on purpose, too. Skin to skin. Eyes to eyes. “You’re the one who knows me so well,” he said softly. “What would the me you know so well do about this predicament of yours?”

That was a question Starsky had never considered—and he was spellbound to think of it then. For a minute he was even speechless. He didn’t know where to begin to answer such a notion, but he felt compelled to find a way.

During Starsky’s silence, Hutch rolled to his back, covered his eyes in the bend of his elbow, exhaled slowly, and jovially asked, “Are we going to eat each other again or have breakfast first?”

Starsky shook off his trance. “I’m not stopping you from going into the kitchen and brewing our coffee.”

“Sure you are,” Hutch countered him.

“How’m I doing that, hm?”

“You’re still lying on the bed, being your introspective, wondering, wonderful self.”

“But that shouldn’t stop you from whipping up some batter.”

“I’ve passed up million-dollar record contracts,” Hutch reminded him, still appearing lazy, and not opening his beautiful eyes, “turned down sold-out concerts—and walked away from graham cracker awards—to be with you. Do you honestly think some pancake mix is going to fare any better?”

* * *

FORESIGHT

“For a while there,” Dobey said to Hutch with a certain sadness in his voice, despite his jab, “we thought we were going to have to mercy-kill your partner.” He invited Hutch to sit in the armchair beside the end table while he pulled his office chair around the desk to the lounge area.

“For a while there,” Starsky admitted, dragging one of the two remaining upholstered leather chairs to the back wall on the opposite side of the end table across from Hutch, “I would have let you mercy-kill his partner.”

Hutch half-spun in front of the seat he’d been offered while his heart immediately began to pound and his breath went shallow. He covered for it by insisting Dobey take the chair instead. “You’re the patriarch,” he meekly explained. “Respect where it’s due.” He couldn’t bear to show his apprehension to his superior—and felt trapped because of it.

“Today you’re my guest,” Dobey innocently debated him, “not my subordinate. Make yourself comfortable.”

In private desperation, Hutch shrugged at Starsky, asking him—without words—to bail him out by swapping places, even though Starsky had already sat down.

“Own it,” Starsky answered him in a firm voice, his affectionate gaze dissolving Hutch’s determination for a different outcome.

Hutch heard him—and understood in that moment that he’d allowed another piece of furniture to trigger an anxiety attack in him. He gave Starsky a nod of gratitude and dutifully sat in the overstuffed armchair, doing his best to focus on calming his nerves.

It was an overcast day, threatening rain. The detectives had arrived at headquarters to choose another cold case from the archives, after which they planned to have an early lunch in a city restaurant for a change. They were dressed in jeans, long-sleeved shirts, and jackets; Hutch in his green-and-white letter one—which he hardly wore anymore; Starsky in a relatively new zippered, dark blue, nylon windbreaker. The cool temperature in the room was perfect for their clothes and, although Hutch preferred to see Starsky in red, that deep blue was his second favorite. He tried again not to let his admiration for Starsky show in the presence of his captain, and to escape his jitters.

“Like Dobey said,” Starsky suggested, smiling warmly at Hutch, as if he noticed Hutch’s fondness for him, “make yourself at home.” He wasn’t finished helping Hutch overcome his uneasiness. “And, while you’re at it, buddy, bask in the glory.”

Those words were another way of telling Hutch to own the chair, to take possession of his relationship with it, and to remember how he’d already paid it back for all the grief Ryker had caused him in such a one. Hutch exhaled a relaxing breath as he sank into the inviting cushions beneath and behind him—and finally made eye contact with Dobey.

“You look good,” he said to his captain, sizing him up. “Have you lost weight since I saw you last?”

“Twelve pounds,” Dobey said proudly, patting his belly. “I’ve been cutting out the donuts every morning.”

“I’ll eat them, if you won’t,” Starsky offered. He rolled his eyes when he saw Hutch’s smirk. “But good for you, Cap’n. I know it has to be hard.”

Dobey had his eyes on Hutch. “You yourself seem none the worse for wear. Roberts faxed up his report the week after you got home. Look it over some time and fill me in on anything else I should know.”

He’d met the two detectives at the airport when they arrived safely back to the United States. Dobey told them then to advise him on further details after they were settled. They only stayed long enough in his company that morning to say their hellos and share a few minor particulars over a quick bite to eat, and then Starsky drove Hutch to the farm for some long-awaited rest. Although they’d kept in touch by phone, they hadn’t seen Dobey since their return.

“I’ve never known a man to be more broken up than Starsky,” Dobey told Hutch, “except . . . you . . . when you believed you’d lost him. You boys have been through a lot.”

“We’re joined at the hip,” Starsky quipped. He gave Hutch an ‘oops’ expression after Hutch shot him a reprimanding glance. “Like peanut butter and jelly,” Starsky quickly said, trying to mitigate his partner’s reaction, but totally blowing it by adding, “Like a nut and a screw.”

“That’s none of my business,” Dobey playfully said, chuckling, “but—in all honesty—I do wish I’d been more attentive to you guys. Maybe I could have steered you better through life.”

“What does that mean, Cap’n?” Starsky asked. “‘More attentive’?”

Hutch also wondered. “We came to you whenever we needed to, and you were there for us.”

“But you guys were obviously having a falling . . . in.”

“As opposed to a falling out?” Starsky wondered.

But Hutch was still confused. “He’s my brother,” was all he could think to say.

“From another mother,” Starsky chimed in.

“Starsky lost his father,” Dobey explained, “and your father, from what I know about him, isn’t a man you can turn to for such . . . ‘delicate’ matters.”

Hutch didn’t understand. “Nobody hurt me in Bolivia—not in ways I would have needed a parent.”

“I mean, I’ve never known two people more ‘attached’ to each other than you and Starsky. I say that as a man who’s been married for almost thirty years.”

Hutch briefly looked at Starsky and got back a shrug, so he tried again to decipher Dobey’s words. “Fifteen years on the Force together,” Hutch said, hoping his assessment would end the dialogue and they could talk about something else, “spending more than seventy-five percent of our day with each other—”

“Ninety,” Starsky insisted. “Ninety-five. Well, I mean, now it’s probably closer to a hundred.”

Hutch frowned at him; he couldn’t believe the innuendos that had erupted from Starsky’s mouth that morning.

“The depth of your pain when you lose each other,” Dobey said, crossing his arms over his chest, keeping his eyes on Hutch, “is more than I think it would be if I lost Edith—and I say that as someone who’d be devastated to lose her.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” Hutch pointedly asked.

“Oh, I know,” Starsky answered, taking Hutch’s attention. “I get what he’s getting at.”

“He was about to tell me what he meant,” Hutch said, as if he’d been insulted.

“But, I mean . . . there’s something I forgot to tell you.”

Dobey gently laughed—as if he knew what Starsky would say next.

“When you were dead,” Starsky explained, appearing sheepish and sounding as much; he crossed his arms, probably from justifiable defensiveness, and bluntly said, “I told Captain Dobey about us.”

“Us?”

“You and me.”

“Yeah, I figured that part.”

“Us . . . the way we are now.”

A flush of embarrassment washed over Hutch. Did Starsky mean to say what he seemed to say? “You told him. . .?”

“That we’re . . . you know . . . soulmates.”

That word didn’t tell Hutch everything, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know more, either. He looked back at Dobey to see his reaction—just as Starsky fleshed his comment further, unprovoked.

“I told him we’re in love—”

“I’ve always figured you guys were in love,” Dobey said.

“—that we’re bona fide bed buddies,” Starsky finished.

There was no stopping the embarrassment Hutch felt at that moment. Nor his bewilderment.

“He didn’t use those exact words,” Dobey noted.

“But you knew that’s what I meant, right?” Starsky asked.

“Yeah, I got the picture. You were inconsolable when you believed Hutch was dead . . . and angry like I’ve never seen you . . . because you didn’t want to pretend Hutch didn’t mean as much to you as he did. You spelled it out for me at the time in no uncertain terms, but why are you being glib about it now?”

“Because Hutch is having a meltdown on me. You can’t see it, Cap’n, but I feel it, and I’m trying to soften the blow he’s about to land on my head.”

Hutch momentarily closed his eyes as he braced himself against the disclosures, none of which he was prepared to face that morning. When he opened them, Dobey sympathetically smiled at him.

“It didn’t shock me,” Dobey promised Hutch. “It doesn’t shock me now. I just didn’t know you didn’t know I knew.”

But how could Hutch not appreciate Starsky’s pain and subsequent confession? Starsky would have been forever debilitated without a strong shoulder to lean on; Dobey was the only person capable of keeping Starsky from falling over the precipice—well, he, and Steven Jade. Starsky couldn’t pretend to have only lost his partner. He had no choice but to tell Dobey why the pain cut so deep.

“Besides,” Dobey said to lighten the apparent mood in the room, “the Department has long been wanting gays on the Force.”

In unison, but not defensively, Starsky and Hutch said, “We’re not gay.”

Dobey sat back in his chair; at first, he seemed to be confused, as if he’d misunderstood Starsky, misinterpreted the nature of his intimate relationship with Hutch. But the revelation soon hit him; the love between his two favorite detectives was simply that strong, that they could behave in ways with each other that went against their hard-wiring. Their bond was that great.

“I’m all the more impressed,” Dobey admitted. “I apologize for my wisecrack.”

“No harm, no foul,” Starsky replied. “But to your point, Cap’n. You don’t owe us anything. Like Hutch said, you’ve always been there for us—above and beyond the call of duty.”

Hutch silently agreed, but he was too busy cooling the light sweat that had broken over his skin, using a couple of imperceptible but deep breaths. For a reason he couldn’t pinpoint, he never thought Dobey would be a person to ever know about his romantic and sexual relationship with Starsky. They hadn’t discussed homosexuality since Detective Blaine had been murdered some eight years prior and the case subsequently closed. Looking back, Hutch couldn’t recall a moment or a time when Dobey had ever said anything disparaging against men who needed men—beyond his appreciative dismay over Blaine’s death.

In fact, Dobey was capable of more empathy than either Hutch or Starsky gave him credit, past or present.

“You’re right,” Hutch noted, answering Dobey, “Starsky and I had a falling in. Maybe if we’d known sooner that the people we respect the most could have accepted us, we’d have spared ourselves a lot of grief. Overcoming our DNA wasn’t as simple as it sounds.”

“Even though everything else was there?” Dobey wondered. “You had loyalty, trust, history, respect. Love.”

“Even though,” Hutch echoed a bit sadly. He would never forget the soul-searching he and Starsky had done together—and alone.

“There was all that God and religion to get past, too,” Starsky remembered. “But the more we examined everything, the more we put behind us—until we were left with ‘you and me’ again.”

His words made Dobey smile, warmly and with affection. “I think it’s a beautiful testament to the human spirit—and yours, in particular,” he added, first looking at Hutch and then at Starsky. “In small and big ways, you guys came from very different worlds.”

“But we both have blue eyes,” Starsky noted.

Hutch squinted at him. “You really know how to take the profundity down a notch.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Starsky retaliated, “but it sounds like I succeeded at something, so I accept the compliment.”

Hutch and Dobey laughed at him, shook their heads.

“Did you boys decide on a cold case?” Dobey asked, putting them on a serious path, and ignoring Starsky’s frown.

“You only gave us two to choose from this time,” Starsky said, but he wasn’t irritated by that fact. “Hutch left it up to me, and I chose the Sophia Sykes case.”

“The redeeming value to that one, if you can solve it, boys, would be immeasurable.”

“How so?” Hutch asked.

“You’ll read that a young man was convicted of her murder. Two years into his prison sentence, he hung himself in his cell. Fast forward nearly twenty years and DNA exonerated him a couple of years back. But that means there’s plenty of DNA in this case to match it to the real killer—if you can find him.”

“So, you’re saying we get to be creative about collecting forensic evidence?”

“Real creative,” Dobey agreed. “I mean, it’s possible the perpetrator is long-dead himself.”

“Are there suspects on file?”

“A litany of them,” Dobey observed. “So, if you guys can solve this one, it’ll meet your criteria for creative detective work and you can avoid a shootout. The guy you’ll bring in is probably living in a nursing home and walking with a cane by now.”

“Oh, that hurts,” Starsky said with a snicker. “Here I was thinking you loved us.”

“At least he didn’t say we’d be gummed in a fist fight,” Hutch joked. “He’s giving us some credit.”

“I like your spin,” Starsky replied, winking at Hutch. “But that begs the question, Cap. I mean, is there anything out there you think we could do that would be meaningful, safe, and save lives—and not be boring?”

“Solving cold cases is all of those things,” Dobey insisted. “The one you chose is more interesting than it sounds.”

“Wrestling old men to the ground doesn’t appeal to my better nature.”

“Pick a cold case that isn’t as old as this one next time.”

Starsky mulled the idea.

“What about a particular line of policing?” Hutch suggested. He wanted to find a new dream for his partner as he understood the limitations of the cold case work they’d been doing. “We’re not interested in desk jobs, but if you think of anything that falls between those and what we’ve been surviving these past fifteen years, let us know?”

“You boys are only bored because you’ve done so much: solved violent crimes, saved innocent lives, ended cruelty, found lost and abused children, rescued pigs. . . I don’t want to see you go, but you might consider teaching.”

Starsky snorted. “You have to be kidding. I can barely speak English.”

“I didn’t mean in front of a classroom. You’re writing a book, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s that coming?”

“I have one more chapter to finish—and then I give it to an editor.”

“What’s keeping you?”

“My birthday.”

“Come again?”

“Hutch and I are going up to our cabin next month, so we’ll be there on my birthday. That’s the deadline I gave myself to finish the book.”

“Writing is a form of teaching,” Dobey explained, winking at Hutch as if to say he didn’t need to tell Hutch that, but Starsky was sadly clueless. “Market the hell out of it when it’s done. Go on a speaking/book signing tour. Teach people. Have you read it?” he asked Hutch.

“He won’t let me read it until it’s done,” Hutch said, “and without reading it, I don’t know what the teachable aspects of it are. From what I gathered, the book is about him and me, but mostly about our cases over the years.”

“In a nutshell,” Starsky said.

“All of which has taught you guys something,” Dobey noted. “You teach best what you’ve learned.”

* * *

“Something Dobey said.”

Hutch browsed the food selections and didn’t pay full attention to his partner’s comment. He did notice that Starsky hadn’t even picked up a menu; he seemed to leave the ordering to Hutch—and was apparently more interested in conversation than eating.

“Did you hear me?” Starsky impatiently asked after half a minute. He sat across from Hutch and tapped the table. “Something Dobey said.”

To humor him, Hutch replied in a subdued voice, “Teaching through writing?” When he didn’t get the snappy answer he expected, he looked up from his menu and was met by Starsky’s scowl. “What other profound thing did Dobey have to say, Starsk?”

“About how attached we are.”

“Like a nut and a screw?”

“Something like that.”

“What about it?”

“I mean, he’s right, you know. We’re lost without the other one.”

“Do you think I forget that?”

“No, but I mean, the day is coming, Hutch, when one of us is going to leave the other—for good.”

“Maybe we’ll go together,” Hutch said flatly, setting aside the menu, folding his hands on the table, and making whimsical eye contact with his partner. “Problem—whatever it is—solved.”

“How do you figure we’d go together, wise guy?”

“Murder,” Hutch said, lifting just his finger to point at Starsky, “suicide,” he finished, wagging his thumb at himself. “You’ll have to trust that I follow through.”

Starsky frowned. “You’re an asshole.”

“Okay,” Hutch said, intentionally sounding happy to fix his error. “Murder”—referencing himself. “Suicide”—pointing again at Starsky. “I trust you to follow through.”

“You’re not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

“You’re not even serious.”

“Which is it then?”

“C’mon. This is important.”

“We could die together in a car accident,” Hutch supposed, “the way you drive.” He knew Starsky wanted to have a thoughtful conversation about their lives if one of them should ‘die again,’ but Hutch wasn’t in the mood. It was lunchtime and they were finally able to eat in an upscale restaurant, a significant change from the ones in their home neighborhood. “Or maybe we go over a cliff on a train derailment.”

Starsky’s stare turned into a glare—and he pursed his lips with visible contempt.

Luckily, the waiter interrupted them right at that moment—so Hutch could order food and Starsky could climb down from his hostile intentions. “Roasted broccoli salad,” Hutch said, handing the young male waiter both his and Starsky’s menus, “with pesto instead of curry—for my partner and me to share. Baingan bharta and aloo puri—also enough for two. Oh, and some pakoras, please.”

The waiter suggested they also enjoy their meals with the alcoholic beverages of their choice. But when Starsky tried to ask for a beer, Hutch cut him off to insist they have gin-and-tonics instead—an Indian favorite. “Something a little stronger,” he explained to his disappointed partner, “because I think we’re going to need it if we end up talking about what I presume you want to discuss.”

It was the compromise that put Starsky back on his track. “So, someday, Hutch, one of us is going to be without the other.”

“Did you have one of us in mind to go first?”

“I’m not playing around here. You or me could go at any moment. We’ve learned that much.”

“So one of us goes. . .”

“That leaves the other one without—”

“Brilliant deduction, Sam Spade.”

“—which could mean that he might live another fifty years without his partner.”

“You do know how to liven a party. Is it the tablecloth?”

They were seated at a small table by the window that overlooked the mostly pedestrian-trafficked street. Silverware and cloth napkins, fresh wildflowers in a ceramic vase and a pot of steaming hot tea, empty wine glasses and overturned teacups—the first five-star restaurant they’d visited since their date in Oxnard some many months earlier to celebrate their clean bills of health. Hutch had hoped for another romantic outing similar to that one, but Starsky seemed bent on the morbid.

“I’m thinking we should talk about what that man does when he finds himself alone—for real; forever, I mean,” Starsky said. “I know we’ve talked about keeping the other alive in our hearts by doing something to remember him, but fifty years, Hutch . . . that’s a long time. That’s more time ahead of us than we’ve been alive.”

Starsky’s fact was immediately sobering, and Hutch no longer felt purposefully antagonistic. “Okay,” he said, acceptingly. “So, what’s the plan then?”

“I guess the plan is to figure out the plan.”

“What is it you’re looking for? Let’s start there.”

“This isn’t about me. It’s about the one left behind.”

“But what are you hoping for him, huh? Permission to—”

“—be happy,” Starsky impulsively finished the sentence. “It doesn’t matter which one of us ‘left the room.’ We both know how fucked up the man still standing is going to be. If you go first, Hutch, I can only build so many greenhouses, know what I mean?”

Hutch didn’t believe Starsky spoke facetiously. He hadn’t forgotten the devastated life he’d lived for a couple of months after having been convinced that Starsky had perished in an airplane crash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And he imagined Starsky had suffered the same agonizing pain and immeasurable emptiness when Hutch died in a Bolivian bus accident. But he didn’t know what Starsky wanted from him, either.

His partner seemed to read his mind. “I lived it for three months,” Starsky explained, leaning forward on the table, as if he needed to be more closely heard, “and you for two. Why did it hurt so much, Hutch? I can tell you why. It was the most destroyed we’ve ever been—or ever will be—because no one can do for us what we do for each other. No one.”

Hutch didn’t argue—and not because Starsky was exceptionally handsome just then, expressing his heartfelt observations about their friendship and their everlasting bond in such serious context. It wasn’t his sexy face or his deep blue eyes or their reflection of light and promising life; it wasn’t his dark, rain-damp hair or his always kissable lips, nor his masculine voice or his perfect build, nor the overall picture of him sitting across the table from Hutch, wanting to be understood by the only person who mattered to him. Starsky was particularly beautiful in that moment because, cloaked in truth, he was right.

No one could replace the other one. Not anyone. Not ever.

“I want you to be happy,” Hutch said firmly. How else could he say it? “You tell me what will make you happy if I leave the room first and I’ll tell you why it would make me happy to grant you permission to live that life.”

“You’re not hearing me. This isn’t about me looking out for myself. I want to talk about what we each do if we’re the one to end up alone.”

Hutch had understood him the first time, but he apparently hadn’t formulated his words in a manner that conveyed his process of exploration. He tried again. “How about this idea, Starsk? Let me tell you how I think you should live your life without me. That way we’ll know this conversation isn’t about what Starsky wants, but about what Hutch wants for him.”

Starsky leaned back in his chair and examined Hutch’s supposition in silence. In that suspended minute, their drinks were delivered, and Starsky eventually raised his glass in a toast after the waiter left. He leveled Hutch’s gaze, as if to brace himself. “Go for it, Steinbeck,” he bravely said, and then he downed his first swallow. “Make me happy . . . without you.”

* * *

A lot had changed in Starsky’s life after Hutch’s fatal misstep off the curb one rainy afternoon and smack into oncoming traffic. The accident happened right in front of him; Starsky couldn’t not believe it. Hutch’s death had come instantly, too—the only consolation Starsky was gifted. Knowing Hutch hadn’t suffered, that he was laughing one second and gone the next, gave Starsky a certain closure he wouldn’t have had otherwise. The collision hadn’t even spilled blood.

Hutch’s body was soon-after cremated, as per his will and testament; he was eulogized by nearly a dozen fellow officers, including notables Capt. Dobey, and especially by his police partner of fifteen years, all of whom eloquently spoke to a gathering comprised of hundreds of colleagues, friends, and family. After the hour-long, all-faith service, which was followed by a three-volley police send-off, Hutch’s remains were remanded into Starsky’s possession, and no one contested the transfer.

On a late spring morning, on a day as peaceful as the nature that embraced him, Hutch’s ashes were eventually scattered over the meadow near his and Starsky’s mountain cabin—with only one person in attendance. “It was always just me and thee,” Starsky emotionally told him as he opened the urn and allowed the dust to be carried away on the breeze. He had honored all of Hutch’s wishes. “But don’t go too far, buddy boy. I still need you.”

Starsky eventually sold the farm to the Grace House, having dropped the price by two percent as a donation to its child welfare program. He loved the country life until he found himself alone in it; Hutch was the green thumb, the one who planted the trees and watered the gardens and steered its development. And it wasn’t that Starsky wasn’t close friends with Wade Davis, but Davis had his own life plans: his resignation from the police force so he could focus full-time on rescuing wayward boys—and his upcoming marriage to Megan. When Starsky finally moved off the property, Davis and his new bride took advantage of the main house for added privacy, but also to make room for a few kids of their own.

Starsky relocated closer to the city—less than half the distance he and Hutch had traveled from the farm to the police station—and into a relatively unknown town called Thousand Oaks. Grassy, rolling hills, bluer skies, and a picturesque landscape sprawled in every direction from his new residence. The house was modest: a spacious open floor plan with two bedrooms, two-bathrooms, lots of windows, and a yard big enough for a small fruit orchard, raised vegetable beds, and the four-person hot tub he brought with him from the farm. Hutch’s spirit personified everything that was green and alive on the premises—including its busy bees and butterflies. Every bud and flower petal was a reminder of the man Starsky had loved and lost.

He found glimpses of Hutch’s soul in other things, too: not just in the pear trees and the tomato plants and among the bluebell flowers that grew wild in his city house yard, but in the change of seasons, the cycles of day into night and back again, and in the forever-marching passage of time.

Starsky never turned in his badge. Although he no longer worked a beat or patrolled the streets, not even as a detective in search of clues, he continued to solve most of the cold cases he’d been assigned, and he rescued children and other hapless victims of violent crimes. In the summer months, he taught classes at the Police Academy—shorter courses that focused primarily on cultural sensitivity training, sexual harassment issues, tactical communications, missing persons, violence against women, and other hate crimes. He saved his more polished detective skills and critical thinking for those long-forgotten rape and murder cases he gleaned from the archives, and used his weekends to ‘knock on doors,’ mostly by himself.

“You’d be proud of me,” he’d tell Hutch during his reflective moments, especially when he analyzed his accomplishments in hindsight.

Starsky had penned his first book’s final chapter before his forty-second birthday, a goal he’d set for himself while Hutch was still alive. Bookstore Mary polished the manuscript for him, a professional agent snagged a lucrative contract, and Random House bought the rights for a hefty sum of money, nearly enough to let Starsky retire if he wanted to—coupled, that is, with Hutch’s life insurance payout and the proceeds from the sale of the farm. But Starsky had no intentions of quitting. The world didn’t stop revolving; why should he turn in his badge?

Several dozen book signings, readings, and lectures later, and Starsky had become a big-time hero—he and his late partner, more specifically. Readers and listeners, interviewers and profilers, media anchors and photographers were as anxious to meet and talk to Starsky as they were to hear additional stories about his me-and-thee partner. Starsky didn’t tour any national circuit to promote and sell his book; the vast city of Los Angeles and its surrounding areas were enough of a workout. The surprisingly popular book got even more publicity when Starsky began to use it as the basis of the courses he taught at the Academy. In some respects, Hutch had become a legend and was revered in ways he perhaps wouldn’t have been had he lived.

In fact, there was so much interest in Hutch—and their teamwork—that Starsky wrote a popular sequel to ‘Me and Thee,’ titling it ‘Cowboys and Cops’; it contained lesser known, but more personal stories—although it never even hinted at the true nature of his relationship with the blue-eyed, blond, forever love of his life. With rare exceptions, some things would go with Starsky to his grave.

But he lived a long life—a very productive and admirable one, too. He spent most of his time between the city house and the Academy, with several trips a year to the cabin, where he usually visited for holidays and birthdays, including Hutch’s. Spending special days on the mountain had been a ritual for them from the moment Starsky had purchased the property, and it would remain so until Starsky’s death. It was also the perfect place to write—and to reminisce.

Over time, Bookstore Mary became the driving force behind the home improvements at his cabin. He paid for an electric pole, dug a well for running water, outfitted the cabin with ambient lights, both inside and out, and built several other small structures nearby: a woodshed, a car port, and a greenhouse. Although he stopped driving the Striped Tomato to the cabin—to save on wear and tear—he did take some pride in keeping Hutch’s truck primed. Over the years, the Torino was eventually garaged and driven on rare occasion, just for the pleasure of it—and to remember those precious bygone times.

Of course, Starsky wept when Hutch died. Despite the promise he’d made to his partner not to wallow in despair and grief, it was nearly impossible not to. Starsky had lost the best of himself, after all, and the emptiness Hutch’s absence left in its wake was often times unbearable. But months passed, followed by years, and Starsky came to realize Hutch had never fully left him. It wasn’t just the reminders of nature or traffic or the occasional turn of a phrase by someone within earshot; memories of Hutch, and that warm feeling they gave him, were permeated throughout every aspect of Starsky’s life.

He’d kept all of Hutch’s possessions: his vehicle, his guitar, his books, and everything in between. One thing he’d learned from his trial run of losing Hutch was that he couldn’t completely bury him, so Starsky didn’t even try when that ‘for real—forever, I mean,’ void fell upon him. He kept Hutch’s clothes, dressing in them every day after work, and all the times he spent at their cabin—wearing Hutch’s shirts and ties, his socks and his scarves, his jackets and his sweatpants. Sometimes, Starsky even went to work in Hutch’s clothes, a kind of secret between himself and Hutch, something private he could feel smug about, especially in the presence of his superiors. Only once did Dobey catch him in a sweater he swore he’d seen on Hutch a number of times. But Dobey was family by then and his judgement was nonexistent.

Hutch’s record albums, cassette tapes and VHS movies, his trinkets and gardening tools, his sweet, buttery voice on the answering machine, his cuff links and his dinner dishes—all that and more—were a daily staple of Starsky’s routine and lifestyle. He’d barely kept any of his own possessions, favoring Hutch’s, and always remembering his partner when he came into contact with them. “There you are,” he liked to say, pouring coffee into a cup he recognized as one Hutch had bought. And he did that every morning for the remaining decades of his life. He even made his way through all of Hutch’s books and saved publications, newspapers and magazines, reading every page over the years, and realizing just how smart Hutch truly had been.

There could be no love like the one Starsky had with Hutch, but he did find deep caring again, and some semblance of affection and fondness, with Mary. Despite that she was a decade older than he, or maybe because of it, he was able to settle into a pattern of mutually satisfying relations with her. She rarely came to his place in the city, and she only sometimes spent nights in his bed at the cabin— preferring those intimate times at her small and more comfortable house on the mountain—but they were regularly in contact with each other by phone during Starsky’s long absences from his wilderness property, and they made up for their longing whenever he visited. Perhaps the rendezvous were all the sweeter because of it. The holidays were warmer, more romantic, and their birthdays more fun.

Starsky was consciously aware that he didn’t have the sex drive he’d once so highly prized. Losing Hutch nearly killed it completely for several years. He seemed to summon it purely to meet Mary’s needs, but eventually began to enjoy himself and look forward to his cabin visits, sometimes extending them beyond his initial plans. But sex would never be the same again, so he didn’t ask for more than was required of him; and he’d long lost the overwhelming excitement he experienced when bedding Hutch. In the decades that followed Hutch’s passing, Starsky’s desire slowly faded, too. It served its purpose to bring him closer to Mary and she to him, but they inevitably discovered that companionship and intimate affection, often without sex, carried more meaning for them as they aged.

On occasion, Starsky would travel with Mary—to Pismo Beach on the California coast, to the Grand Canyon, to a night on the town in San Francisco—he, the driver, and always in Hutch’s truck. He never shared with anyone that reminders of Hutch were in everywhere he went and in everything he did, saw, felt, touched; those moments were between him and Hutch and that’s how he kept them safe and precious.

Starsky first buried his piggies, Kenny and Davey—only three months apart—with the help of animal caregiver staff, in a small graveyard on the sanctuary premises. The ceremony was as sweet as it was dignified. But he next endured the loss of Capt. Dobey, long after the elder had retired, and to a passing that occurred in Dobey’s sleep. That death was much harder on Starsky than losing his beloved pigs, but nowhere near the pain and devastation of losing Hutch.

Starsky also helped to bury Huggy Bear after the man’s long-fought illness that ended in fatal pneumonia. Luckily, Starsky didn’t have to do likewise with his brother, but he did say goodbye to his ailing mother, to Hutch’s parents, to the random colleague or friend of his youth. Time had a way of removing loved ones from the stage. Even his beloved Mary, who lived for more than nine decades, left Starsky’s life when he least expected it. But, by then, he’d grown accustomed to loss.

He himself had very few health issues, thanks in part to the more natural lifestyle his partner had designed for him years before. He remained true to his ethics, mostly because he believed in them, but also as a tribute to Hutch’s teachings and pureness of heart. It had been a good life, overall, with the exception of that one forever-devastating sorrow in whose vacuum Starsky had lived—on a promise to keep them each alive. “There’s plenty of time to be dead,” Hutch had once told him. “No point in rushing it.” But then, more than fifty years earlier, and in the blink of an eye, Hutch was gone.

“I’m coming for you,” Starsky would occasionally tell him, to keep Hutch from getting cocky, and to stop himself from feeling utterly alone at times, even and especially in the company of others. “Just you wait, partner. I’m coming for you.”

And then, during the quiet part of a long night, on the eve of his ninety-second birthday and toward the end of a liberating dream filled with Hutch’s golden smiles, Starsky did just that.

* * *

“That’s it?” Starsky asked. He ate while he admonished Hutch. “All them car chases and fist fights . . . the shootouts and the near death stuff . . . and you chose to slip off a curb into the path of an oncoming car?”

“We can make it a bus, but I think I already had that accident.”

Starsky clamped his jaw in dismay and stared angrily at Hutch. He obviously had no words, because he didn’t speak a single one, visibly not finding Hutch’s humor all that funny.

“I went with something that wouldn’t be so traumatic for you,” Hutch defended his choice. He could tell Starsky enjoyed their meal because his partner had gone back for second and third helpings from the serving dishes, and his enthusiasm pleased Hutch to no end. “I figured out a way to ‘leave the room’ that wouldn’t have you looking for me for a lifetime,” Hutch furthered, “a way that wouldn’t put you on an unending trail of some revenge killing . . . a death that would be fast and bloodless and right before your eyes so there’d be no guessing how I died.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Starsky replied with a wave of his hand to stop the talk in its tracks. He obviously didn’t want to discuss Hutch’s death details, after all. “But I’d have to live the rest of my life with the fact that you were a bona fide idiot, falling off a curb like that.”

“It was wet. Raining. The cement was slippery.”

“Excuses.”

Hutch pursed his lips, raised an eyebrow, using his playful expression to convey another fact.

“Oh, I see,” Starsky realized, but not sounding thrilled to have read his partner. “You died this afternoon . . . right after we leave the restaurant.”

It had begun to rain.

“You said one of us could go at any minute and the other would have fifty years without his man,” Hutch recalled for them. “Don’t I get credit for not keeping you in suspense?”

Starsky smirked. “Well, anyway, thank you for sparing me a fate worse than death.”

“Yours or mine?”

“Both of ours,” Starsky decided after a short pause to reflect on Hutch’s fantasy. “You went without suffering and I went in my sleep.”

“See? I can write happy endings, too.”

Starsky rolled his eyes. “But, more importantly, Hutch, you think I should sell the farm, hm?”

“I gave you something manageable instead.”

Starsky didn’t argue. He continued to eat Indian food in earnest and drink it down with his gin-and-tonic and sips of hot tea. “This stuff is good,” he commented—for the third time that afternoon. “You do know how to pick the right foods.”

“Broadening your palate is all.”

“The way you do my dick?”

Hutch laughed, glanced around the room to make certain no one was within earshot, and replied, “Taking care of my boy in every way possible is my ultimate pleasure.”

“The pleasure is half mine, don’t forget,” Starsky told him. He wagged a spiced fritter at Hutch. “What are these called?”

“Pakoras.”

“What’s in them?”

“Potatoes, mostly. Can’t you tell?”

“They’re so full of spices, I couldn’t make them out. How come we don’t grow potatoes?”

“Never thought to,” Hutch said with a shrug. He was so happy Starsky loved the flavorful tastes he’d been experiencing. “So let’s plant some potatoes.”

“And then we can make our own pakoors.”

“Pakoras.”

“Is it a hard thing to do?”

“Which?”

“Grow potatoes.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Starsky looked up at him, disappointed. “Like, what does it take?”

“Digging holes.”

“And then?”

“Put potatoes in them.”

“There has to be more to it than that, Farmer Fred.”

“There is.”

“What else?”

“Water them.”

“You’re fucking with me now.”

“Always and forever.”

Starsky laughed, seeming pleased to know that fact, even though it often gave him grief. “This Mary thing, Hutch.”

“Marry?”

“Bookstore Mary.”

“What about her?”

“How come you chose her for me?”

“Are you planning to have kids?”

“Not anymore.”

“Then you don’t need a young, child-bearing female in your life.”

Starsky considered the observation and then silently agreed by returning to his food.

“Besides,” Hutch explained, “you’re already fond of Mary.”

“How do you know that? Did I tell you about my overnight with her—and don’t remember I did?”

Hutch sat back in his chair, drew a slow breath. He was surprised by Starsky’s disclosure. How was he only then hearing about Starsky staying overnight with Mary two months after his return from Bolivia? “You didn’t say,” he replied, speaking each word carefully. They’d been having a romantic afternoon until that moment.

Starsky looked back at him as if he realized his mistake—and that he’d just cornered himself. He completely swallowed what was in his mouth before he spoke—and he appeared baffled. “I didn’t tell you about my overnight with Mary?”

Hutch prepared himself for disappointment, or at least tried to. “I think I would remember if you had.”

“Then how’d you know I was fond of her?”

“You said she read some chapters in your book and that she was going to help you find a publisher—because she was smart, you said, and had connections.”

“And that makes me fond of her?”

“If that doesn’t, then what does?”

Starsky seemed to realize his next blunder. “Well, I mean, I spent some time with her up there between Christmas and New Year’s.”

“That much I knew.”

“And I ended up staying overnight one night.”

“I figured that out in this conversation.”

“It’s not what you think, Hutch.”

“I’m only wondering why you didn’t tell me more if there’s more to tell.”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“Is there more to tell?”

“She invited me over to her place—a couple nights before New Year’s Eve or maybe it was the night before.” He looked out the window to the falling rain to press his memory, decided the date wasn’t relevant, and continued. “I made a salad,” he said, making eye contact with Hutch again.

There wasn’t enough guilt on Starsky’s face to alarm Hutch; he resumed eating while he listened, hoping for the best outcome, no matter what it was.

“She made pasta. We drank some wine, listened to Christmas music, and then she came on to me.”

“Like Ashlee did?”

“Not like that,” Starsky said with a frown, sounding annoyed by the comparison. “She kissed me; she didn’t mount me.”

Hutch tried not to smile, but sometimes Starsky’s defensive explanations amused him, regardless. “Am I going to be disappointed by the ending to this story?”

“No.”

Hutch was relieved. “Okay, buddy, tell me what you think is my right to know.”

“It’s all your right to know,” Starsky insisted. He drank tea, but had stopped eating. “I explained to her that I wasn’t in the same place she was—and not because I didn’t want . . . or maybe I could have wanted . . . I mean, as I said to her, I was hurting at the time.”

“And she said she could ease your pain.”

“And I told her I didn’t want to feel better. Not that way.”

Hutch thought he’d treed Starsky, more playfully than seriously, but he was still taken aback by how well he’d read the situation. “Because I was dead,” he surmised. “You didn’t want to ‘feel better’ because you were hurting over me being dead.”

“Yeah, because you were dead. I’ve never felt hurt like that before, and that’s saying something, Hutch, because I lost my dad, remember?”

Hutch had never forgotten, but he didn’t mean to sound accusatory, either. “Did she know about us?”

“Just that I was in love with you and still am. She noticed I was wearing two of the same ring, and I wanted her to know why, but also why I couldn’t bring myself to make love to her.”

Starsky still wore both his and Hutch’s rings. Hutch hadn’t asked for his back because he rather liked it on Starsky’s hand—his possession in Starsky’s safekeeping—and Starsky apparently felt likewise because he never offered to return it.

“I told her I wasn’t gay,” Starsky said, “just in love with you. I don’t know if she understood my meaning.”

“Mary seems like a smart lady,” Hutch observed. “A wise woman, didn’t I say? Did the night end okay?”

“We slept together,” Starsky answered, and then, after seeing Hutch’s startled expression, quickly added, “I mean, we slept, fell asleep together, in her bed, not that we, you know. . .”

“Yeah, I know,” Hutch said quietly, allowing the warmth of hot tea to ease his impulsive concern and let him keep steady eye contact with Starsky. His man sure was doubly handsome when he was on edge. “I was dead,” he noted, “and you were in serious grief, found comfort in someone’s arms, and spent the otherwise lonely night with a friend.”

“That’s exactly what it was.”

“And she’s still willing to help you out, despite the fact that you’re in love with me.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t break her heart.”

“No.”

“Then I chose wisely for you.”

“Maybe so, Hutch,” Starsky said after half a minute of reflection. “Maybe so.”

* * *

“The sex, Hutch.”

“Whose?”

“Ours.”

“What about it?”

“You’re right: it’ll never be the same for us without the other.”

Hutch was at the wheel of his truck, driving them home in the rain from the restaurant, keeping his eyes on the wet highway while he listened to Starsky’s further musings.

“What I’m saying,” Starsky added clarification, “is that it wouldn’t be the same for us even if the other one of us didn’t die. If we broke up for some reason, I mean, we’d never have sex with anyone else the way we have it with each other.”

“Are you looking for an argument?”

“Just stating a fact, Officer,” Starsky quipped. “But don’t you think that’s scary, Hutch? to know sex would never be the same for us if we weren’t having it with each other?”

“Disappointing, for sure. But I’m not planning on breaking up. Are you?”

“No,” Starsky said, laughing as if the idea itself was beyond absurd.

The day was relatively gray, dark and gloomy, with near-black clouds overhead, blocking out the powerful rays of the world-famous Southern California sun; heavier rain streaked from the sky on the horizon while more spilled across their path, soaking everything it touched. The air was cool, too, bordering on cold, and had forced them back into their jackets for warmth.

Meanwhile, the wipers kept a steady rhythm on the windshield and seemed to rock Starsky into more food for thought. He slumped against the passenger door, kept most of his attention on the outside drama, and spoke from a deep reflection. “But no woman is going to do the things to us that we do to each other.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. You don’t think there are women out there who enjoy anal sex?”

“Not in my experience.”

Hutch remembered they’d had those conversations in the early stages of their sexual relationship, but he was up to discussing them again; the ride home was long. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t women out there who enjoy it.”

“They’re rare, Hutch.”

“True, buddy, but there’s always vaginal sex. That’s better than anal sex, isn’t it? We only do anal because it’s all we’ve got between us—for penetration, I mean.”

“But you can’t go as deep in a vagina,” Starsky reminded him.

“Valid point.”

“Rimming, Hutch? You think there are women out there who like doing that?”

Hutch appreciated that they both knew that answer. Still. . . “I’m sure there are women who would do whatever pleased her man.”

“Let’s say that’s true,” Starsky supposed, but sounding unconvinced. “What are the chances either of us get to meet her, hm? Besides, who wants a lover who’s only doing stuff because you want it and not because she wants it?”

Hutch didn’t laugh. It was Starsky, not any woman, who completely accepted the naturalness of his body, who pleasured him in every way possible, who enjoyed the explicit giving as much as he did the receiving. “What are you asking, Starsk? that we be allowed to find happiness with another man should something happen to one of us?”

“No,” Starsky replied sternly. “Not even close to what I’m saying. I’m telling you what I’m thinking, no hidden agenda. Even if we could find a woman like that, Hutch, she’s not going to want to have sex every day, day after day, for the next fifty years—sometimes twice or three times a day. You can’t convince me there’s women out there like that.”

“Probably not,” Hutch said in a low voice. “They’re not wired that way.”

“They’re not wired to want sex more than they want . . . the closeness of sex.”

“We’re definitely different animals,” Hutch agreed.

“No woman is going to suck your cock like I have.”

Those words were unexpected; they triggered a pang of sexual desire in Hutch before he realized Starsky had baited him. “I’m driving, pal,” he complained. “Don’t distract me.”

“These are just facts, Detective,” Starsky said with a laugh. He set one foot onto the dashboard and snugged further into his seat. “Fact: no woman is going to suck your cock like I have—or will—for the rest of your life.”

“You were right the first time—with or without the conditions.”

“And you know how much you love how I suck your cock.”

Hutch had to shift position—drop his left elbow to the armrest, prop his right wrist over the steering wheel to control his budding erection, slow his speed, consciously focus on the rain-swept road—to avoid the sexual feelings that immediately stirred in him from the visuals of Starsky’s words.

“Did you hear me?” Starsky asked.

“I said I’m driving.”

“I’m just telling it like it is.”

“With mal-intent, no doubt,” Hutch assumed. He knew his partner better than his partner gave him credit. “Let me get us home alive, okay?”

“No woman’s got a bona fide dick to pleasure your ass while she gives you an oil-slicked reach-around.”

“Are you trying to get us killed?”

“I’m making a point.”

“You made it long ago; now knock it off.”

“Okay, so we get that kind of sex with each other because we’re men; we got the parts, right? But we’re not men who like men. Our sex lives are over if something happens to one of us.”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“So maybe we should start having more sex.”

“More sex?” Hutch asked, looking over at him. Starsky’s blue eyes smiled in return, but not mischievously. “Is this conversation about how the quantity of our sex is lacking for you?” Hutch asked.

“Are you listening to me at all?”

“It’s hard to hear you when I’m maneuvering through rain and I have a budding hard-on at the same time.”

“I’m saying—because we’re the best we’ll ever have—that we should take advantage of the time we’re together and do more of it.”

“I prefer the organic way we relate.”

“Is that a farming reference?”

“Potatoes,” Hutch said playfully, hitting the right turn signal to exit the highway. He braked the truck to a stop at the four-way intersection and then turned left onto the county road. “I think we should go to our graves knowing that we had sex whenever we wanted it, that we never heard ‘no,’ and that we enjoyed the experience to its fullest each and every time.”

“I’m for that.”

“That’s what we’ve been doing, dummy.”

“Yeah, okay, as long as you’re happy with it. I’m just suggesting we do more of it instead of sometimes watching a movie or something.”

“My turn to ask you if you’re listening.”

“I like how we are; I mean, I love it. Every bit of it.”

“Me, too.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Hutch laughed. He could no longer tell whether Starsky played him to amuse himself on the long ride home, or if he simply didn’t hear his own words. It didn’t matter; if Starsky wanted to up the number of times they engaged each other sexually, Hutch was willing to meet the challenge. “I’ll follow your lead,” he said affectionately. “Just show me the way.”

Ten minutes passed. Hutch carefully maneuvered the rain-slicked county road and its curves, and assumed Starsky had quickly bored with the game—if it was a game—and had eventually drifted off to sleep. But when he glanced over at Starsky, he found his partner looking back at him—as if Starsky had been watching him that entire time, wordlessly.

“What?” Hutch asked, setting his eyes on the road again.

“You’re beautiful,” Starsky said, sounding sincere.

Starsky had aroused Hutch’s sexual desire; he then seemed to aim for Hutch’s disposition. Hutch repressed his smile, listened to the rain on the truck, to the tires on the wet asphalt, and to the quiet, warm comfort in the cab. If Starsky only knew how badly he wished they were already home.

“You know you’re beautiful,” Starsky prodded him.

“So I’ve heard.”

“You know it, too. But it’s okay. You don’t have to say it. Just know that we all know it.”

“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”

“Objective realities, Hutch. You’re perfect.”

“I have a big nose.”

“The shit you say? Keep that up and I’m liable to punch you in it.”

Hutch laughed. “My head is too small.”

“For what? An elephant?”

“I’m all legs and arms.”

“And dick. Don’t forget your dick.”

“I’m simply taking issue with your assessment that I’m perfect.”

“I wouldn’t change anything. Neither would you. And nobody else would find anything to change, either. You’re just afraid you’ll get the big head if you agree with . . . everybody.”

“Maybe.”

“All your life you’ve heard how beautiful you are; I guess you think it doesn’t count when your parents tell you something like that—because they must be bigoted—”

“You mean biased—but my parents never told me I was beautiful.”

“Be serious.”

Hutch turned right onto the unmarked residential road that would take them to their driveway. It had stopped raining by then, but everything was drenched; it had rained hard in the foothills. “My mom told me, years later, that my pop didn’t want me to . . . how did you say it? . . . get the big head.”

“So they never told their baby boy he’s beautiful?”

“‘Average’ was my pop’s word. Kept me grounded.”

Starsky was silent for half a minute and then said, “Well, since then, you’ve heard it enough to know everybody sees you as beautiful—and perfect—right?” When Hutch didn’t answer, because he was too embarrassed, Starsky added, “I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing about you. I looked across the room that day, Hutch . . . our first day at the Academy . . . and saw you . . . and you took my breath away.”

Hutch looked over at him again and smiled. “Hot for me from the moment you laid eyes on me, is that what you’re saying?”

“Not consciously. I mean, it took years and some experimenting and some trial-and-error to finally see that I musta felt that way from the beginning.”

“Where’s your evidence?”

“That I’m sleeping in your bed with you every night now.”

Hutch slowed the truck and turned left into the driveway to their house; he couldn’t repress his smile. He liked thinking Starsky really had fallen in love with him at first sight. How that love manifested—and the years it took to liberate Starsky—was irrelevant to the underlying notion. “You made me nervous that day,” Hutch recalled. “I must have also been falling in love then.”

“See? And you wouldn’t change anything about me, would you, Hutch?”

“Well. . . I might have made you braver sooner so we didn’t waste all those years on other people.”

“Yeah, I’d have liked that, too.”

They passed the Grace House; the cold, damp weather kept everyone indoors so there wasn’t anyone to greet them on their return. Hutch braked the truck to a stop in front of the main house, and killed the ignition. He was feeling amorous, sexually needy; all that talk about sex and love and he wanted to immerse himself in it. Starsky did say he wanted more, didn’t he? Hutch was about to ask him, but when he made eye contact with Starsky, he saw that mischievous expression on his face finally emerge—and knew they were of one mind in that moment.

Starsky dropped his foot from the dashboard and sat up. His blue eyes shined in the gray light. He winked at Hutch. Then, wordlessly, they flung open their doors in unison, jumped out of the truck, and bolted up the stairs to the porch—on their nonstop way to the bedroom.

* * *

“Whatcha reading?” Starsky asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He took the book out of Hutch’s hands, then rolled onto the sofa, on his back, his feet to the opposite end, his head in Hutch’s lap, and scanned the pages Hutch had been immersed in up until that minute. Starsky read a few sentences aloud, mostly to himself, and eventually declared, “This is some boring shit, Hutch.”

Hutch was too busy admiring Starsky, enjoying his unexpected affection and warmth, to care about his partner’s assessment. He rather liked having Starsky in his lap, especially in the context of that otherwise cold evening while new rain fell in a steady rhythm on the roof.

“Besides,” Starsky added, abandoning the book to the floor, buttoning his bulky sweater, and closing his eyes, “I think we should talk about stuff—and listen to the rain.”

In the distance, Hutch heard thunder rolling in the blackening sky. “I thought you wanted to spend time with me,” he playfully lamented. “Instead, you’re looking to ease your fear of lightning.”

“Dream on,” Starsky retaliated, but not believably. “And like you could do anything to protect me from the forces of nature.”

“You are a force of nature,” Hutch said with a laugh.

They’d spent a good part of the afternoon in bed after their return from the restaurant. All that talk in the truck about sex, and why they loved it so much between them, evolved into a lengthier experience with each other—just as Starsky had planned it—and exhausted them into a deeper follow-up nap. Inevitably, they bathed the other in the steamy shower, but Starsky stayed longer under the hot water—to ‘warm his bones,’ as he put it—when the day’s chill, undeterred by their heated sex, caught up with them.

They bundled in sweatpants, socks, and sweaters afterward and—while Hutch made them a light supper—Starsky built a fire in the living room fireplace. Following their meal of roasted vegetable soup and toasted sourdough bread, they found themselves relaxing on the sofa: first Hutch with a glass of red wine and his book about the theory of biophilia, and then Starsky with his apparent need to be engaged again.

He hugged Hutch’s arm to his chest. “I like us, Hutch,” he said cheerfully. “Just as I told you: we have the best sex with each other than we could ever have with anybody else. But, more than that . . . it feels right. It’s full of love and respect and the complete understanding that we are being ourselves and helping each other enjoy all we have to give and need.”

“That’s some evaluation.”

“You know it’s true.”

“I was mainly impressed by your articulation.”

“That I spoke truth . . . or that I could be so smart?”

“That you could put a sentence together so well.”

Starsky chuckled, eyes still closed, hugging Hutch closer. He obviously enjoyed being teased. “I predicted you’d say something mean.”

Hutch tickled Starsky’s chest through his clothes where his fingers were pressed to him in Starsky’s clutch. “We owe most of our sexual freedom to you,” Hutch said. “Your drive and your want of me is what led us here. I would never have found that courage.”

Starsky opened his eyes, slightly tilted back his head, looked at Hutch; his expression was sincere and as warm as the room had become. “It wasn’t easy,” he admitted, “but I’m glad we found our way.”

Hutch gently combed Starsky’s hair in silent reply, and said with certainty, “I can’t imagine anything coming between us again.”

Their eyes spoke of a similar promise to the other.

“But now it’s my turn,” Starsky said.

“Your turn? Didn’t we have equal time in the—”

“My turn to tell you how I see you being happy if something happened to me.”

It was the perfect setting, Hutch realized: the occasionally popping fire, the amber glow of its flame in the room and on the ceiling, the satisfaction they’d given each other on their bed for several hours—including the nap, entangled in a tight embrace, followed by a hot shower and comfortable clothes—their belly-filling, tasty meal, the rain on the roof and thunder in the sky, and their mutual relaxation in physical closeness. What better time and place? Starsky snug in his lap, smiling up at him with a sincere appreciation for what he proposed, and all of it full of tenderness.

“Tell me how my life should go,” Hutch invited him. “But know it can never be better than the one I’m living now.”

* * *

A lot had changed in Hutch’s life after Starsky’s fatal misstep off the ladder one sunny afternoon while he helped Hutch prune a pear tree. The accident happened right in front of Hutch; he couldn’t not believe it. Starsky’s death had come instantly for Starsky, too—the only consolation Hutch was gifted. Knowing Starsky hadn’t suffered, that he was laughing one second and gone the next, gave Hutch a certain closure he wouldn’t have had otherwise. The fall that had snapped Starsky’s neck hadn’t even spilled blood.

Starsky’s body was soon-after cremated, as per his will and testament; he was eulogized by nearly a dozen fellow officers, including notables Capt. Dobey, and especially by his police partner of fifteen years, all of whom eloquently spoke to a gathering comprised of hundreds of colleagues, friends, and family. After the hour-long, all-faith service, which was followed by a three-volley police send-off, Starsky’s remains were remanded into Hutch’s possession, and no one contested the transfer.

On a late spring morning, on a day as peaceful as the nature that embraced him, Starsky’s ashes were eventually scattered over the meadow near his and Hutch’s mountain cabin—with only one person in attendance. “It was always just me and thee,” Hutch emotionally told him as he opened the urn and allowed the dust to be carried away on the breeze. He had honored all of Starsky’s wishes. “But don’t go too far, Lover Boy. I still need you.”

Hutch could barely be on the property where Starsky had died. After months of meaningless dating and sleeping on friends’ couches in the city until everyone tired of him, including his own self, he finally moved full-time to the cabin, abandoning his impossible pursuit of filling in the emptiness by replenishing himself in the arms of nature instead.

When Davis and Megan married and planned to have children of their own, Hutch sold the farm to his friend, dropping the price by five percent as a donation to the child welfare cause and to celebrate their union. Davis had resigned from the police force by then in order to focus all of his efforts on rescuing wayward boys—and on his personal life, which had sometimes been held hostage by the demands of the project.

Hutch himself turned in his badge and—with monies from the sale of the farm, his well-earned pension, and Starsky’s life insurance policy—he made a comfortable home on the mountain, installing an electric pole, digging a well for running water, outfitting the cabin with ambient lights, both inside and out, and building several other small structures nearby: a woodshed, a two-car garage, and a greenhouse.

He raised vegetables and planted fruit trees and grew enough for his own needs as well as some resident wildlife, sharing the fresh leftovers with the diner in exchange for the off-and-on free meals. He also kept Starsky’s car under cover on the left side of the garage, occasionally driving it to remember those precious bygone times. Retirement had come at an early age for Hutch and he was determined to make the most of it.

Of course, Hutch had wept when Starsky died, and he often cried throughout the years when reminiscing. Despite the promise he’d made to his partner not to wallow in despair and grief, it was nearly impossible not to indulge the pain. Hutch had lost the best of himself, after all, and the emptiness Starsky’s absence left in its wake was often times unbearable.

But months passed, as they are known to do, followed by years, and Hutch came to realize Starsky had never fully left him. It wasn’t just the reminders of fast cars on the freeways or stories about werewolves or the sometimes awkward turn of a phrase by someone within earshot; memories of Starsky, and that warm, bittersweet feeling they always gave him, were permeated throughout every aspect of Hutch’s life.

For one, he’d kept all of Starsky’s possessions: his vehicle, his record collection, his few books, his camera and all of his pictures, and everything in between. One thing Hutch had learned from his trial run of losing Starsky in an airliner accident was that he couldn’t completely bury him, so he didn’t even try when that ‘for real—forever, I mean’ void fell upon him. He kept Starsky’s clothes, wearing Starsky’s sweaters, his socks and his scarves, his jackets and his jewelry, whenever the mood to be inside his partner persuaded him.

Although there could be no love like the one Hutch had with Starsky, he did find deep caring again, and some semblance of affection and fondness, in the very beautiful Rose, a biracial woman mainly of Belizean descent, some nine years his junior. Everything about her was the opposite of Starsky—which made it easier to invite her into his life; the only thing she had in common with his long-lost partner was her dark-brown hair. Her eyes were the color of milk chocolate, her skin a flawless deep brown, and her facial features quite exotic and striking. She was an exceptionally unique human being, too, gentle in heart and soul—very much like the man with whom she’d become a lifetime couple.

They had met during a dinner Davis and Megan hosted. Once a month, Hutch made the drive from the cabin to the farm to join the goings-on there—a routine appearance he honored mainly to keep Davis apprised of his welfare—and once a month, Hutch met his married friends at a restaurant in the city.

It was on such an occasion that Hutch was to make Rose’s acquaintance. Between sets by the live band, Davis apparently noticed that she was somehow related to its members, and he stopped her on a walk-by to introduce her to Hutch. “You should hear this guy sing,” he insisted. “He sang at my wedding—and made me want to marry him instead!” Davis could be off the rail with too much drink, but it was all in good fun.

Rose was playfully prodded into daring Hutch to take the stage and lay Davis’ assessment to rest for her. They learned she was the owner of her own talent and entertainment booking business, so Hutch took the bet because, like Davis, he could be off the rail when under the influence, too. It was the first time Rose heard Hutch’s voice—and she was immediately brought to tears by its beauty. He became her life’s mission in an instant.

Rose booked his public performances at similar venues throughout the city, and eventually into larger locales in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. Between nature and his music, Hutch finally found his place of refuge from Starsky’s loss. He began to write his own songs, playing them for smaller audiences until he felt comfortable sharing them with the more impersonal ticket-buyers of the larger events.

When not centered around social issues, Hutch’s lyrics were about deep love and loyalty—all veiled to hide his ever-present pain. He never shared with anyone, not even with Rose or Davis, that reminders of Starsky were in everywhere he went and in everything he did, saw, felt, touched, wrote, sang; those memories were between him and Starsky, and that’s how he kept them safe and precious throughout his life.

After his relationship with Rose went from business to personal, they built a small house for themselves across the driveway from the cabin, so he could turn the former into a recording studio, one that stored all of his musical instruments, his computers and recorders, and his personal record-producing equipment. It was a small, mail-centered, home-based business only because Hutch never allowed Rose to take him to more promising heights.

He preferred the quieter life, despite his sizable following—which kept his ego fed and his time busy. He was a lover of good music, fine food and drink, some light travel to where the oceans met the trees, and pictures of Starsky in both his physical presence and in his mind. Hutch lived a healthy, peaceful, nature-filled lifestyle, with all the affectionate company he needed. He did love Rose, but he never fell in love with her; there had only been one true soulmate in his life.

Hutch was in attendance when the staff buried Starsky’s piggies, Kenny and Davey—only three months apart—in a small graveyard on the sanctuary premises. The ceremony was as sweet as it was dignified. But he next endured the loss of Capt. Dobey, long after the elder had retired, and to a passing that occurred in Dobey’s sleep. That death was much harder on Hutch than he expected, but nowhere near the pain and devastation of losing Starsky.

Hutch also helped to bury Huggy Bear after the man’s long-fought illness that ended in fatal pneumonia. Luckily, Hutch didn’t have to do likewise with his sister, but he did say goodbye to Starsky’s ailing mother, to his own parents, to the random colleague or friend of his youth. Time had a way of removing loved ones from the stage. Rose outlived him because she was so much younger, but he was able to give her an energized and healthy companion for all the decades she shared with him.

His had been a satisfying life, overall, with the exception of that one forever-devastating sorrow in whose vacuum Hutch had lived—on a promise to keep them each alive. “There’s plenty of time to be dead,” he had once told Starsky. “No point in rushing it.” But then, more than fifty years earlier, and in the blink of an eye, Starsky was gone, leaving Hutch to carry that torch.

“I’m coming home someday,” he would occasionally tell Starsky, to stop himself from feeling utterly alone at times, even and especially in the presence of others. Hutch would scan the blue, cloudless sky, listen to the rustling, shimmering leaves of trees in a passing breeze, intently watch a butterfly make love to flowers, and feel Starsky’s presence in their timelessness. “Just you wait, partner,” he’d say in that warm voice for which he’d become relatively known. “I’m coming home someday.”

And then, during the quiet part of a long night, with Rose asleep in the bed beside him, on the eve of his ninety-first birthday—and toward the end of a liberating dream filled with Starsky’s playful smile—Hutch did just that.

* * *

“That’s some beautiful life you’ve laid out for me, Starsk. I’d bend down and kiss you on the mouth, but I’m not that flexible anymore.”

“I want you to be happy,” Starsky explained, not smiling, his seriousness deepened by its absence. “I mean, I want you to be as happy as you can be without me.”

“And I can be that happy by writing and singing songs?”

“You have the voice, Hutch. Beauty like that is in your molecules, know what I mean? You can sing and you can play—”

“—from lots of practice—”

“—and you have a passion in you that can’t be faked. Plus, you’re not bad to look at.” He titled his head so Hutch could see his wink. “But it’s like head, Hutch. You can have all the technique in the world, but if you don’t have . . . what was your word?”

Hutch combed Starsky’s hair, enjoying its feel through his fingers while he searched for that almost elusive answer, settling on, “Enthusiasm?”

“Right,” Starsky said. “If you don’t have enthusiasm—drive, want to do it, the love of it—then it’ll never be as good as it can be. Am I right?”

Hutch couldn’t argue. He understood the innate nature of talent, from the sexual to the singing. He set his foot on the coffee table and purposely raised his leg so Starsky’s head could comfortably face him, propped against his knee. Their eyes were also able to meet, warmly and with that deep affection. When Hutch was finally able to break free of the trance between them, he asked, “Why did you drop the sale of the farm by five percent under my watch and not the two I did for you?”

“You’re more generous than I am,” Starsky said, his expression softening. He repositioned himself on the cushion, turning toward Hutch, into him, his hips to Hutch’s hips, his bent legs to Hutch’s arm and shoulder; he couldn’t have crawled any further into Hutch’s lap, no matter how he’d try.

“Truth be told,” he said, toying with a button on Hutch’s green-plaid shirt, “you’d probably give the farm away, but I want you to profit from it, so you can retire without worries. In our fantasies, we both did good financially in the long run, didn’t we—because I think we will, don’t you?”

“We promise to take care of ourselves—”

“—and each other—by making sure we know that’s what we want for us.”

Hutch understood. He continued to comb Starsky’s hair, listen to the fire and their unspoken words, enjoy the feel of the man in his lap, dreamily gazing back at him. He also detected the distinct aroma of Starsky’s masculine cologne and felt the weight of his unyielding warmth. The rain fell in a steady rhythm outside and the occasional roll of thunder vibrated the sky. Hutch didn’t need to tell Starsky he loved him; in that moment, they both knew how the other felt—it was mutually apparent in their blue eyes.

“Rose,” Hutch said, to talk about the woman Starsky planned for him after they lingered long enough in silence that his mind drifted.

“By any other name would smell as sweet,” Starsky replied in a singsong voice, a twinkle in his eye for having figured he’d bested Hutch in that moment. “But what about her?”

“You chose a dark-skinned woman for me.”

“Because you’re color blind. One of the many things I like about you.”

“And younger—by nearly a decade.”

“Because you should have someone who’s as beautiful as you—in that sort of exotic way.”

“You flatter me.”

“I speak truth.”

Hutch had no words. He slipped his hand under Starsky’s sweater to feel his warm, haired skin at his fingers. In the comfortable position they were in, he had no other way to demonstrate his affection.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Starsky said quickly, as if Hutch’s touch had triggered his memory. “I meant to tell you that Rose loves an uncut peenie.”

Hutch burst out with a laugh. It wasn’t what he expected Starsky to say. “Is there a Belizean cultural propensity against circumcision?”

“Let’s say there is. And if there isn’t, you find yourself someone who loves every inch of you—especially all the parts you were born with.”

Love. Right there in those words. Hutch didn’t know what to say; he felt suddenly choked up, but he repressed his feelings so he wouldn’t ruin the more romantic ambiance of their night with his emotionalism. Despite his effort, he didn’t pull it off; Starsky gently touched his cheek to soothe him.

“You deserve to be loved like that, to have your peenie pleasured to the max,” Starsky said, dropping his hand only after Hutch finished kissing his fingers. “Promise me you won’t settle for anyone who just tolerates your body. Find someone who loves you for it, not despite it, okay?”

Hutch barely nodded he felt so overwhelmed. He couldn’t help but be moved by Starsky’s plan for his life should he end up without him in the long run. Pushing against his emotion, he pursued a different line. “You see me happier at the cabin than the farm.”

“I think you’re more of a nature boy than you are a farmer—and you can grow stuff up there, too. You know you will, but you won’t want to live on the farm knowing I was dead there, would you?”

The answer was self-evident.

“But something else, Hutch. I mean, I don’t have to die for you to write songs and make records.”

“And still save lives?”

“Through the right kinds of songs, you could, don’t you think? Remember the songs of the sixties, hm?”

Starsky may have had a point. If they both lived another fifty years with each other, there was plenty of time to try on a new career, especially since Starsky already wanted a change for himself, too. “But ninety-one, Starsk. You killed me off a year before I took you out.”

“Because I didn’t want you to suffer as long without me as I had to suffer without you.”

Hutch couldn’t help himself; the tear finally came to his eye. “Damn, boy,” he said to keep a grip on his feelings as he wiped the evidence away, “I still don’t know what I did so right that I ended up here—like this—with you.”

“You believed in me.”

“It was much more than that.”

“You let me in.”

There were way too many reasons Hutch had fallen in love with Starsky; it was the ‘package deal,’ the overall, the everything about his partner—from his appearance to his big heart—that pushed Hutch into the inevitable. They were simply made for each other—pre-ordained by the stars, as he often liked to say. “Ours is a story for the ages,” he proposed.

“The only stupid part is that it’s a story we can’t tell to just anybody.”

“Not everybody needs to know,” Hutch reminded him, and not for the first time.

“Will you tell your parents we’re butt buddies when we visit next month?”

“Not on your life. And don’t call us that.” He gave Starsky a bump with his leg to reprimand him.

“What about your sister? She could handle it, couldn’t she?”

“It’s none of her business, either.”

“That’s sad, Hutch. She gets to flaunt her relationship with a new boyfriend whenever she gets one, but we’re being convicted for a crime we didn’t commit—a crime that shouldn’t even be a crime. I mean, if people knew our story—how we met, what we’ve been through, how we came to this place—they’d be jealous of what we have.”

“At least envious.”

“You know what I mean. But we got these parts that are too close to the same—and somehow that makes what we have shameful.”

“I’m not ashamed of it.”

“Well, me neither, but I’m saying . . . if we had different sex parts, people would say we have the greatest love story ever told. Nobody goes through as much together as we have: the near-death stuff, the falling downs we’ve had—like you on heroin, and me blinding a woman—our broken hearts, the misunderstandings between us that caused them, the pissing each other off all those times. And that wretched soul-searching we did to be on the sofa like we are right this minute.”

Hutch took it one step further. “I hear you, but it’s because of what we’ve been through together—and precisely because we have the same ‘sex parts’—that makes ours the greatest love story ever told.”

* * *

TRUE LOVE

The original plan was for Hutch and Starsky to drive to the airport—after a brief visit with the Hutchinsons—to pick up Hutch’s sister and her boyfriend; the couple was flying in from Pennsylvania for the family reunion scheduled for later that evening. But there was a change in plans when the dialogue Hutch hoped to have with his parents about his harrowing experience in South America got unexpectedly redirected.

“You seem . . . preoccupied,” Karen gently said to Starsky. “Is everything all right? I would imagine being on airplanes isn’t good for your mental state.”

Hutch didn’t want to remind his mother that Starsky had been on four flights before the one they took that day; two round-trips to Bolivia. But he knew why Starsky was distracted, and he didn’t want to deepen the man’s guilt by such a reminder. In fact, Hutch wanted to alleviate it, so he plunged right in. “Tell them what you need to say to them,” he nudged his partner. “Put it on the table and let’s deal with it together.”

Starsky had no choice but to address the Hutchinsons. Their expectant expressions alone would have made him more uncomfortable if he didn’t do as Hutch suggested—and this, Hutch knew. “I owe you both an apology,” Starsky bravely said, finally making long-overdue eye contact with Hutch’s parents. “I’m sorry for all the hurt I caused you when I mistook Hutch for being dead.”

Hutch also knew how monumentally courageous Starsky had to be to verbalize his regret—and was proud of him. “I know this has been eating away at him from Day One,” Hutch told them. He briefly squeezed Starsky’s arm and passed him a warm smile when they glanced knowingly at each other. Further, Hutch could have easily guessed what his mother would say, but he could never have predicted his father’s reaction.

“Oh, David,” Karen replied, her voice full of the sorry she apparently felt for Starsky, “please don’t trouble yourself for another second about that. Actually hugging my boy today erased all the grief we endured—beyond how much we already let go when we first heard his voice on the phone two months ago.”

“There’s no greater pain than what I put you through,” Starsky said, quickly adding, “I’m not looking to be forgiven, so don’t feel you have to. I don’t deserve it.”

Hutch could hear the emotion in Starsky’s voice, and tried again to comfort him with an affectionate touch, his fingers to Starsky’s elbow, but Starsky dropped his head, laid eyes on Hutch’s hand, and sent home the silent message that he didn’t deserve Hutch’s kindness, either.

“You need to get past this, Starsk,” Hutch implored him, but he figured his words fell, yet again, on deaf ears.

“Maybe this will help,” Richard said. His words caught everyone’s attention; all eyes and ears were on him in that moment—he, the elder, the wise man, the one they most respected. He would have the answer. If he didn’t, then who did? “It’s no secret that I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with Kenny. We don’t agree on the same politics or religion . . . . . . of even food. I haven’t been thrilled with his choice of career, either. I thought he was better suited for the clergy than he was for handling a gun, let alone as a matter of routine.”

None of his declaration was news to anyone at the table, but his bluntness certainly carried weight—and he didn’t mince words. “When we learned Kenny had been killed,” he continued, his aging brown eyes shimmering in the afternoon light, “we, too, were devastated.” His last comment was directed at Starsky. “The pain was indeed terrible—even despite our belief in Heaven.”

Hutch had let go of Starsky’s arm, even though he badly wanted to touch and hold him in that minute, to shield him from whatever else Richard might say.

“I had moments,” Richard confessed, “and many of them, when I didn’t think I could make it through another day, when I prayed for a bolt of lightning to strike me dead where I stood, and put an end to my grief once and for all. I’ve never been filled with that kind of hopelessness before, but I came to realize that the depth of my pain was also fueled by my regrets.”

He shifted his eyes to Hutch. “When we believed you were dead, I would have given anything—anything and everything—to have you back again.” Richard’s voice cracked with emotion. “I swore to God Almighty that I would rescind all my judgements about your life and your choices, and embrace all that is you, fully and completely, if only I could have my boy back.”

He wiped his eye before a tear spilled. “I learned from this,” he said, looking again at Starsky, “that I’d been wrong to judge him. I’d been unfair, unkind, and undeserving of the man he’s become. I was sorry for myself that it took his death for me to come to terms with the fact that I had been less than a father should be. I preach unconditional love, but I never truly practiced it.”

“Pop,” Hutch protested, not meaning to compound the guilt in the room, but he only got out the single word before Richard cut him off.

“I needed the lesson,” Richard emphasized, as if he was entitled to that much. “Starsky’s mistake was my gift. It taught me what mattered. I got my boy back: I’ll now be able to live the remainder of my life learning to love and respect my son, and not because of what he believes or thinks or does, but because of who he is—one of the most principled people I’ve ever known.”

Hutch and Starsky exchanged intentional eye contact, speaking silently, both wondering how far into his convictions Mr. Hutchinson could really go. If he knew about the private, sexual relationship between the two male cops, would he be as forgiving and enlightened? Only the truth could answer the question, but Hutch subtly shook his head at Starsky, wordlessly telling him that the truth would never be told.

Starsky gave him a single nod and dropped his chin. “You’re a kind man to find the silver lining behind that dark cloud,” he said to Richard, and seeming more relaxed in his skin than he had been all day. Perhaps it was Richard’s truth that set him free, and not his own.

“We’ll say no more about it,” Richard decided, strengthening his voice, sitting straighter. “The guilt you feel from this minute forward, David,” he said wisely, “will be of your own making and will serve no one, not even yourself.”

Starsky shifted his blue eyes to Hutch. “Like father, like son—same philosophy,” he noted, trying a laugh, but it was with a certain sadness. “Okay,” he finally said with certainty. “I promise to do my best to forgive myself.”

“Then we’ll have more to celebrate tonight,” Karen said with delight.

Hutch’s parents were, if they were anything, the most generously forgiving people in all the world. Maybe Hutch hadn’t been as different from his father as they had previously believed. But if Hutch hadn’t done the job to get Starsky to relinquish his guilt, perhaps the older Hutchinson had succeeded where his son could not.

They went on to eat pistachios and pineapple, to drink beer, and to resume the laughter, liberated in ways it hadn’t been only minutes earlier. The conversation aimlessly wandered from details of their cross-country flight to local news and backyard gardening to tales about morpho butterflies.

“You’ve suffered such loss,” Karen said to Starsky when their Bolivian stories naturally ebbed. “Losing Grace and all you endured on that island, only to lose Ken, too. You’ve been through a lot in a short time.”

Starsky agreed with a silent nod.

“Do you think you’ll marry again?”

The question stalled Starsky.

“I ask,” Karen explained, “because I see you’re wearing both your ring and Grace’s?” She pointed to his hand, having noticed the twin rings on his fingers. “Grace is still very much in your heart, even after all this time.” She squeezed Richard’s hand, as if to channel Starsky’s love for his late wife.

The Hutchinsons had been married for more than forty years. They’d grown grayer around the temples since the last time Hutch had seen them, but his mother, especially, still shone with an inward beauty of kindness and wisdom. She’d raised two beautiful children, had been loyal to a husband, maybe even to a fault, and had dedicated herself to bettering life’s experiences for others. She’d even done that very thing, right there at that table, when she rose above her own pain in an effort to ease Starsky’s. And now, it seemed, she was in pursuit of healing his heart that little bit extra.

“I’ll always remember Grace,” Starsky said, not defensively. He twirled the rings on his fingers when he spoke. Maybe he looked for a way out of the awkward conversation by finding the truth in it. “She was a special lady.”

“Kenny doesn’t have the weight of such a loss on his shoulders.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Mom?” Hutch asked.

“Just that you’ve been alone a long time, and not because you’ve been recently divorced or lost someone. Your father and I do worry about why you prefer to be by yourself.”

Nudging Starsky, Hutch said, “But I’m not alone. I have him.”

“She means she wants to see you be in love,” Richard chimed in. “She wants romance for you—and the kinds of sharing that only it can bring—to brighten your days and warm your nights.”

Hutch clamped his jaw while Starsky stared at the table. How could he ever make his parents understand that he was the happiest man on Earth? How far into his life would they continue to ask those same old questions? How could he prove—without telling them why or how—that he was right where he wanted to be, forever?

“We want you to be happy,” Karen corrected Richard, using broader terms to describe her desire for Hutch. “We don’t want to pressure you, but now that you’ve had a second lease on life—”

“I was never dead,” Hutch reminded her, aiming for a laugh, but not getting one. “It was just a bunch of bad days.”

“Your job troubles me, too,” she confessed in a quieter voice, ignoring his sarcasm, as she was known to do. “We don’t want to lose you again—for real.”

“My life couldn’t be better,” Hutch promised her, using only words, no proof. “Besides, Starsky is already looking for a different line of work for us, something not so dangerous.”

“Wonderful! Perhaps he’ll find a career that frees you both up to have personal lives.”

“Don’t ask,” Hutch advised Starsky, but it was too late; they spoke over each other.

“Personal lives?” Starsky asked.

“There’s still time to fall in love,” she explained, “maybe get married again, have children if you want them.”

“Oh, I see. I don’t know. I suppose all good things in all good time?” Starsky suggested.

“When you get that book published,” Richard projected, “you’ll be out on the circuit . . . and you might meet someone new. Drag Kenny with you, and maybe he’ll have the same luck.”

“Maybe,” Starsky said in a subdued voice. He averted his eyes, the sure sign that he was officially uncomfortable again.

“Are either of you dating at the moment?” Karen wondered. “Or thinking about it? or interested? Or at least gone dancing? You’re never too old.”

Her questions were genuinely benign, the kinds anyone would ask anyone else, if they believed the person they were asking was alone, maybe even lonely, and was concertedly looking to reset their lives. Hutch couldn’t fault her, and didn’t, but he also didn’t like having Starsky be on pins and needles—especially because of his own cowardice when it came to the truth.

“I don’t have anyone on the social calendar just now,” Starsky said, obviously searching for an escape route. “But you’re right: maybe a book tour, or when we find a different job, doors will open for us in the romance department and—”

“Stop,” Hutch ordered him, firmly pressing Starsky’s forearm to the table as if he’d wrestled him into submission. He couldn’t take another second of listening to Starsky squirm. Or lie. “Don’t say another word.” They made lengthy eye contact, solid and sincere, wordlessly telling the other what was on his mind during that delicate moment: Hutch didn’t want Starsky to pretend he was a single man having to make up excuses or justifications for his bachelorhood; and Starsky replying in kind that he’d do or say anything to keep their secret, especially knowing how much it meant to Hutch that he honor it.

“I can’t have you lying to my parents, least of all on my behalf,” he told Starsky, verbalizing the words, but not releasing the hold on him. “It’s one thing if I dodge the truth—because it’s my choice. You’re doing it to protect me.” He looked over at his elders, met their now-curious, mostly disquieted gazes, and flatly said, “He’s covering for me. I told him before we got here that I didn’t want either of us telling you what’s really going on in our lives.”

“Are you in trouble?” Richard asked, sounding as concerned as both he and Karen appeared. “Do you need money?”

“It’s not that,” Hutch said quickly, to ease their alarm, “but hear me out. You both want me to be happy; you envision a life for me with the woman of my dreams, and I thank you for that. But the truth is I am in love, I am happy, I have found my one-and-only. That person is sitting at this table and, through no fault of his own, simply happens to be male.” He let go of Starsky to fold his hands, leaned forward on the table, evened his parents’ stunned gazes, and added, “Assuming they’re within reason, I’ll answer all your questions.”

* * *

Richard left the table—not suddenly or in a fit of rage. He didn’t leave in disgust or apparent dismay, either; in fact, he asked for permission to make his exit. “Give me some time to digest what you’ve told me?” he’d asked, after what seemed to have been his last of several delicate questions.

Hutch had let him go. He never expected his father to absorb the news about his private relationship with Starsky. Hutch himself hadn’t planned to reveal it; he endeavored to do just the opposite. But watching his beloved Starsky strain under the weight of innocent scrutiny had been more than he could handle.

The first question the Hutchinsons had asked was the most expected one. “Are you telling us you’re gay?” Richard blurted, his animated voice and his confused expression unable to hide his initial shock.

“No,” Hutch said, flatly, speaking also for Starsky, keenly sensing his partner’s presence beside him, subdued and withdrawn, but feeling empowered by him at the same time. “We aren’t attracted to men.”

“Just to each other,” his mother accurately presumed. “Because you’ve been so close?”

“Have I misunderstood then?” Richard interrupted, sounding anxious for relief.

“Mom got it right,” Hutch replied, unintentionally dashing his father’s hopes, and making brief eye contact with his mother before he gave his full attention back to his father. “But to be clear: Starsky and I share the same house, the same bedroom, the same bed.”

Richard audibly inhaled, momentarily wrung his hands, imperceptibly nodded, as if only to himself. “I’m speechless,” he said in a low voice. He looked from Hutch to Starsky and back again.

But only Hutch noticed—because Starsky was solemn in his posture, his forearms on the table, his fingers interlaced, his eyes focused into a realm beyond their reality. It was obvious he listened, but he didn’t speak a word, and not just because he shouldn’t, but perhaps because he couldn’t.

Hutch squeezed Starsky’s hand to let him know they’d be all right, no matter how the day transpired, even if it meant the two of them would be thrown out of the house and never allowed re-entry. “Me and thee,” were his silent words. “Always and forever.” And Starsky dropped his chin in hushed appreciation.

Hutch let him go again, removed his touch, turned toward his father, and tried to explain his relationship with Starsky in a way he’d be better understood. “There’s no one I trust more,” he truthfully said about Starsky, “no one I love more, no one else I would . . . die for.”

“I don’t know David well enough to say this about him,” Karen said, her voice and expression softening, “but I can say that what you’ve just told us doesn’t surprise me, Kenny. I may have been startled to hear it, but I realize that how you feel about him isn’t out of character for you.”

Her insight astounded Hutch; even Starsky turned his head to look at her, as if to size up the authenticity of her declaration. “My boy has always been capable of great love,” she explained, sounding disappointed that they should be amazed by what she knew. “He’s followed his heart all of his life,” she furthered, speaking as a mother who knew her son from his very beginnings, and as if it should still be obvious to everyone at the table. “It’s just like him to not let others decide for him how he feels, what he believes, who he loves.”

Hutch’s mother had always been a caring, loving, accepting human being, born with a lifetime-given kindness. Perhaps Hutch had inherited her more gentle nature in ways he hadn’t realized until that afternoon.

Hutch and Starsky also knew then how Hutch’s mother felt about their relationship. How did Richard feel? He appeared to listen closely, but he hadn’t said anything besides his question about Hutch’s sexual identity. In the end, how he felt didn’t matter, not really. It wouldn’t change Hutch’s relationship with Starsky, not in any way or on any level. He was even willing to lose his father’s love to keep it.

So he clarified another point. “We’ve booked a room at the Holiday Inn a few blocks away. We knew we wouldn’t be able to sleep together here, and we didn’t want to spend our entire visit without each other in those ways, so we’ll be staying elsewhere. We’re even willing to go there now, if you wish.”

“No,” Richard said quickly. He didn’t shy from Hutch’s directness. “We have to talk about this first. But, I mean . . . for me, it’s a bit . . . bewildering . . . to hear that my son is in that kind of relationship. I might be able to understand it better if you were gay, but this is a choice you’ve made, right?”

“Not an easy one,” Hutch admitted, trying a smile. “I had to get past my upbringing, all of its conditioning, my DNA, and . . . what my father would think.”

Starsky continued to avert his eyes and to purse his lips, and Hutch was keenly aware of his disconnect. Hutch could apologize to him later, but he assumed Starsky would have to admit that the coming out that early afternoon was a wiser move than dancing around the truth and telling lies on the spot all week.

“What did you think your father would think?” Richard asked, easing into his words and appearing to use third-person tense to purposefully embolden Hutch’s reply.

“Well, the obvious reaction,” Hutch said bluntly, feeding off the to-the-point question. “That you don’t approve. That you think I’ve gone astray. You fear for my afterlife. You are disgusted and ashamed of me.”

Richard sat back in his chair, visibly awash in astonishment.

Hutch shrugged at him. “I grew up listening to your criticisms about gay people, Pop: that they have the right to feel the way they do, but they shouldn’t act on those feelings; they’re allowed to love someone, but never show them how and why.”

“But you’re my boy.”

“All the more reason you’d be disappointed.”

“I honestly don’t know what to say or think right now,” Richard disclosed with a hint of chagrin, “but I’m sorry if I ever made you afraid of what I’d do or say about anything in your life. I mean, we’ve disagreed on many things, but I don’t think you’ve actually been fearful of those discussions or their outcomes, have you?”

“No. Afraid, never. And I’m not now, about this, either.” Hutch was prepared to leave and never come back. This he knew about himself in that minute. Nothing and no one mattered more to him than Starsky—and he wouldn’t tolerate anyone, not anyone, degrading that special relationship, least of all in the presence of the man he adored.

“I know you love David,” Richard said, almost as if he’d read Hutch’s mind, “and I honestly don’t think anyone loves him more. You’d lay down your life for him, as you said again only a moment ago. But I confess that I don’t know how you can engage in sexual behavior that goes against your hard-wiring. I don’t say that judgmentally,” he added quickly. “I’m surprised and confused. We are talking about sex, right?”

“I can spell it out for you in greater detail, Pop, because I see you’re having a hard time with its definition, but, yeah: he and I have sex—every day, in fact—and we’ve been having it roughly for the past . . . nearly two years.” Hutch got the slight nod from Starsky when he glanced at him for confirmation. “I didn’t mean to be blunt,” Hutch said to his father, “but we should put these cards on the table, so you can stop wondering what it means for me to share a bed with him.”

“Sex every day was more than I needed to know,” Richard agreed with a light laugh, but he pushed past it in pursuit of something else. “Was there some catalyst that enabled you to cross that line with a man?”

“The love line?”

“You know what I mean.”

“But that was the line, Pop. That’s my point: I’m here with him in this way because of love. It’s as pure and as simple as that.”

“Because of romantic love,” Richard tried to clarify.

“Because of love, love. Romance is part of our relationship, sure. But so are companionship and trust, loyalty and attraction—”

“You find him physically attractive?”

“When I stepped back and studied him in years past, yeah, I would have said he’s an attractive man.” He looked Starsky over even then: his dark, wavy hair, the handsome shape of his—mostly expressionless—face and his slender nose, his heavy lidded blue eyes and recently manicured nails, the cool gray color of his lightweight sweater against the warmth of his skin. “But if your real question was closer to, ‘Do you find him sexually attractive?’ the answer is that I do now; I didn’t then, not until I was actually having sex with him.” He gave his father a heartbeat of a pause to absorb what he’d just told him, and then said, “Let me guess your next question.”

“Okay.”

“You want to know if it’s the sex that attracts me to him, and not specifically him. In other words, I’m aroused by the sex I’ll be getting, and not so much by who’s giving it to me.”

Richard reluctantly nodded, his aging face belying his courage, as if being caught in the exact place of his curiosity was more embarrassing to him than what he wanted to know.

Again, Hutch didn’t mince words. “I’m sexually attracted to him—his person, his charming, intelligent, dignified self, and every inch of his body.” He’d broken a light sweat, but he didn’t, surprisingly, feel judged the way he’d expected. He was free to speak his mind because he didn’t have anything to unwillingly sacrifice. For some inexplicable reason, he didn’t think he’d lose his father’s love—maybe his respect, not completely, anyway.

“Like any lover, I suppose,” Hutch added, “I see him in ways that I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t having sex with him. He’s a different guy with me now: the way we relate beyond friendship, beyond partnership. I don’t mean to embarrass him, but innate charm oozes out of his pores. It was something I didn’t recognize in him for years, even when I saw him making plays for women, but it’s very much a part of what I love about him; that, alone, I find extremely attractive.” He drew a breath to slow down the speed at which he bared his soul, was consciously aware again that his partner didn’t have a reaction, and finished with, “I could go on, but I think you hear me.”

Richard contemplated the answer he heard. He then glanced at Karen, seemed to read her passive mood, and eased forward in his chair again. He was visibly comfortable at that moment and apparently open to discussing the matter with his son, preferably not explicitly, but nonetheless. Maybe he looked for a loophole from which to pull his boy back from the brink of depravity—or perhaps he truly wanted to understand.

“Could there be something deeper, Kenny? I mean, do you think it’s possible you’ve been missing something in life—something I never provided for you—that’s made you turn to him in this way?”

Starsky finally moved. He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, but still didn’t speak a word nor make eye contact with anyone, including Hutch. Hutch couldn’t pick up on any change in Starsky’s breath or expression that told him Starsky was angry or aggrieved by Richard’s supposition, but he’d certainly been affected by it.

Hutch also wasn’t in a position to tell his parents the explicit details of how his sexual relationship with Starsky began, how and why. Those particulars were Starsky’s to share, and Hutch’s partner seemed to have withdrawn into permanent silence, leaving Hutch with his own version.

“No one gives me as much—emotionally, intellectually, physically—as Starsky does; no one can, Pop. I’ve never been safer in all of those ways than I am with him. Our partnership was built on our life-and-death experiences, our recognition of why we trust each other—and why and to what degree—on our mutual losses and gains, on just how well we know each other: our minds and our lives and our core beliefs.”

Richard intently listened; maybe he wanted to find a way to embrace this unusual love relationship in which he’d found his son. Or he continued to search out forks in the road to guide Hutch out of the error of his ways.

“We’ve loved each other so much and for so long,” Hutch explained, making one final attempt to explain it, “that we couldn’t help but take it to its natural degree.”

Hutch’s words were profound, but they didn’t seem enough to make headway in the direction necessary for acceptance. He saw it in his father’s breakaway eye contact. When it came back to him, Richard pointedly asked, “Give me some time to digest what you’ve told me? I don’t want to make the wrong decision.”

“What’s to decide, Pop?” Hutch asked, hoping for a much sooner verdict. Richard’s only recourse was to turn Hutch and Starsky away—perhaps permanently—or allow them to remain at the table.

“I need time,” Richard said, obviously unable to read Hutch’s mind, “to figure out whether or not I can accept this rather perplexing news about you both.”

* * *

“What did you say to him?”

“Something brilliant,” Starsky replied with a soft smile. “Obviously.”

Hutch couldn’t help but admire the shine in Starsky’s blue eyes, despite his playfully smug expression about his brilliance. They lay on the queen-sized bed together, intertwined in each other’s arms and legs, fully nude under the blankets, making warm eye contact in the amber glow of the bedside lamp. They’d been in the room for nearly an hour, analyzing the family dynamics of the evening’s reunion party, before the dialogue turned to their early afternoon conversation with the Hutchinsons—and, in particular, with Richard.

“Were you unhappy with me for telling it like it is when I made you promise we wouldn’t?” Hutch cautiously asked. He figured Starsky’s reprimand should be delivered sooner than much later, and might be easier to handle if it came at him while they were snug against each other. But he didn’t want to spoil the mood, either.

“You did what you had to do,” Starsky gently said. He carefully brushed the hair from Hutch’s face, made warmer eye contact. “You did it for both of us, so how can I fault you for it?”

“I could have given you fair warning,” Hutch debated him, enjoying the feel of Starsky’s fingers—and the overall look of Starsky’s mussed hair, relaxed posture, haired skin.

“I’d have piped in and fucked it up,” Starsky figured.

“Instead you piped in and fixed it.”

Richard had excused himself from the table after learning of his son’s homosexual relationship with his police partner of fifteen years, got a bottle of beer from the fridge and a bag of potato chips, and relocated to the patio. He lay back in the lounge chair, sipped his refreshment, ate his snack, and stared into the trees that enclosed the small yard in privacy.

The detectives were supposed to then drive to the airport to pick up Hutch’s sister and her boyfriend for the family reunion, but Starsky stopped Hutch in the privacy of the hallway when they prepared to leave, and let Hutch know he had other plans. “You go without me. Take your mom,” he firmly said—with no room for negotiation. “I want to talk to your father.”

“Are you sure?”

The reassuring forearm squeeze Starsky gave Hutch carried more weight than any verbal answer could have hoped for. When Hutch returned an hour later from the airport—with his mother, his sister, and his sister’s boyfriend, George—Starsky was sitting outside in a patio chair beside Richard’s lounger, drinking beer with him, eating potato chips, and . . . laughing.

There had been no time—between that moment and the end of the family reunion dinner—in which Hutch could secretly ask Starsky about what he witnessed from inside the living room. It wasn’t until he was in bed with Starsky, replaying the day, that Hutch’s curiosity about what had transpired on that patio got the better of him—so much that he even bypassed Starsky’s playful invitation for sex. Starsky would eventually tell him, but Hutch couldn’t wait to know.

“Two things happened today,” Starsky said. He stroked Hutch’s nose with his finger, smiled at him, but it wasn’t clear why. Was he amused by his own smugness or by the silly touch he gave his partner? “One is that you told your dad about us. The other is that I figured out what we’re going to do with our job.”

Hutch’s heart pounded with the excitement of Starsky’s second reveal; it appeared they had new lives in more ways than just the one. “Are you going to make me beg for the—”

“You don’t have to beg—for anything. I’ll give you whatever you want, need, wish for . . . just name it.”

Hutch realized he was being toyed with; Starsky was already dragging out the answer to his months-long quest to define their lives, a journey he’d been on since before they returned from Bolivia. Any further prod in that direction would only lengthen the time between Hutch’s curiosity and Starsky telling him all he knew, so Hutch closed his mouth and waited.

“You’re not alone in this,” Starsky said, as if Hutch didn’t know that fact. Despite seeming to notice Hutch’s impatient expression, he added, “I mean, I’m here with you.” Figuratively and literally.

If Hutch could simply let Starsky play the game with him, not be so interested in what his partner and his father had talked about in his absence—or how Starsky imagined their careers would unfold—he might not have been as intolerant of Starsky’s determined effort to rule over him. But, still, he didn’t say a word. Maybe his silence would convey his sentiment instead.

“The food was good,” Starsky noted about the evening’s dinner, and briefly pressing his finger into the tip of Hutch’s nose, as if it would change Hutch’s agitated vibe. “At least they honored our new way of eating, hm?”

Hutch did credit his family for respecting his and Starsky’s nonviolent food choices. They got plenty to eat—and drink, too. There was music and laughter and lots of happy conversation, everyone catching up with each other’s lives. Hutch even liked George, his sister’s latest boyfriend, despite that he’d been initially resentful of the fact that George could share a bed in the family home, but he and Starsky could not.

It did help that Starsky and Hutch told the family what they no longer ate—and why they didn’t—and the family let them choose most of the food at the market, a rather chaotic shopping excursion that took six people to pull off. They even cooked the meal together, an unforgettable, comical, and fun endeavor in the relatively small kitchen. Several cousins and an elder uncle arrived to fill the empty seats, as did a few long-time neighbors who were considered family, and the party lasted several hours.

No one guessed there’d been a heart-to-heart conversation with the guests of honor earlier in the day. Even Richard, pleased as punch with himself, popped the corks on the champagne bottles to the delight of the cheering crowd. His boy was home, at least for a short while—alive and well—and he obviously wanted to celebrate the homecoming.

“Your father loves you,” Starsky said later that night when they got into bed, finally realizing that Hutch didn’t want to play the ‘make-me-wait-just-for-the-fun-of-anticipation’ game with him. “Imagine having his upbringing and his career and then learning your only son is a . . . is sleeping with a man.”

“You almost slipped on a word there.”

“I was thinking about it from your dad’s point-of-view, but realized I didn’t want to say it even then.”

Richard may very well have loved his son, even unconditionally, but no one loved Starsky more than Hutch did. He felt privileged all over again by how fortunate he was to be in love with someone as special as Starsky was to him—and to be loved to the same degree in return. But only because he wanted Starsky to see things in perspective, did he say, “You had further to fall than my father did. You’re actually walking the walk. I’m more impressed by your life’s trajectory.”

“Nah,” Starsky countered him. “I didn’t have as far to fall as you think. I’ve always been in love with you.”

“Melt my heart,” Hutch replied, feeling the swell of gratitude and abiding love rise within him. He touched Starsky’s cheek, made love to him with his eyes, softly smiled. “Have I ever told you how much I—”

“—think I’m sexy?”

“That.”

“Love my smile?”

“For sure.”

“Revel in my charm?”

“Balls deep.”

They broke up laughing.

“Okay,” Starsky said, finally surrendering. “Let me tell you what went down on the patio—and be sure to buckle up.”

* * *

“My dad died in the line of duty when I was kid.”

Richard had invited Starsky to pull up a lounge chair when he arrived outside—with his own beer—and to share the potato chips, and those were Starsky’s first words to him after he sat down in close proximity to the elder Hutchinson: that his father had died while he protected and served.

“A lot of years passed,” Starsky said, not giving Richard a moment to even express his condolences, “and I guess I was kind of lost all that time. It wasn’t until I met Hutch—the very minute I met him, in fact—that I realized I’d been missing something my whole life: someone I could look up to and admire all over again.”

Starsky couldn’t help but notice Richard’s finer facial features and how much Hutch looked like him: his hooded eyes, shapely mouth, his overall build and stature—Hutch, but much older. Starsky wondered in that second if Hutch would age in a similar vein. Not a bad looking man, by any measure, obviously, because Hutch was pure beauty. Starsky was in for the ride of his life, all the way to its end—if he and Hutch got to live into their nineties. But he digressed. He shook that pleasant mental thought off to further speak his mind.

“The first thing that told me who he was was his answer to a hypothetical question in our Academy class: when the professor asked us if we’d destroy property, break the law, and shoot an injured pig to end its misery—even though it might cost us our badge or some other serious penalty—Hutch was the only one in the room to say he’d end the animal’s pain. He didn’t even take a second to think about it.”

A gentle smile came to Richard’s lips, as if he was proud of his boy to have heard such a story. Perhaps he understood—or maybe even wanted to—that he would learn something about Hutch from Starsky’s point-of-view, and in ways that would ease his mind concerning Hutch’s intimate relationship with a man.

“I didn’t realize until Hutch stood his ground with the professor,” Starsky continued, reflecting on that very first class they shared and how Hutch’s adamantly defended convictions made him feel, “that I needed someone in my life who is as kind as Hutch is.”

Richard settled further into his lounge cushion, held softer eye contact with Starsky, no longer snacked and drank beer, but listened, closely.

“It wasn’t until we were partners on the job,” Starsky said, reminiscing aloud, and not afraid of his impulsive thoughts and words, not anymore, “that we came up against all the things that separated us—food, religion, clothes, girls sometimes—but also what we had in common. When an officer in the Department we’re working for fell to corruption early on, we realized—the hard way—that we could only trust each other. That’s no small feat for a couple of guys who had as many disagreements as we did.”

“Or maybe because you did.”

Starsky shrugged; they would never know, not really. Besides, he and Hutch had grown closer on viewpoints for which they’d once been separated. “Yeah, maybe. But whatever it was, there isn’t any other person in this entire universe that I’d trust my life to.”

Richard nodded, like he agreed to that observation, as if there were some facts that would forever remain irrefutable. “But I confess that I have a gut punch whenever I imagine my son . . . how do I put this delicately. . .?”

“Don’t hold back.”

“All right. I’ll be honest with you: I’m a bit disgusted when I picture him sucking a dick . . . and that’s not personal to you, you understand. I’d feel that way no matter who he’d be—”

“Is that the same way you feel when you picture your daughter sucking some guy’s cock?”

“Hey, c’mon, don’t talk like that. My daughter is sacred ground.”

“Your son isn’t?”

“In that I don’t think about my daughter having sex.”

“Why not?”

“Why would I?”

“Why would you picture your son having it?”

Richard bit his lip and then gasped to let out his breath. “You’re right,” he said immediately, accepting the lesson Starsky had bluntly taught him. “You’re absolutely right. I don’t think about her having sex and I shouldn’t be thinking about him having sex. Why did I do that?”

“Hutch drifted out of his lane, I suppose, but it doesn’t mean you should be a peeping Tom, even if it’s just in your head.”

“Okay,” Richard admitted. “You’re right again. It’s not my place to have those thoughts or make those judgements. But let me ask this: you guys say you’re not gay, and I think I can believe that—despite your behavior with each other—but how can you not be gay and still behave that way?”

“Well, like Hutch said: because we love each other.”

“I have male friends I love, but I can’t see myself going down on any of them.”

“How about a different kind of going down? Do you have male friends you’d lay down your life for? I’m talking literally here.”

Richard didn’t laugh; it was no laughing matter. “No, none like that.”

“Do you have friends who’d lay down their lives for you?”

Richard’s silence was an answer in itself.

“The thing is,” Starsky explained, “that whole idea of sacrifice isn’t just something he and I have talked about. We know we would die for each other—because we’ve passed those tests.”

“But that wouldn’t lend itself to the kind of behavior you’re doing now. I don’t see the connection, I guess, not really.”

“Love?” Starsky repeated. He knew it was a cop-out answer, but was it? Maybe Richard needed the more explicit details. Starsky didn’t have anything to lose. Nothing he would say or do could change his relationship with Hutch, and there were probably things Hutch could never bring himself to tell his father that Starsky would have no trouble sharing.

“Hutch and I have always been close, pretty much from Day One. Okay, let’s say opposites attract and, in some ways, we were quite opposite—from our looks to our beliefs and life stories.” He thought further. “Add to that how much violence we see every day—and for how long we’ve had to see it—and how it rattles our faith in the world. We learned early that we could only trust each other. Since then, our loyalty has only gotten stronger.”

“Loyalty and trust lead to sex?”

“There’s nobody I can be more myself with, nobody I can be this unguarded around. I’ve had special relationships with women, been in love and all that, but only Hutch makes me feel safe enough to be my honest-to-god self. In a lot of ways, he knows me better than I know myself.”

“And that leads to sex?”

“We’ve been razzed over the years for being as close as we are—long before we got into this relationship we have now; the guys on the Force hint that we’re queer. We take it in stride. It’s mostly harmless. Hutch even plays it up sometimes. He’s always been more comfortable in his skin than I am—and that’s saying something.”

Richard mulled Starsky’s assessment, but didn’t comment.

After a long sip of beer, Starsky felt it was time to share the catalyst Richard had earlier been most curious about. “A couple of years ago,” he began, easing into his words, “I got jumped. Three guys came to my house, tricked me into thinking it was Hutch at the door, and then tackled me to the floor when I opened it. They drove me into the dark side of the city and tied me up in some abandoned warehouse and then, over a few days, they . . . forced themselves on me.” He knew he might be misunderstood using a roundabout way to share his story, but he didn’t know how Richard would react if he’d been more blunt. Easing into it was Starsky’s first intuition.

“Forced themselves?” Richard asked, on cue. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Starsky averted his eyes, stared unseeing at the lawn and into that darker past. “They beat me up . . . stripped me naked . . . broke my arm . . . didn’t feed me . . . took their turns . . . pissed all over me when they were done . . . and then left me for dead, chained to a wall.” He looked up at Richard and shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t have to explain it in more detail, but prepared to nonetheless.

Richard’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. It was apparent by his expression and his palpable silence that he understood Starsky’s meaning. “I’m sorry,” he whispered under his breath after half a minute. “I never knew about this.”

“They wanted to teach me a lesson, figuring they could break Hutch and me up if they soiled me that way, I guess. So they filmed what they did those three nights and sent the video to Hutch each day.”

Richard visibly winced. “I’m sorry,” he said more audibly. “I’m speechless.”

“We caught them all,” Starsky told him, making a quick exit from further specifics; he only told Richard that piece of the story in order to tell him the pertinent part. “All those years on the job with Hutch, all the talks and the experiences we had, all the ‘me and thee’ trust and loyalty between us, and I was terrified of telling him.”

“I thought you said he saw the video they took.”

“He did, but I didn’t know he did; he didn’t tell me about them filming what they did because he thought I already knew. We had this period there where we assumed what the other knew and didn’t know. I only learned about what he’d seen when I got the nerve to finally tell him.”

“You were afraid to tell him because you thought he’d disown you?”

“For not being a smart cop, ignoring the cues that night before I opened the door, for not being man enough to defend myself, for making such a grave mistake and not being trustworthy after that, for being stupid and weak and damaged goods.”

“Abandoning you for what happened to you isn’t the Ken I know.”

“It’s not the Hutch I knew, either. But that kind of experience, the one I’d have given everything not to have lived through, I mean, it destroys self-confidence, you know?”

Richard understood; his empathy shone in his familiar eyes.

“But Hutch is the one who found me in that warehouse and broke the chain, the one who covered for me and took care of me while I was in the hospital, the one who brought me home and nursed me back to health—and all the while he knew exactly what had happened to me; he watched it happen to me—and still he stuck beside me.”

Richard gently smiled, a sort of sad, sweet, proud, certain smile.

“I got to thinking,” Starsky continued, feeling the sweat drying inside his shirt as he relaxed, “that I didn’t deserve that kind of loyalty. It took me a while to realize there was something else at play besides trust and commitment; I mean, I knew before then that we loved each other, but I don’t think I knew how much. I didn’t really see that we had a rare kind of love.”

“What kind is that?”

“The kind without conditions.”

Richard’s gentle smile softened. He understood what Starsky told him, that Hutch loved Starsky despite his mistakes, despite his insecurities, despite his self-deprecation.

“But it’s more than that,” Starsky added, reading Richard’s mind. “I mean, he loved me for me—the me with all my faults, the me with all my virtues, the me who’s me regardless of . . . of the fact that I have a dick.”

Richard almost laughed, as if he hadn’t seen that coming and he was caught off-guard, but pleased to have been.

“And I loved him the same,” Starsky said, twirling the half-empty beer bottle in his hands, reflecting on that fateful day. “I didn’t have words to tell him how grateful I was that he’d stood by me, that he’d taken care of me, that he still believed and had faith in me, that he trusted and . . . loved me. I didn’t have words strong enough to thank him . . . so I kissed him instead.”

Richard raised an eyebrow. His smile had gone, but he seemed no less open to whatever Starsky would tell him. His invitation came through in his relaxation and his unwavering attention.

“We were laying in the grass,” Starsky remembered, “and I wanted so badly to tell him how I was feeling, but I had no words. I was driven to kiss him. It was like, in that minute, we were just two people, you know? two people who’d been through so much together, who knew each other so well, who were bonded forever in this special relationship that only two people who’d been through what we’d been through together could be. In that minute, the moment I kissed him, he didn’t have a dick, either.”

“I think I understand,” Richard replied, sounding sincere. “You had a . . . human moment—and it grew from that.”

“Into a much closer friendship, a deeper relationship, and took us places we never planned or expected to go. In fact, we ended up in professional counseling for a while, working through it, only to come to that conclusion: that we love each other . . . without conditions. Do you understand? I mean, when I say, ‘without conditions,’ I’m saying that there isn’t anything that could come between us, not mental or emotional, not physical, either.”

“I understand,” Richard repeated, that time with notable affection.

“So the question is . . . can you unconditionally love your son the way he unconditionally loves me?”

“Well,” Richard replied, seeming to seek some levity, “I think I can, but not in all the ways he loves you.”

Starsky was about to laugh when he realized Richard meant he could unconditionally love his son up to, but not including, sexual enjoyment—but the inadvertent revelation hit him so hard, he broke a sob instead, killing it as quickly as it had emerged.

“What’s the matter, David?” Richard asked, deeply concerned. “Are you okay?”

“I just realized something,” Starsky said, his voice breaking on the words. “All this time . . . it’s gotten . . . past me.”

“What has?”

“That Hutch loves me . . . without conditions—without a single one.”

“You’ve made that clear. Your relationship with him, as you’ve described it today, has made that even clearer.”

“Yeah, but. . .”

“But what?”

“But, I mean, I was trying to explain it to you—how Hutch and I feel about each other and why—and, all along, I was needing to hear it myself.”

“That he loves you without conditions?”

“Meaning . . . unconditionally. Meaning . . . he really did, long ago, forgive me for leaving him behind in Bolivia.”

* * *

Starsky licked his lips. “Cock-flavored kisses.”

“Your cock,” Hutch said, exhaling. He knew Starsky baited him, but he didn’t want to openly admit it. “My kisses.”

“Like I said,” Starsky replied, smugly. “Cock-flavored kisses.” He rolled into Hutch, hooked his leg over Hutch’s naked thighs, nuzzled Hutch’s ear. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

“But it’s too bad you can’t eat yourself?”

“I wasn’t saying that, either. I was just noticing your kisses taste like—“

“Your cock,” Hutch said, hoping to beat Starsky to the punch. He lay on his back, pillows behind his head, enjoying the bonding warmth and peaceful aftermath of their respective orgasms.

“You’d make Sherlock Holmes proud,” Starsky noted, laughing. “But don’t you think it’s weird, Hutch?”

“Yep.”

“Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“Nope.”

Starsky laughed again. “You’re pouting because I didn’t suck you, but—”

Hutch tickled Starsky’s belly and didn’t stop until Starsky forcibly made him. “I’m not pouting,” Hutch told him. “It should be clear to you by now that I get more out of giving pleasure than getting it.”

“But I was done getting mine before you had yours; I could have returned the favor.”

“You were still in dreamland,” Hutch pointed out. He closed his eyes, immersed himself in Starsky’s feel beside him, in Starsky’s masculine voice and its familiarity, in Starsky’s breath and his laughter and his genuine affection. Perhaps Hutch himself was still in dreamland, too. “I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt your basking.”

Starsky nuzzled Hutch’s ear again, kissed his neck, licked his skin. He moaned in reply, telling Hutch, without words, how much he appreciated Hutch’s generosity.

“But what’s weird, Starsk?”

“You tell me.”

“You asked me a minute ago if I thought something was weird.”

“Oh. Don’t you think it’s weird how we get our pleasure from touching somebody else?”

“Weird?”

“I mean, think about it: we put our mouths together, suck each other’s tongues . . . and that’s just the kissing part.”

“Did those cock-flavored kisses inspire this analysis of yours?”

Starsky laughed. “Let’s say they did, but the flavor isn’t the issue. I’m talking about the bigger picture: I mean, lots of animals have to, you know, ‘manipulate’ other animals to get pleasure. We all have to stick some part of our body into somebody else’s body just to feel really good. Doesn’t that strike you as weird?”

“Fascinating, maybe, but not weird.”

“Fascinating. Weird. Wonderful. Bizarre. Interesting. Pick whatever word makes you happy. But don’t miss the point I’m making.”

Hutch rolled to his side to face Starsky. He felt fully awake then, though still lazy and passive—from the sex, no doubt, and from the emotional drain of the day itself. He touched Starsky’s lips with the tip of a finger. “It’s a dance as old as time,” he softly said, hoping context would give Starsky more awe than bewilderment. “All those words you mentioned: every one applies.”

“I should have known you’d say the right thing.”

“I’m just privileged to be able to experience this . . . touch phenomenon . . . with you.”

“We’ve always been that way with each other, haven’t we, Hutch, hm?”

“From the subtle to the—”

“Sucking.”

Starsky’s eyes were a beautiful blue in the lamp light, and they sparkled with his mischievous provocations. Hutch was drawn into the notion all over again that he lay in bed with such a handsome man—a sexy, sex-driven man—with a person of such caliber in intelligence, integrity, trust—

“You’re doing that lovemaking thing again with your eyes,” Starsky noticed, gently smiling. “When you look at me like that . . . I know nobody loves me more.”

“Nobody does,” Hutch insisted, not embarrassed to have been caught admiring his partner. “Nobody loves you more.”

“But my other point, Hutch, is that we’ve always touched each other easily. I mean, from the beginning . . . it seems like we unconsciously knew we could put our hands on each other and that it was okay.”

“And that we liked it.”

“All of it subconscious, it seems, right?”

“Because it’s inherently natural for us.”

“That’s what I was saying. It’s always been natural for us. We didn’t think of it as different . . . or offensive . . . or. . .”

“Sexual.”

“It’s who we’ve been.”

“Human,” Hutch said.

“Animal.”

“Primal.”

“In a subliminal way.”

“Good word choice, buddy. Also . . . intuitive.”

“Who we are with each other is in our souls,” Starsky concluded.

“Sometimes you nail it all on your own,” Hutch said, tenderly stroking Starsky’s cheek. “Your vocabulary is more than sufficient.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever given me a higher compliment,” Starsky replied, laughing, pushing more tightly into Hutch and squeezing him closer. “But, damn, I’m going to need that in writing.”

Hutch didn’t want to dilute the broader perspective, one that Starsky had proffered. “It was never against my nature to pleasure you. ‘Who we are with each other is in our souls.’ It’s always been. Long before we met.”

“Says a man who doesn’t believe in the supernatural.”

“I believe in destiny.”

“So you’re saying it was. . .”

“Inevitable.”

“. . .that you would someday give me cock-flavored kisses?”

Hutch laughed. Starsky didn’t have any intention of leaving his silliness behind, so Hutch surrendered. “And I’ll do it again the second you want me to.”

“My turn next, Kissy Mouth—because giving you pleasure is more fun than me getting some, too. And you know how much I love to come.”

That, Hutch did. Starsky’s enthusiasm and excitement, his palpable delight and his unbridled eagerness, his plaintive moans and his boyish giggles, his nasty words and his seductive encouragement . . . In light of those distinct traits, how could Hutch not know how much Starsky hungered for Hutch’s climax, even despite Starsky’s desire to prolong the orgasmic buildup for himself and his partner?

On that particular night, Hutch was more keenly aware of Starsky’s other attributes: the sweat over his skin, the rigidness and heat in his pleasure-aching penis, the warmth of his heaving belly and hairy chest, all of which Hutch had his hands on, his lips and his tongue, sucking and kissing Starsky, licking and tickling him, covering him in the love and want he felt to please him.

They repressed their heavy breaths and softer moans; even Starsky’s giggles were beneath the surface of the animated exchanges between them. But Hutch eventually overtook Starsky, swallowing his partner’s crown in the wetness and warmth of his mouth, putting an end—at least a temporary pause—on Starsky’s ability to take the lead. Starsky froze and gulped for air instead. His fingers tentatively found Hutch’s head, lightly held him in place—as if he needed to—and whimpered with glee under his breath with every pass of an oral stroke Hutch gave him.

Starsky may have had a window in which he could have altered the direction of their sharing, but he lost it when Hutch added a firming hand to the mesmerizing stroke of his shaft, using it in tandem with his mouth to deliver the perfectly timed friction to his feverish skin. Hutch knew that because Starsky’s whimpers evolved into subtle cries of ecstasy with every stroke.

There was only one way Starsky would be released—and Hutch was determined to make him let go. He didn’t waste time, primarily because he feared they’d be heard by someone passing in the hall, or worse, that they’d be interrupted for an invitation to share a late-night dessert. But Hutch also found the arousal between them to be especially pure. His father had sanctioned it, after all.

When Starsky inevitably erupted into ejaculation, he was no less spirited; he writhed and he convulsed, giggled and sighed, laughed and repeatedly whispered his appreciation. But he did manage to keep every sound he vocalized under the radar. They’d missed their morning sex due to their flight to Minnesota, and it seemed Starsky’s orgasm made up for what he’d wanted when the day began.

His semen was much warmer than the heated skin of his hardened shaft and rounded head, and it filled Hutch’s mouth with more volume than he expected. The timing had been perfect; Hutch allowed Starsky’s ejaculate to pass his lips and into his cupped hand—and then he used it to lubricate his own erection. Its viscous, slippery texture immediately heightened Hutch’s pleasure, so much that he almost forgot to repress his reaction.

Sound, smell, taste, touch . . . warmth and wetness . . . Starsky’s apparent bliss—those closed eyes, grateful smile, still-perspiring skin—and Hutch brought himself to orgasm within a minute of his partner’s sexual euphoria. He slumped against Starsky afterward, along his length, and rode his hairy leg to tantalize himself further, to eke out every sliver of pleasure he could summon. In his ensuing passion and intensity, he smothered Starsky’s strong chest, his sweat-covered neck and easily receptive mouth, and his handsome, bliss-filled face in kisses.

“Cock-flavored kisses,” to be exact.

They lay silently tangled in each other’s legs and arms for a quarter hour before Starsky made the tasty notation—and they were off on nonsensical conversation about the ‘weirdness’ of pleasure.

Hutch’s curiosity eventually brought him back to a much earlier, more concrete part of the day.

“What made you want to talk to my dad?” he asked after a minute of silence between them. Their sex-induced relaxation would make it a much more painless discussion, but it turned out to be a baseless concern.

“Realizing I didn’t want us—and you especially,” Starsky said, “to tiptoe around anyone—not the people that matter, I mean—about who we are together.” He held Hutch snugly in his arms, pet his skin with tender strokes. “It’d be like we were in prison doing time for a crime we didn’t commit. I got to thinking that way about it when I was ruminating on the new case Dobey gave us—”

“Ruminating?”

“Did I use it wrong?”

“That you used it at all.”

“You don’t think I know me some big words?”

“You do butcher the language even more when you incorporate them.”

Starsky laughed at himself. “Well, whatever. I was thinking about how that case he gave us was one where the only person locked up for the crime was an innocent person—who ended up hanging himself in his cell. He served time and a death sentence for somebody else’s wrong. Not that we were like that—loving each other the way we do—but that we’d be branded guilty of something that we’re not guilty of, know what I mean?”

“I think I got it the first time.”

“I thought your father should know how we came to be the way we are. People make up their own stories if they don’t know the truth about something, so why make him wonder? Besides, he was never going to hear you. All he could think about was your mouth on my dick.”

“Why did it bother you when he suggested that I might be drawn to you because of something lacking in my childhood?”

“It was kind of an insult to us both, don’t you think?”

“Maybe his reasoning has merit?”

“What? I lost my dad early on and you didn’t really have a supportive dad, and that made us fuck each other later in life?”

Hutch laughed. “Well, when you put it like that.”

“Find me another way to put it, and I’ll give it more thought. But he was really reaching there. We know why we are the way we are with each other. Besides, I was able to snap him out of that stupid thinking and force him to really listen.”

Richard had done more than listen. When Hutch returned from the airport and the excited greetings had settled into more mundane small talk, Richard made the casual announcement that he was giving Hutch and Starsky the master bedroom for the duration of their stay. His reason was because his resurrected son deserved to be treated like a king. He let the implication of his gift tell its own story to Hutch’s sister and boyfriend, while he gave Hutch a warm wink and a sincere smile.

“I knew it!” his sister proclaimed, appearing astonished and smug with herself—and tightly hugging both detectives, first one and then the other, but equally. “I knew you guys were closer than you let on!”

No more was said about the same-sex relationship; it seemed everyone, at that point, had accepted the facts to be what they were and had moved on to more interesting topics—leaving Starsky and Hutch to be the only ones who were shocked by the turn of events.

“I thought he might reluctantly say he accepted us,” Hutch told Starsky later, while they were in bed, having already said their good nights to the family—because they wanted to play before the alcohol put them to sleep. “I thought he might tolerate our situation and wish us well at the hotel, ‘see you back here in the morning for breakfast,’ and do his best to ignore the truth. But I didn’t imagine he’d actually give up his bed for us.”

“Maybe he figured, because we’re men, that we needed a bigger bed than the one in your room?” Starsky obviously played devil’s advocate; he already knew Richard’s reasons.

“He wouldn’t have gone as far as he did,” Hutch figured with certainty. “He made the gesture to let us know he’s walking the walk. Anything short of complete acceptance and he can’t claim he loves me unconditionally.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Starsky said, pretending to think it through. He looked into Hutch’s eyes again. “And I guess one of the things we learned to do real well in Bolivia was have sex behind thin walls. We pulled off our climaxes tonight like the professionals we are.”

“Except everyone probably wondered what was really going on in here when we were our most quiet.”

Starsky laughed. “Nah. They wouldn’t have wondered; they’d have known. But that’s okay: if they’re still speaking to us in the morning, we’ll know all is good.”

Hutch and Starsky could still hear muffled laughter from the living room and the sound of utensils in the kitchen. Lots of chatter, but no decipherable words. Hutch’s parents had retired to his childhood room and its double bed; sister and boyfriend would sleep in her room. An aunt and uncle would use the sleeper sofa, a long-time friend the futon in the family room, and a few others would either drive home or take the then-empty hotel room Starsky and Hutch had left behind.

“I think maybe I had to die before my father could really come to terms with you and me,” Hutch decided. “He learned the hard way what he would have been missing and that he’d give anything to have me back.”

Starsky silently agreed and affectionately combed Hutch’s hair with his fingers.

“Maybe I’d have licked your dick sooner,” Hutch imagined, lightly laughing, “had you gone down in the airliner before we got around to having sex, and I had to learn the hard way what I’d been missing.”

“Come back from Tete-tap to a peenie-pleasure?”

“Hell, I’d have dropped to my knees on the beach and blown you right there.”

“Welcome home and we’re not even at the farm yet!”

They were sure their laughter could be heard by others in the house, lending credence to everyone knowing they’d been making love during that earlier, extended period of silence. But they didn’t care. Home is exactly where they were wherever they were together.

“I want us to still do cold cases, Hutch.”

“I didn’t realize it was up for debate.”

“I’m just confirming it. Let’s always do cold cases. We can give people closure, you know?”

“To the best of our ability.”

“And we have to keep knocking on doors. We can’t let kids who slip through the cracks be preyed on by these monsters just because some loser behind a desk can’t do their job.”

“We’ll knock on ten times the number of doors than we have before, starting as soon as we get back.”

“And this new thing I want to do . . . I want to make it the most important thing.”

“New thing?”

“Like I said, I figured out what we should do with our skills and experience.”

“I’m listening.”

Hutch also noticed how sort of apprehensive Starsky looked: as if he was afraid Hutch wouldn’t want to join him in their new adventure, as if Starsky didn’t have the words to explain it as well as he would need to, as if Starsky was terrified Hutch would want to go in some other direction and their lives would be filled with danger once again.

“I said I’m listening,” Hutch repeated, touching Starsky’s face to ease his anxiousness. “Whatever you want to do, I want to do it with you.”

“Okay, so I want to get people out of jail who don’t belong there.”

Hutch wasn’t sure he heard everything; the proposition had some ambiguity to it. He inadvertently frowned from confusion—for that reason and that reason alone.

But Starsky misread him and impatiently said, “Let me finish, will you? Don’t shoot it down just yet.”

“I have no intentions of shooting it down.”

“You look annoyed already.”

“I’m not that, either. Just confused, so tell me more.”

“There are people in jail who don’t belong there.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I mean, people who never belonged there, know what I mean? People who aren’t guilty, people who are serving time for somebody else’s wrong.”

Hutch finally understood and couldn’t help but smile. “More cold cases.”

“Not cold cases,” Starsky said, emphasizing instead, “Closed cases. Cases where somebody got locked up for something they didn’t do and the key got thrown away. There are people in prison, Hutch, who’ve been there for years for shit they didn’t do.”

Hutch knew they both knew that fact—and had known it for a long time.

“There are people in prison,” Starsky continued, “who’ve been there for decades—decades, Hutch—for crimes they never committed. I want us to get them out. I want us to use our detective skills and our legal expertise and get these people out of prison.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“That don’t matter. Besides, knowing us, it might be easier than you think. Imagine some guy in prison right now, convicted of a brutal murder, knowing he’s innocent, and has been defending his reputation for fifteen years . . . twenty-seven . . . forty-two . . . He’s been robbed of his life. Just getting one guy out of prison like that, Hutch, would be worth however long it takes.”

Hutch tried not to smile because he didn’t want Starsky to think he was amused; he wasn’t amused. But he was definitely touched by Starsky’s empathy and his continuing passion for justice. Hutch couldn’t repress his smile, not completely, because he felt overwhelmed by Starsky’s compassion. “I love your spirit,” he said, using words to convey his sincerity. “I think what you want to do with your life—to give people back theirs—is an admirable endeavor.”

“But?”

“No buts.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Starsky finally smiled, his face awash with relief. “We’ll start right away then,” he said excitedly, jiggling Hutch’s arm for compliance. “As soon as we get home, we’ll find someone whose case is flimsy at best, who’s been in prison the longest, who has been trying for years to get somebody to listen.”

“Let’s not wait,” Hutch suggested. “We’ll call Dobey in the morning and get somebody working on pulling those cases right away.”

“I love that you want to do this with me, Hutch. You really do mean it when you say you’ll do whatever I want to do.”

“I’m not sure that’s completely true,” Hutch said with playful chagrin. He winked. “I mean, I haven’t been tested on how far I’d go for you, not really. But this work you want to do, Starsk . . . that’s work that needs doing even if I wasn’t involved.”

“But our minds together can work miracles.”

“If we can’t solve the crimes, no one can.”

“Because Sherlock Holmes is long dead.”

“Because Sherlock Holmes is fictional,” Hutch noted.

“You know what I meant.”

“And I still couldn’t help but shake your cage.”

“So, speaking of cages—of opening them—we’ll call our work something like . . . like . . . ‘Freeing Innocents.’”

“Freeing Innocence?”

“Innocents.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Innocents . . . as in . . . people who are innocent,” Starsky explained.

“Oh, I see: Freeing Innocent . . . People. ‘Freeing Innocents.’”

“If we do it right, Hutch, we can get other people to do it, show them what to look for, teach the law of it, grow a groundswell, you know? Maybe it’ll catch on and we can empty some jail cells of innocent people all across the country.”

“Make room for the people who belong in them.”

“Exactly. Because nobody belongs in prison for crimes they didn’t commit—whether they be literal or figuratal.”

Hutch laughed. He so did love Starsky, blemishes and all.

“What’s so funny?” Starsky whined.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” Hutch affectionately replied, tousling Starsky’s hair, “figuratal-ly speaking.”

* * *

EPILOGUE

“What’s the movie?” Hutch wondered, sitting on the sofa beside Starsky and handing him the opened bag of raw almonds. He slouched into the cushions, propped his bare feet on the coffee table, crossed his ankles, settled for a while.

“It’s not a movie,” Starsky replied. He grabbed a small handful of nuts and handed the bag back to Hutch. “It’s a TV show.”

“A TV western?”

“From about fifteen years ago. Ever heard of them, TV westerns, I mean?”

Hutch laughed, nudging Starsky with his elbow to repay him for the dig. “My pop grew us up on them, but I don’t remember this one.”

“That’s because of two things.”

“One?”

“You were twenty-five years old fifteen years ago—and not living at home. No pop to show you.”

“Two?”

“You think it’s better to read, so you really don’t know shit about television.”

Hutch couldn’t argue that fact. Instead, he watched a couple of cowboys ride horses across the screen while they talked about something . . . western. But Hutch couldn’t hear them because he was busy—and more interested in—talking to Starsky.

It was a late Saturday morning at the family homestead. Hutch’s parents had taken his sister and her boyfriend to the airport. They insisted that Starsky and Hutch stay behind—probably to give them alone time at the house . . . or so that was Hutch’s thinking. Family members could wonder, and presume, that the two male lovers engaged in intimate experiences while they were in the master bedroom each night, but nobody could actually know it; leaving the two men to themselves that morning was a certainty that they got time to just be with each other—and without the hassle and bustle of a large gathering.

It had been a busy, satiating week of family and friends, lots of folksy warmth and communing. And lots of good food, too—and drink. But, one by one, and sometimes two and more, the people who’d arrived to lay eyes on Hutch gradually left over the week to attend to their lives. The detectives would themselves go home in a couple of days. In the meantime, they prepared their own breakfasts that morning and relaxed on the living room couch afterward—having showered, shaved, and dressed in nearly matching jeans and long-sleeved, button-down shirts—while they waited for the parents to return.

But what was a day without baiting his partner? “Which one are you attracted to?” Hutch asked when he noticed the television show seemed to be focused on two cowboys.

“Attracted to?” Starsky asked, half-interested in Hutch’s question. He ate more almonds, reaching into the bag on Hutch’s lap.

“Drawn to, if you prefer,” Hutch clarified. “Which one is your favorite?”

“Guess.”

Hutch studied the cowboys for a few minutes, happy to take up the challenge: one was dark-eyed, dark-haired, unconventional in his appearance, but attractive, more athletic in build, definitely expressive. The other was dirty blond, blue-eyed, beefier, and . . . quiet. Perhaps ‘stoic’ would have been a better description. Hutch listened to their dialogue: the cowboy in the black hat had a deeper, more masculine voice than the other. Both men were roughly the same age and seemed comfortable in the proximity of his partner—as if they were related or just really good friends.

“Is this a gay cowboy show?” Hutch wondered, teasing Starsky.

“Nobody was gay in those days—not even guys who were gay. I mean, take that Rocky Rock guy.”

“What?”

“That Doris Day dude.”

“Rock Hudson?”

“That guy. He’s gay.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It isn’t public knowledge, but I’ve met people in the business; they say he is—but that’s my point, Hutch,” Starsky said with measurable annoyance, “gay guys aren’t even allowed to be gay guys in TV.”

“I’m sorry I asked the question.”

Mainly, Hutch was sorry he’d irritated Starsky. He wanted to play with him, not pester him. He tried again.

“Are these good guys?” he asked. He couldn’t figure out, just from watching them, which one would have been Starsky’s favorite—if he had one at all. “They look a little rough around the edges, but seem affable.”

“I don’t know what that means, but they’re good bad guys if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Sympathetic characters, then.”

“With each other?”

“To us,” Hutch corrected him, giving Starsky another nudge while he ate almonds. “In other words, we like them even though they’re ‘bad guys.’”

“Yeah, like that—but only because they’re trying to be good guys.”

“What’s the worst they’ve done?”

“Rob trains and banks.”

“How long have you been watching this show that you know so much?”

“Off-and-on for fifteen years. I’ve told you about it, but you’ve forgotten. And you still haven’t figured out which one is my favorite.”

The scene had changed and the cowboys were in a hotel room, at night, one sitting in a chair, the other on the bed, talking again to each other—comfortably and with a kind of emanating warmth to their exchange. They were no longer wearing hats, and looked exhausted. All day in the saddle, no doubt.

“Are they supposed to be friends or brothers?”

“Cousins, I think.”

Hutch had perceived that relationship correctly; he made further judgements: the dark-haired cowboy was smarter, more articulate, softer—and yet not. The brain between the two, Hutch decided, and the other was probably the brawn. An interesting combination. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Starsky was no longer irked, but he was matter-of-fact. “I’m watching. Trying not to think.”

“They could make a television show about us,” Hutch imagined. “We’ve got the yin-and-yang thing going, too, you know?”

“Because one of us is blond and the other ain’t?”

“And one of us is smart and—”

“C’mon, get serious. You still need to guess who’s my favorite. If you can’t, then admit it: you don’t know me all that well.”

Hutch repressed his laughter. Nobody knew Starsky better than he did. But he gave the test another few minutes of honest scrutiny and made a guess. “You like the guy in the black hat.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because he’s smarter . . . has more depth. He might even make a good detective.”

Starsky watched TV for a minute before he showed any reaction to Hutch’s observation. Even then, it wasn’t verbal. He repositioned himself on the sofa, lying on it instead, with his head in Hutch’s lap. “Yeah, he’s the one,” he said solemnly, hugging Hutch around his thighs. “But it’s not just his brain.”

“His ass?”

“He’s kind. Not so much in this episode, but overall, I mean. If you watched the whole show, you’d know he’s got heart.”

“Because you have heart,” Hutch told him, squeezing Starsky in return. “Takes one to know one.”

“It isn’t your hair color that makes me love you, Hutch.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“It’s not just your smarts, either.”

“My ass?”

“You got heart and soul.”

“Love is blind.”

“But I have twenty-twenty vision, pal; I see everything the way it is.”

They watched television for a few more minutes before either spoke.

“I think the guy in the black hat is my favorite, too,” Hutch decided. It wasn’t because the dark-haired cowboy was more animated; Starsky was right: there was a certain warmth and kindness permeating his mannerisms and the every look in his eyes. He smiled even when the moment didn’t call for one. But Hutch also knew that Starsky loved cowboys, if for no other reason than they were tough guys. “Does he ever throw a punch?”

“Oh, yeah, all the time. But he uses his words first. When they don’t get him anywhere, then you better watch out.”

“You might be describing me here,” Hutch joked. He squeezed Starsky’s shoulder, lowered his eyes from the TV screen to his partner’s profile, and studied him instead, seeking a reaction. “You think you could do that guy?”

“Do him?”

“Have sex with him.”

“No,” Starsky said, emphatically. “I’m not gay.”

“Neither is he, let’s assume. But he does have presence. He’s an easy guy to be drawn to.”

“Except he’s dead.”

“What?”

“What I said.”

“He dies in this?”

“He died fifteen years ago.”

Hutch was still confused. “Are we talking about the cowboy or the actor?”

“The actor.”

“Oh.” Hutch was genuinely sorry to hear it, as much as he was baffled. “He died young then?”

“He was almost thirty-two.”

“What did he die from?”

“A bullet.”

Only then did it strike Hutch that Starsky was being purposefully blunt; the actor’s death had apparently troubled him. Starsky answered Hutch’s questions, but didn’t elaborate. Hutch tried to remember what he’d been told in times past about the actor, by Starsky himself, but he wasn’t able to place the eventful memory. He was more concerned by Starsky’s short answers. Had his last two words not been so provocative, Hutch may have let it lie there to keep from troubling Starsky further, but he couldn’t. “A bullet, Starsk?”

“He shot himself,” Starsky said bluntly.

Hutch got taken aback again. He looked to the television, studied the young actor, his easy manner and style, his confidence and his affability. And Hutch himself was troubled then. “What would drive him to commit suicide?”

“I didn’t say he committed suicide.”

“You said he shot himself.”

“There’s a difference.”

“Okay, so it was an accidental—”

“I don’t know if it was an accident. I mean, he probably did it on purpose, but he wasn’t intending to do it.”

That, Hutch didn’t understand. He wasn’t certain he should keep asking questions, either. He didn’t want to diminish Starsky’s enjoyment any more than he already had. But the longer he watched the dark-eyed actor, became familiar with his warm smile, appreciated his skill and his ability to convince anyone that he hadn’t a care in the world, the more curious about Starsky’s interest in the man he became.

“You remember his age at the time of his death,” Hutch noted. “He meant something to you.”

“He still does. I always watch when they air the show. Takes me back.”

Hutch wasn’t accusatory. “Why is he important?”

“More than one reason.”

“Tell me.”

“He played the coolest bandit ever.”

“I see that.”

“He’s not like a Rock Hudson. He’s not the chiseled, typical movie star type.”

On an impulse, Hutch observed, “But he’s still handsome.”

“I was just going to say that. He’s got that charisma thing going. Or he did, I mean.”

“And you were drawn to that, still are.”

“I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be cool like that, be that . . . easy. I’m not saying I wanted to be a good bad guy.”

“I understood you.”

The episode they were watching must have ended because a commercial break put Starsky on his back, with his head still in Hutch’s lap, looking up at him, hugging Hutch’s arm to his chest. “I wanted somebody to admire,” he explained, about his interest in the late actor. “I got to thinking maybe I might do the acting thing . . . and get a name for myself.”

Hutch smiled at him, enjoying hearing about Starsky’s earlier dreams, despite how they’d come to be—and glad he ended up following a different calling.

“But when he died,” Starsky continued, “I realized that a famous life doesn’t make you happy, either. Happiness is how you think and feel, not about fame and fortune.”

“Seems you found your heroes later in life.”

“Yeah, and he wasn’t the regular type, you know, the Rocky Rocks. He was just. . .”

“A cool bandit.”

“The coolest.”

“I’m sorry you were hurt by his death.”

“I was so fucked up at the time,” Starsky recalled, breaking eye contact to look into the past. “Watched him that night—being his usual charming self doing the western thing—woke up in the morning to the news. Couldn’t believe it. He seemed so on top of the world.”

“Where was I fifteen years ago when this happened to you and I don’t remember it?”

“It was while we were street cops, before we were partnered.”

“I wish I could have been there for you.”

“It’s okay. I got through it.”

“What’s his name?”

“The cowboy?”

“The actor.”

“Pete Duel.”

The name did sound vaguely familiar to Hutch; whether he heard it from Starsky in years past or from the news at the time, he didn’t remember. Hutch had never been all that interested in television and movies, but his partner was, and he was sure they’d crossed this path at one time in their lives.

“The lead homicide detective on the case,” Starsky offered, “said Pete’s death looked ‘weird’ to him, that some of the facts just didn’t add up; it was ruled a suicide, but there were some things . . . Well, anyway, I’d give anything to revisit that case on a professional. . .” He trailed away, his eyes following, as if he’d just stumbled on a profound thought that had never occurred to him before, not in all those years. He looked back at Hutch—and the question was all over his face.

“We can ask Dobey,” Hutch suggested, reading Starsky’s mind. “But we’ll need compelling evidence to reopen a case like that—unless we did it—”

“Unofficially.”

They read each other’s minds and were quiet for a minute, simply looking at each other, waiting for one of them to reconsider, but neither of them did. If Starsky didn’t change his mind about his wish, Hutch wasn’t going to do it for him; he’d follow Starsky anywhere.

They were so intently focused on the silent conversation between them that they didn’t hear the car pull into the driveway, nor the outside garage door open and close; the seasoned officers, known in part for their situational awareness, somehow missed the sounds of two car doors closing, or the door from the garage into the house opening. It was only when they heard the voices of Hutch’s parents did the detectives realize the couple had finally returned from the airport.

Hutch looked up from Starsky just as Richard and Karen materialized in the hallway on their way to the kitchen. Starsky bolted upright out of Hutch’s lap—or at least tried to. He didn’t succeed: Hutch immediately pushed him back against his legs, forcefully and with successful determination—and Starsky was unable to outmuscle him in that moment because he was already in an awkward position.

“Hey, boys!” Richard greeted them as he followed Karen into the kitchen, she and he carrying paper grocery bags in each arm. “We took the liberty of buying lunch—and a feast for dinner.”

“We just had breakfast, Pop,” Hutch said, still pushing Starsky into his lap whenever he sensed his partner’s attempt to rise. “But I suppose we can work up an appetite under the right temptation.” He noticed how tense with anticipation and uncertainty Starsky seemed to be about their soon-to-be public display of intimacy. “He accepts us as we are,” Hutch told Starsky about his father, in a lowered voice, “now or never.”

Starsky relaxed, audibly exhaling, but only a little. He kept eye contact with Hutch, appearing to wait for further instruction, silent or otherwise.

Richard and Karen disappeared into the kitchen and began opening and closing cupboards, likewise the refrigerator. Richard whistled while he tasked. He would have been able to see the two men on the sofa when he passed by in the hallway, but he may not have paid them that much attention. He seemed more eager to put away groceries.

Hutch scratched Starsky’s chest through his shirt to calm him further. “It’ll be all right, I think,” he promised. How could anyone fault Starsky, his beautiful, blue-eyed boy, for demonstrating his affection for a man he’d more than once sacrificed his life? “For starters,” Hutch explained, teasingly, “they kind of like you.”

“But you might not want to be leaving them with this picture of us burned forever in their minds.”

“Which picture is that? the one of you romantically sitting here with me? I personally can’t think of a better one to leave them. Besides, he let us sleep in his bed all week.”

“That’s one thing: we were behind closed doors. Seeing us like this will be a whole other animal.”

“I’m not letting you up, partner, so give it a rest.”

Starsky could have fought his way out of their union, but he didn’t make the effort. Perhaps Hutch’s assessment wielded more power. “It won’t be easy,” Starsky said sarcastically, “but I’m going to try to trust your judgement.”

Hutch laughed and pet Starsky’s hair. “When have I ever led you astray?”

“The list?” Starsky asked with a playful growl, “or the top ten items on it?”

When Richard came into the room, he had three beer bottles in his hands, and he only paused momentarily when he saw the men on the sofa.

“You can turn that off,” Hutch said about the television. “We’re done with it.” He pressed his arm across Starsky’s chest to keep him locked down. His plan was to let Starsky up when Richard offered him a beer, thereby buying time for his father to get the full view experience first.

After Richard turned off the television, he sat on the edge of the coffee table, hugged the bottles between his knees, and gave Hutch and Starsky the once-over with a soft smile on his face. “Well, aren’t you boys enjoying the time alone,” he warmly noted.

“We took advantage of our abandonment,” Hutch said.

“Just got done watching a western, too,” Starsky added, hoping to dilute the visual implications, or at least appearing to, so the blow to Richard’s moral senses wouldn’t be as lethal. The detectives hadn’t spent time playing on the sofa, in other words; they’d innocently watched television instead.

But Richard had none of it, it seemed. “We thought you guys could use some time to yourselves,” he explained. “It’s been fairly hectic around here all week.”

Starsky lay with his shoulders against Hutch’s thigh, his head in Hutch’s lap, his arms crossed over his chest, holding Hutch’s forearm, one leg bent against the back of the sofa, the other stretched out. He’d moved it out of the way when Richard initially approached, but Richard chose the coffee table over the couch. Despite Richard’s thoughtful comment and his apparent acceptance of his son’s chummy behavior with his partner, Starsky still felt tight in muscle, and his voice was borderline passive, but he didn’t try to alter the physical situation.

“Starsky figured out what we’re going to do with our lives from this day forward,” Hutch said, giving Starsky’s chest a slight tickle, adding affectionate touch to the overall portrait he painted for his father.

Richard didn’t seem to care about that, either. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to solve age-old cases that get innocent people out of prison.”

“Splendid!” Richard exclaimed. He yelled the announcement into the room so Karen could hear him. “That’s a noble pursuit,” he furthered, sounding genuinely pleased as he handed a beer each to Starsky and Hutch. “Let’s drink to it.”

Hutch finally let Starsky out of his lap, but he purposefully shoved him just before he could fully sit up, and Starsky fell against Hutch’s shoulder at his own. They took the beers from Richard; the three of them opened theirs in unison, and they saluted the future with a raise of the bottles and a long swallow, respectively.

Karen joined them with a small tray of dried fruit and salted nuts, whole wheat crackers and olive dip. She’d heard the news about their Freeing Innocents cases, and was excited to join them in a celebration. “I’m so happy to learn you’ll be doing something safer and just as meaningful!”

“You’re laying out your lives in such a positive way,” Richard observed. “Do you feel as if you’ve begun again, Kenny? Such a traumatic way to end your previous work—captive in Bolivia for three months—and now this new direction. Are you as excited as we are?”

“Very much,” Hutch said honestly. He relished that Starsky remained seated against him—and noticed that his partner had considerably relaxed. Richard’s nonchalance about finding them physically engaged on the sofa had gone a long way in apparently easing Starsky’s concerns. It had done that already for Hutch.

“I hope you’ve also found a way to leave behind the guilt you’ve been experiencing about Bolivia,” Karen told Starsky. “That is the only real way forward. You both deserve happiness.”

“I wouldn’t want to live life without him,” Hutch said, patting Starsky’s knee. “He finally understands that, and I think he’s let go of the trouble we came here with only a week ago. I knew he would eventually absolve himself—because he’s a smart guy.”

“He flatters me,” Starsky said, sipping beer. “But he’s obviously the better one between us. I know that because he’s got some good parents.” The implication he made seemed to have landed because Richard winked at him in reply.

“We’re proud of him,” Richard confessed, and not facetiously. “He’s always had a kind soul, been a good and honorable man.”

“He’s beautiful, too,” Starsky said. He gave his conclusion a beat, and then asked Richard, “You’d say so, wouldn’t you? that he’s beautiful?”

Hutch felt the sudden anxiety spark in his blood; his turn to be apprehensive. He didn’t want to see his father put on the spot in that way, nor did he wish to be hurt when his father might correct Starsky by reminding them all that Hutch had only ever been ‘average’—and not that ‘average’ was a bad thing, but that a father would see his son as less than what he really was.

“Yes,” Richard said with conviction, raising his bottle in another toast toward Hutch. “My boy is beautiful.” His eyes shone with deep admiration. “I’ve never said so before, Kenny, but your beauty is undeniable just the same—both the inward as well as the outward.”

“See that?” Starsky asked Hutch, tilting back his head to make eye contact with him. “He loves everything about you, just like I said.”

Hutch’s heart swelled and he choked on his emotion. “Thank you for saying so, Pop.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t said it sooner.”

“Better late than never,” Starsky chimed in, “right?”

“So, let’s let you guys be by yourselves for now. Your mom and I have to get the potted flowers out of the car. We wanted to spend time planting them in the patio pots and in the yard later this afternoon—and we’re hoping you’d give us some pointers.” The ‘you’ he referenced was his son, a man he knew who had a way with growing all things green.

Karen and Richard left the tray of food on the coffee table, Richard took his beer and escorted Karen out of the room to the garage. “Take your time, boys,” he genuinely advised them.

Starsky and Hutch sat wordlessly for more than a minute. The house was so quiet they could hear a clock ticking. Eventually, Starsky looked over his shoulder at Hutch again—and smiled, on his face and in his eyes. “It’s been a good week,” he quietly said, relaxing into Hutch. “We got everything we hoped for and then some.”

“And I owe it all to you.”

“How do you figure? You’re the one who came out to your dad.”

“I came clean because I couldn’t trample all over what makes you an honorable man. Besides, it was your follow-up that helped him to see the light.”

Starsky broke contact, leaned forward, set his bottle on the coffee table, laid back down on Hutch’s lap, and looked up into his eyes. “Me and thee,” he said in a seductive whisper. “We make the best team because we’ve got each other’s backs.”

“I like your front, too,” Hutch affectionately said, gently hitting the end of Starsky’s nose, but he knew the metaphor had been deciphered. “You’re everything to me, Starsk. The air that I breathe.”

“Because what we’ve got between us is so strong it’s unbreakable.”

“More than that.”

“Yeah? What’s more than that, hm, buddy?”

“Forgiveness . . . trust . . . loyalty . . . respect . . . acceptance,” Hutch said, gazing fondly at Starsky and immersing himself in the mutual reply, “and a great love that’s . . . unconditional.”

---