Corroborating Evidence

810

134,980 words.

Corroborating Evidence follows Losing Starsky.

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PROLOGUE: THE CHARGE

Starsky woke with a start from an unmemorable dream—to a rap on the driver’s side window. Inside of a moment’s moment, he knew he’d been asleep behind the wheel of his parked car, that it was nighttime, early morning, specifically, and somewhere in the neighborhood of one a.m. It was near to pitch dark, more so because he was situated behind a large building in an unlit alcove off the mostly deserted Ventura city street.

A flashlight shining into his sleepy eyes and another rap on the glass forced him to crank down his window. “Officer,” he cheerfully said, as if voice alone would convey all he needed to explain himself when he recognized the uniform.

“What are you doing back here?” the male cop asked him. He lowered the beam of light into Starsky’s lap, justifiably to keep track of the suspect’s hands.

Starsky’s one word hadn’t done the trick, so he fully woke from both his slumber and his relative intoxication to answer the official. “Waiting on my partner,” he said hoarsely, failing to find his voice.

“Your boyfriend?”

The question brought Starsky completely to his senses. He straightened in his seat and blocked the bright light from his eyes with his open palm. “My partner,” he reiterated with an explanation. “L.A.P.D.”

Another county over from where he was then.

“May I see some identification?” was the expected next question.

The flashlight enabled Starsky to reach into his right hip jeans pocket, remove his badge, and hand it to the police officer. Only when the cop took it from him and moved the light beam onto it was Starsky able to look around. He then realized why he’d been asked about a ‘boyfriend’—and that suddenly alarmed him.

“We weren’t aware there were any other detectives on this case,” the cop told him, giving Starsky back his badge at the same time he snapped off the flashlight and returned the area to its near darkness. “But have you been drinking?”

“We’re not here on official business,” Starsky said. He could finally see the uniform’s face; an un-hatted, younger man with an easy manner, despite his direct questions. “We stopped for a drink,” Starsky further explained. “I’m waiting for him to finish up. I guess I dozed off.” None of it was a lie, and he had no reason not to be forthright, but he was definitely concerned. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s gonna be a wait,” the cop told him. “Everyone inside the joint has been arrested. We didn’t know there were other badges in there, on or off duty.”

Starsky clumsily got out of the car into the cool night air and closed the door. “Everyone arrested” couldn’t possibly include Hutch. He also couldn’t imagine that he’d slept through a multiple arrest scuffle; the pandemonium alone would have awakened him, wouldn’t it have? He wasn’t suspicious, especially when he noticed the patrol van arriving in the front parking lot from the side street, its red lights flashing, and another marked police car joined it, doing likewise. No sirens had apparently been needed; the situation wasn’t an emergency, but he sure did feel his heart begin to race and his palms to sweat. It was the nature of the establishment itself—and how he was about to be perceived—that had fueled his anxiety.

“What went down?” Starsky asked the deputy. He zippered his jacket while he followed the officer to the front of the bar along a sidewalk that wrapped from the rear parking lot to the street. He didn’t understand what could have transpired in the short time he’d been in his car. There was barely any traffic on the streets; even the bar was un-customarily quiet for a Saturday night.

“Went in to bust an immigrant trafficking ring,” he was told, “but it got a little messy—ending in over a dozen public indecency indictments instead.” He swung one of the two big doors to the bar’s entrance open for Starsky to pass. “Everyone, except the bartender, was arrested on one charge or another.”

That’s when Starsky believed Hutch had to have snuck out a side door, didn’t see that the Gran Torino was still parked behind the building, concealed as it was by the dark, assumed Starsky had left, and took off on foot. Starsky should never have offered information to the cop that was un-required of him; he could have told the officer that he simply needed a safe, quiet, dark place to sleep before the hour-long drive home. Instead, he quite possibly put himself and his partner in the middle of a high-profile bust.

But there was more to that story than he’d anticipated. When he entered the establishment, which no longer played raucous music, but was still just as lit in muted neon flashing lights as he’d earlier left it, he was met with disgruntled voices and the commotion of nearly a dozen police officers in city, state, and federal uniforms, including those from the F.B.I. That’s when he truly realized how serious the situation was—but especially when he spied Hutch in the back of the room, in the corner of the dance floor, accompanied by a sizable number of other men, and all of them seated and cross-legged with their wrists handcuffed behind their backs.

Starsky’s heartbeat accelerated and his mind raced with scenarios about how to liberate his … well, his boyfriend, for one.

“Everyone, except the bartender?” he asked the escorting officer, raising his voice above the cacophony. He rubbed his eyes to appear naive under the circumstances. “So, that would mean you’ve also arrested my partner.”

Starsky realized how distinct Hutch appeared—he a tall blond of European descent; the other men in custody were mostly Hispanic, dark-haired and eyed, shorter, but all well-groomed and athletically built. Still, Hutch was distinguishable, despite that he sat mostly facing the wall, not seeing Starsky—nor seeming to care about his predicament, for that matter. He certainly didn’t seek Starsky’s whereabouts.

“You should talk to the arresting officer,” the cop told him, leading him toward a trio of consulting policemen. When they reached the group, the deputy introduced Starsky to the sheriff in charge.

“Jerry Reed,” the sheriff, a much older man, told him, shaking his hand. “No connection.” He briefly examined Starsky’s badge when it was offered to him. “You say your boyfriend is here?”

“Police partner,” Starsky corrected him. He no longer felt intoxicated and was certain he’d been direct enough. “Off-duty detectives. Just here for a drink.”

“And where were you when this went down?”

“In his car behind the building,” the deputy answered for Starsky. “Asleep. I had to wake him.”

Reed was obviously puzzled; his confusion lined his brow and reflected in his voice. “Your partner was in here drinking while you were out there sleeping?”

Starsky nodded. He was afraid to use any words in case there were recording devices in play, and he was no longer certain he would get cooperation—just a hunch he had, based on the fact that he and Hutch had been caught at a gay bar in the early morning hours of a Saturday night during an illegal immigrants sting. Further, he remembered that he’d been told there were ‘public indecency’ charges on board. He was about to ask that Hutch be ‘cut loose,’ but decided on different words instead. “I don’t suppose you can place him in my custody until this matter is settled?”

“Which one is he?” Reed asked, scanning the crowd of arrested men while the bar’s double doors opened. He and Starsky were temporarily distracted by the police van as it backed up to the entrance.

“The blond one,” Starsky said, inconspicuously pointing toward the corner of the room, to where Hutch was seated. “The old guy,” he added, mostly to alleviate the severity of the situation and to show a friendly willingness, despite how dismally he failed.

Reed looked straight at Starsky and asked incredulously, “The blond guy is your partner?” When Starsky answered him with another short nod, Reed took him by the arm and led them to a more secluded place in the room, near the end of the bar and the jukebox. “He’s the one who’s racked up the most charges,” Reed then told him, lowering his voice. “Your partner is one bad boy.” He didn’t say it facetiously, nor with contempt or ridicule, but to let Starsky know what they were up against.

When Starsky left the establishment earlier that night, mainly to cool off from the heated argument he’d had with Hutch, he had abandoned Hutch at the bar to finish his drink. What possible trouble could Hutch have gotten into in so short a time?

“What’s he accused of?” Starsky asked. He felt a growing knot in his stomach as he watched other officers begin lifting the arrested men to their feet and pushing them toward the waiting police wagon.

“Along with resisting arrest,” Reed answered him, “your partner’s been charged with public intoxication, public indecency, and lewd conduct.”

Starsky scoffed. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy then,” he said.

“Now knowing who he is,” Reed sorrily replied, “I wish I did. But, unfortunately for him and you, he’s the one who incited the others.”

“Is it illegal to be drunk in a bar?” Starsky asked, trying not to sound as pissed as he’d become.

“It’s more complicated than that, Detective.”

“He’s not gay,” Starsky insisted.

“You couldn’t tell that by me,” Reed replied. “I know what I saw—and some things I can’t unsee. We found him in the men’s room, his pants around his ankles, engaging in a homosexual act with thirteen other men.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“Mistake that blond guy for anyone else?” Reed noted. “Not on your life.” He leaned closer to lower his voice further. “I’m sorry, Detective,” he genuinely said. “I know this has to be hard on you. But this isn’t up to me; there are two other government agencies on site, as we speak. So, take my advice: Under the circumstances, let this play out; don’t make waves. Let’s get your partner to headquarters, get him booked and release him, and let him tell you what happened here tonight. But, were I you, I’d keep my mouth shut until then—unless you want it known that you and another police officer were caught up in a multiple public indecency arrest at a gay bar.”

Starsky clenched his jaw. He was overwhelmed with uncertainty, rage, anxiety—and wrung his hands to expel it. He didn’t want to see Hutch booked for anything, discreetly or otherwise, and he was about to argue that point when Reed’s next comment stopped him dead in his tracks and served to redirect his action.

“I know how you feel,” the sheriff told him. “It’s commendable what you were doing for him. My brother’s a fag, too, but you’ll never catch me enabling the guy, know what I mean?”

* * *

EXHIBIT A

Everything Starsky did that morning only served to inadvertently heighten his anxiety and deepen his confusion. Reed’s advice to keep his ‘mouth shut’ leap-frogged in his mind. It kept him from asking the booking officer at the Ventura County Police Department to release Hutch on his own recognizance. It stopped him from asking for Hutch’s belongings so he could at least hide Hutch’s badge. It prevented him from even approaching Hutch when it was his partner’s turn to be booked into the county jail; instead, Starsky stood nearby, in the busy hallway, against a hard wall, and watched while several cops frisked Hutch, and while they emptied Hutch’s pockets and confiscated his keys, his ring, his money—and while Hutch signed paperwork consenting to the inventory of his property.

But Starsky’s puzzlement and his alarm hadn’t begun there. While at the bar more than an hour earlier, he tried once to get Hutch’s attention—when Hutch was pulled up off the dance floor and pushed toward the waiting police van. Hutch had to walk past Starsky to leave the establishment, but he didn’t look up as he passed by. He didn’t search out Starsky with his eyes. He didn’t give Starsky a single second of notice. Starsky even called out a “Hey, Blondie” to let Hutch know he was there, expecting to at least make eye contact, but Hutch either didn’t hear him—or ignored him.

And, in that last second of the time they were given to communicate with each other in one form or another, during that ever-so-short walk from the corner of the room to the building’s main doors and into the patrol wagon, Starsky dropped his line of sight just as Hutch silently left his view. In doing so, he accidentally saw that the fly on Hutch’s jeans was open, and its top button unfastened. Only Hutch’s crumpled, sloppily tucked shirt sheltered him with the necessary privacy. And then Hutch was gone, two steps up into the waiting vehicle, and its doors quickly closed.

Starsky racked his brain—from the run he then made to the Torino, throughout the 18-minute drive to the police station at the tail end of a parade of cop cars and the van, to that very minute in which he found himself in the hallway—in pursuit of some unattainable clue that could help him understand what had truly transpired in that bar and, more importantly, why Hutch didn’t give him any indication that he knew Starsky was there, or expected Starsky to be there, or needed Starsky’s help. Why did Hutch seem so withdrawn and alone throughout his arrest? Was he that drunk? Was he that embarrassed by it?

Starsky couldn’t imagine either scenario. They had been through much worse over the past fourteen years, especially in the last six months, and Hutch had overcome his truly, deep-down embarrassment when it came to Starsky knowing about his personal life and his unspoken thoughts—and even the private details of his nudity—so embarrassment couldn’t be the dividing factor. And it had been two hours since Hutch’s last drink; he wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t know the serious situation he was in—and that he would need Starsky’s help, even if it was purely for moral support.

Those thoughts left Starsky fearing the worst: that Hutch was guilty of the crimes for which he’d been arrested. Public intoxication. Public indecency. Lewd conduct. Resisting arrest. But it was the latter charge that gave Starsky some hope. Hutch may have been accused of the other three crimes, innocently, and physically fought off the accusations, resulting in the valid charge of resisting arrest. But that would mean that Hutch was, well, innocent, so why not call on his buddy to help him get released?

Instead, Hutch followed the letter of the law. He cooperated with the police. He handed over his property, signed for it, willingly walked with the officers to the booking room where he was photographed and finger-printed. He even underwent a breath alcohol level test, assuming the arresting officers hadn’t required one at the crime scene. Hutch was processed according to procedure, along with more than a dozen of the other arrestees, without incident, without objection, and without once looking for his partner—whom he had to know in his heart of hearts was nearby.

And then Hutch was led away in handcuffs, some three hours after the arrest, to the downstairs cell blocks where he was locked behind bars. Not once did he ask for a phone call. Not once did he even so much as glance in Starsky’s direction. Hutch said only what he needed to say to the authorities, to answer their questions, and usually, from Starsky’s observation anyway, his replies were one or two words at the most.

Starsky didn’t immediately go to the holding cells. First, he wandered aimlessly in the hallways, checking out anyone who might have been checking him out—but no such person existed. He then looked for Sheriff Reed, but couldn’t find him, and was eventually told that the sheriff had left on another call. It was 4 a.m. by the time Starsky could get close enough to Hutch without blowing his own cover. His badge enabled him to bypass the metal detectors and the questions, and to approach the jail itself in the basement of the station.

Several dozen men were in lockup—in groups of ten to twelve in a single cell. Hutch was in the center block on the left side of the narrow alley. He’d since found his way to a cement bench in the rear and had curled up there, his back to the front of the jail cell, seeming to pull his jacket around him for warmth. Or privacy.

Starsky stood by the locked door, waited for a lull in conversation and other noise, and then said, “Hey, Blondie,” again, loud enough to be heard by anyone hoping to hear him. He didn’t want to call Hutch by his name, nor draw any more attention to himself than he already had, but he was certain, if Hutch was listening, that his partner would have heard him—because, were the tables turned, Starsky would have waited on pins-and-needles to hear the sound of the man’s voice who’d come to help him. He could have heard a whisper.

But Hutch didn’t stir.

Instead, Starsky made eye contact with a twenty-something young man who leaned inside the bars in the other rear corner, so he lifted his chin in a gesture to solicit the defendant’s presence—and was obliged. The younger man cautiously approached him. Starsky was first tempted to show the alleged offender his badge so he wouldn’t appear so suspicious, but he heard Reed’s advice in his mind to keep his mouth shut about who he was and why he was there. He retrieved his wallet from his hip pocket and tugged a $10 bill from its fold. “What’s your name?” he said when the arrestee got close enough.

“Matteo,” the kid replied. He could have been any non-white nationality from both his appearance of dark eyes and hair—to his name.

Starsky handed him the money. “Hey, Matteo. Do me a favor. Tell that guy on the bench that a friend of his is here, and then get yourself some coffee when you can—on me.”

Matteo took the money. “The blond guy?” he asked.

Starsky nodded. “Yeah, the blond guy.”

He watched as Matteo approached Hutch, squatted beside him, said some words to him—which were buried under the excited voices of the other alleged lawbreakers—and then shrugged over at Starsky when Hutch didn’t move. Starsky motioned with his hand for Matteo to push Hutch, but Matteo wouldn’t do it. He returned to Starsky instead.

“I’m not touching him,” he explained, his deep brown eyes piercing in their conviction. “Especially not under these circumstances—and those cameras.” He implied they were present, but neither he nor Starsky looked for them. “Besides,” Matteo added, “I think he’s passed out.”

Starsky didn’t think so; Hutch had seemed too coherent during the booking process to have passed out on the hard cement of a jail cell bench. So Starsky removed another $40 from his billfold and handed it to Matteo. “Make sure nobody touches him,” he ordered. “I’ll expect a good report from him after he’s released.”

Matteo took that money, too. “I’ll watch him like he’s my own dog,” he promised.

* * *

“What have you done, Hutch?”

Starsky spoke those words into the empty car, with only the silence to answer him, after which he punched the dashboard with a fist. He waited in the Torino outside the station, in its relatively empty parking lot—it was an early Sunday morning, after all—but he didn’t know what he waited for. Hutch couldn’t possibly be guilty of the charges against him, and yet he acted like a guilty man, didn’t he? Withdrawn. Speechless. Refusing to make eye contact or to even acknowledge or desire to see his partner alongside him while he endured the insult of the accusations. And what specifically did Reed mean when he said Hutch had been caught in a homosexual act with thirteen other men? Did Reed intend to imply a gang-bang? Or did he mean Hutch was behaving in a lewd manner with a single—with one—man, and that thirteen others were also engaged in similar acts with each other? Or was Hutch masturbating in the restroom while other men did likewise?

None of those scenarios described the man Starsky knew as Detective Ken Hutchinson, so Hutch couldn’t possibly be guilty of any of them, especially of some sort of gang-bang sex in a gay bar’s restroom. It had been a false arrest. Mistaken identity; misunderstood actions.

But why wouldn’t Hutch seek him out if he was innocent? What was the matter with him, anyway? In fact, and upon reflection, for the past couple of weeks, Starsky had slowly realized that Hutch seemed to be preoccupied about something, but not anything that would evolve into unnatural behavior.

Maybe Hutch protected Starsky. Maybe he didn’t want Starsky to get caught up in what he’d accidentally been caught up in? That idea immediately comforted Starsky; it was the first moment he had since his night-before argument with Hutch where he could relax. Some. He heard his own breathing slow in rhythm, eventually followed by a long, overdue exhale. And then he pulled his jacket collar around his neck, slumped against the locked driver’s door, tucked his chin, closed his burning eyes, and strove to get even a half-hour’s sleep in the dawning light.

The police had told him that no one who’d been arrested at the bar would get out of jail until Monday morning—standard booking procedure under the county’s intoxication laws.

But Starsky was too damn tired to drive home.

And too damn worried to leave the premises without more answers to his nagging questions.

* * *

“Coffee?”

Starsky didn’t look up when asked. All he heard was her sweet voice and, without taking his focus off the restaurant menu, he replied, “Yeah, sure, thanks.” He continued to browse the food choices while an empty cup was placed on the counter near him and he heard the hot brew pour into its ceramic container. Only then did he raise his eyes and meet the waitress’s pretty green ones.

Grace had green eyes.

The waitress smiled at him.

It was the first friendly gesture Starsky had gotten since Saturday—when Hutch and he played in their hot tub and he got that intimate wink from his partner before a round of passionate kissing.

Starsky may have stared too long at the waitress when he made the mental notation because her smile faded.

“You look like you’ve been up all night,” she said.

“Because I have been up all night,” he answered. He rubbed his eyes again, remembering only then that he’d gotten roughly four hours of fitful, restless sleep that morning in his car. He thanked her for the coffee, told her he’d need a couple of minutes to decide on breakfast, and went back to his browsing. But his mind was half-on his stomach and half-off it. He hoped Hutch would be fed well in jail, at least better than if he’d been in a hospital.

The reminder of Hutch’s whereabouts, though never out of his mind that morning, enabled him to refocus on it then. Starsky had left his car after a short sleep around 8:30 a.m. to pay Hutch another visit in holding, but found him—and just about everyone else in the cell—to be asleep. Hutch was still curled on the cement bench in the rear of the cell block, and the other men on the hard floor, though some did share their bodies as pillows for fellow friends or lovers. The twenty-something Matteo that Starsky had hired to keep an eye on Hutch was himself dozing in the back corner, only a few feet from his partner, so Starsky could at least believe his charge had kept to his promise. But even an audible, “Hey, Blondie,” again into the otherwise quiet of the room didn’t stir Hutch, so Starsky used the men’s room, and then left the police station to satisfy his hunger instead.

First, he drove back to the bar, the one from which Hutch had been arrested. He remembered that Reed had told him the bartender hadn’t been taken into custody, so maybe that guy could shed light in a dark Starsky couldn’t seem to navigate on his own. But the bar was closed when he arrived—and it wouldn’t open until 5 p.m. that afternoon.

At the counter in the all-night/all-day diner, Starsky had given most of his cash away that very early morning in exchange for his partner’s protection, so he had to add up what he had left in order to decide what he could afford for breakfast. Between his badge fold, his wallet, and all of his pockets, he was able to come up with a whopping $5.72, most of it in change. He browsed the menu again, that time from the perspective of a homeless man who’d raised some beggar’s money.

Toast. Maybe the jam would be included.

While he waited for the waitress’s return, he sweetened his coffee with sugar and poured cream into it, mostly to cool it so he could drink it sooner. His head throbbed and his muscles ached and his heart was still conflicted with continuing frustration and confusion. Only two things could explain what had transpired in the past 12 hours in a way he could manage the facts: One, that Hutch was guilty of the alleged crimes, or Two, that he was protecting Starsky from the fate that Hutch himself had been assigned.

Starsky chose, of course, to believe the latter, but it didn’t explain Hutch’s unzipped zipper, or Hutch’s actions in that men’s room as told by the sheriff. Conversely, Hutch may have been in the middle of a urine stream when the raid took place and he never got time to close his fly. And there was always the possibility that Reed didn’t witness what he thought he did.

“I see you have a badge,” Starsky heard the waitress say, interrupting his heavy thoughts. He looked up at her again, tried a smile, sort of embarrassed to know that she’d seen him going through his pockets for that $5.72. But at least she wouldn’t think he was a beggar. “Police detective,” he told her. He pulled his fold out of his hip pocket and opened it for her. “Thirteen years now,” he added, “if you don’t count the year I spent at the Academy.”

She flashed another smile, that time to tell him she was impressed. Perhaps she was older than Grace had been, seemed much more comfortable in the world in that respect, and was immediately appreciative of his line of work. “Then you may have breakfast on the house,” she said. “Restaurant policy. My boss was once a firefighter and he gives free meals to firemen, policemen, and paramedics. Today is your day.”

“Today is my day,” Starsky echoed under his breath with a sad laugh. Not his day at all, but he accepted the offer for a more filling breakfast, and thanked her for brightening the morning. She was pretty, too, which he couldn’t help but notice, and she flattered him in some wordless way: her demeanor, her attention, her respect for his badge, maybe.

“So what will it be?” she asked, ready with her notepad.

“Two scrambled eggs,” he replied. He scanned the menu again for something else.

“Bacon?” she suggested.

“No.”

“Sausage?”

“None of that stuff.” He saw what he’d been missing. “Pancakes,” he said. “Lots of syrup.”

“Hash browns?”

“Sure,” he laughed, “why not?”

She left him alone after handing him the previous day’s newspaper and attended to other customers. And he used the time to sip his coffee, wait for his gifted meal, browse the not-so-interesting news, and shake himself, at least temporarily, of the predicament both he and his partner were in. When his breakfast food arrived, he ate hungrily and without much thought, with the exception that Hutch still made the best pancakes known to man.

And, on that notation, he was taken again to the dilemma at hand. Hutch was in jail. Hutch was in jail! He couldn’t get his mind around that concept for even a second without feeling a rush of mixed emotions. And though he finished the bulk of his meal, he was anxious to get back to the station. There had to be some way to get his partner’s attention.

So he thanked his waitress, more than once, left her the $5.72 as a tip, gave her as warm a smile as he could manage under the circumstances, appreciated her coy ‘come back again soon, I hope’ parting message, and hurried out to his car. At least he didn’t have his belly to argue with for some hours to come.

But Hutch still hadn’t budged from his previous location—nor the position he was in, curled up as he was on that cold cement bench. Most of the men were awake then, and Starsky had to look for Matteo, finally finding him at the front of the cell, his back to the bars, in a corner, not having noticed nor cared that Starsky was behind him.

Starsky poked Matteo’s shoulder through the bars with his knee. “Hey,” he said. “Why aren’t you over there?”

When Matteo looked up at him with weary eyes, recognized him, and understood without further words where ‘there’ was, he replied, “I can see him just as well from here. Besides, he isn’t exactly someone who can’t fend for himself. He’s not the friendliest guy on the block, either.”

“Do you even know if he’s alive?” Starsky asked.

“He took a long piss about 30 minutes ago,” Matteo replied. “Standing up, I mean. So he walked to the john,” he explained, pointing to the exposed toilet in the rear of the cell, “and then went back to sleep, I guess.”

“Did he get anything to eat?”

“They served us donuts and coffee about an hour ago, but he didn’t want any.”

At least Hutch still had his sensibilities intact, Starsky thought. “Were you arrested in the men’s room last night?”

“Who are you that wants to know?”

“Officer … Starch.” He flashed his badge.

“I was on the dance floor when they raided the place,” Matteo defensively replied. “I’m not an illegal. I can prove it. Got me a job as a waiter over at Sorrento’s restaurant in Oxford. My boss, Tony Carone, will vouch for me.”

“You don’t look Italian,” Starsky said with mild sarcasm.

“I’m from Bolivia, but I guess I look Mexican.”

Starsky was about to agree, but decided not to further agitate the situation.

“I don’t have a license or passport on me,” Matteo further explained, “so I have to wait until my brother can get here with my documents. He lives near San Diego.”

Starsky was about to ask why Matteo traveled without identification, but he made the connection before he had to. “Maybe someday the world won’t care what you guys do in private,” he said in a low voice. When he got the appreciative nod, he then said, “Go tell my buddy I’m here. Make sure he hears you this time.”

As if Hutch hadn’t heard the other two requests.

Matteo pushed off the floor and repeated his previous actions: squatted near Hutch, spoke a few words to him—presumably, ‘Your friend is here to see you’—and then waited for a reply.

In the past two attempts, there had been no answer from Hutch, not even in body language or gesture.

But this time was different. This time Hutch did respond—and not in a good way.

This time, without changing position on the bench, he pulled his jacket up over his head.

* * *

The second beer was actually refreshing. Despite that the sun would be down within the hour on that cooling early March evening, the beverage calmed Starsky’s mind. Bundled in a warm jacket, jeans, and thick socks, he sat on the porch in a patio chair and surveyed the somewhat barren grounds while the sunset loomed on a distant horizon. He didn’t notice that the trees were beginning to bud. Or that the spring grass was greener. But the four hours he semi-slept in his car outside the police station that morning, coupled with the subsequent four hours he somewhat slept in his bed that afternoon, seemed to un-jumble his persistent thoughts about Hutch’s arrest and give him an overview picture, like the one before him of a coming-back-to-life nature.

He’d returned to the farm around 10 a.m. and went straight to bed, stripping out of his clothes to burrow under the flannel blankets for a long overdue warmth and comfort. He was so exhausted, he slept relatively well, and was at least rested enough to make himself a sandwich afterward, downing it with a cold beer, and then take that second one out to the porch to contemplate the facts as he knew them from a more settled mind.

Every lead he followed ended up with more questions, with the exception of the two points he couldn’t escape: that either Hutch refused to acknowledge his partner’s existence because he played his part to protect Starsky from the scandalous circumstance he’d been caught in, or Hutch was guilty of sex crimes—at least guilty to a point—and he was too embarrassed and ashamed to even make eye contact with Starsky.

Unfortunately, in the end, knowing the truth would remain a matter of waiting. Starsky would pick Hutch up in the morning, after which, according to the recorded message he’d received from Capt. Dobey on the house’s answering machine, he and Hutch were to meet in his superior’s office. The Captain had apparently been notified of Hutch’s arrest, long before Starsky had gotten back to the farm.

So much for keeping his mouth shut, Starsky silently lamented after hearing Dobey’s message. Starsky had more than once thought to seek out his captain for guidance or leverage, but each time he mulled it over, he dismissed it when Reed’s advice to remain silent seemed more sound.

Now, alone on the porch, on what was a very empty farm, Starsky resigned himself to waiting it out. Monday morning would eventually arrive and then he could get all those needed answers from Hutch, directly from the horse’s mouth, as it were. In the meantime, Starsky took a mental inventory. Maybe Hutch’s recent indiscretions were the reflection of an ongoing, subtle preoccupation he’d already noticed in Hutch, one that spanned the past couple of weeks. So Starsky walked himself through all he could remember about their lives those past two months in search of an elusive clue that might lend itself to his understanding the one thing he didn’t quite yet get: why Hutch drank so much Saturday night in the first place. Starsky had seen Hutch drunk before, but never that drunk, not so drunk that he’d be lewd in public.

In some respects, Starsky may have been to blame—or that’s how he sometimes saw it. After all, it was his idea to take them to the bar, and his idea to dance together in a place where he believed it was safe, where it was acceptable, where it was even expected. But Hutch didn’t want to dance and he got quite irate over being asked. Maybe all that embarrassment Starsky thought they’d left behind during Hutch’s birthday weekend at the cabin—when Starsky had Hutch handcuffed to a headboard—hadn’t completely purged Hutch of it, despite that Hutch said, and acted as if, it had. Maybe dancing with a man in public, even in a gay bar, was just too much for Hutch to handle, or too soon for him to assimilate in his life, and he resented Starsky for asking him to partake.

But that didn’t explain the last couple of weeks, despite that there wasn’t anything Starsky could pinpoint in Hutch’s behavior that made him believe Hutch was preoccupied with something of a grave nature; in fact, it was only after the argument in the bar that night that Starsky even remembered he’d had some thoughts about Hutch’s demeanor prior to the dancing argument. What had transpired two weeks earlier?

Nothing that Starsky could think of.

Maybe Hutch’s reservations, or hints of reservations, were deeper than the surface. Much deeper. Maybe their living together wasn’t sitting well with him. Maybe, in Hutch’s eyes, two men living together, sleeping in the same bed, having sex together, spending every waking moment together—beyond that “75% of the time,” as Hutch had once calculated—simply overwhelmed him.

Starsky could move back to the other house, to Grace’s house, if living with Hutch was something Hutch no longer wanted to do. Starsky wouldn’t stay where he wasn’t welcome. It also wouldn’t be too terrible to have to move out and across the driveway; at least, he didn’t have to move far and he could still be close to his partner on a daily basis. He didn’t relish the idea of living in Grace’s house without her, nor living without Hutch in his bed every night, but he could manage it eventually, if that’s what Hutch needed him to do.

They’d been thrilled about the new living arrangement, at least initially. Starsky still was, in fact. When they left the cemetery on New Year’s Day, they did so with much love and excitement in their hearts. Starsky could barely wait. Even before Hutch could clear space for Starsky’s belongings in the master bedroom, Starsky was over at his old house dumping all his clothes onto the bed, from both the closet and the dresser. His anxiousness to relocate enabled him to be in what had become Grace’s house without the melancholy. He shoved Hutch in front of him up the stairs, urging him to go faster because Starsky wanted to be moved over that very day. He wanted to be able to say that his new life with Hutch started on the first day of a new year and that their relationship had begun with a corresponding clean slate.

“Let me use this energy to move the dresser,” Hutch had told him as he resisted the run up the stairs into Starsky’s old bedroom. “I’m not the spry young thing I used to be.”

“C’mon,” Starsky encouraged him, pushing harder. “We’ve only got so much daylight left.”

When they finally entered the bedroom, Hutch laughed at the condition of the bed, completely covered as it was in Starsky’s clothes and other items from his dresser. “You realize we could have carried some of that stuff out while it was still in the drawers, right?” Hutch asked.

“The drawers are over there,” Starsky replied, pointing to an area in the room where he’d stacked them.

“Yeah, idiot,” Hutch chided him, “but you could have left the stuff in the drawers, and we carried them out that way.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Starsky said, feeling stupid, though no less excited. But he soon got past his idiocy when he nudged Hutch to one end of the dresser and together they awkwardly removed it from the room, struggled with it down the stairs, and loaded it onto the waiting pickup truck. They filled the open spaces in its bed with the empty drawers, which took them each two runs up to the bedroom, and then drove the furniture across the driveway to Hutch’s house—or what was now his and Starsky’s house—and unloaded it against the wall that Hutch had earlier cleared.

Starsky raced back to his old bedroom to quickly fill boxes and paper bags with the items he’d unceremoniously dumped on his bed, and most of that was ready and waiting on the porch by the time Hutch returned with the truck, having been left to put the drawers into the dresser in Starsky’s absence and taking time, he’d said, to use the bathroom. Clothes, model cars and boats, Starsky’s toiletries, family heirlooms, his movies and few books, all got relocated that afternoon—with record speed.

Starsky had lived to say he had moved in with his boyfriend on the first day of a new year. Clean slate from Day One.

“If it was legal,” he told Hutch at the end of that evening, “I’d ask you to marry me.”

“And ruin a perfectly good relationship?” Hutch had countered.

“You wouldn’t even marry me?” Starsky asked, crestfallen.

“What would be the point?” Hutch replied. “We’re already legally bound. But that reminds me to give you back all the shit I inherited when you took off to that tropical island paradise two months ago and pretended to be dead.”

Maybe being told Starsky would marry him if he could, coupled with being asked to dance with him in public, put Hutch over the edge on that particular night, the night of his arrest.

Since Starsky’s return from his “tropical island paradise,” just about everyone he knew and dearly loved had come to the farm before Christmas to see him in the flesh and hear about his adventures in the South Pacific. Captain Dobey had visited. Huggy Bear had visited. Emma and Adam and Davis had visited, too.

On Adam’s second visit, Starsky sat with him on the porch one night until 4 a.m. telling him every detail he could remember of his ordeal—while Hutch slept inside on the couch, too bored to hear it again, or eavesdropping. He’d opted on his own to let Starsky spend that time with Adam while he kept a close ear on them. Had Hutch been bothered by Starsky’s xxx

The federal authorities had even visited the farm, several times, before and after the holidays, documenting what they could and how it might be important in the seemingly endless investigation into why the airliner had crashed.

Nick Starsky and their mother had visited for a weekend before Christmas; she spent it, on occasion, weeping in Starsky’s arms and not letting go of him for hours. Nick decided to return in the spring when he could have more of Starsky to himself, and Hutch was quite fine with that, or at least seemed to be. He’d never been jealous of Starsky’s close relationship with his brother—because anyone who knew Starsky and Hutch knew that Starsky was closer to Hutch than to his own flesh-and-blood, a fact Hutch also knew. “My partner, Hutch, is closer to me than my brother,” Starsky had told Detective Joan Meredith some years earlier after he’d been partnered with her during Hutch’s gunshot wound recovery. And Starsky had grown a lot closer to Hutch since then.

Jana had come to the farm a few weeks earlier, too. She was very excited to learn she could move into Grace’s house as soon as Starsky and Hutch found a qualified adult to oversee their rescue and rehabilitation program. And Grace’s mother and brother had come. They’d delayed picking up Grace’s belongings, and by the time they were ready to go through them, Starsky had materialized and inherited them, as was stipulated by law. But he willingly met with her family, along with Jana, not too long into the new year, to help decide the fate of most of Grace’s possessions. Her mother was kind enough to let him keep Grace’s engagement and wedding rings; he himself had never worn one.

Where, in all of that outpouring of love and laughter, could Hutch have gotten knocked to his knees? He’d been in good spirits throughout, enjoying the company of many of their friends and extended family members, making meals and passing around the drinks. He’d been helpful, both physically and in moral support, too, in guiding Starsky’s serious, life-altering decisions, and Hutch seemed quite excited about the routine into which they’d settled, the one where they woke every morning beside each other and went to bed at night together.

Sex, as it had been prior to the plane accident, was something they enjoyed every single day, sometimes twice or several times in a 24-hour-period. Nothing seemed to have changed there, nothing tangible anyway. Starsky would never forget how Hutch had kissed him from head to foot, front and back, while they lay on their quilt-cushioned makeshift bed in front of the fireplace in their mountain cabin, before resuming the sex-making they’d grown to love with each other. That love and inhibition over Christmas carried through into the lovemaking they’d done since their return to the farm—and Starsky couldn’t imagine anything ever getting in its way again.

Looking back over the past two months of the new year, he couldn’t remember a time when he felt Hutch wasn’t with him 100% in emotional courage and commitment, with the exception that sometimes Hutch had seemed more tired in the past couple of weeks—wanting and having sex, but not always as enthusiastic or liberated. But, for the life of him, Starsky couldn’t pinpoint any one thing, or any accumulation of things, that would have caused Hutch to express new reservations about their relationship. It wasn’t something Starsky could isolate; it was purely something he felt. On rare occasion.

So maybe it was just that: two men living together, sleeping together, loving together, being together—witnessed by all those people coming to the farm and seeing for themselves, if they were astute enough, that Starsky didn’t live at Grace’s house, that he lived at Hutch’s, that there were two dressers in the master bedroom, that despite the two beds in the house, only one was ever unmade—was too much for Hutch to handle. Or maybe those same people read into the relationship what was truly there, that which Starsky and Hutch strove to make private despite their efforts, and Hutch had sensed their judgmental scrutiny, though Starsky never noticed it. And then, Starsky asking Hutch to dance with him, even at a gay bar, set Hutch over the proverbial edge. He and Hutch fought that night over it; rather, they argued. Hutch didn’t want to dance. Starsky insisted they do. It ended in an unspoken ‘fuck you’ on both their parts and Starsky left to his car to cool off. He’d failed to get Hutch to leave with him so they could end the stalemate. Hutch was too pissed to do anything—but finish his drink.

While Starsky slept behind the bar in his car, maybe Hutch had more than his last drink. Maybe he had two more drinks. Three. Four. And maybe he was so drunk, who knows what he did in that restroom?

All Starsky could do was wait for those answers. Monday morning couldn’t come soon enough. He finished his beer on the porch and went back into the house. For all he knew, it would be one of the last times he’d get to call the place home.

* * *

The defendants were just lining up in front of the judge in the Hall of Justice when Starsky caught up with Hutch’s whereabouts. Though he had been told that the prisoners would be released first thing Monday morning, which presumably meant business hours, he hadn’t been reminded that they’d first go to arraignment proceedings prior to being let loose. So Starsky ran from the sheriff’s office to the courtroom using an outdoors route, and arrived in time for the pleas. He took a seat in the second row, on the aisle, which gave him a profiled view of his partner. Hutch didn’t look for him; perhaps he already had before Starsky arrived, assumed Starsky wasn’t in the room, and then surrendered to the procedure on his own. Starsky wished he could have let Hutch know he was there, but doing so was impossible at that time. Instead, he anxiously awaited the outcome and hoped Hutch wouldn’t be judged by his unkempt appearance—his disheveled, sleep-deprived demeanor and dress.

Each man who was called forward by the female judge was asked his name, if he’d been read his rights, if he understood those rights, if he could post bail, and then informed of his respective charges. All but Hutch had a single violation assigned to his case: that of public indecency. When the judge called Hutch’s name, she did so without referring to him as “Detective” or “Officer” Hutchinson. She either knew he was a policeman and mitigated damage on his behalf, or she didn’t know and thereby protected his reputation purely from ignorance. But she was aware that he faced multiple civil and criminal charges.

When Hutch stepped forward, mussed blond hair and crumpled clothes notwithstanding, he spoke softly—and respectfully—stating his name and affirming that he’d been read his rights, that he understood them, and that he was aware of the crimes he was accused of having committed. And then, as had the other men arrested in the bar, he pleaded “not guilty” when asked.

Starsky breathed a sigh of relief. True, a ‘not guilty’ plea ensured a trial, and therefore the opportunity to plead one’s case and ask for leniency, even if one was guilty, but for a minute, Starsky was afraid Hutch would admit to wrongdoing—if he was guilty—simply because he was an honorable person.

The judge studied Hutch for a moment and then examined all of the men before her. She addressed Hutch again. “Is there a reason why you’re facing four indictments in this case and your compatriots are only facing one?”

Hutch cleared his throat before he spoke. “I don’t know, Your Honor,” he replied honestly. “I may have stood up for myself more than they did.”

It was that truthful answer, Starsky believed, that encouraged the judge to release Hutch on his own recognizance—meaning, without bail—and that he simply sign an affidavit promising to return to court for all of the upcoming proceedings related to his case. Hutch’s verbal agreement and, perhaps that she knew he was a police officer, laid way to have him dismissed from the courtroom.

Starsky waited only a moment to see which direction Hutch headed out of the room before he bolted for the nearest exit and caught up with Hutch in the open hallway. But before he could make any kind of contact, even by proximity, Hutch was escorted by a bailiff to a clerk’s office to sign the appropriate documents—and left Starsky outside the door.

Starsky’s stomach churned. If he’d gotten to connect with Hutch only a minute earlier when he emerged from the courtroom, perhaps he wouldn’t be so nervous, but Hutch’s cooperation with the authorities left no time for Starsky. Hutch, again, didn’t look for him when he had a chance. He allowed himself to be led into another office in the building as if he was still on his own throughout the proceedings.

Starsky paced. Slowly. Every step he took—and he took many—were eternities between them. He wrung his hands. He was an outsider, or so he felt, and he wasn’t happy about it. It made him sick, in fact.

He was across the hall when Hutch finished the paperwork, and he was poised for flight when Hutch finally emerged from the office, ready to take off in any given direction at a moment’s notice to keep up with his partner.

But Hutch unexpectedly approached him instead, so Starsky stood his ground.

It was an awkward moment, maybe one of the most uncomfortable ones Starsky had ever experienced. Hutch didn’t make eye contact with him, not even then. Nor did he say hello or good morning. He didn’t stop when he reached Starsky, either. Averting his eyes, Hutch simply said, in that soft voice, “I have to pick my stuff up,” and he flashed his voucher to prove it as he walked on by.

Starsky followed him down the hall.

One thing Starsky did believe: Hutch had known he was present without apparently looking for him or seeing him with his eyes. So Hutch had to have known Starsky was in the bar when Hutch was taken from the floor to the police van. He had to know Starsky was nearby while he was booked at the jail. He had to know Starsky had visited him on three separate occasions while he was in lockup. And he probably believed Starsky was somewhere in the courtroom that morning—because he knew Starsky was in the hallway without ever having made visual confirmation.

So why, knowing his partner was beside him throughout the ordeal, did Hutch ignore him? Hutch couldn’t even say hello when they were reunited after his release. Instead, Starsky followed Hutch to the inventory office, waited while Hutch handed over his invoice, waited while Hutch was given his belongings, waited while Hutch signed that paperwork, and then pushed off the wall to follow Hutch out of the building into the cool March morning.

It was there that Hutch stalled, not knowing where the car was parked, and allowed Starsky to take the lead—which he did. Without any other words to each other, Starsky led them to the Torino. He unlocked the doors. They both got into the car. Hutch slumped against the passenger door once inside and Starsky turned the ignition. He sat for a half a minute to give Hutch the opportunity to say something, to say anything, and then they left the parking lot in silence.

* * *

EXHIBIT B

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Starsky asked. He did his best to sound inviting, but his tightening grip on the steering wheel proved how anxious and frustrated and concerned he was.

Hutch didn’t reply.

“Can you tell me anything?” Starsky wondered, keeping his eyes on the freeway lanes that stretched before him. The sun still shone from the east and he needed to be more cautious in its brightening light.

Hutch still didn’t answer him.

“How about you start with a ‘good morning’?” Starsky suggested, finally glancing over at his partner. He noticed right away that Hutch had snugged further into his seat, seeming to withdraw completely into himself and the only thing stopping him was the hard dashboard against his knees. His eyes were closed and there was a grimace on his face.

Starsky had at least one answer: Hutch hadn’t been avoiding conversation or eye contact with him because he wanted to protect Starsky from the fallout of an unwarranted arrest; Hutch was definitely guilty of something. “Hm?” Starsky asked to provoke him, though he couldn’t remember his own question at that moment.

“Well, then,” Hutch finally replied, in a rather low, somewhat hoarse voice, “it isn’t, is it?”

“It isn’t what?”

“A good morning.”

Annoyed, Starsky said with a huff, “How about a goddamn ‘hello’ then?”

Half a minute passed before Hutch, barely audibly, and seemingly quite circumspect, finally returned the greeting. “Hello.”

“Now tell me what happened Saturday night,” Starsky ordered him. Only when he heard movement did he look over at Hutch again—that time to find Hutch curled toward the passenger door, and in such a way that he might crawl out of the car if it was going any slower. “C’mon, Hutch,” Starsky implored him with a firm tone. “Don’t leave me to my imagination.”

“I need sleep,” Hutch said, as if that was the right answer.

It wasn’t.

“The sheriff said he found you in the bathroom,” Starsky replied, trying a different tactic, a more direct and provocative one, “in some sort of ‘homosexual’ act.”

Hutch didn’t comment.

“Were you in there whacking off with a couple of other guys?”

Still no comment.

“Were you getting a blow job from somebody? or being fucked in the ass?”

“No,” was Hutch’s immediate, irritated answer.

“Which one? You weren’t being fucked in the ass? you weren’t getting a blow job?”

“I’m sorry, Starsky.”

Hutch definitely couldn’t have sounded more apologetic, and his conciliatory tone of voice disarmed Starsky, and least for a few minutes.

He didn’t know what to believe. His were a mix of emotions triggered by his conflicting thoughts: that Hutch was guilty of some misconduct, and then that he wasn’t, or that he was guilty of some lesser crime that even Starsky’s own mind couldn’t conjure up, or that there was a simpler explanation about what had transpired in that bathroom, too simple as to be forever elusive, and all juxtaposed against Hutch’s baffling behavior and reluctance—rather, his avoidance—of answering Starsky’s questions, with the exception of that last, albeit, vague one.

It was funny, this turn of events. Well, not funny, as in laughable, but funny as in ironic. Had they not satisfied their unprovoked desire to stop for a visit with Captain Dobey during the first week of the new year, they would never have been so easily talked into returning to work for the police department on a part-time basis. They wouldn’t have had their badges with them when the raid on the gay bar had gone down. They wouldn’t be in the more complicated legal position they were in to the degree they were in it had they not been nostalgic after their visit to the cemetery on New Year’s Day.

The future had seemed so promising then. They would go back to investigative work with the financial support of the Department, and still have time to develop their safe house program. And they had each other, completely, and in all ways possible. Starsky didn’t think they could ever feel such a strain between them again. But there they were, on their way to face the music with the people who had respected them for years, and he didn’t have a single dignified answer to what he knew would be the upcoming legitimate and necessary questions.

“How am I supposed to have your back in there,” he asked Hutch, “if you won’t give me the details of what happened Saturday night?” It was at that moment, from that question, that Starsky suddenly felt inexplicably guilty himself.

How could he protect his partner if his partner wouldn’t come clean? Was that the root of his own disappointment?

“Where is ‘in there,’” Hutch asked. He had shifted again in his ongoing effort to get comfortable in what was a difficult situation, and Starsky noticed that Hutch was profiled to him, partly hiding his face behind his hand.

“Dobey’s office,” Starsky said, putting his eyes back on traffic. “He wants to see us both on the double.”

“I need to clean up first,” Hutch said with a groan.

“I’m not driving all the way home and back,” Starsky complained, “so buck it up.” He waited a minute before he tried again. “Talk to me,” he said, sounding more approachable than maybe he already had. “I’m going to know the details eventually, so tell them to me now.”

He heard Hutch inhale, slowly, and he expected to finally hear what he longed to know when Hutch eventually exhaled, but all Hutch said was what he’d said minutes earlier.

“I’m sorry, Starsky”—that time with a cry in his voice.

* * *

“Where’s your partner?” Dobey asked, and not rudely. He was seated behind his desk when Starsky walked in that late morning and apparently noticed right away that the reason for their conference was missing.

“Downstairs,” Starsky replied. “Cleaning up.” He’d left Hutch at the door to the men’s room, but not before he sarcastically asked him, “Need me to go in there with you?” It was his lame attempt at lightening the mood prior to meeting with their captain. It failed miserably. The unexpected look in Hutch’s pleading blue eyes, as intense and nearly piercing as they were, forced a solemn, hushed “sorry” out of Starsky. He couldn’t help but think he’d added insult to Hutch’s injury—as if Hutch was the one who’d been justifiably disappointed.

Starsky continued to puzzle over his own regretful sarcasm when he walked upstairs and reunited with his superior. It was only when he half-turned to take his seat in front of Dobey’s desk that he noticed Internal Affairs Agent Wade Davis leaning inside the other door, the one into the officers’ filing room. They exchanged a silent greeting between them; Starsky’s expression conveyed the message that he was perplexed by the entire situation, but appreciative that it was Davis who represented Internal Affairs, especially when he read the reply in Davis’ warm brown eyes as one of empathy.

“I chose him,” Dobey explained, “because he’s a friend of yours and Hutch’s.”

Starsky nodded that he assumed as much. He was anxious to get the discussion started; if Hutch wouldn’t answer his partner’s questions, maybe he’d answer his superiors’.

“How long have you known?” Dobey leveled at him.

“Known what?” Starsky innocently wondered.

“About your partner.”

Dobey’s careful wording and his sharp tone of voice told Starsky more specifically what he’d been asked. “He’s not gay,” Starsky answered with emphasis. He knew Davis was aware of his private relationship with Hutch, but maybe Hutch had never explained that he and Starsky only had a sexual interest in each other, not in other men. That thought suddenly gave Starsky pause. Suppose Hutch did have a sexual desire for other men and that’s what he’d been wrestling with for the past couple of weeks, too afraid to admit it to Starsky, but apparently preoccupying himself with his private turmoil until it spilled out?

No. That’s also not the Hutch Starsky knew. Hutch wasn’t gay. They’d battled that issue with Dr. Steven Jade for months and come to a satisfying conclusion. Neither of them were gay. Period.

“The sheriff said Hutch was getting head in the men’s room,” Dobey bluntly countered him. “From a man.”

Starsky’s stomach painfully tightened more than it had already. “That’s what the sheriff said?”

“Over the phone,” Dobey added.

“Did he say Hutch was getting or giving head?”

“Getting. Reed will be here this morning to tell us his side of—”

There was an interrupting knock on the door and, when invited, Sheriff Reed opened it and entered, as if on cue. He greeted Dobey for the first time; they shook hands. He was then introduced to Davis, and he shook his hand, too, but when he offered his open palm to Starsky and said a friendly ‘hello again’, Starsky didn’t accept the handshake.

“Nothing personal,” Starsky said. If Hutch had been wrongly arrested—or was about to be shamed in public—Starsky didn’t want to have been complicit.

“I understand,” Reed told him, sitting beside Starsky in front of Dobey, to Starsky’s left. “I’d feel the same.” He exchanged small talk with Dobey after he learned they still waited for Hutch.

But Starsky began to wonder if Hutch hadn’t slipped out of the building. He’d give the man another five minutes, and go after Hutch if he hadn’t arrived by then. In the meantime, Starsky tried to concentrate on the trivial weather conversation Reed and Dobey shared, and to exchange a couple of bonding glances with Davis, but Starsky was more and more anxious as time passed. After what had felt like an eternity, but was actually less than two minutes, Hutch entered the office through the squad room door. Wordlessly, he sat to Starsky’s right in the remaining empty chair, and didn’t make eye contact with anyone, not even with Davis.

The only difference Starsky saw in Hutch’s appearance that morning was that he seemed to have found a comb and tidied his hair, and that his shirt was finally tucked all the way around, but he was unshaven, and he appeared tired, and he slumped in his chair the way he had in his car seat. He didn’t say hello when Dobey greeted him, either. He was there because he’d been forced to be there, because his partner wouldn’t take him home, because he had no choice, not really.

So Dobey next did his job; he was Master of Ceremonies and first addressed Reed. “If you wouldn’t mind telling us what you witnessed, we can know what we’re dealing with.”

“I’ll begin with what I put in the police report,” Reed replied. He pulled no punches; he was by-the-book old-school, Starsky could tell, just based on his age alone; that, and Reed didn’t begin by dropping the charges against a police officer, and a reputably good one at that.

“We weren’t planning a raid that particular night,” Reed said. “Our goal was illegal immigration, not sex crimes—”

“Then why did you target a gay bar?” Davis reasonably asked.

“Because illegals hang out in places like that for privacy. They’re not necessarily gay. They just need better places to hide and to party.”

In some ways, Starsky silently deliberated, it’s why he had suggested to Hutch that they visit the bar—because it was safer there, isolated and protected, accepting of their behavior, and private.

The irony.

He wrung his hands, despite his best efforts not to, but he didn’t say a word. He took Reed’s advice to keep his mouth shut all the way through Reed’s deposition—while, inside, Starsky wanted to scream, especially as the disturbing facts unfolded.

“We were in stakeout mode,” Reed continued. “Fact-gathering, you might say. But, then, one of my deputies came out of the men’s room and told me there was some, quote, nasty behavior going on in there, unquote. I really wasn’t prepared to see what I did; I expected something along the lines of a drug deal going down.” Reed pushed back in his chair and seemed, both from his posturing and his broken sentences, to not be comfortable relaying what he’d personally witnessed. “A couple of guys were in a stall … having … anal sex. In the corner near the window, there were a few guys, um, sucking each other off. And, against the wall near the urinals, was … Officer Hutchinson—whom I didn’t know was a police detective at the time—having … receiving oral sex from an older man, a guy in his sixties.”

Starsky closed his eyes to absorb the blow. His senses were keenly attuned to Hutch, with the exception that he didn’t look at him. Still, he couldn’t hear Hutch make a sound, not a breath, not a groan, not a change in position. The man Starsky knew would have objected if the accusation wasn’t true, wouldn’t he have? Or would Hutch wait until he’d heard all that Reed had to say before he’d plead his case, one that would counter everything Reed claimed?

When Starsky opened his eyes, he discovered that Dobey looked at him, sort of sorrily, a bit embarrassed, but definitely with some regret in his expression, as if he wanted Starsky to know that he wouldn’t pass moral judgement. Legal prudence, however, was another matter.

“I put that into the police report,” Reed said, “because there were two other agencies on site during the arrest, one of which was the F.B.I., so I had to tell it like it was—to some degree.”

“There’s more?” Dobey asked.

“There’s what I didn’t put in the report,” Reed explained. “But there were certainly a number of witnesses—both those engaged in the sex conduct itself and law enforcement agents—who may expose more, so if you’d like to hear it …”

“We’d like to hear it,” Davis said. “Let’s not have any surprises.”

Starsky looked beyond the back of Dobey’s desk for his only means of escape. He was already stunned by what he heard, and not certain he could survive anything more disappointing.

But it wasn’t up to him.

“What I actually saw,” Reed furthered, “were two men holding Officer Hutchinson against the wall. He was exposed … his pants were down around his ankles … and when I walked in, he was being … as I said, he was receiving oral sex from an older man. I’d never seen anything like that before, I admit, and it was a bit jarring, so I didn’t act soon enough, not until I realized that …” He paused, gathered his thoughts or his courage or both, and continued in a lower voice. “The older guy stood up and another guy, not that much younger … went down on Hutchinson right after.”

The silence in the room could be cut with a knife.

So could Starsky’s audible breathing.

“I learned later,” Reed explained, “that they were playing some sort of musical chairs … to see which guy would be the one to … hit pay dirt; in other words, who would be the one to have the … well, in this case, to be the one to receive Officer Hutchinson’s … cum. What I didn’t put in the report wasn’t just that there was a second man involved in giving him oral, but that there were, all counted, 13 men lined up to go down on him.”

Starsky felt punched in the gut and balled his fists. His eyes burned and his mind reeled. He couldn’t possibly have heard what he just did and, if he had, then Hutch heard it, too, and Hutch said nothing. He didn’t even take a breath. He didn’t grunt. He didn’t say, “Oh, c’mon, you know that isn’t true.” He didn’t stand up and scream, “You liar!” Hutch just sat there, silently, too quiet, maybe—as if all of what he’d heard was true and nothing new to him so why be rattled by it?

“I can’t say whether I was seeing Man Two go down on Hutchinson,” Reed continued, “or Man Seven or Man Twelve or that they hadn’t already made a loop through the line once or twice by then. I saw the one on him when I walked in and the other go down on him while I stood there, but how many before that, I don’t know.”

Starsky hadn’t even looked at Hutch and he couldn’t look at Dobey, either, but he sure wished somebody would shed some fact-changing light on the repulsive accusations.

It was Davis who broke the silence to pursue something reasonable. “These guys you say were holding Hutch against the wall,” he said. “Were they doing so against his will?”

“I didn’t think so,” Reed replied. “It was more that they were holding him up because he was drunk beyond the ability to stand—or at least to stand well enough for the game.”

“So, might we conclude they may have been sexually assaulting a person who didn’t have the capacity to rationally consent due to his inebriation?”

“That would be up to the courts to determine,” Dobey injected.

“Sounds to me like a classic case of a Penal Code 288 violation,” Davis argued. “Forced oral copulation—under intoxication.” It was a statute he and Starsky knew well.

A pause ensued. A long, almost unbearable one.

Reed didn’t know it, and he was the only one in the room who didn’t know it, but ‘forced oral copulation’ had been a crime against Starsky at the hands of three rapists—as the victim of that kind of violence. Although he was sickened to hear what Reed claimed to have witnessed, Starsky was somewhat relieved to think Hutch was so drunk he couldn’t consent or even that he resisted without success, and that he was a victim, not a willing participant. But it also dismayed him to think Hutch could have been that drunk. Something else, too, something Starsky couldn’t quite place, which was the engulfing sorrow he felt wash over him. Despite his best ability to keep that sudden hurt from showing in his eyes, the sting of his tears emerged regardless. Was he sorry for himself because, if true, Hutch had betrayed him? Or had Hutch been the victim of a sexual assault and had been too ashamed even to tell Starsky?

“He didn’t appear to be resisting,” Reed said, as if he heard Starsky’s silent questions. “He was rather … enjoying himself.”

“What makes you say so?” Dobey asked.

“Well, look, I’m most definitely not trying to get anyone in trouble or to make matters worse,” Reed replied, “which is why I didn’t put any of this in the report. But I’ll tell you what I saw and what I think because you’ll need it in court against prosecutory strategies, especially if the other defendants claim different. I believe Officer Hutchinson was enjoying himself because he had an erection, a visible one, and he didn’t physically appear to resist the men—he didn’t struggle—and he didn’t verbally resist, either. In fact, he … he held each of the two guys’ heads in his hands while they went down on him … and he moaned, you know, like someone enjoying pleasure would moan, and he said things like … ‘yeah, yeah, that’s good,’ and ‘suck me nice,’ and … when I grabbed him in order to stop everybody at that minute, he …”

Starsky looked over at Reed when the sheriff paused, but he felt too sick to his stomach to utter a word and encourage the sheriff to end his statement. Saying anything would give away Starsky’s emotion and he didn’t want it to show, not to Reed, not to Dobey or Davis, and certainly not to Hutch, especially if Hutch was guilty. So it was Dobey who forced Reed to finish his sentence.

“He, what?”

Reed spoke on an exhale. “He told me to get in line.”

It was Starsky who broke a sound, not Hutch—and it was the noise of his breath getting knocked out of him. He couldn’t not look at Hutch in that instance—to read even from his silence that Hutch was an innocent—and found instead that his partner had moved, after all, though when and why, Starsky couldn’t have guessed or known. Hutch had raised his hand to his face, blocking most of it from Starsky’s view, and he rubbed his forehead with his middle finger as he was known to do in times of duress.

Starsky didn’t appreciate the elusion, not under the disconcerting circumstances. He kicked the front leg of Hutch’s chair, but before he could say a word to his partner, Dobey interrupted him.

“Let’s let the sheriff go,” the captain suggested, “and we’ll dig into this ourselves. Sheriff.”

The two men stood and shook hands, said their goodbyes.

Starsky didn’t take his eyes off Hutch. He fumed. But he also realized, despite how angry and upset he’d become, that he was more pissed at Hutch for his silence than he was for the obscene accusations against him—and he was quite riled by those, make no mistake. His turn toward Hutch also enabled him to avoid the looks on Davis’ and Dobey’s faces; he feared their bewilderment and shock would spur his own and he’d break down and cry right there in front of them.

But why should he be the one to challenge the allegations? Where was Hutch’s voice in all of it? Where had it been?

After Reed exited the room, Davis spoke, his voice steady. He asked Dobey what the charges were against Hutch, as if to remind himself of them for sake of argument, or maybe just to help defuse the tension in the room, the one that had turned quite emotional for at least one of its participants.

“Public intoxication,” Dobey told him, reading from the notes he’d earlier made. “Public indecency. Lewd conduct. And resisting arrest.”

“We didn’t get a chance to talk to Reed about that last item, the resisting arrest,” Davis noted. “I’ll follow up on it.”

“What do you have to say for yourself, Hutch?” Dobey authoritatively asked him.

Hutch had to clear his throat before he spoke, but he didn’t drop his hand from his face, and he didn’t alter his position. “Not guilty as charged,” he said softly.

“Guilty or not, you realize you’re suspended until this is over, so tell us what happened, purely as a defendant—in your words.”

A long pause haloed the room before Hutch finally answered—and not the way any of them hoped he would. “I want a lawyer,” he said.

Dobey took a breath, disappointed to hear the request. “We’re family here.”

“I want a lawyer,” Hutch said, allowing his hand to drop from his face to the chair arm, and speaking more audibly as he made serious eye contact with his superior.

“None of this is on the record,” Dobey assured him.

Hutch stood. “I want a lawyer,” he said a third time. Then he turned slightly toward Starsky, began to touch him, his hand to Starsky’s shoulder, but didn’t, and whispered, “I’m sorry, Starsk.”

It was on that note that he left the room, out the door into the squad room, and closed it behind him.

Starsky had been abandoned to face Davis and Dobey on his own. He didn’t know how. He sat forward in his chair, looked at the floor, waited. He wanted to swallow all of his hurt and his anger and his frustration and his shock and his sorry and his bewilderment, but it was overwhelming and it was intense and he succumbed in the end. Tears emerged in his eyes. There’d be no hiding them. So he looked up at the men and shrugged helplessly at them. “I don’t know what to say,” he finally managed.

“Why did you guys stop at that bar?” Dobey asked.

“To have a drink.”

“Why a gay bar?”

“Because I didn’t want to deal with women … Grace has only been gone five months … and I just didn’t …”

“Okay,” Dobey said, understandingly, “and Reed told me over the phone earlier that you were parked behind the building when the raid went down.”

Starsky wiped his eyes. “I was waiting for Hutch to come out.”

“Why did you leave before he did?”

“I got into an argument with him at the bar … and I wanted us both to go. He didn’t. So I left rather than make matters worse.” He tried his best to remember how drunk Hutch was when he broke away from him that night, and how much he must have drank in the short time he was alone in the bar in Starsky’s absence, but Starsky couldn’t remember. He couldn’t think straight at all right then. He was too overpowered and numbed by the allegations Hutch faced. Maybe he should himself hold out for a lawyer.

“And you stand by the belief that he’s not gay,” Dobey further questioned him.

“I stand by it,” Starsky said, meeting the captain’s eyes with a firm look. But, for a moment there, he wasn’t certain any longer. If those accusations were true, wouldn’t it mean that Hutch was gay? How had he missed the cues and the signs?

“You’ve never taken him to a gay bar before and left him alone inside,” Dobey assumed.

“Never,” Starsky said, honestly. “That was the first time.”

He was rattled by how such an innocent, spontaneous action had turned into a scandalous incident.

“Then maybe we do have a case of sexual assault,” Dobey thought aloud. “Reed left a lot out of the police report. He can’t come back now and say differently.”

“Unless he’s under oath,” Davis surmised.

“You talk to me,” Dobey told Starsky, affectionately and with conviction, “if you need to, okay? I’ve told you boys this before and I’ll tell you again: you’re not in this alone.”

“C’mon,” Davis said, stepping toward Starsky, “I’ll walk you out.”

When they got to the door, Dobey stopped them with a question. “In your heart of hearts, Starsky, what do you think transpired in that bathroom?”

Despite his visible tremble, Starsky answered truthfully in a weak and dismayed voice. “I don’t know, Captain. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

* * *

“I hate begging,” Starsky said sternly, keeping his eyes on the road, “so please just tell me what really happened.” On that drive back to the farm from Dobey’s office, Starsky didn’t use the freeway because he felt too agitated to concentrate on fast-moving traffic. He could barely bring himself to glance over at his partner, whose new posture in the car seemed to be one of withdrawal and discomfort, curled as he was against the passenger door, his face turned toward the outside scenery, his eyes sometimes closed. The posturing of a guilty man, Starsky assumed, making it difficult for him to lay eyes on Hutch without feeling riled.

When a minute passed and Hutch still hadn’t answered his request, Starsky tried the same one, from a different route. “Can you at least tell me Reed is wrong as wrong can be? I mean, can you tell me he’s confused you with some other blond in that bathroom? or that you think he’s got some vendetta against you and this is his way of getting even?”

A nearly inaudible “No” answered him, so soft in its delivery, Starsky wasn’t certain he’d heard anything. He looked over at Hutch. “No, you said?” he asked for clarification. “To all of the above?” He cussed himself then for throwing conflicting inquiries at Hutch in a way that only made Hutch’s one-word reply completely useless.

But he didn’t get an answer to that simple question, either.

So he lightly lifted his foot from the accelerator to slow the car—and his mind with it. Ask one question, he told himself. Ask a direct one. Ask one you know can be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or a simple ‘no.’ He eventually found a pressing one. “Is Reed wrong when he says there were a couple of guys sucking your dick?”

“I’m sorry,” Hutch replied in a submissive voice, his head turning toward Starsky as if he’d say more, but then didn’t.

“I don’t need another apology,” Starsky told him. “I need you to tell me what happened. Why can’t you do that much, huh?”

Hutch grimaced. However he felt that apparent pain—from fear or embarrassment or shame—it was definitely all over his face and in his tightened body posture, but it wasn’t enough to warrant Starsky’s sympathy that time. He pulled the car over to the curb, breaking hard, and brought the vehicle to a lurching stop along a deserted area of the sidewalk. “I’m done playing this game with you,” he said, raising his voice in anger. He shifted the gear into park and turned off the ignition. “Answer me straight: Did a bunch of guys line up to suck you off in that men’s room Saturday night?” He couldn’t have spoken any plainer if he’d tried.

“Yes,” was Hutch’s clear and heated reply, more out of desperation to defend himself, it seemed, than from a willingness to have the conversation Starsky so desperately needed.

“Was it against your will?” Starsky asked next, demandingly. It wasn’t the way he would have talked to a sexual assault victim, but he was fed up with the cryptic back-and-forth that had plagued him since Hutch’s arrest.

“No,” Hutch said. He looked Starsky in the eye. “No,” he repeated more tempered, his blue eyes shining with tears. “No.”

Starsky sat back against his door, pushed against it by Hutch’s forthright, but startling confession. He searched Hutch’s contorted face, his mussed clothes, and his recently combed hair, for something he may have missed, a clue that would lead him toward the denial he’d so passionately hoped for. Shaken to his core and dumbfounded, Starsky at least discovered his voice buried under his enormous disappointment. “Why would you do something like that then?”

Hutch’s lips parted; they quivered, as if he would explain it all right then and right there, and they could assimilate it together, settle it, move on with their lives, but instead Hutch looked out the window, shielding both his eyes and the truth as only he knew it.

Starsky punched the back of his own seat. “Dammit, Hutch!” he cussed. “Stop playing around with how I feel.”

“I’m sorry, Starsk.”

“I’m not interested in your sorry. What is it you’re not telling me?” His anger and frustration didn’t move Hutch that time, either, so he was left with just a few of the puzzle pieces, none of which fit together. “Why would you do this to me?” he finally asked, his voice breaking mid-sentence. He realized only then how helpless and alone he felt. Why he hadn’t slugged Hutch instead of the car seat, he couldn’t guess, because he sure wanted to hit the man, to at least knock some cooperation into him. “I think this is the first time,” he said instead, bitterly, “in all the years we’ve been partners, that I can say I don’t understand you. I don’t understand why you did it. I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me about it. After everything we’ve been through, after all the starts-and-stops and the promises we’ve made, after finding what I thought was the perfect life, the one between you and me, you go off and do this thing—and then pour salt in the wound by not talking to me about it when I ask you what and why. You’re breaking my heart.”

“I’m sorry,” Hutch repeated himself with a heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry, too,” Starsky said in reply, but his regret was for a different reason. He instinctively grabbed the keys from the ignition, opened the car door, and exited the vehicle—but not without his parting shot.

“I’m sorry I ever left that island.”

* * *

“I’ll have one of those coffees,” Starsky said.

He’d come back to the car with a medium-sized paper bag containing a few groceries. On his approach to the rear of the vehicle, and from some distance, he saw Hutch outside the closed passenger door, leaning against it and lifting his face to the warming sun, his hands tucked inside his jacket pockets. When Starsky got within an audible sound or sight range, Hutch pushed off the door, presumably having heard or seen him, and they got into the car together, wordlessly. It was still cool enough to stay in their jackets, so the lure of a warm brew forced Starsky to ask for a coffee soon after he’d handed the purchase to Hutch.

On the cue of his question, Starsky heard Hutch slowly open the bag, rummage though it, and when he was able to look over once he got safely on the road again, he noticed that Hutch was adding sugar to Starsky’s coffee from several small white packets he’d found at the bottom of the paper bag. Starsky accepted the cup when it was finally handed to him, and the first sip did as he’d hoped to calm his mind that little bit extra.

Starsky was also happy to see that Hutch had discovered, not only the other coffee for himself, but the red apple and the grapes and the raw cashews he’d bought for Hutch, too. No doubt Hutch was hungry; he hadn’t eaten since early Saturday night.

They rode in silence for quite some time—west on Ventura Blvd. Starsky would drive the 18-mile stretch and decide at its end whether he’d get back on a freeway or choose a lesser state highway to get home. It would depend on the conversation. Or lack of one. And his nerves.

It was after he’d abandoned Hutch in the car that morning that he ended up hiking across an expansive parking lot adjacent to a shopping mall. The walk alone enabled him to burn off his adrenaline and some of his disappointment and to think strategically instead of impulsively. Yelling at Hutch hadn’t gotten him any closer to the details than his silence had.

He’d paced outside the JC Penney, along its mostly deserted sidewalk, not really knowing which direction to take. He didn’t want to be too far from the car and, at the same time, he didn’t want to be in its vicinity, either. He was also afraid to go inside the store, lest he aimlessly wander its aisles and be distracted by shoppers and sweaters, when he needed instead to keep his mind on how Ken Hutchinson had gotten into a homosexual suck-off with a dozen men in a gay bar restroom. To even know that fact boiled Starsky’s blood and got his head to spinning. The only thing that simmered and slowed it were three young women who interrupted his heavy thoughts when they said hello upon encountering him on their way into the mall.

“Waiting for a shopping guide?” one of them flirtatiously asked. “We’ll give you a hand.” All three women were attractive, nicely dressed, appeared to be in their thirties, and were excitedly talkative, long before they approached.

Starsky was so lost in his mind all he could do was nod a friendly greeting in return and try a smile before they disappeared inside the department store. But they fleetingly reminded him of Grace and that she was a woman—and that Hutch wasn’t. It was the trigger he needed. Suppose Hutch were a woman, caught in a predicament like the one in which he’d been caught? Suppose it was Starsky’s girlfriend, or his wife, who’d been arrested for allowing a dozen men to go down on her in a women’s bathroom, she up against the wall with her panties around her ankles, and man after man dropping to his knees to orally engage her vulva? Starsky shuddered at that thought, but his mental comparison wasn’t to gauge how he’d feel about such a thing, but to understand Hutch’s experience better if he packaged it differently.

It did enable him to conclude that there would have to be something missing from home, some need not being met in the relationship, for a woman to seek out that kind of sexual satisfaction, even to fulfill a fantasy. So, was that it? Was that what nagged him? There was something lacking in his intimacy with Hutch that made Hutch seek out the pleasure of other men at the first chance he got? Rather, that there was something lacking for Hutch in their relationship; Starsky couldn’t have been more satisfied, with the exception that he would have loved to dance with his man.

Starsky’s pace slowed and he walked to the far end of the mall perimeter, not really noticing the traffic in the parking lot, or the people who crossed his path on their way into the shops, nor that the day had warmed considerably since that early morning. He stepped off the curb part of the way to his decisive destination and headed for the grocery market across the street.

Maybe it wasn’t a fair assessment. A woman wanting to fulfill an erotic dream with a handful of men might not be the issue. Suppose she wanted to engage in sexual orgies with other women? That idea would be closer to Hutch’s experience, wouldn’t it?

As Starsky mulled answers to his own questions, he waited for the walk sign to light, and then crossed against the eventual stopped traffic.

How drunk would a woman have to be to allow a dozen other women, strangers to her, perform oral sex on her in a quasi-public restroom? That was the question, too. Starsky decided that such a woman, or any woman he’d be in a relationship with, would have to be, not only quite drunk, but definitely unhappy with her boyfriend.

Or maybe no amount of satisfaction with one lover appeased the hunger one might have for others. Wasn’t Starsky somewhat guilty of that himself? At one time, he’d had a girlfriend, then a fiancee, eventually a wife, all while he bedded Hutch. He’d even had anal intercourse with Adam, a man, while he engaged Hutch in sexual play. Wasn’t Starsky just as guilty?

Therein, however, lay the comparisons: Starsky hadn’t been satisfied with just one lover, or one experience; he didn’t get from Hutch what he needed from Grace—someone maternal, feminine, female—nor what he needed from Adam for that one isolated experience. But since Starsky’s return, even before he left Tetepare, he’d figured out that Hutch and Hutch alone was all he ever needed, or ever wanted, for that matter, too.

But maybe it wasn’t the same for Hutch. Maybe Hutch still needed more: more experience, more sex, more men.

It wasn’t until Starsky had bought the groceries and headed back to the car that he forced himself to face another fact:

Hutch was no woman.

Hutch wasn’t the most assertive of men when it came to pursuit of the intimate, at least not where Starsky was concerned anyway, but he also wasn’t passive, either. Hutch wouldn’t just let such a thing as a dozen men orally copulate him, no matter how drunk he was. And despite that Hutch was male, or that men are hard-wired for sex at nearly any cost, there had to be something else at play besides a man’s weakness in the face of promised carnal pleasure. There had to be weakness in his heart and/or mind, too—or some kind of coercion, internal or external. Starsky was at least certain about that, especially after he returned to the car and noticed right away that, although Hutch obviously knew he’d arrived, he still avoided eye or verbal contact with his partner.

Shame. Embarrassment. Pride. Fear of conflict. Truth.

Hutch battled all those things? Some of them? None?

Maybe Starsky couldn’t get Hutch to tell him everything, at least not then, but perhaps Hutch would ease some of the mystery. Perhaps from what he denied, Starsky could better find the motivation.

Process of elimination. But he would need to tread lightly.

When Starsky extended his open palm, Hutch poured a few of the cashews from the small bag into it on cue, and Starsky popped them into his mouth and chewed while he drove. Raw nuts weren’t nearly as tasty as salted ones, he concluded, but his culinary preferences didn’t distract him from his primary mission.

“Did they threaten you into it?” he asked. There was no point in easing into another round of questions. Hutch was either going to answer or he wasn’t.

While they ate the snacks, including the grapes together, and drank their respective coffees, Hutch finally spoke.

“No,” he said in that soft, subdued, whispery voice.

One answer down. One item off Starsky’s list of items.

“Did they threaten me?” Starsky said, then clarifying, “did they tell you they’d hurt me if you didn’t do it?”

“No,” Hutch said, more audibly. He sighed, too, conveying his reluctance to talk about the subject, but fleshing it further with, “They didn’t threaten anybody.”

Starsky had looked over at him when he heard Hutch’s sigh, and they made eye contact, briefly, but it was enough to convince Starsky that threat of bodily harm to either of them wasn’t part of the equation.

“How many guys went down on you?” he asked. He wouldn’t let up until Hutch drew a line in the sand. “Ten?”

“No,” Hutch said disgustedly—and emphatically. Under his breath, he added, “Don’t be an ass.”

As if it was Starsky who’d been the bad-behaved one between them. “Four?”

Sounding as irritated by that question as he had the previous one, Hutch answered, “No.”

“So,” Starsky calculated, “between the two that Reed saw and the four you say didn’t, that leaves the number three. How’s my math so far?”

Hutch didn’t reply.

Starsky drove a few more minutes in silence, feeling every bump in the road, hearing the engine, gripping the wheel so tightly he noticed it. He relaxed his hands, drew a slowing breath, and posed his next line of inquiry. “Did you come?”

Hutch shifted and said, “No.”

“Could you have? I mean, if you hadn’t been interrupted and arrested, could you have come? were you wanting to?”

He noticed that Hutch then slumped into his seat, turned his head away from Starsky, and gazed out the window as they rode westward. He’d retreated into his cave again.

But why? On that question, in particular, why did Hutch choose to shut down instead of answer with a single word? Was he simply tired of the exercise, or did he not want to share the fact that he wanted to enjoy the oral sexual pleasure to its end, even with a stranger, even with a bunch of strangers?

Was his no-answer an answer?

“You know you’re killing me over here,” Starsky said. If Hutch wouldn’t cop to his own desires, perhaps he’d satisfy Starsky’s need to know all that needed knowing.

But, instead, Hutch said, “I’m sorry.”

Starsky was tempted to reply in anger, to tell Hutch how much he really hated the apologies, and that, despite how genuine they sounded, they weren’t enough, but he caught himself in time. His rage hadn’t accomplished anything since Saturday night and it appeared it wouldn’t have any more success that Monday afternoon. So he checked himself, put his mind and his focus back on driving, and took them home, eating raw cashews, seedless grapes, and drinking sweetened coffee to pass the time.

He had been relieved to learn that Hutch had only been engaged by three men, not thirteen, but he resented that he had to settle for that at all. There shouldn’t have been a single man between them. Not then. Not anymore. Not with the new life they’d discovered in the lessons they’d learned from Tetepare. But maybe Starsky had assumed. Wasn’t it only he who’d made promises? Hutch’s pledges could have been, conceivably, coerced. “I promise, too,” wasn’t the same as having offered the vow, was it? Had Hutch been Starsky’s reluctant lover and partner from the moment Starsky kissed him that morning in the grass some eight months earlier?

Whatever the reasons, Starsky silently fumed. Hutch was the one with the answers, and he wasn’t talking. So, when they finally pulled up to the farm house that mid-afternoon, Starsky shifted the gear to park, turned off the ignition, and—before Hutch could even open the door—asked him, “Is there anything you’d like to say—”

Hutch began to speak, but was interrupted.

“—that isn’t an apology?”

Hutch shut his mouth then and stared out the windshield to the front of the house.

“I really don’t like how much hurt you’ve caused me,” Starsky told him. He was in no mood to be civil or forgiving or even patient. “So, until you talk to me about this, man-to-man, partner-to-partner, best friend-to-best friend, do us both a favor and sleep in the other room. I don’t want to lay with you.”

He noticed Hutch’s clamped jaw, the muscle in his temple grinding his teeth, but Hutch still didn’t say a word.

It didn’t ease Starsky’s reprimand, either.

“And get yourself tested before you touch me again,” he added. “There’s something nasty going around, so I don’t care how long it takes.”

* * *

The aroma of fresh coffee wafting through the house that next morning is what woke Starsky. He’d had a fitful sleep for most of the night, until the last hour, during which he dreamed about pancakes. The coffee stirred him into believing his favorite breakfast would soon be served. But then he remembered the rift between himself and his chef, and figured there’d be no happy meal forthcoming.

He rolled onto his back and dropped his right arm across the mattress. A few days earlier and he would have accidentally on purpose hit Ken Hutchinson beside him—causing his bed partner an unwelcomed start, followed by abusive cussing and never-delivered threats of retaliating bodily harm. But, on this morning, there was no Hutch, and there hadn’t been for the previous two nights. Starsky realized all over again just how much he depended on Hutch’s companionship—or, rather, how much he desired and wanted it, looked forward to it and reveled in it, and now sorely missed it.

Hutch had slept in the guest bedroom—as he’d been instructed to do. He’d gone into the other room after he showered in the master bathroom, which he’d done within minutes of arriving home, to wash the filth and the grime and the stench and the god-knew-what else off him. Starsky sat on the porch steps that late afternoon, hoping Hutch would join him after he bathed, but all he heard was the door to the guest bedroom close, and Hutch didn’t emerge from it until sometime around 4:30 a.m.

Starsky was left to prepare his own dinner, which ended up being a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, and to eat alone, because he didn’t have the motivation or skill to prepare anything else, given the mood he was in. In fact, he made two sandwiches—the one he ate, and another one, which he placed in a small, plastic sandwich bag and left on a plate on the eating counter, along with a covered cup of baked beans, a handful of corn chips, a spoon, and paper napkin.

When he tossed all night, he checked on his offering several times in the nightlamp-lit kitchen, only to find it untouched—until around 4:30 a.m., when it completely disappeared from the counter. He found the plate, bowl, and used spoon in the sink, as well as an empty glass, which smelled only of water, and the sandwich bag and napkin were in the garbage. At least Hutch had finally eaten—and then apparently returned to the guest bedroom behind its closed door.

Maybe that’s why Starsky was eventually able to sleep; Hutch’s appeased hunger might enable him to lighten or loosen up enough to have that inevitable conversation with Starsky during the forthcoming day. And maybe the smell of coffee in the house that morning was the promise of such a communion.

Starsky didn’t like Hutch’s absence from the bed, least of all to a different one in the same house. He didn’t like Hutch’s silence or his elusiveness. He didn’t like Hutch’s contriteness, either, despite that he felt it was genuine. But what was Starsky missing? what clue had he overlooked? Didn’t he know his partner better than this? Couldn’t he read him well enough to know—without asking—which direction to take when Hutch failed to verbalize one?

He looked over at the empty pillow beside him. Hutch’s head should have been lying on it. And he should have been drenched in sweat from a morning of serious lovemaking, coupled with that peaceful, relaxed facial expression of absolute bliss and satisfaction, from the sex they shared in every way possible. He would tousle Hutch’s already mussed hair, and laugh with him, and bask in the knowledge that they enjoyed each other in ways they not only never dreamed between them, but that they would never then want to live without.

Or was that only Starsky’s perception of things?

He crawled off the mattress and headed for the shower. The question disturbed him; rather, its answer, one he was afraid to confront head-on. While he bathed under the hot water, he thought back to the last time he and Hutch had played together. Maybe the clue he needed had been buried under the passion he’d felt, and he should remove himself from its picture far enough in order to find it.

They’d had sex with each other every day since returning from their Christmas cabin—sometimes twice and three times a day. Now that they lived together, they didn’t plan their lives around a third party. They were free to be themselves a hundred percent of the time. As usual, it was Starsky who solicited—and Hutch never denied him. But on that Saturday, the day of the night they’d gotten into an argument at the bar, wasn’t it Hutch who had initiated sex?

Starsky rewound it in his mind as he bathed and rinsed. They’d last played in the hot tub, mid-afternoon. Like most of their sex, it wasn’t planned. Starsky hosed off the tub’s hood, opened it, and then climbed, fully nude, into the 104-degree water, turned on the jets, and sent his mind up to the blue March sky. It had been a glorious soaking. Hutch joined him several minutes later; he, too, fully nude, and he, too, seemed to enjoy the heat and the steam and the blue sky and the peacefulness of their rendezvous.

But Starsky was mistaken. It was he, not Hutch, who had solicited sex between them there in the hot tub that afternoon. Starsky was initially confused about which one of them had instigated it because Hutch had seemed so alive with admiration for him that day. It simply didn’t mean he wanted sex with a man. Starsky assumed it.

He turned off the shower faucet.

Why would Hutch have had such a look of sheer want and affection for him in that instance, the two of them nude in a hot tub on a lazy Saturday afternoon, drinking wine, and laughing—if he didn’t want the sex as much as Starsky did?

He dried himself with a bath towel.

What other reason could there have been for the way Hutch looked at him, the way his eyes devoured Starsky’s face and his hands and his wet-haired chest and his own look of desire and sexual excitement—if Hutch didn’t desire him in kind? How else could Starsky explain the invitation in those blue eyes? He’d acted on it. He crossed the tub to touch his lips to Hutch’s—in that inevitable, responsive, accepting, mutually passionate kissing between them, which always led to their hands touching each other’s familiar faces, strong arms, erect penises, to caresses and grunts and laughter—and all those other ways they both seemed to enjoy the joining. Where was the clue Starsky missed?

Maybe there was none. Maybe Hutch had hid it so well, it couldn’t be found.

But when Starsky returned to the master bedroom and realized in a conscious moment that the bed was empty of Hutch, he had a startling revelation. Hutch was absent from the room because he had slept across the hall—not because he lived somewhere else, and not because he was dead.

He wasn’t dead.

Was that it? Had Hutch’s recent pain of losing Starsky been so great, his perceived, believed loss so fathomless, that—upon Starsky’s return from the grave—he would do anything to keep his man, including have sex as often, as frenzied, as willingly, as he sometimes did, so as to never feel distant from Starsky again?

The thought of such an idea made Starsky feel sick to his stomach.

He would never wish that on a lover, least of all Hutch, the person he loved most. And forever.

So he quickly dressed that morning—in Hutch’s sweats, because he was too anxious to get into the kitchen and confront the answers to all his questions, and finding his own clothes took too long. He pulled on Hutch’s sweatpants and a mismatching sweatshirt, the ones he found on the armchair, followed by some socks he got from his own dresser drawer.

Sharing their wardrobe. A bed. Living together.

Another thing Hutch agreed to do to keep Starsky close.

And then there was that gay bar he’d talked Hutch into visiting with him.

He should have known, during their play in the hot tub earlier that day, that Hutch was reluctant to go with him.

“Why a gay bar?” Hutch had asked.

“So we can be ourselves,” Starsky answered.

“But we’re not gay.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Being gay was one thing, it appeared. Acting gay was something Hutch didn’t want to do. But acting gay is exactly what he’d done in the bar’s restroom that night.

Out of spite? Because he was that drunk? Did he let men fellate him to force Starsky to appreciate just how ungay he truly was?

Starsky left the bedroom for the kitchen then—nervous and afraid and sorry, too, for some reason. But, mostly, he was determined to get answers that day. He couldn’t live with all the wondering.

Hutch had his back to him when Starsky entered the room. He stood to the left of the sink by the toaster. The coffee pot was to the right, turned on and steaming, so Starsky headed there first. An empty, upright cup sat on the counter near it, but he had to look over at Hutch to make sure it didn’t belong to him. It didn’t, so Starsky poured himself the hot beverage, and said, as friendly as he could sound, “Good morning.”

Hutch opened the plastic wheat bread bag and removed two slices. “Good morning,” he replied, using that ever-so-soft voice of his, but not sounding cheerful or unburdened. He dropped the bread into the toaster and lowered its lever. He was dressed in matching sweats, socks, no shoes. He had showered the day before, but hadn’t tidied his hair that morning. And he still wouldn’t make eye contact with Starsky.

Although he knew Hutch had been awake sometime between two a.m. and 4:30 a.m., Starsky asked anyway. “Did you sleep all right?”

“As best I could,” Hutch said. He kept his eye on the toaster, as if watching it would make it bake the bread faster. “Thanks for the sandwich.”

“Anytime,” Starsky replied, stirring sugar into his coffee.

It was the longest, most polite conversation they’d had since the argument Saturday night. It calmed Starsky’s nerves, and he was able to think straighter about his direction. He walked to the center counter, the one that housed the stove, the place upon which he had sat while he watched Hutch make eggplant pasta, the one they’d had sex on so many months ago—when Starsky believed Hutch wanted with him what he wanted with Hutch, and now wasn’t so sure.

“Are you having an affair?” Starsky bluntly asked.

He could see Hutch’s profile from where he stood, only four feet from him, and he noticed that Hutch’s eyes closed briefly when he heard the question.

“No,” Hutch said, opening them to stare at the toaster a while longer.

“Are you sick with something then,” Starsky furthered pushed him, “you know, something that can kill you, like the Big C, and you don’t want me to know until it’s too late?”

“No,” Hutch said, that time with a laugh of absurdity at such thing. But he didn’t look at Starsky. He didn’t move as if to say more.

The room got painfully quiet.

Starsky sipped hot coffee and watched Hutch wait on the toaster until it popped out the bread. He then watched Hutch set each slice on a plate and smear it with margarine, working in silence. Starsky didn’t want his partner to live a life out of desperation or obligation, and he was just about to broach that subject when Hutch turned, without making eye contact, and brought the plate and a jar of jam to the counter where Starsky leaned. He left it beside him—for him—and returned to the toaster to insert two new slices of bread into the cooker.

“Thanks,” Starsky said.

Hutch brought him a butter knife, setting it on the plate as he stole a very brief look into Starsky’s eyes, as if to apologize for not having thought of it sooner.

“Thanks for that, too,” Starsky said. He set down his coffee cup and opened the jelly jar, scraping out globs of the sugary topping onto his toast. “So,” he said, easing into his words while Hutch returned to the other counter, his back and profile to his partner, before Starsky addressed him again. “Would you like me to move out?”

Starsky was physically startled by how abruptly Hutch faced him; he did feel the jolt internally, triggered by an action so sudden, it nearly panicked him with the thought that Hutch would lunge at him and punch him in the face for asking such a question.

“No,” Hutch said emphatically. He made eye contact with Starsky, appearing so rattled that he had to drive home his adamance with a firm stare. “No, I don’t want that. Please don’t move out.”

Starsky was thoroughly confused then. He’d run the gamut of all his questions, gotten back as many answers as he could pry out of Hutch, none of which explained Hutch’s actions in the bar that Saturday night. But he was so relieved by Hutch’s resistance to his suggestion, he quickly said, “I don’t want to leave. But I really don’t feel all that welcome in your life right now, either.”

Hutch leaned his butt to the counter behind him, faced into the room, crossed his arms, lowered his eyes to the floor, nodded that he understood. But said nothing.

Starsky waited.

A minute passed.

He himself wanted to be inviting, at least enough to encourage Hutch to talk to him, so he slowly ate his toast, not really tasting it, but hoping his perceived nonchalance would force Hutch into his confessions.

Another minute of silence passed.

Starsky was afraid to even take a breath, lest it force Hutch to exit the room. But it was the intensifying silence, coupled with the few words they’d passed between them, that seemed to do the trick. Hutch tucked his chin, tightly closed his eyes, and broke a sob.

“Please say something,” Starsky begged, as his anxiety resurfaced. “Say anything. But don’t let me live with this another minute. I can’t do it. You obviously can’t, either.”

Hutch opened his eyes, lifted his head, looked off into the back of the room, and then said, as softly as he appeared broken, “I am so ashamed, Starsk.”

Starsky set the half a piece of toast back on the plate, prepared for what he’d waited days to hear. “Ashamed of what you did,” he said.

Hutch nodded, closing his eyes briefly. He looked at Starsky, pleadingly, his blue eyes wet with his tears, his voice shaking, his body posture closed and defensive. “There’s nothing I can say …”

“Because you’re ashamed.”

“… to justify what I’ve done.”

Starsky swallowed his own hurt. One of them had to remain strong. “That may be,” he agreed, enormously grateful to finally hold eye contact with Hutch. “But it doesn’t help me to understand it. How am I to forgive it if I don’t understand it?”

Hutch laughed, a disbelieving laugh. A tear spilled on his cheek and he wiped it away. “How could you possibly forgive it?”

“I don’t know, Hutch,” Starsky said, as the bread popped up in the toaster. “How about you eat your breakfast—and then tell me what happened. Let’s start there.”

* * *

EXHIBIT C

Hutch slid in his socked tracks when he braked in time to see what he thought he’d seen. He had walked past the kitchen nook’s sliding glass doors when he noticed Starsky outside on the patio, the part of it that wrapped along the side of the house, and—audible only to himself—laughed out loud when he realized Starsky was hosing off the hot tub: stark naked, with the exception of his unlaced shoes.

It was a cool day that afternoon, cold by Starsky’s standards, anyway; only a high of 65 degrees, but there he was in the outdoors without a stitch of clothing draped over his still-lean body, spraying even colder water against a light breeze that inevitably got him wet in the endeavor, as if he’d recently failed a course in basic physics. He whistled while he worked, whistled and sang, interchangeably.

Hutch stopped to watch. How could he possibly pass up an opportunity to see his lover outside in the buff, especially when the man didn’t know he was being scrutinized? Hutch leaned against the door frame, settled into his enjoyment of seeing Starsky just about completely undressed and definitely unsuspecting of anyone’s close examination. Their house was at least a thousand feet from the nearest neighbor’s, and it was shielded, in part, by respective tree and brush growth, but it was still an unusual—and delightful—picture: Starsky as naked as he could be in broad daylight, and without a care in the world.

Hutch couldn’t keep the smile from his face, either, especially when Starsky made several rounds to hose off the hot tub from each side, and sometimes had to fight with the garden hose to get it positioned correctly. But his struggles failed to dampen his apparent enthusiasm, and only briefly interrupted his whistling.

When Starsky was on the off-side of the tub, Hutch could see his handsomely haired chest, arms, legs, his patch of black groin hair, his flaccid penis and his sac, and when Starsky was on the near-side, Hutch got an unobstructed view of Starsky’s bared back, the shape of his muscled arms and legs, and of course that sexy ass, compact, rounded, and tight, the visual reminders of its internal warmth and snugness.

Hutch felt the pleasurable stirring in his penis then—and squeezed himself through his soft flannel sweats to encourage a more satisfying contact. But when Starsky opened the hood on the tub and bent over its front edge to retrieve the thermometer from its water-filled center, Hutch impulsively reacted. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he held until then. And he audibly moaned. And he squeezed himself tighter, and he knew he couldn’t make it through the rest of the day without having sex with that boy again. Starsky’s bared, taut buttocks, his shapely legs, his shoulders and calves, bent over and reaching, enabling a glimpse of his sac between his thighs, and standing, just in sockless shoes, at the perfect height for a penetration … was, well, emotionally and sexually intoxicating.

Hutch pushed off the door frame to retrieve a previously opened bottle of wine, and a glass, feeling his erection swell as his mind determinedly played out his afternoon. But just as he was about to open the door and step onto the patio, he heard Starsky yell at the top of his lungs through the closed glass—a distinct, “Huuttcchh!”, as if he’d gotten caught in a lethal bear trap and needed immediate rescue.

“You rang?” Hutch quipped, joining Starsky outside with a dance to his step.

Starsky was immersed in the tub. “Hey,” he said excitedly when he saw Hutch. “That was fast.” He was up to his neck in churning water as the power jets hummed; his face was wet and his dark hair plastered to his head, as if he’d dunked himself completely under water when Hutch wasn’t looking. “What you got there?”

Hutch set the wine bottle and glass on the hot tub shelf so he could remove his sweatshirt. “It’s leftover from last night,” he explained. “It’s still good.”

“Not that,” Starsky disputed him. “What you got there,” and he pointed to Hutch’s pelvis, to the apparent bulge in his sweats.

“Oh, that,” Hutch said with a laugh, not so embarrassed, and in a rhyming, sing-song voice, added, “That’s just little old me … liking the look of what I see.” He stripped out of his sweatpants then, too.

“It isn’t so little,” Starsky noted, spying Hutch’s somewhat erect penis before Hutch eased it into the steaming water and it disappeared from view. “Keep flaunting it and I’m liable to crank this party up a notch—because I’m liking what I see, too.”

“Taking it up a notch is what I’m planning to do,” Hutch replied. He sat across from Starsky, uncorked the bottle, poured red wine three-quarters full into the glass, and drank half of it before he handed it to his partner. Then he sank into the water up against the opposite side of the tub to drink in the look of the man while he watched him. When Starsky’s blue eyes spied him over the glass rim, and that inviting smile appeared on his mouth, Hutch asked, “What?” because he wasn’t sure he could read Starsky’s mind in that instance.

“I’m thinking you want to take advantage of me,” Starsky coyly said. He sipped wine, handed the glass back to Hutch, and licked his lips. “Or are you just smiling at me because you’re playing with yourself under the bubbles?”

Hutch raised his free hand to show it was empty, but he didn’t realize he’d been smiling until Starsky pointed it out to him. How could he not smile? Starsky’s carefree nudity earlier, coupled with his now-wet appearance, along with that dash of mischievous expression in his sultry blue eyes, was a powerful aphrodisiac. But Hutch didn’t cop to being under its spell, and not because he was embarrassed, but because he loved to play the teasing game. He gave Starsky a returned look of unspoken want. The anticipation was always worth the wait, and it sure was fun while it lasted.

“Hey, let’s go out tonight,” Starsky said impulsively. “Let’s have a nice dinner and go for a drink afterward. Adam says there’s a gay bar this side of Ventura. It’s not too far away.”

“Why a gay bar?” Hutch asked, not thrilled that Adam had a role in what he did with Starsky—and where.

“So we can be ourselves,” Starsky answered him.

“But we’re not gay.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.” He winked at Hutch, but Hutch didn’t give back a telling reply.

Hutch was too busy being amused by Starsky’s whims and his reasons for them—and how easy it was to rattle Starsky’s cage sometimes.

Starsky picked up the wine bottle from its shelf and touched the glass in Hutch’s hand with its tip. “In the meantime,” he said, sipping from the bottle while he let the cork float in the jet-propelled water, “let’s drink to us.”

“To us?” Hutch asked.

“To our solving two cold cases in the past thirty days,” Starsky proudly explained.

“I’ll drink to that,” Hutch replied, then sipped wine.

Starsky touched his glass with the bottle again. “And to our three arrests those last two weeks of January,” he added.

“I’ll drink to that, too,” Hutch said, joining him in the toast. Since returning part-time to their original jobs, they’d accomplished a lot in less than two months. Hutch couldn’t help but think that their newly defined lives played a significant role in their recent successes. They had such fresh minds and positive outlooks.

“And to preventing a homicide,” Starsky finished for a third toast, reminding them of that unplanned moment when they arrested an armed man who’d threatened a woman on a public street. “That’s the most fun of all: stopping somebody from killing somebody.”

“I’ll drink to that as well,” Hutch said, the both of them sharing the toast with a swallow of wine, Hutch from his glass, Starsky from the bottle.

“Is there anything we’re not good at?” Starsky asked, fishing around in the water for the cork.

“Not much,” Hutch said. He was proud of them, too, but mostly he was drawn into Starsky’s silly attempt to corner a water-spinning bottle cork. He watched as Starsky finally set the bottle on the shelf, so he could catch the topper with both hands—failing in that endeavor, too. When Starsky cussed out of frustration, Hutch pressed the button to turn off the power jets.

The surface of bubbles quickly dissolved and Starsky was able to grab the cork. “You think you’re so smart,” he said, capping the bottle, but only after he poured more into Hutch’s glass.

“Well, I am the better brains between us,” Hutch teased him.

“Where does that leave me?”

“With the nicer ass.”

“Yeah?” Starsky asked, flashing his eyebrows. “You think so?”

Hutch couldn’t help but remember it from earlier: Starsky bent over the hot tub with his rounded, immalleable buttocks in full and inviting view. They had instantly aroused Hutch—reminding him of how it felt to be buried inside the man, from all those times he took Starsky from behind, to the promises they continued to offer even then.

“Hmm,” Hutch moaned, remembering how Starsky’s haunches had glistened in the sunlight. He’d already penetrated Starsky that morning; they woke beside each other every day since their return from the cabin, and sex was simply part of the morning ritual, like drinking coffee and having breakfast, like showering and dressing. And, although they didn’t shave their faces every day, they did smear themselves in almond oil and indulge at least one respective ejaculation for each other before noon.

But it was more than that, too. When Hutch realized Starsky keenly eyed him from across the hot tub, he melted under the man’s warm attention. Not a day would go by in which he didn’t appreciate all over again how supremely gifted he was to call David Starsky his best friend, his lover, and his soulmate. True, he’d never truly lost Starsky to that downed airliner, but he didn’t know it at the time. Starsky was as dead and gone as he could ever be, and Hutch had learned just how devastating the loss had been. To be sitting there, in that tub of steaming water, to be gazing back into those blue eyes, into that hint of a smile, into that boyish face, into the overall look of his playful, sensual, sexy, sweetheart of a partner, was a priceless reward for a feat he’d never undertaken, let alone dreamed.

He knew all too well that Starsky was everything to him.

Had Starsky earned that kind of love and loyalty?

And then some.

One thing Hutch had learned from his partner over the years: integrity was sorely underrated. So was trustworthiness, intelligence, honor—all rare qualities—and Starsky could claim them without impunity.

Those criminal case accomplishments Starsky had earlier toasted? Hutch couldn’t have done them without his partner, without his partner’s street smarts and his dependable hunches, his cunning and his wit, his strength and his morality, all that and more. Hutch should be so deserving of a man like that. The only time he really felt worthy were those instances when Starsky’s childish behavior belied all the truths about him, but even then, the man was pure of heart. He drank a silent toast to Starsky, passing him a wink in the wordless praise.

“That look on your face,” Starsky said, “tells me you’re thinking about my ass.”

And your hands and your hair and your chest and your love and your affection and—

“And it seems to me,” Starsky added, scooting over to Hutch, “that I should do something about that for both our sake.”

“Sakes.”

“Sakes?”

“Both our sakes. Both is plural.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He planted his mouth on Hutch’s in a passionate kiss, effectively silencing Hutch from speaking another word.

Hutch felt Starsky’s tongue between his lips, warm and wet, so he nursed it between his own, and then sucked it into his mouth for a deeper, more lasting, more arousing mutual experience. The sensations and the sexual-ness of their kissing swelled his penis, but Starsky wouldn’t touch him. Hutch knew, as well as he knew that day followed night, that Starsky loved to play the anticipation game, too. So they laughed and they kissed and they sucked and they jacked each other up, knowingly, and in tandem.

Starsky broke them apart, sat back across the tub from Hutch again, and looked into his eyes, both their heads spinning. There were simply things they knew about each other then, from all those sex-filled mornings, all that soul-searching, all their practice.

“You want to suck my dick,” Starsky said. It wasn’t a question.

“That, I do,” Hutch replied, relinquishing a long exhale to calm his excitement before it got the better of him. The idea of nursing Starsky’s swollen penis—of giving him that kind of orgasmic pleasure, of finishing his lust for him inside his warm, snug mouth and arousing hand, of eating Starsky’s cum—stiffened his own penis. He would have reached for his erection if Starsky’s foot hadn’t found it first, gently kneading it in his toes.

“Yeah,” Starsky said, having found the evidence, “you want to suck my dick. Your dick tells no lies.”

Hutch held eye contact with him while Starsky continued to fondle him under the water. He assumed Starsky was as inspired as he was; had he bet on it, he might be a rich man.

“But the trouble as I see it,” Starsky added, “is that I’m wanting to suck you.”

Hutch’s deep breathing was apparent. He felt flushed, overly hot in that moment, but he would much rather take Starsky in his mouth to fuel his own satisfaction than in reverse because he was more turned on by Starsky’s sexuality than his own. “I see the trouble you see,” he said, mocking a necessary agreement.

“So shall we flip for it?” Starsky asked. He continued to press Hutch’s penis to the inside of Hutch’s thigh, and gently massage it with his pleasure-giving toes.

“Have you got a coin?” Hutch wondered, distracted by the stimulation he received.

Neither of them was rationally thinking at the time, but they realized the dilemma of a coin toss when they couldn’t imagine that the other had any loose change on his person there in the hot water, fully naked.

Starsky straightened in the tub and broke contact with Hutch. “How about we flip the bottle cap?” he suggested.

“It’s a cork,” Hutch reminded him.

Starsky laughed. “You take the fun out of everything,” he playfully sneered.

“Everything?”

“Well, I mean … you know what I mean.” He scanned their surroundings for another idea. “So, how ’bout this?” he said, pulling the cork from the bottle. “You hold the glass and I’ll toss the cork into it. If it goes in, I suck you. If I miss, you suck me.”

“And yet another idea,” Hutch said, “is that we suck each other.”

“Yeah, but who goes first?”

“I guess we’ll know which one really wants to by whether you botch the shot.”

“I won’t cheat,” Starsky promised. “I’ll give making it into the glass an honest-to-god try.”

Hutch laughed at him. “The thing is, boy, I won’t care which one of us loses.”

“Then shut up and hold the glass still.” He gave Hutch instructions on where to position the glass for his decisive enterprise. “Higher. Lower. Back a little.”

There was still some wine in the glass when Starsky aimed for it. He twirled the cork in his fingers and flicked it forward—only to watch it bounce off the rim. “Rebound!” he exclaimed, catching the cork before it hit the water. “You do me first.”

Hutch smiled at him: at Starsky’s unabated excitement. He did admire that boy—especially when Starsky rose out of the water to sit on the edge of the tub for the fulfillment of his craving. The hair on his chest, arms, legs, around his obviously hardened penis, was plastered to his tanned skin. But, no boy this man, not in appearance, not in intent.

Starsky fondled himself, just the head of his genital, to tease Hutch—or at least Hutch felt teased, so he drank long from the glass, its warmth heightening the arousing sensations that already swam through his blood.

“Am I to be offended by that?” Starsky ruefully asked.

Hutch looked him in the eye, startled. “By what?”

“You have to get a little buzzed before you’ll suck me?”

Hutch realized he’d been played, so, to return the jab, he tipped the glass to allow the rest of the wine to slowly spill into the tub water.

Starsky frowned.

“Are you happy now?” Hutch asked him.

“Not really,” Starsky mumbled. His attempt to undermine Hutch had apparently backfired and only served to contaminate the water, though only a little. “But get those wet, warm lips over here,” he said, holding his shaft and pointing its tip-end slit at Hutch, “and suck me like you like me. That’ll make me happy.”

It would make Hutch happy, too, and he couldn’t get to it fast enough, but first he stood and kissed Starsky’s mouth, which smelled and tasted of red wine and hot tub oxidizer, then sucked on his wet lips, his erect nipples, kissed along his wet-haired chest and flat belly to his groin. He inhaled Starsky’s scent and listened to his moans and his sighs, while he nursed his engorged penis, its fleshy head, its rounded crown, along its swelling shaft, before he wrapped his lips around it and found his inevitable rhythm.

When Starsky grabbed Hutch’s bicep, Hutch thought he did it because he was about to fall off the side of the tub, and maybe he was, so Hutch grabbed him in return, and held Starsky tightly in one hand while he pumped Starsky’s penis in the other, taking him slowly to ejaculation—for both their enjoyments. And when Starsky could wait no longer, when he finally erupted, when he pulsed semen into Hutch’s mouth, and Hutch could then taste it on his tongue and lips, Hutch couldn’t fathom a more appropriate gift for his lover-by-fate than the orgasmic pleasure he provided him.

It so turned Hutch on to make Starsky come, that he himself couldn’t wait for Starsky’s recovery in order to finish himself. He released Starsky from his mouth and hand, but held to his upper arm to keep the man from falling overboard, and used his other to masturbate himself, depositing creamy spurts of semen onto Starsky’s spent penis, his sac, and the lapping water, while he loudly cried out with pleasure.

Then they panted and laughed and cussed and laughed again as they immersed themselves in the still-heated, steamy satisfaction of their tumescent genitals. Hutch didn’t let go of Starsky. When his mind began to clear and his heart returned to some unnoticeable beat, he took Starsky in his arms and squeezed him with all his might.

There was no more perfect a lover than he, despite their sometimes relative quickies, or who did what to whom and when, or maybe because of them, and Hutch was all too aware of the preciousness he’d experienced, as he was of the absolute special person he held tightly in his embrace. He smelled him. He kissed him. He pressed his face into Starsky’s wet, warm neck and inhaled the essence of him.

Hutch’s life couldn’t have been more perfect, he decided again—not a single way more.

Well … on second thought, and one he’d entertained quite recently—too many times recently—life couldn’t be more perfect, with the exception that he’d give just about anything not to know that Starsky loved another man.

* * *

“I’ll have my usual,” Starsky told the bartender as he sidled up to the bar next to two empty stools.

The sandy-haired server eyed Starsky with a friendly smile in his brown eyes. “Um,” he said, in a distinctively masculine voice, “… a beer?”

Starsky grabbed Hutch in a brief, but gentle headlock. “And one for my partner, too,” he said.

He and Hutch sat at the bar then and studied the room at their backs from the mirror that ran the length of the rear wall. The place was rocking with relatively loud music, neon and flashing lights, and several dozen men—who sat at pub tables or danced near the jukebox. There were a few women in attendance, but—other than the mostly male clientele—the bar didn’t look any different from any other establishment of its kind. The walls were decorated in old, authentic street signs, eclectic empty alcohol bottles, funky lanterns, and plastic plants, in colors of warm browns and greens with splashes of accented red. It was a cozy place, tucked near the end of a quiet street in a business district, but so packed with cars that Starsky had to park behind the building in the only open spot at the time.

“Have you been here before?” Hutch asked him. “Stopped by with one of your gay friends, did you?”

Starsky leaned into Hutch so only he could hear him. “How many times do I have to tell you that I only have one gay friend?”

Too many times, Hutch thought. He looked away, off into the room while he waited for his beer, thinking it couldn’t get to him any faster if he’d paid double for it.

They checked out the place for a couple of minutes before Starsky broke the silence. “But to answer your question,” he said, pushing more firmly into Hutch, shoulder to his shoulder, to presumably get his attention back on him, “I haven’t been here before.”

“Then how’d the bartender know you wanted beer?” Hutch countered him, that time making confident eye contact with Starsky, but also speaking just above the crowd noise and music in the room.

Starsky sat back, taken aback. “You serious?”

The bartender set two glasses of beer in front of them. “You guys want some nuts with that?” he wondered playfully, intending to make an innuendo, or so it seemed to Hutch.

Starsky snickered. “Depends on the kind,” he said. He winked at the server.

“Barry,” the guy replied, extending his hand in greeting.

“Barry the Bartender? Pleasure. David. My friend here is Ken.”

Barry shook Hutch’s hand, too, and gave him a look-over as well.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Starsky asked. He gently shook Hutch to force him into a smile, but Hutch wasn’t having it, though he returned a friendly hello.

“He’s gorgeous,” Barry agreed, about Hutch, “but so are you. Nice to meet you both.”

“You think he’s ‘gorgeous’?” Hutch asked Barry. He drank from his glass and noticed Barry’s eyes look Starsky over again.

“If I may say so, I think he’s a very sexy man,” Barry said of Starsky, meeting Hutch’s eyes once more with slight trepidation. “Don’t you think so?”

Hutch said what he said next for two reasons: one, because it was true, and two, because he wanted to send a message to the bartender that the ‘sexy man’ belonged to him. “I think he’s the most beautiful thing in all the world … which is but one reason I’m here with him.”

Starsky kissed Hutch’s cheek. “I love you, too,” he affectionately said, loud enough that even Barry could hear him.

Pity me that I’m not the only one you love, Hutch silently brooded. He broke eye contact with Barry when the shame of his thought washed over him and he was afraid it could have been heard through his expression alone. Then he buried it in a long drink of cold beer. Maybe he should consider pouring an entire bucket of ice over his head to break him out of his sudden and stupid musings. Or maybe Starsky should just punch him in the face.

Barry set a bowl of pretzels and peanuts on the counter in front of them. “Bon appétit!” he said with a smile. “Let me know if you guys need anything else.”

“Just keep the beer coming,” Starsky said with another wink.

“Don’t do that,” Hutch warned Starsky after Barry turned away to wait on other customers. The interplay between Starsky and the bartender, from the moment they’d walked up to the bar until that wink, had riled Hutch, and he finally couldn’t keep his annoyance to himself.

“Don’t do what?” Starsky asked, sounding anxious about the reprimand. The concern flashed in his eyes. “Did I say the wrong thing?”

“Don’t flirt with that guy,” Hutch said. “At least, not in front of me.”

“I was flirting with him?”

“How would you feel if I was toying with a guy in here under your nose, huh?”

Starsky turned on his stool to face Hutch. He was as serious in his expression as he was in his words and tone of voice. “Are you jealous? Do you think I want to fuck him?”

“How can I be jealous?” Hutch argued. “I have you. He doesn’t.”

He sincerely didn’t feel jealous; maybe somewhat possessive—given the clientele of the bar itself. And maybe he felt a bit disrespected by Starsky under those circumstances as well. Maybe that’s what had troubled him for the past couple of weeks, too: Starsky’s behavior had been discourteous. After all, Starsky was free to love anyone he wanted to love. He could love a thousand men and Hutch would support him. Hutch may not like it; in fact, he’d probably hate it, but he would give Starsky anything Starsky wanted—or needed—including the lovers he desired. Hutch just didn’t want it rubbed in his face.

He leaned forward on the bar then so he could elude Starsky’s scrutiny. He couldn’t explain himself. He didn’t have the words for it. So why not just keep his mouth shut? When Starsky turned back to face the bar as well, Hutch exhaled his apprehension and the sick in the pit of his stomach, and instead watched the celebratory goings-on behind him through the mirror.

They didn’t speak to each other for a few minutes. They drank their beers and ate the snacks and listened to the music. By his silence, Hutch knew Starsky was just as peeved as he himself had earlier been, so he tried to soothe it, especially since he’d caused it.

“How’d you find this place?” he asked.

“Adam told me about it,” Starsky replied. He spoke just above the volume in the room, and not as boisterously as he had when they first entered the bar.

Adam.

Of course, it was Adam.

Starsky’s ‘only gay friend.’

“I’ve never been here before,” Starsky reiterated, without provocation. “Barry guessed we wanted beer. It is the most popular alcoholic beverage, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is, Starsk,” Hutch said, apologetically. He was angry at himself for asking questions he didn’t know the answers to—or subconsciously feared the answers, but asked anyway—more than he felt Starsky had done him any wrong. But losing Starsky was his weakness. It always had been, even then, even despite how bonded they’d become.

And, yet, he couldn’t help himself—nor stop the next words from leaving his mouth, even though he fervently wished he’d remained silent and allowed the hurt feelings to sweep over him, and to drink enough beer to drown them once and forever.

“Are you hoping Adam will stop by here tonight?”

Starsky turned his head to meet Hutch’s eyes with a stern expression. He drew a breath, appeared to control himself, something Hutch couldn’t seem to do, and coolly replied, “No. Wasn’t planning to.”

“What about Daniel?”

“Daniel?”

“Your South Pacific pal.”

Starsky squinted at him, as if to push sense out of Hutch where sense didn’t seem to be. “Daniel isn’t gay.”

“Neither am I.”

“So why would Daniel come to a gay bar?” Starsky wanted to know.

“Why did we?” Hutch countered him.

“Like I said when we were in the hot tub,” Starsky replied, holding his ground, “because we can relax here. Be ourselves.”

“We can be ourselves anywhere, can’t we?”

Starsky gazed into the mirror for a while, not answering. He ate pretzels and peanuts, listened to music and drank beer, and watched men dance in the background. After a while, he asked, “We can go to another bar if you want—a straight one.”

It was Starsky’s apologetic voice that played on Hutch’s guilt, so he backed down. “No,” he said. “I’m okay here. Just curious was all.”

“Besides,” Starsky continued, “I wanted to teach you a few dance moves—and that’s something we can only do in a place like this.”

“We can do that at home, can’t we?”

Frustrated, Starsky said again, “We can go someplace else if you want. I didn’t mean to make this a problem for you.”

The bar wasn’t the problem, was it? Hutch didn’t know. He truly didn’t know. He simply felt dejected and passed over somehow, though he couldn’t really pinpoint a specific reason why or how, except that Starsky had seemed friendly with the bartender. That, and his mention of Adam—and Daniel, who wasn’t gay, or so Starsky claimed. Defensively, but not until he’d downed most of his beer, Hutch said, “So … you’ll get me out there on the dance floor where I can make a fool of myself in front of everyone, huh?”

“Lighten up,” Starsky cheerfully replied. “All these gay guys will just think you’re adorable—like I will.”

Hutch motioned for Barry to bring him another beer even before he finished his first one. After Barry left to get a new glass for him, Hutch asked Starsky, “Do you need me to be gay for you?”

“Be gay for me? Weren’t we gay enough for each other in the tub this afternoon?”

“Were we?”

“Why would you ask a stupid question like that?”

“I don’t know,” Hutch answered him. He tucked his chin, dropped his head for a moment, closed his eyes, and told himself to shut up. Was he feeling useless or used? And what difference did it make? He’d give Starsky anything. Maybe Hutch purely felt threatened somehow. Starsky loving another man hadn’t changed how Starsky treated Hutch. It also didn’t mean Starsky loved that other man as much as he loved Hutch, or in the ways he loved Hutch, so why did Hutch feel less than he wanted to feel around his partner? He drank more beer, long gulps of it, and hoped it would numb his thoughts into nonexistence.

“Slow down there, cowboy,” Starsky advised him, having noticed Hutch’s indulgent consumption. “If we’re going to dance, you want to be on your feet, know what I mean?”

“I don’t want to dance,” Hutch said. He heard Starsky’s, “I love you, too,” echo in his mind, and not the time Starsky said it to him that night at the bar in front of Barry, but to someone else, weeks earlier, and it stabbed Hutch in the heart all over again. When Barry delivered Hutch’s second beer, Hutch changed his mind about what he wanted to drink. “Can you give me something stronger instead? Some tequila, maybe? Gin and tonic,” he decided, “heavy on the gin. Leave the beer here, but get me the other drink now, too?”

Starsky squeezed Hutch’s arm, reprimandingly. “The purpose of our coming here,” he explained, as if it hadn’t been clear before, “was to play around with each other in public, dance some, laugh like idiots, and be relaxed doing it, you know? But if you’re just going to get drunk, we can do that at home.”

“I don’t want to go home,” Hutch replied.

“So, you want to sit here all night and bust my balls instead?”

“I don’t want to do that, either,” Hutch said with sorry in his voice. When he glanced over at Starsky and saw that questioning, understandably confused look in Starsky’s blue eyes, he felt all the sicker to his stomach. Why was he abusing the one he loved? the one he’d walk through fire for? the one he’d sail an ocean in a row boat to find, if necessary? the one he’d give his life to? “I’m sorry, Starsk,” he said. “Don’t mind me.”

“Don’t mind you? You’re everything to me. How’m I supposed to not notice that something’s eating at you? Hm?”

Barry set the gin-and-tonic on the counter in front of Hutch. “Anything for you?” he asked Starsky. “Another beer?”

Starsky had almost finished his first one. He gave it a second’s thought and then said, “No.” He leaned again into Hutch when Barry left them to themselves. “So what’s bugging you?”

“I don’t really know,” Hutch honestly answered. He drank long from his gin-and-tonic, nearly choked on the squeeze it gave his throat, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Nothing justifiable, anyway, that’s for sure.”

His position wasn’t defensible. He’d had that conversation with himself a number of times over the past two weeks. No matter which way he sliced-and-diced it, he couldn’t justify his bad feelings. Even then, when he looked at Starsky to send his apology to him through his eyes, he saw again just what and why and how he loved that boy. Barry was right: Starsky was a very sexy man—from the way he deliciously looked, to his charismatic manner, to the way he was dressed, nicely, in tucked shirt and jeans, his hair groomed, unshaven, with the mingled scents of cologne and maleness permeating from his every pore, from his dark wavy hair on his head to the peek of curls from his collar to those sultry blue eyes. But he was so much more than appearances—and no one knew that better than Ken Hutchinson. Notwithstanding Hutch’s finer qualities, Hutch saw himself as more predictable, as someone who operated within certain confines and cultures, whereas Starsky’s range was much broader—and therefore seemingly more liberated. Despite those wanderings, however, Starsky’s loyalty to right-over-wrong was commendable. And, in knowing that, Hutch loathed himself for thinking, even fleetingly, that Starsky would betray him, even in matters of love or lust, or especially. Hutch drank long again from his glass. He could feel the alcohol do its job to numb him, but it failed to set his mind on the right path.

“You’re drinking the wrong stuff,” he heard Starsky tell him, “and you’re drinking it way too fast, so let’s go home.” He stood off his stool and squeezed Hutch’s shoulder. “C’mon.”

“You go,” Hutch said. He studied the clear liquid of his drink. “I want to stay.” Drown myself in sorrow.

“Well, whatever you want,” Starsky replied, close to Hutch’s ear, “it’s not doing you any good. Why don’t we clear out of here before you completely go off the rails, and we figure this out together?”

“I wanted to be enough for you,” Hutch said impulsively.

“You are enough for me. You’re everything to me. Didn’t I just say that?”

“I want you to love only me,” Hutch added, ignoring what Starsky said, as he fell victim again to his self-pity. “I want to be the one, the only one.” Even as he spoke the words, Hutch knew he sounded pathetic. More than that, he was ashamed of himself for allowing petty thoughts to derail what had been a lovely day up until their entrance into the bar.

“Who else is there?” Starsky asked him, on cue.

If Hutch hadn’t been drinking, he’d be able to say, even under oath, that there was no one else in Starsky’s life, not anyone who could dethrone Hutch from his sovereignty where Starsky was concerned. No matter who Starsky loved, or in what ways, it didn’t diminish his love for Hutch. They had been through too much together—become extremely and intimately familiar to each other, depended on and learned to implicitly trust each other—to not be the foremost person in the other’s life. Why had four simple words—“I love you, too”—gotten in the way of Hutch’s pure enjoyment of the man who did indeed mean everything to him?

Was it jealousy?

Or was it fear?

“C’mon,” Starsky said, to encourage him again, “let’s go. I can see this was a bad idea. You can make a fool of yourself at home—because if you keep drinking like that, you’re going to make a fool of us both in public.” He tugged on Hutch’s arm, but Hutch pulled it out of Starsky’s grip.

“You go,” Hutch repeated. “I’m going to kill myself in booze.”

Starsky’s frustration was apparent in both his surrendering exhale and his angry tone. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “And I don’t know what it is you think I’ve done, but you’re not being fair to either of us.”

“No argument here,” Hutch admitted. It seemed then that there was more alcohol in his blood than there was plasma. “But it isn’t you, Starsk. It’s me. I know you love me.”

“Then you’re making as much sense as square wheels. Let’s go.”

Hutch didn’t budge. Starsky deserved better. He should leave Hutch to his excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness. There was more to it than what lay on the surface. Perhaps if Hutch drank enough, he could flush it or escape it. He swallowed what was left in his glass and asked Barry for another.

It was the request that forced Starsky to turn on his heel and leave. He didn’t say a word before his departure; he simply walked away and out of the establishment. Hutch saw him disappear into the outside from the corner of his eye.

“Did your boyfriend ditch you?” Barry asked him when he returned with Hutch’s refreshed drink. “You guys looked so happy when you first came in here.”

“He’ll only get as far as the car,” Hutch replied, thanking Barry for his second gin-and-tonic. Hutch knew that much: that Starsky wouldn’t leave leave him. “But it’s okay,” he added. “He did himself a favor.”

* * *

The laugh he heard was his own, pushed out of him from both his stupidity and the force with which his shoulder hit the wall. But, on hazy reflection, perhaps that latter action wasn’t so stupid. The wall was the only thing to aid his awkward standing. He slumped against its hard surface for balance while he struggled to unzip the fly on his jeans, figuring if he could remain upright long enough, he just might pull off the trick. He was in the corner of the men’s bathroom, in front of the urinal farthest to the left, and his bladder was bursting. He’d downed more alcohol in that last half hour than at any other time he could recall in his entire lifetime—and he found his rare condition amusing, much the way he did when he landed on the floor in Davis’ guest bedroom, striking the bed, the night before they flew to Australia in search of Starsky—but this time, he couldn’t recall a valid reason for getting so drunk. One more sip and he probably would have been sick to his stomach, not just be in a race against time to relieve the pressure in his groin. Even Barry had cut him off from the booze, telling him to go home and sleep it off, that he’d had ‘more than enough for one night.’

Now, without the ability to hold the top of his jeans while he lowered the zipper with his free hand, he couldn’t even master that simple task. So he shifted his weight to his right foot to liberate himself from the constraint of the wall—and instead stumbled backward. “Whoa,” he said aloud to himself, trying to prevent the fall he believed was inevitable, and grabbing at air in the process. “Fuck” was his next word when he realized he had nothing to hold onto and he was about to collide with the tiled floor, despite his best effort not to. It genuinely caused him a moment’s panic—until he felt the hand clasp his bicep to steady him and prevent his untimely descent.

“Easy there, buddy,” a young male voice told him. “Need some help?”

Hutch’s mind swam and his vision temporarily blurred. He didn’t know who held him, but it was a stunning pillar of strength—and the catch had been a lifesaver. “I can’t seem to …” he tried to explain.

“I’ll hold the waistband,” the voice said with a friendly tone, “and you tackle the zipper.”

The teamwork was successful and Hutch was able to open the fly. He then tugged his penis forward and aimed it at the urinal bowl while he was held upright by his unexpected ally. But when he released his groin muscle to free his urine flow, he immediately heard the urgent instruction.

“Hey, hey, hey,” the voice said quickly, reprimandingly, “you better aim better. You’re going to empty onto the floor if you don’t.”

Hutch giggled, though he couldn’t have told anyone why his dedicated effort, or lack of it, was funny. Perhaps it was because he’d never had anyone stand that close to him while he relieved himself. That, and the advice didn’t do him any good. He apparently still couldn’t direct his uncontrollable stream. He cussed. “Will you help me?” he softly asked as he braced his palm against the neighboring wall for additional support and haphazardly aimed toward the drain.

There was no hesitation on his acquaintance’s part to aid him. Hutch felt the man’s fingers nudge his away to gently embrace his exposed penis and point it downward accordingly. Hutch was finally able to evacuate his bladder—and the bursting caused him an initial jarring pain. Another second’s wait and he would have urinated all over the floor and himself. Instead, he watched it swirl into the clean, ceramic bowl and disappear down the drain while the two of them stood there in silence. As the pressure and the pain lessened, Hutch’s mind returned to its present state. He felt warm all over and dizzy. “I don’t even know your name,” he finally said when he could speak, giggling, too, as if the entire situation was comical and everyone with half a brain could see that.

“Jeremy,” the young man replied. He didn’t sound amused, but he was friendly, and he was definitely a necessary tool at the moment.

“Jeremy,” Hutch echoed. The interaction between the two of them was more intimate than Hutch had appreciated before, causing him to giggle again. “I’m sorry about this.”

“Don’t be,” Jeremy said affectionately. “That’s a rather nice piece of uncut meat you’ve got there. I’m privileged.”

“I’m a vegetarian,” Hutch said under his breath. He was tipsy on his feet, so he shifted more of his weight to the wall. He dropped his head, too, and looked for a minute at the continuing drain of his bladder into the bowl, and then closed his eyes, barely noticing that someone else’s fingers enabled him.

“I’m not,” Jeremy said. His grip on Hutch’s arm was still strong, keeping Hutch on his feet, his fingers the opposite, as if he held something delicate.

“You’re not … what?” Hutch asked.

“A vegetarian.”

“You shouldn’t eat that stuff,” Hutch warned him. “It’s not good for anybody—least of all those helpless animals.”

“It depends on which end you’re on,” Jeremy countered.

But the innuendo escaped Hutch—and he was momentarily frustrated because he couldn’t figure out what the young man meant. “Live on life,” he suggested, as his final comment on the topic, “not on death.” He finished peeing into the urinal, wishing all the while that his head was as relieved of its weaving sensation as was his bladder.

“Want me to shake it for you, too?” Jeremy wondered. “I won’t mind.”

“Go ahead,” Hutch said with a light laugh. “Give it a … waggle … a jiggle … a, um … a wank and a yank.” He laughed then because he couldn’t find the right word.

“Give it a yank?” Jeremy asked good-humoredly.

“Easy, though.”

“An easy yank?”

“Or wank,” Hutch proposed, but that didn’t sound altogether right, either. “An easy wank. A wiggle.” That last word sounded more fitting. “Yeah,” he said, “Do that.”

Jeremy’s careful squeeze was at first a shocking sensation, one Hutch didn’t expect—or understand, for that matter; it wasn’t the kind of touch he was prepared for, the type to rid the tip of his penis of drops of urine. But when the compressing touch along his shaft continued in a gentle, continuous stroke, he felt light-headed and embarrassed. “That doesn’t feel … like … a dribble,” he noted.

“Does it feel good?”

Hutch didn’t know. Did it? He had to think about it first. His sensitivity seemed dull, too numbed to enjoy, and not the way Starsky would handle him. Starsky would … “Squeeze tighter … and slower.” Hutch especially liked it when Starsky made more love to him than sex. Maybe he should tell Starsky that sometime, Hutch thought. Maybe Starsky preferred certain touches over other ones, too. Maybe they could learn that about each other and their sex could be even more rewarding.

“Tighter and slower?” Jeremy asked for clarification.

Tighter did make a difference, and the slower stroke did focus Hutch’s mind back to the question. “Yeah,” he said, when the hand on him settled into a welcomed rhythm, “that does feel … good.”

“It looks good, too,” Jeremy said. His breath was then in Hutch’s ear, quiet, but accelerated. “You’re a beautiful man.”

“That’s what he said,” Hutch replied softly.

There were other noises in the bathroom, ones he hadn’t noticed before. There were grunts near him, the kind he and Starsky sometimes made together, but these of other men—with other men. And there was a sort of collective breathing and there were voices closer to him. They sounded excited. There was contented laughter, too. He didn’t feel threatened.

“He is beautiful,” he heard a man say.

Were the words directed at him? He briefly opened his eyes, saw Jeremy’s hands on his slowly swelling shaft, and then closed them again. He wasn’t certain that he was comfortable, and not because of the touching, but with the trying to stand, braced against the wall the way he was, being held by someone under his arm, and feeling as if he’d drop to his knees in a heartbeat if he didn’t have the support.

Jeremy spoke softly to him, a masculine, evened tone, while he continued to stroke Hutch’s penis. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said. He remembered how angry he’d made Starsky, mad enough to leave, and that upset him. He repressed his guilt by enjoying the arousal he’d begun to feel. It was a perfect escape.

“Is he here?” Jeremy asked.

“He’s in the car,” Hutch said with certainty.

“Does he tell you you’re beautiful?”

“All the time.”

“Is he good to you?”

“The best,” Hutch said. He didn’t want to think about Starsky then. He’d done the man so wrong that night and Starsky hadn’t deserved it. “He could do better than me.”

“I doubt that,” Jeremy whispered up against his ear.

Hutch felt the presence of others and lifted his head, opened his eyes, and glanced into the room. A group of men had gathered around him near the urinals, mostly darker skinned guys, with smiles, and an air kiss for him when he made eye contact with nearly black eyes, so he looked back to the stroke between his legs. “They think I’m beautiful, too, huh?” he asked, embarrassed to be so watched, but not coherent enough to realize he was being stroked by a stranger, too.

“They think you’re gorgeous—especially now that you’re getting bigger. I can help you unload in the john, if you like, or I can give you a … kiss.”

The sexual palpation felt good in an odd sort of way. It wasn’t how Hutch was used to being handled, something more tentative then, but he didn’t deserve the good Starsky could give him, either, and especially not lately. “He wouldn’t ask,” he said, about being kissed. Starsky rarely, if ever, had to ask. “He’d just do.”

“He’d just do?” Jeremy repeated him. He tugged on Hutch’s arm. “Why don’t you turn around and show us how much you’ve grown, and none of us will ask. We’ll just do.”

The pivot was too sharp for Hutch and he stumbled against the wall once he left his own supported brace. “Oh, I’m drunk,” he said to explain his awkwardness, laughing and opening his eyes, as Jeremy let go of his penis in order to catch him before he fell. Another man grabbed a hold of him, too, and kept him from the terrible tumble. Together, they braced Hutch to the wall.

“Oh, I’m going to … pay for this … later,” Hutch swore. He was drunk, but not so drunk he couldn’t know how drunk he was.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” someone suggested.

Hutch laughed. He didn’t like being drunk, yet he found it amusing, that time because he felt the cool air around his stiffened penis, and realized, again, that he was exposed and on public display. “It’s cold,” he giggled.

A warm hand gripped him again, tightening as it encircled his shaft, stroking him into that burning, yearning desire he’d come to know so well with Starsky. Jeremy asked him if it felt good and all Hutch could say was what he felt. “Yeah. It … feels … nice.”

He only knew at that minute that it wasn’t Jeremy’s hand on him then, nor had it been since he’d been turned against the wall. Someone else stood beside him, bent slightly over, pumped his penis. Another hand fondled his sac. Yet more hands touched his thighs, caressed his belly under his shirt, while others lowered his jeans to his ankles. He felt new sensations: cooler air over his legs, the cold wall at his buttocks, warm breaths of anticipation on his skin. Voices amplified and echoed off the tile and ceramic in the bathroom, and he heard more laughter, more moans of pleasure—from other men that time, elsewhere in the room, and he saw bodies converge and come into focus as they formed a loose line in front of him. He giggled. “All for me?” he asked, spying a penis that wasn’t his own. Its owner eagerly stroked it.

“We won’t ask,” Jeremy reiterated. “Just like you like it, so enjoy yourself, okay?”

There was no warning before the wet, warm mouth of a would-be lover swallowed his crown, then the head, then the shaft of his erection. No soft caresses. No kisses. No licks. No foreplay. And he had to look, to see for himself what his senses told him. “Oh,” he said when he discovered the dark-haired, older man sucking his hardened meatiness. More than one set of hands held his penis as the first of several men knelt at his feet. “Oh,” he said again, baffled by the attention. He reached to slow the rhythm of his giving acquaintance, to guide the pleasure he’d begun to indulge, but his arms were in the grips of other men, and he was pinned to the wall—not against his will, but to keep him standing. All he could do was endure.

“One-minute rounds,” he heard someone instruct the others. “This guy’s too beautiful not to take our time.”

* * *

Starsky let Hutch leave the kitchen without either of them saying another word—primarily because Hutch seemed determined to leave. He had pushed off the counter, without eye contact, and left the room, abandoning Starsky to his thoughts and his silent reactions and his still unanswered questions. He heard Hutch disappear down the hallway toward the bedrooms and then close what he thought was the bathroom door.

Starsky remained where he was, arms and ankles crossed, searching the room with his eyes as if the explanations that continued to elude him could be found there. That’s when he heard the muffled sounds of Hutch vomiting. What a waste of Hutch’s breakfast, Starsky thought, especially after all of Hutch’s meticulous preparation. Was Hutch sick because of what those men had done to him or because of what he’d allowed them to do? Or was he that upset because his confrontation with Starsky was more than he could handle?

More unanswered questions. And getting to the crux of the matter shouldn’t be so hard. Couldn’t they tell each other anything? Isn’t that the Hutch he knew?

After a minute, Starsky heard the water faucet, and then Hutch opened the bathroom door. He hoped Hutch would rejoin him in the kitchen, to finish this nonsense, be done with it, put it behind them somehow, but he was disappointed when, instead, he heard the guest bedroom door close.

It was enough to motivate Starsky. He went down the hall, stopped outside Hutch’s room, and firmly knocked. When he heard the subdued, “Yeah,” in reply, Starsky opened the door, but he had to enter the room to find Hutch—who stood by the window, leaning on its frame at his shoulder, and looking into the outside.

Hutch’s hands were in his pockets, his profile to Starsky, his hair mussed, but seeming relaxed, or at least settled in his position, as if he’d planned to be there a while had Starsky not interrupted him.

Starsky closed the door, set his back to it, and waited for Hutch to do more than assume they were in the room together—and that there was no leaving this time, lest Hutch go through Starsky to do so.

After several minutes of their respective silence and thoughts, Hutch turned his head toward Starsky and, with tear-filled eyes again, said, “I’m sorry.”

“I believe you are,” Starsky replied. He did know that much. If he allowed himself a moment’s empathy, he could even feel Hutch’s pain. “I know you,” he added. “Don’t I? So don’t I know how sorry you are? And how ashamed you feel? And how embarrassed this had made you?”

Hutch dropped his line of sight to the floor while he barely nodded.

“But here’s what else I know,” Starsky told him. “I know there’s more to this story than you’ve told me—or you wouldn’t be this beside yourself over it.”

Hutch looked out the window again and set his jaw, grinding his teeth.

Starsky saw that, too, and knew Hutch hadn’t liked being caught. But outsmarting his partner wasn’t Starsky’s intention. He settled more into the door at his back, using his hands behind his butt as a cushion against the hard wood. He planned to stay as long as it took to flesh out the rest of Hutch’s Saturday night wreck.

When Hutch didn’t say anything after a minute, Starsky began the dialogue the only way he knew how. “Maybe Davis was right,” he recalled, “when we all met at Dobey’s office and he said that this might be a case of sexual assault.”

Hutch pursed his lips and rolled his head to express his disapproval. “It was my fault,” he admitted. “I was the one who was drunk.”

“But under the law,” Starsky argued, “it’s an assault charge if the person was under enough influence that they can’t make a smart decision—and what you did was obviously stupid.”

Hutch huffed, outwardly feeling belittled, but admitting, “No argument here.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Starsky said, defending his choice of words. “I’m saying you weren’t in a position to judge that situation, know what I mean?”

“I was drunk.”

“Exactly. And they took advantage of that.”

“I was drunk,” Hutch reiterated. “And nobody put a gun to my head and made me drink that much. That was all my doing.”

Starsky didn’t want to belabor the point. The technicalities could be defined and settled by the lawyers and the courts. He was after much more personal prey. “Okay, then,” he said to end the stalemate, “how about we talk instead about why you felt a need to drink so much that you could get that drunk, go into a men’s john, and let a gang of guys suck your dick?” Before Hutch could react to his verbal description, Starsky quickly added, “I said it like that on purpose—so you’ll appreciate that I know how fucked-up drunk you had to be to get into a situation like that, more drunk than I’ve ever known you to be. But before you answer that, hear me say this: I forgive you for what you did in that bathroom. I know you didn’t do it to hurt me or to betray me or to get off because you needed getting off. I believe it wouldn’t have happened at all if you hadn’t been so smashed.”

Hutch looked at Starsky again, that time with more tears in his pleading blue eyes. “You forgive me?” he asked, his voice breaking with emotion.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Starsky asked, feeling emotional himself. Had he realized sooner how important that was to Hutch, maybe he could have eased much of Hutch’s pain earlier, or at least have gotten more answers sooner. “Unless you’re not telling me everything that happened in there, why wouldn’t I forgive you for a mistake?”

“That was a fairly big mistake.”

“Then we’re even for all my mistakes—unless there’s more to tell me.”

“I’ve told you everything I remember,” Hutch calmly said.

“And I believe, without your telling me, that you resisting arrest wasn’t because the police were trying to stop you from enjoying more of what you wanted to feel.”

“I was trying to zip my fly before they handcuffed me so I could put myself together, but they wouldn’t let me. I wrestled with them. Lost the match.”

Starsky remembered seeing Hutch’s undone fly when Hutch passed him in the bar room on his way into the police van that night. “Like I said,” he reiterated, “I knew it had to be for a reason like that one. I forgive you, Hutch, but we’ve still got a scandal on our hands, and we still have a legal battle to resolve, and you still have to be tested before you touch me. Adam says there’s some kind of deadly virus going around gay guys. They say it might even come through skin just from contact.”

Hutch looked back out the window.

“The bathroom thing isn’t between us anymore,” Starsky said with genuine forgiveness in his heart, “because I believe it was just a side effect of all that booze. So … why don’t you back up and tell me why you got so drunk in the first place? Tell me what you were trying so hard to drown?”

Hutch noticeably rocked against the window frame. He had no other way to escape his anxiety than to burn it off. Starsky knew that much about him, too, but he didn’t give Hutch the out he wanted. He was steadfast against the door, and then, by his silence, demanding in his request.

Hutch finally answered him.

“Adam,” he said.

Starsky was startled, not just stunned. That answer wasn’t even on his list of a thousand replies he expected to hear. Adam, like the bathroom issue he felt they’d just resolved, was a part of their past, in that Starsky had been forgiven for his sexual rendezvous with Adam, hadn’t he? Apparently, he hadn’t. Or maybe Starsky misunderstood. “You were trying to drown Adam?”

“Wrong choice of words,” Hutch said. “I didn’t mean them literally.”

“I didn’t take it literally. But why Adam? why now?”

“When you were on that island,” Hutch explained, lowering his line of sight to the floor again as he appeared to reflect into that terrible time in his life, “and I believed you were dead …”

“All I thought about was you.”

“… I was more than devastated,” Hutch continued, either not hearing Starsky or ignoring him. “I was destroyed. There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that I am here today because Davis repeatedly reminded me that killing myself isn’t something you’d have ever wanted me to do.”

“We’ve been over that.”

“I made you a promise not to murder myself,” Hutch agreed, “and I stand by it, but if something happened to you … if I was facing that kind of thing again … I’d probably let myself go. Just roll over and die from a broken heart.”

“We’ll fix that thought later—”

“I didn’t think I could be happier than the day I found you alive,” Hutch said.

Starsky didn’t know where Hutch led him, but he was anxious to get there. “Look at me when you talk to me,” he said. “This is between you and me now—not a bunch of guys in a bathroom and not Adam—so stop avoiding me and look at me.”

Hutch lifted his eyes to Starsky’s, silently expressing his gratitude and his acceptance for what Starsky had just told him, and they held that mutually bonding contact for a minute before Hutch spoke again.

“Before I lost you,” he said, “I was terrified of losing you. But since I’ve gotten you back, I’m doubly scared out of my wits.”

“You’re afraid I want Adam.”

“Turns out I could be happier than the day I found you alive,” Hutch said. He continued to bypass Starsky’s comments. “When we got back here and you said you wanted to move in, for us to live together … for the rest of days … well, you know, it was the icing on the cake in a life I never saw coming and now can’t live without.”

Starsky didn’t want to be dismissed. “So, for some reason, lately, you’re thinking I might regret my decision about us living together, and that I want Adam instead?”

“Not instead.”

Starsky really didn’t know what that meant. “Alongside?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, how many times do I have to tell you that you’re—”

“I overheard you tell him you love him,” Hutch said. His blunt, unexpected comment was spoken with apparent effort.

What Hutch said, and the grief in his voice that said it, stalled Starsky’s reaction. He was dumbfounded. He looked Hutch over, from his head to his feet and back again, hoping to find more clues in his clothes or his posture or his eyes than he’d heard in his words. “When?” he finally asked, realizing that only a question could flush more out of Hutch. “When did you hear me tell him I love him?”

“A couple of weeks ago,” Hutch impatiently said, “on his last visit here to see you.”

Starsky had to think back. He couldn’t remember, not those kinds of details, anyway. “You’re going to have to refresh my memory,” he decided. “I’m drawing a blank.”

* * *

It was pitch black in the house when Hutch woke in the wee hours of that cold February morning. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa long before he needed a night lamp. He’d also apparently wrapped himself in Starsky’s Navajo blanket, the one Starsky had brought over from his previous couch when he moved in with Hutch, and draped on the back of what was now his new one. It came in handy that morning, but it wasn’t enough to keep Hutch asleep all night. What he needed for pure contentment was the warmth of his partner’s body alongside his own.

He clumsily kicked off the blanket, stumbled off the sofa, and felt his way through the dark from the living room into the bedroom. Maybe he’d be more than contented; maybe he’d get some much desired sexual gratification before sleeping, too. But just as he crawled onto the mattress and over what he expected to be Starsky’s warm, nude body under the blankets, he realized there was no one there. He felt around with his hands, but Starsky wasn’t on either side of the bed, so Hutch quickly jumped to turn on a nightstand lamp—only to find the bed neatly made and no Starsky anywhere in sight.

He panicked. “Starsky!” he yelled, hurrying to the bathroom, and not caring if he interrupted Starsky from whatever he may have been doing at that moment. Hutch had already planned to bring Starsky out of slumber—for sex, but not that urgently, and not that abruptly. The light was off in the bathroom and turning it on didn’t make the man materialize, either. “Starrssskyyy!” he continued to call him, going then through the house, hitting the toggle on light-after-light switch, but not finding Starsky anywhere: not in the kitchen, not in the guest room, not in the gym. And no one answered his verbal calls, either.

It was when Hutch headed for outside that he was able to slow his mind enough to put solid pieces of thought together in a way that calmed him even before he opened the front door. Starsky had been sitting on the porch late that afternoon, he and Adam, who’d come out for his second visit since Starsky had returned from Tetepare, and they drank beer, and talked up a storm about Starsky’s adventure in the South Pacific. Hutch had heard it all before, and not because he was bored with it—but because he thought Starsky might enjoy telling Adam about it in private—did he leave the two of them to their own company and return to inside the house. The pals sat there for hours, during which Hutch brought them a couple more beers, and later some chips and avocado dip, stayed for a few minutes, and then went back to his own small household tasks. He ended up lying on the sofa to read for a while as dusk settled and Starsky and Adam continued to converse in the lawn chairs on the front porch.

And that’s around the time Hutch fell asleep.

As he now opened the front door to bolt into the dark outside, and having not yet turned on the porch light, he was able to immediately see that there were lights on at the house across the driveway, at Grace’s house, or at ‘The Grace House,’ as they’d come to call it. And he heard the faint sounds of voices, male voices—Starsky’s, in particular—carefree laughter, and more busy chatter. It was music to his ears to know that Starsky was all right and that he wasn’t missing—or worse—and it was a relieving sight for sore eyes to finally see him across the way sitting as he was with Adam on that porch, continuing to talk up a storm. Hutch’s first thought was that Starsky had taken Adam over to show off the changes and the renovations they were making in the house to prepare it for their safe children program.

His second thought wasn’t so benign.

Another reason Starsky and Adam had gone over to The Grace House was because Starsky wanted to be alone with Adam, to play with him in ways he wouldn’t dare play with him in front of Hutch. There was even a bed in that other house, a king-sized one, and all the toys and privacy they would need. But Starsky had promised Hutch he’d never bed another man, especially not that one, the one who’d been such a sore spot for Hutch, the one who’d given Starsky his first homoerotic intercourse.

Was Hutch jealous that night when he felt the pain of his suspicion creep over him as he listened to Starsky and Adam converse and laugh at what was somewhere in the neighborhood of four in the morning? Or was he simply scared? And, if it was fear he felt, what was he afraid of?

No, Hutch thought. He wasn’t suspicious. He believed Starsky. Didn’t he? Starsky’s word was as good as gold. But, why, even if Starsky and Adam had simply gone over to the house to have a look around, would they be sitting on the porch in 40-something degrees? That’s not the Starsky Hutch knew.

Hutch had been too recently rattled and too sleepy as he stood there to think coherently, so he decided to do himself a favor and stop his stupid thoughts by leaning in the doorframe and finding something beautiful in the cold air to muse about instead—something other than Starsky’s welcoming voice. Hutch couldn’t decipher words, but he could tell from tone and from Starsky’s occasional laughing that all was good with his partner, regardless of how he’d gotten there.

The sky was clear and stars were abundant in the dark dome overhead. There was no breeze, which made the night as still as deep water. It was so quiet at that hour that Hutch could hear voices from across the driveway, punctuated with the occasional word or phrase. The only other sound Hutch heard was an unseen owl, followed by another in reply, though Starsky and Adam were too busy with conversation to have noticed. But it was very early in the spring and still no sounds of crickets or frogs—nor traffic on the roadway. Just male voices and laughter.

The cold was enough to push Hutch back into the house, but just as he was about to close the door and return to some semblance of warmth, he saw Starsky and Adam get to their feet. “I have no idea what time it is,” he heard Starsky say, faintly, and Adam laugh and reply, “I think we’re coming up on dawn.”

So Hutch stayed in the doorway behind the screened door; he intended to greet Starsky upon his return. As the two men approached the house, having left the lights on at The Grace House, their speech was clearer—and magnified.

“You need a farm dog,” Adam said. He walked beside Starsky as they came up the driveway, casually and contented. “You can’t have a farm without a dog,” he insisted.

“Hutch would like that,” Starsky replied, sounding decisive. “Maybe I’ll get him one for his birthday.”

“Get a retriever or a lab,” Adam suggested. “Those are good dogs, I hear.”

“Hutch would probably rather I rescued a mutt from the animal shelter.”

Hutch chuckled to himself when he heard Starsky’s comment, and how close to the truth he was.

“There’s always purebred dogs at those shelters,” Adam claimed. “We did a charity event for the city’s pound last summer; collies, Saint Bernards, you name it. I’ll help you find one when you’re ready. When’s his birthday?”

“August,” Starsky said.

They came to a stop on the driver’s side of Adam’s car—which was parked in the circular driveway in front of the house. Hutch had a clear view of them because they stood between the car and the porch steps—while the lights from The Grace House backlit them. Before Adam got into his car, before he even opened the door, he looked at Starsky for half a minute, in silence. The two of them made eye contact, long-lasting eye contact—and seemingly longingly, too, at least from Adam’s point-of-view. When neither of them said anything to the other, Adam stepped closer and took Starsky into his arms. “I sure have missed you, boy,” he affectionately said.

“I’m not going anywhere for a long time,” Starsky promised, hugging Adam as tightly. His head was closest to Hutch and therefore his voice the most heard. “I’m done flying for a while.”

They embraced for half a minute, long enough for Hutch to feel that familiar pain in his heart. He wished he had the strength to let the men know he stood there, privy to their conversation and their affection, but he thought it better that he know what transpired between them than to wonder what they would have done if they didn’t know he witnessed their actions.

“I love you,” Adam finally said, appearing to hold Starsky even closer.

“I love you, too,” Starsky replied. He pat Adam on the back, then released him, held him at arm’s length to make eye contact again, and said, “You drive safe, you hear?”

“I’m okay,” Adam said, letting Starsky go. “We haven’t had a drink in hours,” he reminded his friend. And then he got into his car.

I love you, too.

Hutch swallowed the hurt that welled in his throat—or he at least tried to. He didn’t like what he’d seen and even less of what he’d heard. And he didn’t like context, either. Why had Starsky and Adam left the main porch to sit on the one across the driveway—in the cold? Or had they gone into the house, played on the bed, warmed themselves up that way, and had only been on the porch for the few minutes Hutch had known they were there? Did they muster the strength, after a nighttime of frenzied, passionate, exhausting sex, and come up the driveway to say their goodbyes?

The car engine started; its headlights came on, followed temporarily by its brake lights, and then it slowly rolled away. Starsky watched it as far as the end of the driveway, before he turned on his heel and skipped up the steps onto the porch. As he reached for the screen door handle, he apparently saw Hutch at the last second, and jumped back, startled, and cussed as he said, “You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry,” Hutch whispered as he pushed the door open for Starsky. He truly hadn’t meant to frighten him.

Starsky patted Hutch’s groin, his penis through his sweat pants, as he walked by him and into the house. “Don’t leave that guy out in the cold too long,” he advised. “He needs his beauty sleep.”

Was that an invitation for sex? Hutch wondered, or was it simply Starsky’s usual playful boyish charm coming through in verbal affection?

The screen door closed and Starsky disappeared down the hallway to the bedroom, while Hutch remained in the doorway and watched the brake lights of Adam’s car until they disappeared around a bend in the road. Then he noticed the lights on at The Grace House and thought it might be the perfect excuse to go over and look for telltale signs of Starsky’s and Adam’s rendezvous and what those clues meant. Perhaps the bed had been disheveled or was still warm or both? Maybe there were wet patches on the sheets from sweat or oil or semen. Maybe there were alcohol bottles opened on the kitchen counters or recently lit candles on the nightstands or …

As Hutch’s anxiety and pain swelled in his heart, his heart-of-hearts took over. Get a grip, he told himself. Starsky and Adam went to see the house so Starsky could show him the renovations that were underway there, that there would be new shelves constructed in every room, and another toilet installed in the house, in the laundry room, in fact, to take advantage of its existing plumbing, and that they would be dividing the living room into separate recreational areas, as well as remodeling the garage into a den and office. If Starsky had told Adam about his two months on Tetepare, then certainly Starsky wanted to tell Adam how his life had changed and what he planned to do in Grace’s memory. Even small construction plans would be exciting enough to share with his friend, wouldn’t they be?

But then there was that little matter of I love you, too. Not, I love ya, or I love you, man. Adam’s voice and his tone and his words had been very sentimental and sincere. I love you, he’d said. I love you. Period. Plain and simple. I love you. ‘With all my heart. In all ways possible. For forever.’ And Starsky’s reply, as genuine and authentic. I love you, too. ‘With all my heart’? Well, at least with some of it—the some of it not devoted to Hutch.

So there Hutch stood, rolling such thoughts and ideas and questions through his mind. And across the driveway from where he stood lay the house with the answers, with some answers, with at least a direction for him to take, as if he needed guidance he didn’t think he could or should get from Starsky.

And then the countering point-of-view, the one that spoke from Hutch’s own heart, which was that Starsky simply answered Adam with an I love you, too, because Adam really did love Starsky, want and need him, and what else could Starsky say to that kind of heartfelt confession, anyway? Any other words would have been dismissive and demeaning and unkind, and Starsky was none of those things, least of all to his friends, especially his closest ones.

Would Hutch tell Davis he loved him if Davis said it first? Maybe. Or maybe Hutch wasn’t as compassionate as he believed Starsky was; he concluded he’d probably tell Davis he appreciated the love, but not enough to say it in kind, lest it be misunderstood. But, did he love Davis? Probably. Enough to tell him so? Not likely.

What did it matter, anyway? Starsky no more loved Adam than Hutch loved Davis; so what if Starsky said so? But therein lay the difference, too. Hutch had never bedded Davis. More than that, he’d told Davis about his intimate relationship with Starsky so there’d be no misunderstandings—and Starsky still hadn’t spilt the beans to Adam, or at least Starsky had said as much. Granted, Hutch had confessed his secret to Davis while he was drunk, but he never regretted telling Davis about his sex with Starsky, even when dead cold sober.

And, so, Hutch’s tormented thoughts corralled him. He could walk across the driveway, into the house, search it for clues, put those haunting thoughts to rest, or he could give himself over again to the weight of Starsky’s words and his promises, and surrender his mind to what he had in his possession, which was the man himself, and not to that which he feared he’d lose.

Or maybe he’d let that far-fetched voice in his head do whatever it needed to do in that minute, which was to let him go up those stairs and into that bedroom across the driveway, to see for himself the crumpled sheets and the stray pubic hairs and the somewhat used bottle of almond oil lying on the mattress. Oh, who was he kidding? Starsky had already destroyed the bed when he moved out of the house and had dumped the contents of his dresser all over it. And maybe the bed was in disarray because Starsky and Grace never made it before they left that fateful morning to Australia.

Or maybe—here was an idea—Hutch could instead talk to Starsky about his misgivings regarding what he’d heard pass between him and Adam that night, and to talk to him openly and honestly, and to let his partner wrestle the demon with him. That was the adult thing to do, wasn’t it? The mature thing? The responsible thing? And perhaps Hutch would have entertained that line of thinking had he not come up against that other voice in his head, the one that reminded him, again, that words and promises were, well, just words. Actions spoke louder. And possible cues to those actions lay in the house across the driveway.

He was about to put on his shoes and pull on a sweater to pay that house a visit; he had the perfect excuse if he should get caught in the act, which was that Starsky had left the lights on over there and Hutch needed to turn them off—something to do with the electric bill. But just as he pushed off the door frame, he closed the door instead, deciding, as he often did, that Starsky’s words, not just his actions, were as good as gold.

He locked the house, turned off all the lights he’d switched on during his search for Starsky that night, and joined Starsky in the bedroom. Starsky had left the lamp on when he crawled under the blankets and apparently fell asleep facing Hutch’s side of the bed, so Hutch undressed, snapped off the lamp, and got under the covers with him. He scooted over to Starsky, feeling for him in the warmth he found there, ran his hands over Starsky’s nude body—along his haired leg, over his raised hip, up his muscled arm—to take his days-old whiskered face in his fingers and kiss him. But Starsky was deeply asleep and didn’t respond. Hutch kissed Starsky’s cheek instead, then Starsky’s closed eyes, then his lips. Starsky didn’t seem to notice those touches, either; he didn’t stir. His breathing was slow and deep.

Hutch pressed along Starsky’s length, his legs to Starsky’s legs, groin to his groin, bared chest to Starsky’s hairy one. Without conscious thought, Hutch allowed Starsky’s presence and his aliveness and his warmth to arouse him into sexual neediness, but Starsky still didn’t respond to Hutch’s solicitation. He was oblivious. He’d been awake most of the night, after all.

So Hutch gave up. None of it mattered, anyway. Not his stupid, conflicting thoughts. Not his unwarranted and unfounded suspicions. Not his irrational and deepest fears. It wasn’t important what Starsky had done or hadn’t done, or what he’d do or wouldn’t do. All that had value in Hutch’s life was that Starsky was alive. And beside him. Hutch held him then, tightly and close, their nude bodies united in the time they’d been given. It was all Hutch could ever ask for. The rest was just vanity.

* * *

When Starsky entered the kitchen that next day and slumped on the stool at the breakfast counter, rubbing his eyes and groaning some indescribable sound, Hutch couldn’t help but laugh at him. “Hangover?” he asked.

“Not enough sleep,” Starsky opined. “What are you doing up so early? I could have slept longer if I didn’t have to smell toast and coffee first thing, know what I mean?”

Hutch set an upturned coffee mug in front of Starsky, and said, “It’s almost noon. I’m not early. You’re late.”

Starsky blinked at him. “Noon?”

“Well, you were up all night, and you were so out of it when you finally went to bed that not even my dry-humping did the trick to wake you.” He poured hot steaming coffee from the pot into Starsky’s cup. “How do you think that made me feel, huh?” Though he said it playfully, he hoped it would open a serious conversation about the previous night.

But Starsky seemed oblivious to Hutch’s veiled concerns. “You dry-humped me last night?” he asked, searching the counter for the sugar bowl. “I couldn’t have been that out of it.”

“And yet you were,” Hutch informed him. He set the sugar in front of Starsky and watched how his eyes lit up and that smile emerged on his mouth, as if Starsky had discovered the sweetener all on his own when, in fact, his detective skills were rather dull that morning, too.

“Did you leave any evidence on me?” Starsky wondered, quickly checking himself over, but not seeing anything on his navy blue robe or hairy chest. “Or did you clean up afterward?”

“I didn’t finish,” Hutch explained, mocking annoyance. “That’s why they call it a dry-hump.” And, then, to comment on what he saw Starsky do a million times before, he said, “Next time I’ll just give you the sugar bowl and we can pour some coffee into it.” He got the expected smirk from his partner, and carefully added, “But let me get this straight: my dry-humping didn’t wake you up last night, but the smell of toast and coffee in the morning did?”

“It’s almost noon,” Starsky said defensively. “I was bound to wake up around now, right?” He sipped coffee and made eye contact with Hutch. “Perfect!” he said, about his beverage. “You sure do know how to feed me.”

Hutch set a plate near him with two pieces of toast on it. He then slid a jar of strawberry jam toward him and a butter knife. “Don’t say such things until you’ve actually got food within reach,” he advised him. “Over-sweetened coffee does not a breakfast make.”

“Says you,” Starsky mumbled. He looked up at Hutch and smiled. “You’re beautiful this morning,” he said sweetly.

“Am I?” Hutch appreciated the flattery.

“Maybe you’ll wet-hump me later,” Starsky suggested.

Hutch laughed. “Maybe I will.” The invite cheered him—and motivated him, too. “So how did your talk with Adam go last night?” Perhaps he could raise the subject through a back door approach.

“Long,” Starsky said about his visit with Adam. He ate his jammed toast and drank hot coffee while he spoke. “How late do you suppose we were out there ’til?”

“About 4 a.m.”

“No wonder I was unconscious when you tried to maul me this morning.”

“I tried ‘mauling’ you last night—about 15 minutes after you went to bed.”

Starsky snorted a laugh at himself. “I was exhausted from all the talking, I guess. Adam says we should write a book.”

“You and Adam?”

“You and me, dumbass,” Starsky edified him with a roll of his eyes. “You and me have had some serious things happen to us over the last thirteen years, don’t you think?”

“I think you need basic knowledge of the English language to write a book.”

“You joke,” Starsky said affectionately. “You’re just mad because you didn’t get your candy last night. But don’t you think that’s a good idea? We write a book?”

Maybe it isn’t a bad idea, Hutch thought. He figured he’d do the writing and Starsky could do the storytelling. They certainly had enough stories of bad guy catches and near-death experiences to fill a tome.

“And, because you’d write it,” Starsky added, having read Hutch’s mind, “it’ll be a bestseller. Maybe they’ll even make a movie out of it.”

“You and your imagination.”

“Hey. Better yet, maybe they’d make it into a TV series.”

“That’d be the day,” Hutch commented. He slid a bowl of sliced fruit in Starsky’s direction, one of apples, bananas, and melon, a sort of morning dessert that he’d cut up earlier. “Besides, who’d want to watch the ongoing exploits of Starsky and Hutch anyway?”

“Well,” Starsky said, pulling the bowl closer to him and first poking through it for pieces of melon, “if we play ourselves in it, the whole world would tune in. Your beauty. My charm. Lots of shoot ’em ups and car chases. I mean, c’mon, right?”

“Like I said: you and your imagination.”

Hutch wasn’t certain that Starsky wasn’t trying to derail the conversation he hoped to have. He needed to be more direct. “So you’re planning to get me a dog for my birthday, huh?” he asked nonchalantly. He leaned on the counter and watched Starsky eat his breakfast.

“What?” Starsky asked, looking up at him. “Did I talk in my sleep?”

“It was so quiet last night,” Hutch explained, “that I heard you guys discuss getting me a farm dog when you came back from across the way.”

“Well, shit,” Starsky said, crestfallen. “My surprise is ruined.”

Hutch waited for Starsky to put the pieces together in a way he wouldn’t have to do himself. If Hutch overheard Starsky and Adam talk about adopting a dog, then what else did Hutch hear? Did Starsky wonder about that?

He didn’t.

“So I have to think of something else to get you for your birthday,” Starsky said disappointingly. “We can get a dog anytime you want. But the important thing now is …”

Hutch hung on the pause. He couldn’t help but appreciate Starsky’s unshaven face and his open-collared robe that revealed his haired chest, or that he’d eaten Hutch’s offerings that late morning with such gusto and gratitude, or that his dark hair was attractively mussed, or that his fingers familiarly sensual, or that …

“My birthday comes first,” Starsky finished his thought between bites, “and I think we should go someplace special for it, just you and me.”

Did Starsky make that suggestion out of guilt? Hutch’s heart began to noticeably pound. He didn’t like being that close to his confrontation, even one he desperately wanted so he could lay his fears and suspicions to rest. He waited for Starsky to say more. When he didn’t, Hutch tried again before Starsky could redirect the conversation. “What did you guys go over to The Grace House for anyway?”

“I wanted to show Adam what we’ve been doin’.”

“Was he impressed?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

Hutch hadn’t gotten anywhere. Maybe Starsky didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe it wasn’t wise to talk to Starsky about it while he was both waking up still—and eating. Or maybe it was pointless, anyway, because, after all, none of what Starsky did or said or had yet to do or say was of consequence in that context. The single and only important thing in Hutch’s life was that Starsky was in it. Period.

Shame on Hutch for believing or questioning anything else.

And how many more times would he tell himself that before he’d finally be done with his stupid mind games?

* * *

“Remember back in the day when we used to chase after bad guys?” Starsky asked. The two of them sat on the porch one late February afternoon, in chairs on opposite sides of the front door, to enjoy the warming sunshine and the promise of a plentiful spring. They were dressed in jeans and sweaters, and neither of them had shaved for a couple of days. But it was only Starsky who was reminiscing. “Remember that?”

Hutch didn’t understand the part about it being a distant memory. Just recently, they’d solved a few cases in which they’d had to ‘chase after bad guys’. But he played along purely for the sport of it—and because, despite his sometimes mild frustration, tolerating annoyance, or downright disgusted reaction to some of Starsky’s stupid musings, he rather appreciated them, too.

“I don’t think it was so long ago,” he figured. “Are you wanting more action these days?”

“No,” Starsky replied. “I mean, remember when we actually ran somebody down, you know, sprinted after them … on foot, kind of thing?”

“You mean chase chased them.”

“What else could I have meant?”

Hutch didn’t want to explain it, so he diverted the answer with another question. “Are you needing to get your adrenalin up?”

“I need to get my fat ass up,” Starsky said, slumping further into his chair. “We’re either sitting on the sofa or sitting on the bed or sitting at the table or sitting in the car.”

“I see.” Hutch thought about it while he surveyed the grounds and basked in the peacefulness of the day. “Well,” he said after half a minute, “as far as I’m concerned, I think your ass is mighty fine as is.” He backed up his claim by kissing the air in Starsky’s direction.

“But I want to keep it that way,” Starsky explained. He pretended to catch the kiss in his right hand and then pressed it to his lips before it could get away. “We’re over forty now, you know.”

“One of us will soon be forty-one … next month, in fact.”

“Exactly,” Starsky said, sounding pleased to have been understood, “and I don’t want to feel any older than I already do.”

“So what do you propose?” Hutch asked. He sized up Starsky’s nonchalant demeanor to decide whether the man had an actual answer or was just complaining about their laziness that day because he didn’t have anything better to do. But Hutch then detected that hint of mischief in Starsky’s blue eyes and knew he should prepare for something silly; he didn’t know what specifically, but something. It wasn’t sex, though. It wasn’t that kind of look.

“Well, maybe we should practice,” Starsky told him. He almost smiled when he noticed Hutch’s wary admiration. “We need to build safeguards into our routine.”

“Our routine?” Hutch wondered. “So, this is about ass-fucking.” He couldn’t help but be intrigued by his lover, though he wanted to beat him to the punch, too. Starsky was always setting traps; pleasant ones, but sometimes Hutch wished he could outsmart him just for fun. Or maybe they should stop playing with words and play with each other instead. Starsky was very sexy that afternoon; well, he was sexier that afternoon more than he was most days: in his light, form-hugging, red sweater, whose sleeves were pushed up his forearms and revealed the dark hair against his browner skin; his unshaven, blackened chin and cheeks, giving him that primal, animal look Hutch loved so much; and his tight-fitting blue jeans, snug at the groin …

“What I’m thinking,” Starsky said, enunciating each word as if he knew his partner was sidetracked and he needed him back on task, “is that we should put some running into our workout routine.”

“Okay.” Hutch didn’t commit beyond that. He used to run, all the time, when he lived at Venice Place, but Starsky was right: they sat a lot more at the farm than they did in the city. They had fewer reasons to run. They did, however, get physical workouts from mending fences and planting trees and other such farm chores, but that was about muscle more than it was about aerobics.

“So,” Starsky suggested, “how about we race each other to the road?”

Hutch gazed down the six-hundred-foot driveway. It would be a run over packed gravel, a road base that definitely had good traction. But Starsky had somewhat recently spent two months climbing around the rugged terrain of a South Pacific island; no doubt he was in better shape.

“Hm?” Starsky nudged him with sound, and then said, “And suppose we do it on the count of—”

Starsky didn’t get to finish his question because Hutch bolted out of his seat and off the porch, leaping from it to the circular drive before he heard Starsky leave his chair to do likewise behind him. Hutch ran as if his life depended on it, with Starsky close behind, the two of them panting and grunting and trying not to laugh as they determinedly raced to the paved county road. Hutch felt the sweat break over him long before they reached their goalpost, and his legs felt heavy as he closed in on it, and he was certain Starsky would beat him to it no matter how hard he fought to win the race, but Starsky didn’t; he took second place just seconds later.

They had run so fast and with such energy that they couldn’t stop when they hit the pavement, so they ran a wide, slowing circle around each other as they labored to catch their breaths.

“You cheated!” Starsky finally said, laughing between deeper pants. “I’d have won otherwise.” He eventually stopped to slow his pounding heart.

Hutch stopped, too, and bent over beside him to hold his knees or he’d collapse on the asphalt. “Dream on, dreamer,” he said, breathing rapidly and deeply. “You laid down the rules, that it be to the road, and you forget I know the way better.” Never mind that he started sooner.

Starsky laughed again; there was only one way from the porch to the road and that was the straight line of the graveled private drive. “But I didn’t finish,” he complained.

“Didn’t finish what?” Hutch asked.

“Laying down the rules.”

“What else was there?”

“The course was to the road and back,” Starsky said quickly and then, having uttered that last word, apparently decided it was his turn to bolt on the count of no number, up the driveway to the house at breakneck speed.

Hutch was instantly a few feet behind him—and he gave the sprint his all, figuring he’d probably die before he could know the outcome of the winner, but he didn’t care. The beauty of the race was the chase itself. Of course, he could have at least tied the man if he hadn’t had Starsky’s backside to lay eyes on while they ran. It sure was a beautifully tight, muscled, distracting sight to behold. And Starsky’s crack about his ‘fat ass’ hit Hutch’s mind, too, further stalling him at that last crucial minute when they closed in on the porch. He had to bust away from Starsky for a slowing jog in the circular driveway while Starsky flew up the steps. It was either veer off the way he did or Hutch would have crashed into the house.

“That’ll teach you,” Starsky said laughing. He paced the porch to slow his breath. “You can’t outwit me.”

“But I almost outran you,” Hutch argued, panting, and eventually coming to rest at the bottom of the steps. “You’re more fit than I am these days and I still held my own.”

“You had my ass to motivate you,” Starsky replied, not realizing how close he was to the truth. “But I say we do that every morning and someday I’ll have your ass to look at, if you’re lucky.”

“If I’m lucky?”

“It would mean you passed me.”

“I see.” Hutch came up the steps. “I’ll compromise and agree it would make us both lucky. But this calls for an ice-cold beer just the same.”

“It does,” Starsky said with a wink. He slumped in the chair he’d earlier claimed as his own and continued to breathe hard. “And the loser has to get them.”

Hutch didn’t mind. It gave him the chance to walk off the burning muscle cramps in his legs. He then entered the house and went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and stretched as he bent over to get two beer bottles from the lower half of the door. Other than the alcoholic beverage, the rest of the items in the icebox were healthier and colorful and enticing just by their appearances, but beer was the order of the day, so beer it was. He popped the metal lids off the bottles with an opener from a drawer, returned it, tossed the caps in the trash, and went back to the porch, rolling one of the cold bottles along his forehead to cool the sweat on his brow.

When Hutch handed one to Starsky, he expectedly felt it leave his hand, but realized before he stepped away that Starsky had a hold of him, too—by his wrist.

Hutch was about to ask Starsky what he wanted, but then felt Starsky’s warm lips tenderly kiss the inside of his sweating palm. Starsky let him go afterward, thanked him for the beer, and settled further into his chair by hanging a leg over one of its arms. Hutch did likewise, in the chair on the other side of the door and, for a few minutes, they silently drank beer, cooled themselves, and gazed over the landscape.

It was a peaceful view. Sun-filled blue skies. Budding trees. Blossoming flowers. A hint of green where grass peeked from the soil after a long hibernation. Hutch had everything he needed, everything he could possibly want and more. None of his life’s dreams could have prepared him for the heaven he’d been given. To have and lose and have again was something he’d be forever grateful for; no one man deserved as much. The icing on the cake was that he got to deeply love someone, someone more than he loved life, someone who loved him equally back, someone who wanted with him and for him what he himself wanted. Well, that’s what Hutch thought anyway—until he heard Starsky’s unprovoked comment.

“Adam had an idea.”

Hutch felt punched in the gut. Not a hard punch, but a definite blow just the same. He looked away, toward the fruit orchard, to hide his otherwise obvious reaction, and drank a long gulp of beer. But there he’d been, dreaming about his life with Starsky while Starsky entertained thoughts of his other closest friend. Why not? It was Starsky’s life and he was free to live it his way. Hutch was thankful Starsky was alive. Period. So, to further conceal his stupid insecurities, Hutch asked the expected question from him. “What was Adam’s idea?”

By Starsky’s tone of voice alone, Hutch could tell his partner had been immersed in the details of their latest case—the murder of a young businessman by a much older employee. “Adam says he drives past the train station every day on his way to work,” Starsky said, “and the Newton house isn’t too far from the off-ramp. He says he could probably drive that distance himself inside of fifteen minutes, easy.”

Hutch pushed away his previous emotional investment in the conversation and followed Starsky’s direction—to save them both. “So you think the old man backtracked?”

“If he could leave the train and get to the house inside of fifteen minutes, and it was a planned killing,” Starsky figured, finishing his beer before he added, “then he could have gone there, committed the crime, and gotten back for the one-o-five train all within an hour, don’t you think?” He rolled his bottle against his knee.

“Maybe,” Hutch said. “But it would depend on how he got to the house, wouldn’t it? No record he had a rented car. No cab company reported a fare during that time between those two places or within a one-mile radius of the area—and he couldn’t have depended on a cab ride back before the train left the station. No way he could have ridden a bike or ran there in that time, either.”

Facts Starsky already knew, but Hutch wanted them to hear again.

“Unless he had an owned car stashed nearby,” Starsky countered.

“That’s true.” If the murder had been more deliberate than previously suspected, anything may have been possible. “And he could have returned later that day,” Hutch calculated, “or even days afterward, to move the car he used.”

“We’ve been assuming all along that the D.A. is giving us the facts as if we shouldn’t question them,” Starsky lamented.

“So, what are you thinking?” Hutch asked.

“That we make the drive ourselves and see how long it takes us. We can do it at a slow pace, again at a normal one, another with speed. And we should do it during the lunch hour every day this coming week so we can compare times.”

Hutch liked the idea. “Let’s do it.” He too finished his beer, and then set the bottle on the porch beside his chair leg. It was a lazy Sunday and he didn’t really want to talk about crime leads. He wanted to savor his time with Starsky, not discuss Adam’s critical ideas, or Starsky’s hunches about murder opportunities. “You said earlier you’d like to go someplace special for your birthday,” Hutch recalled, hoping to change the subject—and return to his dreaming about the future.

“Yeah.”

Sensing that Starsky was still distracted, Hutch tried another question. “Did you have anyplace ‘special’ in mind?”

Half a minute passed before Starsky looked over at Hutch, as if he’d finally snapped out of his silent musings and joined the present, making sincere eye contact with his partner—then half again as long before he heard the question and answered it. “Our cabin,” he said. “Where else?”

Hutch couldn’t have named any other place more special than their home in the woods. “Works for me,” he said softly. He wished he could go there right then, take Starsky away with him, get him out from under the distractions and the affections of others. But, of course, that wouldn’t change the heart of the man. Only Starsky could do that.

Hutch left his chair and paced the porch. If he could burn off his thoughts with physical energy, he’d take that route; it was easier than fighting his demons with more useless explanations. They were no match for each other. He then stood near the rail and looked out over the orchard again, reminding himself of how much he loved their place and their new lives. I love you, too, he eventually heard in his mind. Every time he put those words behind him—and the warm affection of Starsky’s voice when he said them—Starsky would mention Adam in conversation and they would be right back in the forefront of Hutch’s mind, no matter how Hutch tried to avoid them. “The trees are beginning to bud,” he noted. That seemed like a good line of thought—and, if he verbalized it, it might just stick.

“Are you okay?” he heard Starsky ask behind him. “You’re a bit … spacey.”

“I’m sorry,” Hutch said, locking his hands behind his head and momentarily closing his eyes. It embarrassed him that Starsky had picked up on his weakness. But he had only compounded it.

“And what’s with all the ‘I’m sorry’s lately?” Starsky wondered. “Are you feeling guilty about something?”

“I’m sorry,” Hutch playfully said, facing him. “Have I been saying it too much?”

“C’mon,” Starsky encouraged him, “what’s up with you?”

Hutch stood before him, arms at his sides, helpless and vulnerable. “Nothing,” he replied, not convincingly. “Nothing worth bothering us over anyway.” The look of disagreement in Starsky’s eyes made Hutch rethink his comments. He could confide in Starsky, tell him what haunted his thoughts, get it out in the open and wrestle it to the ground, but the strong side of his mind knew it was pointless. He could predict all of Starsky’s explanations and defensives—and they would be valid and authentic—so why cause trouble where trouble needn’t be? What Hutch should do is practice what he preached—and that was to be grateful for what he had. He was definitely grateful for what he had. If only what he had didn’t mean so damn much to him.

He approached Starsky and sat on his heels in front of him, with one knee on the wooden planks, between Starsky’s open knees, inside his legs, and set his forearms on Starsky’s thighs. He could at least tell Starsky what drove his insecurity; that inviting look in those questioning blue eyes would forgive him for his stupidity, wouldn’t it?

“Right now?” Starsky coyly asked. He briefly squeezed Hutch with his legs.

“If you want me to,” Hutch said, realizing what Starsky meant, that he’d made a sexual innuendo because of their intimate position, “but it’s not where I was headed.”

“You weren’t headed for my better head?”

Hutch didn’t comment, and not because he was offended by Starsky’s crack, but because he had hoped for something serious, something to help him purge his self-inflicted disappointment in himself. But Starsky was in no mood to salvage him. Or so it seemed.

“I didn’t mean to make light,” Starsky said, apologetically, having picked up on Hutch’s quiet dismay. “Do what you were going to do—or say what you were going to say. I’ll shut up until then.”

Starsky’s intuition, his well-read of Hutch’s silent intentions, his implicit acceptance and his unspoken empathy, were just a few of the reasons Hutch adored this man. He noticed many of those other reasons, too: Starsky’s eyes and his face and his warmth and his love. “Wherever you go in life,” Hutch said, “please always take me with you.” If his voice failed to convey his need for a place in Starsky’s plans, his pleading eyes begged to be on that journey with him.

“I told you before we’re going everywhere together from now on,” Starsky reminded him. He affectionately stroked Hutch’s hair—as if the gesture, coupled with his answer, would comfort Hutch.

Starsky meant something tangible, someplace physical, Hutch assumed. Hutch meant something much more … unapparent. “Live life to its fullest, Starsk,” he kindly advised him. “All I’m asking is that you don’t leave me out of it.”

“Why would I do that? Why would I leave you out of any of it?” He ruffled Hutch’s hair then to shake him of his melancholy. “You’re talking riddles again,” he noted. “Maybe you don’t believe I can’t get enough of you.”

Maybe that was it. Hutch didn’t believe. All he had, since their romantic relationship had begun, were words. And not that Starsky didn’t mean what he said, but that life—and love—betrayed one’s intentions. Often. Throughout history. Coupled with Starsky’s love for Adam—his understandable bond with someone else—Hutch felt insecure and vulnerable.

He clasped Starsky’s hand, and studied the softness and strength of Starsky’s fingers, and the appealing shapes of his nails. The touch was surreal, too, because he’d once, quite recently, had to give up ever caressing that beauty again. “Just please don’t ever leave me,” he said above a whisper. That’s all he truly wanted to say.

“I have nowhere to go,” Starsky replied.

It wasn’t the answer Hutch wanted. He pursed his lips. He’d said more than he planned and he’d said enough. The internal struggle was his own—and of his own making—so it wasn’t necessary that Starsky answer any other way. Hutch simply wanted to be heard.

And Starsky did his best to hear him. “Okay … and, um, if I go anywhere, I’m taking you with me. Do you need me to say more than that?”

“No,” Hutch replied, trying a smile; no doubt Starsky could tell it wasn’t nearly as sincere as he strove for, but it was all Hutch could manage in that moment. “Words are just words anyway.” When he stood, Starsky didn’t let go of his hand; he clasped Hutch’s fingers in his own.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked Hutch, tugging at him.

“It means … that … in the end,” Hutch concluded, at least for then, “I have what I need—and shame on me for wanting anything else.”

* * *

“I’ve never told you before how beautiful I think you are.”

They were content beside each other on the mattress in the master bedroom. It was mid-morning and, as had been the case every day since their return from the Christmas cabin, they woke to each other’s kisses and caresses, their intertwined legs and arms, their heavy breathing and their sweat, their orgasms and their drift into thoughtlessness. As they revived, Hutch had gotten to his elbow to look at Starsky, to admire his sleepy eyes and hint of smile. And, oh, those thick, black eyelashes.

That’s when he couldn’t help but say something. “I’ve never told you before how beautiful I think you are.”

Starsky giggled. “You’ve said it.” The smile on his lips had broadened, but his eyes remained closed.

“I don’t mean the times I’ve told you I respect your intelligence,” Hutch replied. He squeezed Starsky’s shoulder when it seemed his sentiment hadn’t been as apparent as he planned. “Or the times I tell you I love that little boy charm. Or that I trust your integrity. I’m talking about …” He lightly touched Starsky’s eyelashes, first one eye and then the other. “You’re beautiful. Here and here.”

Starsky wiggled beside him. His silly gesture and his pleased expression conveyed what no words could.

Hutch softly lined Starsky’s thinner lips with the tip of a finger, noticing how they further turned up in the corners from the warm touch—and he included Starsky’s philtrum and Cupid’s bow in the outline. “Your mouth,” he said, almost whispering.

Starsky giggled again.

Hutch then traced the contours of Starsky’s cheeks. “Your whiskers,” he said, feeling their soft stubble beneath his finger, appreciating their blackness, how different they were from his own, how much more male they made Starsky appear. “Animal,” he said.

Starsky moaned in a comfortable, pleased tone. “Hmm hmm. You do love animals.”

Hutch gently pressed the mole on Starsky’s right cheek. “Your birthmarks,” he said, briefly touching the other on Starsky’s lower left one. He sketched the shape of Starsky’s head from his hairline to his chin, and then stroked the sloping length of Starsky’s nose. “I love your face.”

Starsky finally opened his blue eyes and looked into Hutch’s.

“Oh, and your eyes,” Hutch said when he spied them, as if he’d forgotten they existed.

He and Starsky were as snug as they could be against each other, warm to the touch, damp where their skin met. Starsky no longer smiled. Hutch had definitely moved him.

But Hutch hadn’t completed his portrait. His eyes followed his hand as he swept it over Starsky’s naked belly and chest, pretending not to notice that Starsky watched him. “I love the hair all over you,” Hutch said, “and I mean all over you,” but he didn’t jest: “Over your arms and the backs of your hands and on your legs and your head and your face.” He admired the darker attributes of his lover as he itemized them. “And the way the hair grows from top down …” He stroked Starsky’s chest to his groin in the direction of his hair growth. “The shape of your hands and your nails.” He squeezed Starsky’s fingers. “The muscles in your arms.” And he did likewise to Starsky’s strong biceps.

He heard Starsky inhale slowly and deeply.

“I love your nipples and your bellybutton and your sac, too.” He made light circles around those with a finger. “And, of course, your dick: hard and soft.” He wasn’t frivolous and it didn’t reflect in his tone, either. He meant what he said, without ridicule or humor. “I love your smile and the sound of your voice and the purity of your laughter.” He looked into Starsky’s eyes then. Starsky still didn’t smile. He was apparently speechless and he was shaken and he was captivated. But he did exhale an audible sigh.

“I love everything about you,” Hutch concluded. “You’re beautiful. And not just these things,” he explained, continuing to stroke Starsky, gently, softly, tenderly, over his arms and his hips and along his chin. “But in other ways, too: That fierce squint when you’re mad,” he said. “The white in your smile. The way you hold the steering wheel. How you walk with your hips, not your feet, first.”

Starsky laughed, a quiet sound. “I’ve never heard that before,” he said, summoning his voice after having been relatively mute for so long. “You’re going to have to explain it.”

Hutch searched the air for the right words. “Your hips move your legs,” was all he could articulate. “Your right hip moves forward and then your right leg follows; vice versa on the other side—or is that redundant?”

“I don’t know about redundant,” Starsky said, “but I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Because you don’t watch yourself walk. It’s a very … confident … sexy … move … from the hips down. Shows off your ass, too, which I neglected to mention—”

“Are you saying that I walk with my dick out front?”

Hutch had to think back over seeing Starsky walk in front of him, or even toward him, and settled on, “I guess you could say that. But it’s not a cocky walk, if that’s what you’re asking.”

They busted up laughing.

“You don’t think my eyes are too close together?” Starsky wondered.

“They’re a beautiful blue and fit your face.”

“Because my face is narrow … my eyes are close together.”

Hutch bent over and kissed each of Starsky’s eyes while Starsky receptively closed them for the touches. Then Hutch leaned back and admired their blue when they opened to look at him again. Only a few months earlier, Hutch thought he’d never see them again. How could they ever be too much of anything in a bad way? From their heavy lids to their bushy eyebrows to the cups of his lower lids, lined as they were in thick, black eyelashes, Hutch was enthralled by their blue beauty. “You have the most gorgeous eyes in all the world,” he whispered. He combed his fingers through Starsky’s hair to push it away from his face for a better view. “I’ll never get tired of them.”

“What’s made you full of mush this morning?” Starsky sleepily asked. He giggled again, obviously still enjoying Hutch’s attention, despite the sentimentality.

“I used to think I’m drawn to your look—after we became lovers—because I’m so turned on by you, to be around you, to know I’ll be satisfied by you,” Hutch explained. “I thought how you look to me is purely from what I get out of having sex with you. But while you were … gone … I saw you vividly in my mind’s eye … that’s where you lived … and would forever … and everything about you was beautiful, and none of it was about sex. Sex wasn’t anything I thought about while you were …”

“Dead.”

“I didn’t want to use that word.”

“It’s okay. I’m not dead. But that didn’t answer my question. Why are you all cozy this morning?”

“No reason,” Hutch said. “I was just lying here, looking at you, thinking about how beautiful you are—and realizing I’d never told you that before.”

“That’s okay, too,” Starsky fondly answered him. “I got a lot of that already.”

“A lot of that?”

“Comments like that.”

“I see.”

Hutch’s last two words were pivoting ones. He could tell right away that Starsky realized he’d said a careless thing, yet too late to take it back, or even to explain himself before Hutch got his feelings hurt. But Starsky’s sheepishness didn’t stop Hutch’s reaction. If it had, Hutch may have spared himself further pain.

“So I guess Grace told you things like that,” he said. “She told you you’re beautiful.”

Why Starsky said what he did next, Hutch would never understand, even with an explanation. Maybe Starsky said it to defend himself, or to defend Grace for some reason and somehow, or maybe he said it to punch back because he felt he’d been inexplicably punished for his already stupid comment. Whatever his reason, Starsky, too, should have kept his mouth shut—and spared himself further pain.

“Adam says things like that to me all the time,” he said.

Hutch could barely withstand the blow, but he physically pulled back in a failed attempt to ease it before it got the better of him and, in doing so, showed his hand. “Adam, huh?” he pretended to ponder. “Nice to know I’m in such good company.”

“But he never mentioned that thing about how I walk,” Starsky said quickly. He grabbed Hutch’s arm when he must have sensed Hutch would leave the bed.

His grip wasn’t strong enough to stop Hutch. “I’m glad I have one thing to call my own,” Hutch said, slipping away from him. He tried not to sound patronizing, but he probably hadn’t pulled it off. Best to walk away, a little trick he’d learned from Starsky over the years. “I’m going to shower,” he added, getting off the bed and heading to the bathroom. “You might want to do the same at some point.”

“C’mon,” Starsky begged him, “don’t leave mad at me. I was just letting you know your thoughts aren’t…”

He never did finish his sentence.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hutch told him as he closed the bathroom door, though not before he said, “I am happy to know you feel loved.”

* * *

For several minutes, several long, silent ones, Starsky was speechless. He sincerely didn’t know what to say to all he’d heard that morning as Hutch stood at the window and Starsky leaned his back to the door. It was a lot to absorb and to consider—so much that, when Hutch began to speak, Starsky stopped him. “Don’t say anything,” he ordered. “I need to think.”

He looked at Hutch, not really seeing him, while he rolled the conversation and the details of the past couple of weeks over and again in his mind, certain there was a much bigger picture at play. And, though Starsky didn’t know specifically what to say, he did feel compelled to be the one to lay it out between them.

But where to begin?

The only place he could think to start was with his own enlightenment—and not to defend himself, but to put their predicament into context, the way Hutch himself would do, the way they often did when investigating a criminal case with multiple leads and dead-end rabbit tracks.

Hutch came into focus. Starsky was cognizant of Hutch’s blue eyes and the pained expression on his face, and of his posture and his clothes, of his impatient patience and his wounded heart on his sleeve. So when Starsky spoke, he did it with a calmer, kinder voice. And he drew a deep breath to slowly exhale so he could relinquish his own anxiety and defensiveness, to ease his own guilt in the harm that had been done, and speak without bias. “Hear me out,” he then said. “No matter how badly you might want to say something, just let me get these thoughts out. I may never be this …”

Hutch couldn’t help himself. “Lucid,” he said softly.

Starsky didn’t smile, though he could feel the appreciation on his face and assumed Hutch could see it. “I may never be this lucid again,” he said, thankful for Hutch’s word. He was also glad he hadn’t been so obnoxious lately that Hutch would hold his thoughtlessness against him forever. Despite the understandable remorse Hutch felt from Saturday night’s indiscretion, obvious by the self-reproach that permeated his every pore, he hadn’t been fully accountable. That, Starsky knew.

“I’m not blaming you,” he said, “but I’m not blaming me, either, okay? Let me say what’s on my mind first.”

“But don’t miss my point,” Hutch begged him. His blue eyes were filled with a desperation to be understood and further forgiven.

“Let’s see how well I know you,” Starsky suggested. “Maybe I’ll surprise us both.” He shifted his weight to ease the pain of the hard wood at his back—and then began. “I do love Adam,” he said with conviction. “I care about him and I love him.”

“I’m not saying—”

“Stop talking,” Starsky firmly interrupted him. “You’re already in enough trouble. Keep your mouth shut and hear me out. I don’t want to say that again.” When he sensed Hutch’s surrender, he added, “Adam and I have a different kind of … brotherhood. We have history—and we have this terrible thing that happened to us, know what I mean?” He knew Hutch knew he meant the rapes. “He might be in love with me,” Starsky continued. “I don’t know. Maybe he isn’t. We’ve talked about how we feel … but funny how I can talk to him about our friendship, his and mine, much calmer than I can talk to you about yours and mine.”

* * *

“You’re a very sexy man, you know that?” Adam asked. He leaned across the bar table on his elbow to better face Starsky and smiled when Starsky smiled, though for an apparently different reason.

Starsky was only slightly embarrassed, but flattered, too. “So I’ve heard,” he teased. He’d heard it from women over the years, and from Grace, and sometimes from Adam, especially when Adam and he were drinking, as they were then. “But don’t let that stop you from telling it like it is,” he dryly added. He munched on a pretzel and gave Adam a wink.

“You ooze sex,” Adam said, on cue, and despite that Starsky wasn’t serious about hearing more. “You can’t help it. There’s just this way about you.” He looked Starsky over, wordlessly, and then desirously moaned. “Who wouldn’t want to eat you alive?”

“I’m guessing you would.”

“I have before,” Adam recalled. He affectionately squeezed Starsky’s fingers in his own warm ones. “Why can’t we do it again? I get that you’re straight, but it didn’t stop you once upon a time. You seemed to enjoy it.”

“I did.”

“But still not enough for another go?”

Starsky couldn’t help but notice the wanting look in Adam’s wise, blue eyes, but it wasn’t an invitation he’d ever accept. “Should you be touching me like that in a place like this?” he asked instead of answering the question.

Adam let him go, but didn’t change his position, sprawled as he was in front of Starsky on the table. “That’ll be the title of my memoirs,” he said, fancifully quoting in a singsong voice, “‘Should you be touching me like that in a place like this?’”

Starsky laughed with him. “Well,” he said, as if demanding to know, “should you be?” His inquiry was rhetorical and they both knew it.

“You don’t have repulsive thoughts when you remember what we did, do you?” Adam asked. “Looking back, you’re not ashamed of us, are you?”

“No,” Starsky said sincerely. “Not at all.” He knew Adam searched for a reason why he wouldn’t sexually play with him again. “It’s just that …” He genuinely explored his mind to reply with as close to the truth as he could, and then said, “I have to feel a certain way about somebody to do that with him, know what I mean? What you and I did was … an experiment … something I needed to do at the time, for me. You know that, right?”

Adam nodded that he did, but he still appeared to be at a loss for reasons not to continue with the enterprise; it was there in his anticipating eyes and in his hopeful expression. And it arrived in his words, too. “It doesn’t have to be a relationship commitment,” he said. “Just a couple of pals … pleasuring each other.”

Starsky would never forget the good he felt on Adam’s bed on that night some nine months earlier; it was his first time, after all, and it was groundbreaking on many levels. But the emotional investment wasn’t there, despite how much he’d come to care about Adam, or even loved him dearly as a friend. How to say that without hurting the man?

“Too soon?” Adam asked.

“Too soon,” Starsky echoed, striving for clarification, “from?”

“Having lost Grace.”

“Oh,” Starsky said in a whisper, caught-off guard by her name and the bittersweet memory it caused him. Losing Grace wasn’t the reason. Gaining Hutch. But how to explain that one? He drank beer, listened to the music for half a minute, and tried to figure out how to answer Adam. “I won’t do anything that troubles my partner,” he finally decided to say. That wasn’t completely the reason; the truth was, Starsky was in love with someone else, someone other than Adam, and he wouldn’t want to hurt the person he loved, but he also didn’t want, didn’t have desire for—not anymore, anyway—sex with anyone besides that person he loved. “He’s the one I live my life around.”

His disclosure didn’t alarm or move Adam; he didn’t necessarily read beyond the surface of the words. He casually ate pretzels while he delved deeper and not, Starsky didn’t think, to learn secrets that weren’t his to know, but to see if he couldn’t corner Starsky into another sexual rendezvous with him some other way. “Why would Hutch have to know?” Adam asked.

“There isn’t anything he doesn’t know about me,” Starsky truthfully explained.

“Yeah, but, he doesn’t have to know, does he? I mean, I’m not going to tell him. And if you didn’t tell him, then we’d—”

“I couldn’t not tell him.”

“Why?” Adam was seriously puzzled.

“Because he’s also my roommate,” was all Starsky could manage to say. To ease the blow or the suspicion his impulsive comment may have made, he added, “He and I have a routine and, if I break from it, he’ll want to know why. I won’t lie to him.”

“And if he knew,” Adam assumed, “he’d be livid.”

“He’d be …” Starsky almost said ‘hurt,’ which was true, but instead echoed, “livid.”

“I thought he’d kill me that day,” Adam replied, remembering the afternoon, months earlier. He lowered his eyes to the bowl of pretzels between them and seemed to shudder. “Then, when we all thought you were dead,” he continued, “I didn’t know what to do in regards to him. I know how I felt when I learned you’d been killed, and I was devastated. I imagined how he felt and … well … I bled for him. I sent him flowers and a condolences card, too, you know? Tried to put it into words, let him know I was there for him, if he needed me. I didn’t expect to hear from him, and I didn’t, so when I saw him at the service … I went over to him and hugged him. He let me. He even held me for a long time—and cried with me.”

It was Starsky’s turn to shudder. What his perceived death had put so many loved ones through was sometimes more than he could bear to consider—and to know how magnified it had to have been for Hutch brought quiet tears to his eyes even then. He ate a pretzel to cover for his unexpected and emotional reaction.

“Starsky,” Adam said with dismay, “you never saw a man more beaten down than he was that day. He was the walking dead, know what I mean? And when he sat up there at the front of the room and played the piano to pictures of you … oh, god, I thought we’d all die right there with him.”

“You understand why I can’t hurt him,” Starsky said, finding his way into not hurting Adam.

“Oh, I’ve always understood that you can’t hurt him. I’m just wondering why he has to know everything about your private life; what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him kind of thing. But you’ve explained it. You can’t lie to him and he’d know something was up—unless we sneak next door right now to the trashy motel and take 15 minutes. You could just say you had an extra beer—and we’ll each have one so it’s not a lie.”

Starsky appreciated Adam’s desire; he certainly understood it. And he was flattered by Adam’s attention and his affection and his want in that regard. They did have a unique relationship. There was a time when Starsky wasn’t fond of the idea of man-on-man sex and believed gay men were somehow less than men. And there was a time when he couldn’t have dreamed that he’d be sexual with a man, let alone a gay one, let alone just for an experiment. And there was a time when he couldn’t imagine that he’d be close friends with a gay man, one he shared most of his thoughts and many of his life’s experiences with, and that that kind of friendship could last as long as this one had.

But Starsky only had eyes for Hutch—eyes and heart and soul. Or that he’d be sitting there then, politely deflecting the advances of a dear friend of his, one he’d sexually engaged in the past, and the one who’d been his first male lover, while keeping silent on the fact that he was in a deeply romantic, extremely sexual, forever-life-committed relationship with a straight man. He didn’t want to lose Adam, nor make him feel less than respected, but he couldn’t bring himself to divulge the personal details of his life, not to that degree. And maybe that was the reason or at least part of it: to tell Adam that Hutch was his lover might drive Adam away.

“I love hanging out with you,” Starsky said. He enjoyed the beer and the pretzels and the music, too. “I like that we do this workshop every month and we help these guys and that we sit around after and shoot the breeze—like we’re doing now.”

“I won’t pressure you,” Adam promised. He sat back to a more seated position. “But I figured if I didn’t give it one more shot then maybe I was depriving us both.”

“I like that you’re older than me, too,” Starsky continued. He hadn’t really felt pressured; flattered, mostly. Adam was a good looking man, and Starsky was certain Adam could have anyone he wanted—just not this man. “It’s easy to talk to you about stuff. And you’re a good guy. You’ve taught me a lot. Knowing you were there for Hutch while I was gone, in the only ways you could be, confirms that for me. So you’ll just have to trust this: if I played around with you,” assuming he even wanted to, and he didn’t, “and Hutch found out, then we can kiss our friendship goodbye, yours and mine, I mean. You don’t want that, do you?”

“No,” Adam said quickly and emphatically. “God, no.” He broke eye contact with Starsky to avoid the shame that came over his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Starsky reached across the small pub table and squeezed Adam’s forearm. “C’mon,” he advised him, holding him at length, “let’s not make this a bigger deal than it was. You have a right to ask me for anything; that’s what friends do—and I have a right to answer best way I can. Do we agree on that?”

Adam nodded, expressing his appreciation for Starsky’s forgiveness—and his affection, too. Playfully, he asked, “But should you be touching me like that in a place like this?”

And they busted up laughing, but not before a flash of mutual understanding, acceptance, and a silent commitment to their own special bond was reaffirmed between them.

* * *

“Everything I do,” Starsky said, “centers around you. Everything.”

Hutch’s posture had since relaxed. He set his back to the window frame and seemed to resign himself to his silence—as per Starsky’s request. He would continue to listen, as instructed, and wait until it was his turn to speak. During that time, he didn’t break eye contact, either.

“Everything I think,” Starsky said, “and everything I feel … it all comes back to you. It always has—since the day we met thirteen years ago. We just didn’t know it then, or we knew it, but we knew it deep inside, as part of our DNA. And sometimes I’m aware of what I’m doing when it comes to you … but not all the time.”

He felt self-annoyed because he hadn’t been as articulate as he wished. “I mean to say … I’ve had opportunity and I’ve had, um, coercion to be with Adam, but it’s not something I’ve wanted. I can care about him and I can ‘love’ him and still not want to fuck him—or have him fuck me. The closest I can come to you relating to this is your friendship with Emma. She’s a past lover of yours and still a good friend.”

Hutch didn’t disagree.

“And those times when Adam has propositioned me,” Starsky said, “well, I didn’t feel a need to tell you about them because they … they just didn’t matter; his feelings for me aren’t important where you’re concerned, was my thinking.”

Hutch nodded that he understood.

“It’s just the way it is between him and me, that’s all,” Starsky continued. “When he was here a couple of weeks ago, I took him over to the Grace House so he could see what we’ve been doing and what we have planned. That’s all it was. He didn’t make a pass at me that night, even alone in the house there, because he heard what I told him about not wanting that kind of thing with him.”

Hutch nodded that he understood that, too. And appreciated it.

“We ended up sitting on the porch until four in the morning,” Starsky recalled, “and then wised up when we started to freeze our asses off, so we came back here to the house to say our goodbyes. He told me he loved me—and I told him the same back. I didn’t even remember I’d done that before you mentioned it.” He didn’t say what he did with any tone of voice to chastise his partner, just as an item of fact. “What was I to tell him? ‘Thanks’?” He didn’t mean to sound sarcastic then, either. “I said what anyone would say to a friend or someone they care about when that person says they love you.”

He could tell, from the way Hutch broke eye contact with him and lowered his eyes to the floor, that Hutch didn’t agree with him. So Starsky looked for another way to explain it. “What would you tell Davis if he told you he loved you?”

Hutch lifted his eyes and met Starsky’s again, but he didn’t speak.

“Seriously,” Starsky encouraged him, wanting Hutch to use words, “what would you tell him?”

Hutch shrugged first as if he didn’t rightly know, then gave it thought before he said, “I’d probably thank him for feeling that way about me—but I wouldn’t say it back, in case I got misread. Or maybe I’d say it more like, ‘yeah, I love you, too, man’—in a way he could understand what I wasn’t saying. But I can see now that Adam knows where you’re coming from—and he knew that before he said it.”

“If only I can get you to know where I’m coming from,” Starsky said, not unkindly.

“It seems his name pops up in conversation—more often since we got back from the island,” Hutch explained. “On Saturday, you mentioned him while we were in the hot tub—and then again at the bar that night. In fact, you brought his name up just a few minutes ago, before we even got into this conversation. And all of it is innocent and perfectly natural on your part, but—”

“But thoughtless of me just the same,” Starsky admitted, interrupting him. He wasn’t proud of his behavior, especially having learned how often he spoke of Adam—and, more specifically, when he did. “All I can say about that, Hutch, is that I talk about him because … well, because I can talk to you about anything. Anytime. And I don’t mean to be throwing this back at you, but when we were in Jade’s office and you eventually told us that you’re in love with me, you said then that you didn’t want me to change the way I was around you. Remember that?”

Hutch nodded, shamefaced.

“You said you didn’t want me to be ‘careful.’ I took that to heart. I’m the me I’ve always been with you—except now we’re in a different place and things do change, I guess, even when we don’t want them to. But the part for me that hasn’t been different is that I can tell you anything, including things about Adam. I guess I was wrong about that.” He didn’t intend to sound patronizing, but he was sure it probably came across that way, especially when he saw Hutch’s outward reaction.

Hutch sighed, frustrated, and looked out the window. He didn’t have answers, nor did it seem he wanted to defend himself, or argue a point.

“It’s the nature of the beast,” Starsky figured, trying to explain it for him. He studied Hutch’s posture; he’d gone back to appearing guarded again, ashamed and deservedly abandoned, and Starsky didn’t like it any more than Hutch probably did. “But I was wrong to bring his name up when we were in bed,” Starsky conceded. “It was stupid of me. And insulting. And thoughtless. I said it because you were sounding sorry that you hadn’t told me sooner all the things you said that morning. I wanted you to know it was okay that you hadn’t said them before, that I get things like that said to me from other people. But it backfired—and I’m sorry about that, really, I am. The last thing I’d ever want you to feel, especially when we’re in bed together, is less loved than I love you.”

Hutch turned his head and looked into Starsky’s eyes again. The pain in his face had diminished only slightly since Saturday night. He was probably hungry, too, Starsky imagined. And Hutch was, no doubt, immersed in a host of other sensations and emotions besides just the gnawing in his belly. In fact, in this instance, Starsky could probably read Hutch’s mind better than at any other time in their relationship. So he pushed off the door and approached Hutch at the window, leaning his butt to the sill so he could face his partner.

But Hutch wouldn’t look at him; he bit his lip to repress his feelings and continued to stare outside.

“Hey,” Starsky finally said to get his attention, as if he didn’t already have it. When his soft-spoken word didn’t get Hutch to make eye contact with him, he said instead, “Let me tell you how I see this, okay?” He didn’t notice any change in Hutch’s demeanor, so he assumed Hutch would patiently listen to him.

“I know you feel sick about this arrest,” Starsky said. “I feel sick about it and it didn’t happen to me; well, not directly, anyway.”

Hutch dropped his head to absorb the assumed blow.

“I didn’t say that to beat up on you some more. C’mon. I told you already it’s behind us. I’m just saying I know you feel sick about it. And I know you feel ashamed and embarrassed, too.”

Hutch laughed a huff of a laugh, a soft, impulsive sound.

Starsky knew how to read that as well. “An understatement, right?” he asked, momentarily lightening the mood. He was even proud of the word he chose because he figured it was one Hutch would have used.

“And then some,” Hutch said under his breath.

“Okay,” Starsky replied, “so we know that. But we also know how you got there. I do, anyway. As hard as you’ve tried to not let Adam get under your skin, you can’t help it. He’s a sore spot. It’s going to take a lot more time to heal over that one.”

“I know better.”

“Yeah, you know better, but since when does what we know and what we feel go hand-in-hand all the time, right? I took your word, which is your head talking, that he was welcome in our lives and—”

“He still is.”

“—but I can do better about not rubbing him in your face. Looking back, you’ve put up with me a lot more this past year than I’ve had to put up with you. I know that didn’t come out the way I mean it; we’re not ‘putting up’ with each other, but you get what I’m saying.”

Hutch nodded. “I do,” he said.

“I’ve disrespected your feelings,” Starsky reminded him, “right up until this morning when I mentioned Adam.”

“You said he told you there’s some kind of deadly virus going around.”

Starsky then remembered. It made him feel sorry again, too. “I could have said I heard there’s some deadly virus going around; I didn’t have to say where I knew it from.”

“I don’t want to get into—”

“I know you don’t want me to pretend, but—at the same time—I could be more … thoughtful. You’re a delicate guy,” he observed, not facetiously. “One of the things I’ve loved about you from Day One is that you care about things. But you can be tough, too, and mean when you want to be, so I fall for thinking you can take any punch that comes your way.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Hutch said, not condescendingly.

“But there’s a bigger picture here.”

Hutch finally looked at him, into his eyes, anticipation over his face.

“Things did change between us last summer,” Starsky said. “And we—yes, you, too—are stupid to think we could somehow have this new kind of relationship without all the bullshit that comes with it. Jealousy. Ownership. Responsibility. That’s what romantic relationships are, aren’t they? We thought we could rise above it.”

“We’ve risen above a lot of what’s supposed to be,” Hutch said.

“Yeah, but you’re the one who’s proven yourself in that way, not me.”

Hutch frowned at him. “I’m not asking for proof of anything.”

“You’re not asking,” Starsky debated him, “but it would sure be nice if you had some proof, wouldn’t it? I mean, you’ve given me more than just words in this romance between us. You put your money where your mouth was and built me a house out here. Then you didn’t want to get into the sex of it, but you did. Your word was no, but your action was yes. You didn’t want Adam around, but you accepted him. You accepted the rules of the relationship I had with Grace. You shared me with another person and, all the while, never judged me. There’s been no doubt in my mind that you love and want me. And only me.”

“That’s love, baby.”

“And you died when you thought I was dead.”

“A thousand times over,” Hutch softly replied, his words breaking when he spoke.

“But what have I done?” Starsky asked. He wasn’t flippant.

“Oh, c’mon,” Hutch countered him.

“No. I mean it,” Starsky said. He briefly touched Hutch’s arm to stop Hutch from saying what he expected he’d say and to be heard instead. “What have I done but give you words, hm? I walked over you with Adam and then told you what I did with him didn’t matter all that much; that, in fact, it was a mistake and to hell with your feelings. I told you I’d choose you if it came to you over Grace, but I didn’t have to make that choice. It was made for us. You have to wonder if I’m living with you because I want to live with you or because I couldn’t handle living at the Grace House now that she’s gone. No matter how I answer that question, they’re just words. Despite that they’re true doesn’t prove them, know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean,” Hutch said, then protested, “but I’m not asking for proof.”

“Didn’t you say that already? I’m just telling you that I can understand how your head says one thing and your heart knows another.”

Hutch didn’t argue that time.

“And I’m not saying I can prove myself even if we wanted me to,” Starsky said. “I wouldn’t know how, especially now that Grace is gone. I can’t prove I’d be with you over her. I suppose I could move back into her house and prove I didn’t come over here because—”

“Don’t go doing that,” Hutch begged him. “That’s just stupid. All of this is stupid. You don’t have to explain yourself and you certainly don’t have to prove yourself.” He pleaded with Starsky from just his eyes to hear him on those points. “I fucked up and I fucked up big time.”

“You did it out of love for me.”

“No excuse.”

“You did it because you’re afraid to lose me.”

“No argument here.”

“You think because you believed I was dead less than six months ago that somehow you’re going to lose me again—for real.”

Tears suddenly appeared in Hutch’s eyes, but he didn’t break eye contact with Starsky. He clenched his jaw instead and ground his teeth for a moment. A nerve had been hit and its pain was so great, he couldn’t hide it.

“Hutch,” Starsky whispered when he felt Hutch’s loss all over again. “I’m sorry, buddy,” he said. He stepped up then and took Hutch in his tight embrace. Hutch opened his arms, and they wrapped themselves in each other for a couple of silent minutes, both of them sighing and whispering their apologies, feeling each other’s muscle, strength, and determination.

Starsky pat him on the back when he reluctantly let him go and held him at arm’s length to look into his wet eyes. “But I wasn’t dead,” he lightly said, as if Hutch couldn’t tell it was so. “And just because you went through that terrible time doesn’t mean I will be dead any time soon.”

He knew Hutch didn’t believe him. How could anyone know the future?

“But you’re scared,” he added, “and I haven’t given you any solid reason to not be afraid. I need to do more than talk.” He began to place his hand over Hutch’s mouth to silence him before Hutch could utter a single word, but then remembered Hutch might be contagious, so he aborted the contact—a gesture not unnoticed by Hutch.

Starsky didn’t apologize for it. “I don’t know how,” he promised, instead, pursuing his objective, “but I’ll find a way to make you believe. Someday. I’m going to prove that even these words are true. You need this from me, to know I’m really here for you in this new relationship of ours, and that I’m here for you first and forever—and not because you don’t believe what I’ve told you, but because I haven’t given you any reason to believe. In fact, I’ve done just the opposite.”

* * *

EXHIBIT D

“Have a seat and I’ll make you a five-course meal.”

Those were words Hutch had never heard come out of Starsky’s mouth and would probably never hear again—and, despite that he didn’t believe a single one of them, he dutifully sat at the counter to be waited on in style.

“You have to be starving by now,” Starsky observed. After he popped two halves of an English muffin into the toaster, he poured more coffee from the pot into the cup Hutch had earlier used. “There you go,” he said cheerfully, setting it in front of his partner. “Course Number One.”

“Oh, I see,” Hutch replied in a hushed voice. He should have known better than to think Starsky would actually concoct something from scratch. He did know better, but he thanked Starsky for the steaming beverage just the same, and politely asked for creamer.

“Creamer?” Starsky echoed, dumbfounded, especially after not seeing any in sight. When he was told it was in the refrigerator, he opened its door and stood for a few minutes as if he’d been caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. “Creamer, hm?” he said several times, still not finding it. “And since when do you drink coffee with creamer?”

“Since I discovered soy milk.”

“Are you sure we have any of that?”

“It’s in the carton marked ‘SOY MILK,’” Hutch informed him. He hid his amusement. Enjoying humor in anything that morning went against the grain of the day’s mood, but sometimes Starsky was just too funny, without knowing he was. “It’s what we’ve been using for the past year as creamer,” Hutch explained.

“Oh,” Starsky said under his breath. He apparently found the colorful carton with the large S-O-Y letters sprawled across its front and brought it to the counter, reading its label to himself as if he’d discovered something alien to all things natural and couldn’t believe that it had lived in the refrigerator all that time. “It’s what I’ve been using, too?” he puzzled.

“You are the other part of ‘we’ in this case,” Hutch said.

“No shit,” Starsky marveled. “I mean, about the soy milk.” His eyes widened and he appeared wonderstruck. “Soybeans as milk?” he asked incredulously, “and in my coffee, no less?”

“Imagine that.”

“Nice trick, Hutch. All this time, you hid it in a creamer pitcher so I wouldn’t notice.”

“Not on purpose.”

“You hid the creamer pitcher,” Starsky added, snickering, when he failed to find that, too. Eventually, he found it on the lower shelf of the cabinet below the coffee pot, where it relatively belonged. The toaster popped its contents then and Starsky was distracted from his soy milk endeavor. He set the two slices of English muffin on the plate Hutch had earlier given him. “And here’s Course Number Two,” he said, sliding the plate over to Hutch, “and Course Number Three. Keep it down this time.”

Hutch tried not to laugh, but a light chuckle escaped him despite his best effort. Two pieces of bread, after all: two different courses, by Starsky’s standards. That, and Hutch had vomited his first English muffin that morning. How could he not find all of that amusing? Or maybe, because it was within the context of the past few difficult days, the comic relief was a long-overdue welcome—for them both. Still, he couldn’t help but seriously wonder what the remaining meal items would entail. “Thanks,” he said. As he searched the counter for jelly to sweeten his toast, Starsky beat him to the punch.

“Number Four,” Starsky said, pushing the jar in Hutch’s direction. He made eye contact with Hutch, saw Hutch’s repressed smile, and playfully winked at him. “I told you I’d make you a five-course meal,” he reminded him, mocking insult for not having been believed.

“You’re one short,” Hutch said.

While Hutch spread jelly over his toasted muffin, Starsky went back to the refrigerator and stood for a minute in the opened door. “I’ll find something,” he mumbled with certainty. “Hey,” he said, grabbing an apple, closing the fridge, and returning to the breakfast counter. “want to go to an early movie today?” He tossed the red fruit at Hutch.

Despite his no-appetite, Hutch caught the apple and took an appreciative bite. “Sweet,” he noted, chewing, pleased by the taste. “A movie?” he then echoed, but with some dismay. He didn’t feel up to eating, not really, let alone to embarking on something frivolous.

“We need to get away from all this serious shit for a while,” Starsky said, “don’t you think? I hear there’s some silly flick at the theaters about a guy who falls in love with a beautiful woman—who, unbeknownst to him, also happens to be a mermaid. And we think we’ve got problems.”

Hutch raised an eyebrow at him. “A bestiality film?”

“A what?”

“Sex with animals.”

“Well, aren’t you just full of antidotes today,” Starsky said.

“Anecdotes,” Hutch corrected him. “And you didn’t mean that word, either.” He ate his muffin and his apple and drank coffee before Starsky recovered from his pretend annoyance and was willing to talk to him again. “But I’m game,” Hutch reluctantly said. “You might be right: we should immerse ourselves in something else.”

“Well, we’re going to have to figure out things to do with each other for the next couple months. We’re ‘temporarily suspended,’ can’t have sex, so that leaves stupid movies … and whatever else we can think of to do with our time.”

The last ‘can’t do’ item on Starsky’s list intrigued Hutch; Starsky said it so casually, too, so Hutch wasn’t certain it was serious. “We can’t have sex for two months?” he asked for clarification; he knew he had to be tested for STDs, but he assumed he’d manage that task in the next week—and there was always masturbation, too.

“Oh,” Starsky said, no longer jovial. “That deadly virus going around the gay guys? … well, um … you have to wait two months to be tested in order to be in the clear.”

“Two months? Is that your regulation?”

“It’s standard procedure, I hear,” Starsky said. He didn’t sound happy about it, either, but then why should he be? “It’s some sort of immune disease they’re spreading,” he added. “Can’t remember what it’s called because it’s got several names and nobody’s sure what’s really going on. Let’s be safe than sorry.”

That part went without saying. “Okay,” Hutch said in a submissive voice. “I’ll do whatever we need us to do.” Two months would be a long time for them, the longest they’d gone without each other in their new romance when each other was on the same continent. How was he not to feel guilty about that, of depriving them both? “But … not even hand jobs?”

“I don’t know if you can pass it from a hand job,” Starsky said, “but I’m just saying, because it’s killed so many people now through man-on-man sex, that we be extra careful, know what I mean?”

Hutch chewed the last bite of apple before he solemnly said, “I know what you mean.” He’d certainly read about the deadly virus over the past many months, but he hadn’t cared enough about the subject to mentally retain the specifics, given that he wasn’t sexually engaged with other men.

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Starsky explained, “but we’ll survive. We can help the time along by going to an early showing of a movie about a fish woman.”

“Good plan,” Hutch said, trying to be supportive and uplifting, especially because he was the one who’d caused the sexual deprivation between them. But his internal feelings were anything but positive. He’d spawned so much damage—to their careers, their reputations, their sex lives, their futures. He stopped eating his muffin and stared at his plate while he fought for some elusive reason to feel deserving of Starsky.

“Don’t,” Starsky ordered him, obviously reading his mind. “We’ve got enough drama in the coming days with lawyer crap and court stuff to get through. You made a mistake and this is the price is all.”

“I can’t think of a bigger mistake,” Hutch argued, pushing back his remorse and his anger at himself just to speak those words. “Close as I can come to it is what I did with Kira while you were romancing her. I betrayed you then and I’ve done it again.”

“This isn’t that kind of thing,” Starsky contradicted him. The immediate fire in his blue eyes demanded that Hutch believe him. “And we got past Kira, didn’t we? hm?”

Hutch nodded, not able to say what swelled in his heart: his unending sorry, his unrelenting shame and unavoidable embarrassment, his undying love for Starsky, and his absolute gratitude for Starsky’s unexpected forgiveness. He would just have to find other ways to express the soul of his soul if Starsky wouldn’t let him break down and weep right there in front of him.

“We’ll get past this, too,” Starsky said with conviction. “And we’ll be the stronger for it. You’ll see. So don’t go crying on me, okay? You think you have to make up for something? Help us get past the next couple of months.”

* * *

They never made the early showing of the movie; Hutch fell asleep on the sofa not long after breakfast, so Starsky decided to nudge him into a theater adventure over an afternoon matinee of the film instead. In the meantime, he let the exhausted man sleep, standing for a while beside the sofa and gazing on Hutch while he slumbered, curled as he was into himself, lying on his side, eyes closed, his face on a small pillow. He deeply breathed in rhythmic peacefulness, a sound Starsky loved and subsequently missed hearing the past few nights. It reenergized Starsky, and he was able to let Hutch nap while he himself fussed about the house, cleaned the kitchen, made their beds, emptied garbage, among other things.

Could he fault those men for wanting to put their mouths on Hutch—on beautiful, manly, perfect Adonis Hutch? No, not really. And they were all probably intoxicated, too, and thrilled to have such a fine specimen of a man in their midst, one who was seemingly willing to sexually engage them. They took advantage; sure, they did. But could Starsky fault them? Perhaps all he could do, in the end, was be grateful that the musical chairs endeavor to fellate Hutch hadn’t gone longer, with more men on their knees in front of him, more men with their lips and hands wrapped around Hutch’s large, erect penis. That, and Hutch was probably too drunk to ejaculate, no matter how long the game had been played. Starsky was still the privileged one, the only man—to date—to orgasmically please his partner. For those things, Starsky should be grateful.

When Hutch finally opened his eyes a couple of hours later, he pulled back with a start when he made eye contact with Starsky. “Shit,” he whispered under his breath, settling into calm as quickly as he’d been jolted into full consciousness. “You scared the crap out of me.”

Starsky had taken a seat on the edge of the coffee table near Hutch’s head-end of the sofa and waited for him; he’d only been there a few minutes, so either Hutch heard Starsky’s quiet breathing, or some sound Starsky unknowingly made, a movement or a sigh, or Hutch simply felt Starsky’s presence, and it brought him out of sleep.

“Sorry,” Starsky said, as hushed. “Be glad I didn’t touch you then.” Luckily, he hadn’t been allowed to, so he was grateful he couldn’t; a hands-on waking would have startled Hutch even more. He flashed Hutch a tooth-filled smile. “Still want to go to the movie, the one about a man falling for a fish? Starts at two.”

Hutch lightly laughed and sat all the way up, dropping his feet to the floor. Their denim-covered knees touched, Hutch’s right one to Starsky’s left, and neither of them moved away from it. Hutch combed his hair with his fingers and straightened his slept-in shirt before he seemed to realize there’d been a question. “Yeah, okay,” he finally said. “I’ll do whatever.”

“We can have dinner after,” Starsky suggested. “In town. Our favorite diner.”

“Shouldn’t we have lunch first?”

“Lunch will be popcorn.”

Hutch released some sort of low growl before he said, “Okay, but no butter.”

“Then get your own damn popcorn,” Starsky told him. He stood. “C’mon. Let’s go.” He pushed Hutch’s thigh with his knee. “You got plenty of beauty sleep, so don’t bother ‘getting ready’ for anything.” He walked a few steps, turned back, and added, “Besides, I like it when you haven’t shaved.”

“Don’t play with me, okay, Starsk?” Hutch begged, not having moved from his seated position. He looked up at Starsky, into his blue eyes.

“How do you figure I’m playing with you?”

“Don’t make comments about how good I look to you when we can’t lay a hand on each other. So … which is it?”

“You know which it is,” Starsky said, the seriousness returning to his voice. “But I won’t send mixed messages, okay? Let’s go see a movie, get something to eat after, and then call it a day. We can have a normal night’s sleep, and maybe things won’t look so dark in the morning.”

That seemed to appease Hutch because he finally stood, stretched, motioned to Starsky that he was prepared to leave the house with him. But when Starsky reached the front door, he heard Hutch say behind him, “Wait. I have to piss first.” Still, he followed Starsky outside and, when Starsky skipped off the steps to the car, Hutch hiked to the edge of the porch nearest the driveway, and positioned himself to urinate into the bushes from there.

Starsky watched him from inside the opened driver’s door. “You’re an animal,” he said to Hutch, as if that would get Hutch to stop what he did midstream and use a bathroom instead. It didn’t. And he was sorely tempted to tell Hutch that, ever since Hutch’s unplanned romp in a gay men’s restroom, that he seemed nonchalant about exposing himself in public—despite that the ranch was relatively private and secluded—but Starsky bit his tongue instead. He’d circled back to humor on more than one occasion since Saturday night, and it really wasn’t funny, not at all. It was purely his own way of keeping ahead of the negative thoughts and feelings he knew the naked facts could trigger in him, a little technique he’d learned while he was stranded on a South Pacific island.

“You done yet?” he impatiently asked, in exchange for not saying anything tacky and frivolous under the circumstances. “How much coffee did you drink?”

Hutch ignored the question. He stood in such a way that, if Starsky looked closely enough, he could probably spy Hutch’s penis, but neither of them were interested in the show-and-tell. Hutch truly did need to relieve his bladder. When he was finished, he tucked himself, zipped his jeans, turned, jogged off the steps, and joined Starsky at the car. “You can’t pass judgement,” he warned him, “not after waking me that night in the cabin by peeing in an olive jar.”

“At least it was inside and in the dark.”

“Well, I either did it there in the bushes,” Hutch explained, “or along the road somewhere.”

“And yet no mention of our bathrooms,” Starsky replied, getting into the vehicle with him, “both of which are only feet away. You don’t have me fooled for a minute.” His impulsive comment could have been taken in more ways than the one he intended, which was that Hutch simply didn’t want to use a toilet because it was reminiscent of his recent bathroom indiscretion, so he covered for it before Hutch could take it personally, and added, “You think your piss is so pure, you can make flowers bloom from it, hm?”

Hutch looked at Starsky, too confused, it appeared, to say anything, but finally asking, “What’s with you?”

Starsky turned the ignition and the Torino rumbled to life. “Nothing,” he said under his breath. He had overreacted to himself; Hutch didn’t understand any of it. “Let’s just escape into the world of man loves fish.”

* * *

When Starsky noticed that Hutch merely glanced at the dinner menu and then set it aside, he couldn’t help but immediately ask, “Do you already know what you want to eat?”

“I’m not hungry,” Hutch sluggishly replied. He appeared apologetic over it, too, and slumped in his seat across the small table from Starsky, adding a forced smile.

“You didn’t have any popcorn—” Starsky recalled.

“Because you put butter on it,” Hutch complained.

“You could have gotten your own box.”

“I wasn’t hungry then, either.”

“You haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“I don’t feel like eating.”

Starsky suspected as much. “You have to have something,” he insisted. “How else are we going to be strong for this?” It was a hint at his earlier-in-the-day comment that Hutch help them both get through the next couple of months. “C’mon,” Starsky encouraged him when that didn’t seem to move Hutch, “be a sport. Eat something. For me.”

Hutch reluctantly picked up the menu to scan it more carefully—and Starsky did likewise with his own. Neither of them spoke during that time. The restaurant was relatively empty; they’d arrived late afternoon, right before rush hour, so they chose a booth at the back of the room near the window to watch passersby and traffic—in case conversation turned out to be relatively nonexistent. That was Starsky’s thinking anyway. Hutch did seem to enjoy the movie, at least parts of it, laughing out loud on occasion, and probably against his better wishes, but he was also somewhat reserved, too, despite the fact that the film had turned out to be a much-needed escape from the reality of their past few days. Maybe Hutch was just tired. Still.

When the waitress arrived for their orders, Hutch handed her his menu and said, “I’ll have a baked potato, no sour cream or butter, steamed spinach with garlic and lemon, a side of grilled asparagus … and, oh, can you bring me a small plate of seasoned and sautéed mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes, too?”

She jotted down his request. “Anything to drink?” she politely asked.

“Just water. No ice.”

Starsky stared at Hutch, mouth agape. “Um,” he finally said, stalling because he wasn’t sure whether to ask Hutch the question he wanted to ask, or place his order first, and ended up saying, “I’ll have what he’s having—but without the onions and with ice in my water.” When the waitress left, he fired off his inquiry. “How’d you know they’d even give you all that? I didn’t see asparagus anywhere on the menu.”

“You weren’t reading the fine print,” Hutch explained. “I search the entrees … find out what they’re serving with those, and go from there.”

“I see. Quite the detective you are.”

“Not lately,” Hutch mumbled, sounding ashamed. He avoided eye contact with Starsky then, and chose to look out the window instead.

Starsky studied Hutch’s posture and demeanor, and noticed his subtle, but deeper, accelerated breathing. Starsky was aware of the grey cloud that hung over them, but he wished they could get past it, at least for a day, to get their wits about them, be stronger and more prepared to battle the upcoming fallout. But he would need to cheer Hutch, if only a little—and, if not cheer him, definitely calm him.

“Hey,” he said.

Hutch continued to look outside.

“Hey,” Starsky said, in a larger voice.

Hutch turned just his eyes over to his partner, giving away that he’d heard him the first time. “Sorry,” he said, to apologize for apparently ignoring Starsky.

“Stop with it,” Starsky answered him.

“I’m sorry about being sorry then.”

“We both know you are, so quit it already.”

Hutch nodded, as if he would abandon the apologies, but only time would tell that one.

“I was thinking about the movie,” Starsky said, to steer the conversation immediately into a different direction, “and I realized what the moral of it was.” He deliberately sounded excited so Hutch would feel it with him.

“That it’s more fun to fuck a fish than to eat one?” Hutch asked.

Starsky laughed, despite himself. It wasn’t the feel he aimed for, but it was welcomed just the same. “Almost,” he said. “The moral of the story was that you can’t choose who you love—whether it’s a beautiful woman, or a beautiful woman who also happens to be a fish.” He paused, looked Hutch over, Hutch’s blue eyes and blond hair, the perfect shape of his face and his lips, the primal look of his unshaven cheeks and chin, his halfway amused expression, the checkered, open-collared shirt he wore, and his relaxed posture, and Starsky said, “Or a beautiful man, for that matter, too.”

Hutch shyly lowered his eyes to the table’s surface. “Well,” he replied quietly, looking back into his eyes, “I have been saying for some time now that you don’t choose who you love.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But what I’m saying is … that was the moral of the movie.”

Hutch nodded. “I figured that. We don’t choose who we love. It’s chosen for us.”

“Then you would have to agree that I’m part of that universal fact, and that, therefore, I don’t have a choice, either.”

“I do agree.”

“You just don’t believe the person I can’t help but be in love with—deeply and forever—is you.”

Hutch didn’t comment.

The waitress arrived to give them their drinks, making certain Hutch got the glass without the ice.

“I’m not blaming you,” Starsky quickly said to Hutch after she left. “I haven’t given you reason to believe it with all your head, not just your heart, not enough of it anyway. But I’m sitting here telling you that I never did have a choice in this matter, either; it just took me a lot longer to realize it.”

“You’re not culpable, Starsk,” Hutch said, making eye contact to drive home his conviction.

“I’m not sure how you mean that word,” Starsky admitted, “but whatever it means, I’m still not getting through to you if you won’t accept what I’m saying.”

“I’ve never believed you don’t love me,” Hutch answered. “I’ve never believed you won’t always love me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Starsky interrupted him. “It’s that you don’t believe I’ll love you this way forever. But I’ve loved you in ways you don’t even know I’ve loved you.” He didn’t mean to be impulsive with that last sentence, but there it was, out of his mouth and into Hutch’s ears. In his desperation to convince Hutch of his lifetime feelings for him, he inadvertently cornered himself in the pursuit.

On cue, Hutch asked, “And what ways might those be?” He raised his eyebrows at Starsky to solicit what he obviously understood was a comment Starsky hadn’t meant to make, and nudged Starsky’s calf under the table with his foot. “If you’re out to plead your case, don’t let me stop you.”

“Okay,” Starsky said, surrendering. He gathered his courage because bravery was required in that instance. He didn’t know how Hutch would react to his disclosure, given how close Hutch had been to the woman, but a number of years had passed since then, so maybe the sting wouldn’t be as painful as Starsky imagined it might be. “When you were romancing Gillian,” he began, easing into the words, purposefully noticing that Hutch’s expression hadn’t changed all that much from one of curiosity and expectation for an answer, and continued. “Well, after I saw her in that room at the massage parlor … I didn’t know what to do. But I did know I didn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Thank you,” Hutch said softly, and genuinely. “So …?”

“So I went to her apartment the next day … I took her some ‘investment’ money … told her it was start-up cash for the boutique you said she wanted to open.”

Hutch’s look changed; his brow furrowed and he sat slightly backward as if he’d heard something he didn’t quite know how to respond to. “And?” he finally asked, undoubtedly knowing there had to be more to the story.

“And I told her she needed to open that boutique,” Starsky confessed, “in Cleveland.”

Hutch held eye contact with him, firm, but not agitated or angry, more like he pieced the puzzle together in order to draw the conclusion Starsky wanted him to reach, which was that he loved Hutch that much, so much that he tried to end the most pain for him by spending his life savings in that way. Hutch was apparently speechless, too. His lips were parted—and he appeared to be in some degree of shock, as if he’d been hit by that proverbial fast-moving train.

“I gave her $1600 in cash that day,” Starsky added, to finish the story, “and told her I could probably get $3000 by the following week.”

They both knew how the day and night played out—tragically, in the end.

Hutch still didn’t say anything; he was lost in his silent thoughts, whatever they were, but at least he hadn’t overreacted, or yelled at Starsky, cussed and swore at him, beat him up verbally for the stupid or pivotal thing he’d done. Had Starsky not forced Gillian to come clean with Hutch, perhaps she wouldn’t have challenged Grossman; maybe she’d still be alive. The part Starsky didn’t like about that scenario was that, if Gillian were still alive, Hutch and he might never have the relationship they had then. But, as Hutch would say, ‘it is what it is,’ so Starsky abandoned his bad afterthoughts, though not until he said what he imagined Hutch had concluded. “I really didn’t know she’d confront Grossman. I thought she’d do what I thought was the right thing—and leave.”

Hutch closed his mouth. He broke eye contact. He searched the table’s surface with his eyes for the answers to his unspoken questions or for closure.

“I’ve loved you in ways you don’t know I’ve loved you,” Starsky reiterated. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Hutch lifted his beautiful, expressive blue eyes and looked into Starsky’s. He definitely wasn’t angry or enraged or wounded by the disclosures. The detective in him, no doubt, had come to the same end result: It is what it is. And, in this case, if he read Hutch’s expression correctly, and he believed he did, Starsky knew they both loved each other so much that no woman could ever come between them, not then, not ever again. It was unfortunate that Gillian had gotten killed, but not unfortunate that Hutch hadn’t gone on to love and perhaps marry her, and ultimately be unavailable to Starsky, to have a completely different life from the personal one they then shared.

That was also the honest truth.

“I can’t prove what I just told you,” Starsky said. “I don’t have a record of—”

“You don’t have to prove anything,” Hutch replied, harmless annoyance seeping into his voice. “Do you think I don’t believe you?”

“But how can you believe me about that and not believe me that you’re it, always and forever and completely and …”

“Because …”

“Yeah. Never mind. Forget I asked. I know why. Since we entered this romance, I’ve had one boy lover and one girl lover slash wife. I still have some proving to do.”

“You know that will only make me feel shittier, right? Don’t go paying Adam off.”

Starsky didn’t comment.

“Promise me?” Hutch asked.

Reluctantly, Starsky gave in. “Promised. But you see what I’m saying, don’t you?”

“I do. Really, I do.”

They gazed unexpectedly and affectionately at each other for a few minutes. In fact, the extended length of their somewhat healing eye speak would have lasted even longer had the waitress not arrived with their meals and inadvertently interrupted it. She set their plates in front of them, making certain Starsky got the one without the onions. They thanked her for the delivery, and then each picked up his respective water glass after she left and drank from it while they eyed each other over the rims. When Hutch finally broke a small smile, they set the glasses back on the table in a uniform action they’d innocently taken with each other—and then seemed fitting under the circumstances to enjoy for its comic relief.

“One thing I can say about that island,” Starsky sarcastically observed, stabbing some of the seasoned mixture of mushrooms and tomatoes on his fork, “it wasn’t this full of drama.”

“That says a lot,” Hutch replied. “Maybe we should head there instead of Bolivia.”

“What? And not get to see a bona fide llama in my lifetime?”

“They have those in the zoo.”

“You won’t let me go to the zoo.”

“A minor point.”

Starsky playfully snarled at him. And just as he was about to eat what was on his fork, he noticed that Hutch had poured his small bowl of sautéed vegetables over his opened baked potato, along with its cooking oil, and salted it to taste.

Hutch looked up at him when he evidently sensed Starsky’s hesitation. “What?” he gently asked.

Starsky knocked the food off his fork and back into his bowl, and followed Hutch’s example to douse his entrée in the mushrooms and tomatoes; the oil and vegetables would moisten the otherwise dry potato. He was impressed by the colorful and appetizing dish before him. But then he looked at Hutch. “You’re weird,” he decided.

“And yet imitation is a form of flattery.”

“I didn’t say you were weird in a bad way.”

“It was implied.”

“Nope,” Starsky insisted. “Beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder.” He winked at Hutch. “I behold you. And you, my friend, are goddamn gorgeous.”

* * *

“Hey, Hutch?”

Hutch nearly slid past the open bedroom door, but grabbed the doorframe in time to stop in his tracks when he heard his name. He then leaned in the doorway, expectantly waiting to hear more.

“Are you going to sleep with me tonight?” Starsky asked him. He was already in bed, undressed and under the covers, with both side lamp lights on, much the way he’d been living at the house since his return from Tetepare. He’d waited patiently for Hutch, but slowly realized Hutch may have thought he was still relegated to the other bedroom—given Starsky’s ‘no-touch policy’ and his anger. Starsky wanted to stop Hutch from getting comfortable in another bed, lest he couldn’t talk his partner back into their own.

Hutch looked the bedroom over, as if he hadn’t heard the question clearly, and finally made eye contact with Starsky. “You want me to sleep in here tonight?” he wondered.

“Yeah,” Starsky said. “Don’t you want to be in here tonight, too?” He didn’t like sleeping the past few nights without his partner by his side, and he knew they couldn’t play with each other, but at least they’d be together. He was done being angry and hurt. “C’mon,” he encouraged him, as if Hutch needed encouragement; after all, it was Starsky who made Hutch sleep in the other room. “Come to bed. It’s lonely here without you.”

Hutch pushed off the doorframe and pulled his sweater over his head as he walked to his side of the mattress, then tossed it on the nearby armchair. When he reached the bed, he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, removed and tossed them, too. All the while, Starsky watched him, grateful to see his lover in the nude, his uninhibited beauty and strength, and to feel his presence when he joined Starsky under the blankets. But when Starsky stole that last-second glance at Hutch’s flaccid penis, sheathed and unassuming, he was inexplicably agitated. He turned his head to stare at the ceiling and defuse his sexual energy that way instead of torturing himself with the otherwise erotic view. Maybe it was the reminder of the predicament they were in. Or maybe it was as simple as his disappointment for not being able to sexually engage the man, especially after having gone days without. Maybe Starsky was still irritated at Hutch from what Hutch deprived them both. He exhaled long. He didn’t want to start an argument or convey a hostility that would serve neither of them; ultimately, he was relieved to have Hutch back in the bed with him.

And he was all the more glad to be reunited when he finally turned his head against his pillow and unexpectedly found Hutch’s crystal blue eyes watching him. Hutch lay on his side, facing him, hugging his own pillow, and tried a smile when Starsky acknowledged him with a friendly “hello.”

“Hiya,” Hutch said in a whisper.

They looked into each other’s eyes for a minute.

Starsky couldn’t have been more relieved to have Hutch back where Hutch belonged, to see that beautiful, perfect face, bared shoulders, white sheet against his darker skin, the circling edge of his nipple behind the muscle of his upper arm … and none of it Starsky could touch. So, instead, he asked, “Wanna play cards?”

Hutch broke a laugh. “Is that like asking me if I want to drive your car?”

“Driving my car is a privilege.”

“Says you.”

Hutch’s voice was soft, like warm, fresh, melted butter, and Starsky noticed it. He tried again to avoid wanting to touch and kiss the man. “Do you want to see a card trick then?”

“No,” Hutch said dryly. “That lounge act died years ago.”

Starsky laughed, despite his effort not to. “You’re no fun.”

An unplanned pause came between them—because they both knew how much fun they were together, and couldn’t be, not then.

“Okay,” Starsky surrendered. It was time to stop running. “I can just lay here and gaze wanting at you.”

“Lie here … wantingly.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m sorry, Starsk,” Hutch whispered.

Starsky knew Hutch didn’t apologize for correcting his grammar, but that he was sorry for having done something that prevented them from enjoying each other beyond the visual appeal. “Next time you do something stupid,” Starsky advised him, “do something that doesn’t fuck with our playing around, okay?” He didn’t even believe he could squeeze Hutch’s forearm; did that deadly virus seep through one’s pores? He’d read something about its ability to be ‘shed’ in skin cells. He shuddered then, too. Time to change that subject, as well. “Remember the first time we were in Dobey’s office?” he asked.

“The very first time?”

“Yeah—when he called us in to talk about partnering us?”

“I’ll never forget,” Hutch said. “I remember silently praying that he wouldn’t go through with it.”

“But you’re glad he did, right?”

“Of course I am,” Hutch replied. He, too, looked as if he wanted to touch Starsky, but couldn’t. He added, “because I know now you’re not as crazy as you came off then.”

* * *

“Captain Dobey,” Hutch said, extending his hand. “Ken Hutchinson.” They greeted each other with a strong handshake. Hutch didn’t think he was late for the meeting, but he was surprised to find Starsky already there, comfortably slumped in his chair in front of the captain’s desk as if he’d been there a while.

Starsky quickly rose from his seat and extended his open palm to Hutch after Hutch made Dobey’s acquaintance. “David Starsky,” he said, sounding pleased to see him.

“Yes,” Hutch said, somewhat annoyed, but firmly shaking Starsky’s hand, and not because he didn’t want to greet him, but because—“We’ve met,” he said. “We’ve even—”

“Right,” Starsky interrupted him. “It’s a good day for a clean slate.”

“Have a seat, boys,” Dobey told them.

Hutch sat next to Starsky in the empty chair beside him. He didn’t understand Starsky’s greeting, nor his cryptic comment about a clean slate, but he figured Starsky was up to something and perhaps he should see it through, whatever it may be, stupid or otherwise.

“I’ve asked you boys here,” Dobey began, raising his voice only slightly to get their undivided attention, “to consider partnering you two.”

“Yeah,” Starsky privately said to Hutch, “let’s see if he thinks we’re compatible.”

It seemed to Hutch that Starsky hoped he’d be partnered with him. That notion was strange because, though he and Starsky, and John Colby—having dubbed themselves ‘the Corsican Brothers’—were all quite close, Hutch just had a feeling that Starsky was better suited for Colby. Besides, the actual Corsican Brothers were conjoined, but separated at birth; there was always only room for two of them in their trio and Hutch never imagined he’d be one of them.

“Are we ready to proceed?” Dobey asked, speaking in a much firmer voice and was heard that time. When he got their heads to turn in his direction, he said, “This is an informal meeting, so relax and be yourselves.” He himself sat at his desk with his sleeves rolled to his elbows, his tie loosened, and not wearing a jacket. It was morning still, but he already appeared as if he’d spent a long day at work.

“He doesn’t know any other way to be,” Starsky said about Hutch. “You won’t hear bullshit from him,” he promised.

“Hutchinson,” Dobey began, but was interrupted yet again.

“You can call him Hutch,” Starsky instructed. “And you can call me Starsky. Hutch and Starsky. Kind of like Bogey and Bacall, you know?”

Hutch didn’t know what to think then, except to imagine that Starsky was about to answer every question the captain asked, whether it was directed at him or not, and to be nervously silly doing it. Why did Hutch need to be at that meeting at all?

“I’ve already heard from you,” Dobey told Starsky. “I want to hear from … Hutch.”

“Do you mean to say you’ve heard enough from me?” Starsky playfully asked.

“More than enough,” Dobey replied. After scanning over the paperwork in front of him, he said to Hutch, “Tell me where you’re from.” When Starsky began to speak, Dobey shot him a ‘Shut up or I’ll kick your ass out of this room’ expression, and then looked at Hutch again to wait for his answer.

Hutch tried not to smile. He wasn’t amused, but he was definitely entertained by Starsky’s excitement. “Minnesota,” he said, “and from a small town you never heard of. I came out west to—”

“Sing his songs,” Starsky finished for him.

Both Dobey and Hutch looked at Starsky, not so entertained, until Starsky pretended to zipper his lips, and then averted his eyes in mock shame.

“You hoped to enter the music industry?” Dobey asked Hutch, stiffly facing him as if to send the message to Starsky that he only wanted Hutch to answer. “Can you sing and play?”

“Guitar, piano,” Hutch said. “And I grew up singing. I’ve heard I have a pretty good voice, but I wanted to test it out here.”

“Just listen to the way he talks,” Starsky suggested. When Dobey silently warned him with a finger that time, Starsky defended himself. “I was just pointing something out, that’s all. Can’t I have an opinion?”

Starsky’s last comment did flatter Hutch; if Starsky thought he spoke with a ‘pretty good voice,’ his singing might be as good as he’d come to believe it was. “Once I began to play at local clubs,” Hutch explained, “I witnessed a side of the human condition I’ve always known existed, but never saw up close. I guess that was the biggest difference coming to the city from a small town. It made me want to do something more meaningful with my life—such as, you know, help people.”

“That’s admirable,” Dobey commented. “Why homicide? You could help people other ways.”

Hutch noticed that Starsky impatiently tapped his fingers against his knee, as if he was bursting at the seams to tell Dobey what he knew about Hutch’s life choices. It momentarily stalled Hutch, to think he’d be interrupted, but Starsky didn’t speak, after all, so Hutch eventually answered the question. “It’s the people left behind when a loved one is murdered who need to have someone held accountable. Those are the people I’m helping. No special reason, really. Solving any violent crime would give purpose to my life.”

“Do you have family, a wife? Children?”

“He’s like me,” Starsky said, “single and no kids.”

Hutch and Dobey ignored him that time.

“I was married until recently,” Hutch admitted, “but no children. I have parents and a sister back home. An uncle and a nephew somewhere. But, otherwise, I’m ready to go wherever the department wishes to send me.”

“It wishes to send us both here,” Starsky said, making eye contact with Dobey, as if they knew something Hutch didn’t.

Dobey clarified. “Well, that’s why we’re meeting, to determine whether you guys are compatible. Starsky seems to know a little about you,” he said to Hutch, purposefully sounding sarcastic. “How well do you know him?”

“I met him on the first day at the Academy,” Hutch answered, “and we’ve been—”

“He wants to know your overall impression of me,” Starsky said, interrupting him again. It seemed, by this latest interception, that Starsky didn’t want Dobey to know how well they knew each other—for some odd reason; maybe it was because they were too familiar with each other and their partnering could be misread.

“What is your impression?” Dobey decided to ask Hutch.

“He’s … fair-minded,” Hutch began, “and he’s smart. Really smart. Street smart. And he has a lot of energy and inherent curiosity about things.” But Hutch hadn’t forgotten how much easier Starsky seemed to be with Colby, outwardly more comfortable and natural with each other; those two guys had more in common than Starsky did with Hutch, including childish behavior. Hutch never planned to be partnered with either Starsky or Colby—which wasn’t the same as not wanting to be. “I think Starsky and I come from two very different backgrounds; he’s much closer to a mutual friend of ours who also went through the Academy, so I’m not so sure Starsky and I would—”

“Maybe that’s why we’d get along better,” Starsky debated him. “You’re peanut butter. I’m jelly. Know what I mean? Tell him about shooting the pig. Go ahead. Tell him.”

Hutch didn’t. He didn’t see the value in it. And the Captain might not appreciate it, either.

“Look,” Starsky said, sitting straight in his chair then, finding his adult voice, and pleading his case to Dobey without Hutch’s input, “the fact of the matter is … Hutch will teach me what I don’t know and I’ll teach him what he don’t know.”

“Doesn’t know,” Hutch enlightened him.

“See what I mean?” Starsky rhetorically noted to Dobey about Hutch. “This guy has already taught me something.”

* * *

“You know what you didn’t know about that meeting?” Starsky asked. He almost put his finger to the end of Hutch’s nose as they lay in the bed beside each other, just to be playful and affectionate as they gazed into each other’s eyes, but the threat of a viral infection stopped him at the last second. “Hm? Wanna guess?”

“How can I possibly know what I didn’t know?” Hutch debated him.

“Well, whatever,” Starsky said. “What you didn’t know was that I put in for that partnership.”

“Put in for it?”

“I filed a legal document to make it happen.”

Hutch was momentarily speechless. Puzzled, maybe. Not quite sure what he heard, but then he apparently deciphered it, and replied, “You wanted us to be partners?”

“From the day we met,” Starsky said proudly.

“You knew that from the day we met,” Hutch echoed with disbelief.

“Yeah. Like I said. From the day we met. So I filed this document, something called a Request to Partner, and copied it and took it around to all the precincts after I made appointments with their captains. I was going to get one of them to hire us together if it was the last thing I did. And I succeeded. Ta da! Look at us now.”

Hutch appeared dumbfounded, not just speechless. “You didn’t really do that,” he decided, speaking with a soft voice.

“I did, too. I can probably prove it. I suppose those places might still have that filed somewhere. Or you could call the captains who are still alive and ask them.”

Hutch’s expression also softened, became submissive and apologetic, for some reason. Starsky didn’t know why until Hutch finally said, “You don’t need to prove it, Starsk. If you say that’s what you did, then I believe you.”

Starsky thought he saw a wetness in Hutch’s eyes, too, but maybe it was simply the bedroom lighting. “Well, think about it,” he encouraged Hutch, compelled to have Hutch believe him with tangible evidence. “Run that first meeting with Dobey back through your mind knowing what you know now and see if it doesn’t make better sense, me being all … well … obviously hot to get you partnered with me. I’d done my homework, hadn’t I?”

“I just assumed you’d rather have partnered with Colby.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Hutch began to stroke Starsky’s hair or his cheek in gentle reply, but Starsky stopped him. “Don’t,” he said, not unkindly. “We can’t, remember?”

“Is this sexually transmitted disease we’re worried about as highly contagious as you’re making it out to be?” Hutch asked, disappointment welling in his voice when he had to drop his hand, “or do I still have some serious paying to do for my … mistake?”

“You think I want to go two months without a fuck?”

“No, I guess not,” Hutch surrendered, then pointed out, “but you did hug me earlier.”

“You weren’t naked. We didn’t touch skin.”

“I see. But, I mean, where’s the line in this risk?”

“I don’t know,” Starsky honestly replied. “Nobody really knows. Let’s just be safe, okay? I hate this more than you do because I’m not the one who got us into this mess.” Or was he? As soon as he said it, he realized his own culpability, and apologetically added, “I’m sorry.”

“I deserve the blame,” Hutch said. “I just didn’t want to not be doing this for reasons I could break you down over.”

“Then trust me, pal,” Starsky replied with a light laugh, “the second we get the all-clear, I’m going to jump your bones and seriously make up for lost time. I had it in for you since the very first words I heard you say. Isn’t that what I’m trying to tell you here?”

“That you wanted to fuck me from Day One?”

“Well, okay, maybe; who knows, right? Maybe it was secretly in me all that time, so secret I didn’t even know it. But, I sure did know I wanted to be your partner from Day One.”

* * *

Starsky was noticeably anxious when he took his seat in the classroom at the farthest aisle, the one closest to the window, that early morning in 1970. What could he possibly bring to the table that would qualify him for police officer status, let alone a homicide detective? As he nervously looked around the room, he couldn’t help but think his fellow compatriots had the brains, the book-learned biographies and college degrees, to make the grade. What did he have? Sarcasm. And muscle. It had worked beautifully on the streets of New York City, but California didn’t need smart-asses to supervise the crowds. There were fewer crowds, for one; it was an automobile city—that, and people just seemed generally more laid back anyway.

Their much older teacher, Sergeant Dennis Murphy, spoke with a certain command of the English language, even as he introduced himself for the first time to the room of wannabe policemen. There was an air of divine patience haloing him that Starsky didn’t think he could ever master, no matter how many years he spent on the effort. He felt out of place in that room, but his dream, his desire, to be involved in law enforcement in an official capacity, not just as the reluctant leader he’d become on the streets, kept him seated. He could reevaluate his enrollment in the days to come.

This first class had been billed as informal, and Starsky had arrived in casual clothes, as it seemed the other men had, too, but he was afraid if he spoke, even if asked for his name, that he’d come across as too inarticulate to be invited back to the next class. So he listened instead.

Murphy lectured at length about the importance of law enforcement, emphasizing that theirs was a noble cause of defending the laws of the land, regardless of the saneness or lack thereof of such laws, and he gave a few brief examples of vintage legislation that remained on the books—such as needing a permit to wear heels taller than two inches in Carmel, California. It got the laugh he wanted and served its other purpose of relaxing the room.

Then he said, “One of the best ways, in my opinion, to get to know one another, is to ask you certain hypotheticals, to reach into your minds, your hearts and souls, and see where you might shine.”

“Or don’t,” someone seated behind Starsky said. It was a distinctly masculine voice, but sort of giggly, too, and did as expected to generate another group laugh.

“So,” Murphy hypothesized, “let’s assume all of you are official officers of the law and you’re out on patrol when you come across a livestock trailer that’s been overturned on the side of the road. You learn that it’s a truck full of pigs that’s capsized, and the driver is all right, but one of the pigs, in particular, has a dislocated hindquarters and is squealing its head off. My question to you is: do you put the animal out of its misery and therefore destroy personal property—which is against the law, mind you—or do you enforce the law, clear the area so as to not endanger other motorists, and wait for the humane society or a veterinarian to take care of the injured animal?”

There was another collective laugh in the room and then an almost unison, “Respect the law,” cacophony of men’s voices answering at once.

That’s what Murphy wanted to hear, wasn’t it?

But Starsky didn’t say anything—because he was torn. He didn’t think he could bear to see an animal so wounded; wouldn’t that type of injury be a fatal one in the end? So why let the pig suffer? On the other hand, Starsky was certain Murphy wanted to hear a ‘law enforcement’ answer, especially given the speech he’d earlier made about the importance of a lawful society. So Starsky said nothing.

A moment later—when there was an obvious lull in the communication—one that came over everyone for just half a second—a somewhat soft voice on the other side of the room clearly said, and with conviction, “I’d shoot the pig.”

“Who said that?” Murphy asked, searching faces in the direction of the voice, as did everyone else. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Ken Hutchinson,” the voice replied, and the man with the blond hair and the blue eyes, the only one in the room with those features, also raised his hand to draw a confirming attention to himself. “I said, I’d shoot the pig,” he reiterated, as if he hadn’t been heard the first time.

Starsky could see Hutchinson from where he sat; he had an unobstructed view, and he was impressed first by Hutchinson’s answer, second, admittedly, by his appearance. Starsky had never seen a man with such blond hair, nor one as fair-skinned, or as tall, or as well-muscled, or as formidable in his posture as he was direct in his answer. That guy, Starsky thought, would make a respected police officer.

“You would risk jail time and heavy fines,” Murphy warned Hutchinson. “You could lose your gun permit—or, worse, your badge. Would you still shoot the pig under those circumstances?”

“In a heartbeat,” Hutchinson replied. “It bothers me that there’s a question in there.” He shrugged as if he didn’t know any other way to answer the professor except the way he had.

“With your sensitivity,” Murphy further asked him, “why do you think you’ll make a good police officer, especially one in homicide?”

“Sensitivity?” Hutchinson echoed, seeming to mull the word, then countered it with, “I see it more as a certain morality … to have compassion, especially in the face of the obvious. That, and I could sleep easier having lost my badge than to be forever haunted by the mental image and sounds of a writhing, squealing, mortally wounded animal on my conscience, and one whose pain I could have spared.”

Murphy addressed the other men in the room. “What have we learned about Mr. Hutchinson?”

The unanimous conclusion was that Hutchinson was a compassionate, ethical man, but that he might not survive as a police detective, especially one seeking to find work battling violent crimes.

Starsky saw it differently. When the replies to Murphy’s last question trailed away, he said into the silence of the room, “We’ve learned that he speaks his mind.” All eyes were on him then, but it didn’t stop his verbal observation, despite his anxiety for having been put on the spot. “Compassionate. Honest. Forthright,” he said. “What you see in Hutchinson is what you get. There is no bullshit. That would make him a good police officer.” In his heart of hearts, Starsky wished he and that blond were already police officers, even partners. He could stand to have a heart like that in his life—someone to guide the way, fill in the gaps, make up for what he never had, pull him out of his fear of abandonment and aloneness. And those thoughts and feelings startled him until Murphy interrupted them.

“Good,” the sergeant said, awarding Starsky with verbal praise. “Yours was the answer I was actually going for,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“David Starsky.”

“David Starsky,” Murphy warmly echoed, and added, “meet Ken Hutchinson. Brains meet heart. It’s a combination to consider when the time comes to partner up.”

Starsky didn’t need the professor to tell him that.

While Murphy inserted another hypothetical situation into the classroom for examination, Starsky braved looking over again at the blond Ken Hutchinson.

The blond then looked over at him with an unreadable expression.

They made silent contact—blue eyes to blue eyes—for the very first time, and not knowing how many more times in a lifetime they would similarly connect.

Or in what defining ways.

* * *

Hutch remembered that first day differently. He’d been flattered by David Starsky’s observations about his honesty, his compassion, and his forthrightness, and he couldn’t help but feel somewhat defended by the man when Starsky voiced those opinions to their professor and the rest of the class, but Hutch had gone back to concentrating on Sgt. Murphy’s hypothetical scenarios, and not paying David Starsky any more attention.

Or so that was his unplanned plan.

The universe had a different one.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hutch saw a subtle movement, one that made him turn his head and look back across the room, to where his line of sight collided with Starsky’s—and though Starsky was more than half a dozen rows away, Hutch could tell, even from that distance, that Starsky’s eyes were blue.

He and Starsky connected in their first visual exchange, both physically and unconsciously somehow. Or emotionally. Or in all those ways. Hutch would never be able to define it, despite his mastery of his native language. It didn’t unnerve him to make lingering eye contact with Starsky, to notice that another man in the room took notice of him; homosexuality wasn’t a concern in those days, not to the degree it had become, or would become by the mid-1980s. Hutch’s read of Starsky’s study of him seemed one of respect and admiration, not one of want and desire.

But Hutch never expected praise for his virtues—and he was too far away to say thank you. They broke that eye contact when the room exploded in laughter and there was a physical shift in everyone’s body posture—including their own. Hutch never looked back. Somehow, repeated eye contact with the stranger seemed inappropriate, despite that he felt a compulsion to make another connection. But he did feel Starsky’s presence in the room for the rest of that hour, and he was cognizant of his own stall when the class was finally dismissed, and that he took an extra minute to gather his belongings—for a secret, inexplicable desire he apparently held to have another moment of Starsky’s attention while, at the same time, he also recognized his own anxiety over that idea.

Starsky had to cross in front of Hutch to exit the room, so Hutch remained seated, pretending to organize his papers, and to see what Starsky might actually do when it came time to leave.

But Starsky didn’t cross in front of him to walk out the door. He instead weaved his way through the scattered desks, from his own to Hutch’s, pushing a couple aside as he did so.

“Hey,” Starsky said as he approached.

Hutch glanced up at him, felt shy and stupid, pretended to have only then noticed him, and silently chastised himself for not living up to his new-found reputation of being ‘forthright.’ “Hey,” he said in reply. “Interesting class, huh?”

Starsky stopped beside him, his hands buried in his front jeans pockets. “Maybe I’ll make the grade, after all,” he said, implying that the class was much easier than he anticipated.

Hutch shoved his papers into the large manila envelope and tied the string around the clasp. “It probably gets tougher as it goes,” he figured. He stood; Starsky gave him the room. “But I see you’re empty handed. Didn’t you take notes?” He still couldn’t look Starsky in the eye.

“I have a phonographic memory,” Starsky said.

Hutch laughed, assuming Starsky had joked with him, his comedic effort easing Hutch’s social awkwardness, so he could finally glance into Starsky’s blue eyes. Yep. They were as blue up close as they’d been at a distance. “I think you’ll be just fine here, then,” Hutch added. He took several steps toward the door; when Starsky followed, Hutch continued out of the room, leading the way. But he didn’t know what else to say. He had never been fond of small talk.

“Hey,” Starsky said, invitingly, “I’m going to stop at the cafeteria for some free coffee. Can I get you one?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hutch said. He’d rather have a beer to calm his underlying anxiousness, but a coffee was probably all they’d get in the academy’s cafeteria, and he wasn’t comfortable suggesting otherwise. “I have time to kill.”

Together, they walked along the hall corridor, side-by-side.

Hutch was preoccupied at times with his internal discomfort; he didn’t feel physically threatened by Starsky, not in any way, but he couldn’t explain the emotions that swam in his veins. They felt more like the kind he had on a first date.

“Yeah, about that,” Starsky said, as if they’d actually conversed about something profound when neither of them had said anything of the sort, and then asked, “Would you really shoot the pig?”

“I would really shoot the pig,” Hutch admitted. Apparently the conversation in Starsky’s mind was profound.

“So don’t you think maybe you like animals more than you’d like to be a police detective? Maybe consider being a vet or an animal control officer instead?”

“Are you hoping I’ll drop out of the class?” Hutch joked.

“God, no,” Starsky empathically replied. “Truth is, I’m hoping you’ll help me ace it.”

“Yeah? How so?” Hutch was momentarily impressed by Starsky’s certainty that he could do such a thing as help someone else graduate from the class.

They turned a corner in the hallway and could immediately smell the aroma of food ahead.

“Well, like Murphy said,” Starsky mulled aloud, “we’d make a ‘combination to consider,’ you and me.”

“Yeah,” Hutch said with a laugh, “but he implied you’re the brains and I’m the heart … which means your brains will help me ace the class.”

Starsky got quiet then, as if he realized his argument had backfired. After half a minute, he added, “Well, I think what the Sergeant meant was that we, you and me, would make a good team.”

Hutch didn’t comment. Why would Starsky—after less than five minutes of conversation—even care about a partnership between them?

As they entered the cafeteria, Starsky said, “Let’s say we get some coffee and be the ones to decide that, hm?” Excitedly, he made his way to the coffee pot, Hutch following. He watched as Starsky overturned two paper cups and poured the hot brew into them, three-quarters full.

“I just don’t want to be a cop like you see on The F.B.I.,” Starsky continued. “‘Just the facts, ma’am.’ Those guys are way too by-the-book, know what I mean?” He put the paper cups on a tray. “I like that you think things shouldn’t be so cut-and-dry.” He tossed sugar packets and creamer cups onto the tray, along with stirring spoons, and a couple of napkins. “I like that you would have shot the pig.”

“Who knew that could be an admirable task?” Hutch chuckled.

He followed Starsky to a vacant table in the far corner of the room. Maybe it was the flattery that drew him. It wasn’t the kind of stroking he’d been used to, given that it came from a man. Women’s praise was one thing; this ego stroke from a nearly complete male stranger was a whole other animal. He joined Starsky at the table and watched while Starsky removed the coffee and other items from the tray.

They sat across from one another when Starsky slid a cup toward Hutch. “I don’t know about admirable,” he mumbled. “Maybe it is. But it’s the right thing to do and you’d do the right thing even if it cost you. Well, yeah, okay, that’s the part that’s admirable.”

Again, with the flattery, Hutch thought. Still, he didn’t think he was being romanced.

“Where’re you from?” Starsky wondered. “Didn’t you say Michigan or South Dakota?”

“A small town in Minnesota,” Hutch politely reminded him. “Real small.” He set his manila envelope on the table beside him and then watched Starsky open half a dozen sugar packets and dump them into his coffee cup. “And you?”

“The Big Apple,” Starsky said. He shoved the tray away while he stirred his coffee. “But I suppose that’s a town you’ve heard of, hm?”

Hutch laughed. “Read about it a few times, too, I think,” he joked. Starsky’s energy was apparent, even throughout their brief conversation and their even briefer eye exchanges, but Hutch couldn’t help but assume the sugar high fed Starsky’s enthusiasm. “Some coffee with your sweetener?” he teased him.

“Now you sound like my mother,” Starsky said dryly. He opened as many creamer cups and poured them in, too.

“She still alive?” Hutch asked. “Your mother?”

“She and my brother, Nick. My father got killed when I was a kid. Line of duty.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Starsky shrugged. “Losing him made me grow up faster.”

Hutch decided not to tease Starsky about his obvious boyish behavior. “Like father, like son, then?” he asked instead. He realized too late that he implied Starsky would die in the line of duty, so he quickly fixed it by saying, “Was he the reason you want to be a police officer?”

“Nah, not really. But I do think I got into the idea of helping people out that way. I mean, I think it’s right for me, not because it was right for him.”

Hutch drank his coffee black, sipping carefully until it cooled.

“What about you?” Starsky asked. “What made you want to get into policing?” His voice was calmer. They’d broken past the initial small talk and Hutch felt them both relax.

“My father’s a preacher,” Hutch explained. “He helps people in a different way. I’m not much into the religion thing, so I have to find some other method. Or maybe I just like a good mystery.”

“Like Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yeah,” Hutch laughed again, “like Sherlock Holmes.” He did love to read Sir Conan Doyle’s books.

“And he was a detective,” Starsky noted.

Hutch realized then that Starsky’s original comment, about Hutch being like Sherlock Holmes, was actually an observation about Hutch’s interest in mysteries, the kinds of mysteries written with Sherlock Holmes, and not Hutch’s interest in being a detective. He was about to explain the distinction when he got sidetracked by another one of Starsky’s questions.

“Do you have any living family?”

“A sister,” Hutch said. “Both my parents are alive. An uncle and a nephew somewhere. Had a wife up until a month ago.”

“Oh,” Starsky said, almost in a whisper, pausing for a moment before a sip of coffee. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said solemnly.

“No need,” Hutch explained. “We fought more than we …”

“Right,” Starsky replied to let Hutch know he didn’t have to finish the sentence. “Well, that’s still too bad.”

“You?” Hutch asked. “Married, I mean?”

“Never.”

“Kids?”

“None that I know of.” He snickered and then apologized. “No, none.”

“Me, either,” Hutch said. He couldn’t help but feel that he was being interrogated—or interviewed—for a job. What did this guy want with him anyway? On the other hand, it might be advantageous to have a friend in the class. “I guess I’m glad about that, too, that I never had kids.”

They made a longer eye contact then.

Hutch realized his last comment sounded overtly personal, but it was too late to call it back. “What brings you out this way?” he asked, to return them to lighter conversation. “The weather?”

“It is nice,” Starsky admitted. “Nah. I came out to live with my aunt. Then I fell in love—”

“So you have a girlfriend?”

“—with the city,” Starsky finished. “No girlfriend. Not now. Too much to do to get my life moving in the direction it needs to go, know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said under his breath. So much schooling and more of it ahead.

“You?” Starsky asked. “Did you come out for the weather? Minnesota has to be brutal in winter, too, no?”

“Came out to try my luck in the music industry.”

“No luck?”

“Could be, maybe. But so many people getting hurt … needing help.”

“And pigs, too, I hear,” Starsky said.

Hutch laughed, despite himself.

“I bet you can sing good,” Starsky said. “You got a beautiful voice.” He held contact with Hutch’s eyes that time, somehow forcing Hutch to stay in the connection with him.

Did he have that power?

Apparently.

“I mean,” Starsky explained, “your voice alone is …”

“I sang at the church back home,” Hutch replied, feeling sweat break under his arms. “People seemed to like it.”

“Don’t they have a music industry in Minnesota?”

“Not like the one here.”

“So … you weren’t running away from anything, then.”

Hutch’s eye contact with Starsky turned more abrupt and firm. He felt the painful nerve that got hit. Maybe this chat in the cafeteria was an interrogation, after all, albeit harmless. “My father, probably,” Hutch finally said. “I thought it was time to grow up and leave home.”

Only after he said what he did, did he recall that Starsky’s father had gotten killed when he was young, and there he was telling Starsky how much he wanted away from his own. Hutch was never good at these first-time social greetings. To correct his perceived insult, he said, “I’m sure my father wasn’t as bad as I make him out to be.”

“Do you feel like he loves you?” Starsky asked.

That seemed like a too-personal question, but Hutch felt inexplicably compelled to answer it. “Yeah, I think he does.”

“Does he love you because of who you are or does he love you because of what you do?”

Now, that question was way too close to home. “And what’s your favorite sexual position?” Hutch asked, rhetorically, firing back. He could only be pushed so far and then he pushed back.

Starsky apologized. “I didn’t mean to intrude like that. Don’t mind me. I’m just looking to know you. I went too far.”

“On the plus side,” Hutch replied, to ease the blow of his self-preservation—for them both—and to calm his nerves as best he could in light of this man’s keen interest in him, “you’ll make a great cop. You won’t need me to help you ace the class. You already know how to ask the hard questions.”

* * *

“I didn’t realize you were so skittish about talking to me,” Starsky said. He watched Hutch’s blue eyes defensively roll, and quickly added, “I mean, you said you were kind of nervous about it.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Hutch acquiesced. “I wasn’t used to having that kind of attention.”

“Boy attention?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said with a light laugh. “Boy attention.”

“But I wasn’t coming on to you then.”

“I didn’t think you were. But …”

“But I was right about your father,” Starsky concluded. “And it’s still that way. He loves you if you’re a good boy, not because you are a good boy.”

“Yeah,” Hutch whispered. He appeared retrospective and even seemed to sink further into his pillow.

Starsky didn’t mean to sadden him. “Well, maybe I’ve made up for all the man love you didn’t get from him—and still don’t—the kind that says you’re loved because you’re a good soul, and not because maybe you followed the rules.”

“You’ve made up for it,” Hutch said softly, “and then some.”

“And you’ve broken so many of the rules,” Starsky gently noted, seeking to lighten the darker mood he’d caused. “So my love is even more …” He couldn’t find the right word, at least not before Hutch finished his sentence.

“Meaningful,” Hutch said.

“Yeah.” He wanted to stroke Hutch’s face to give weight even to that word, but then didn’t touch him. Maybe Hutch would feel the vibe of his desire instead.

“Precious,” Hutch said, holding eye contact with him.

“My love, you mean?” Starsky asked, not certain Hutch had heard his unspoken words.

“Your love is precious,” Hutch echoed. A shimmering light reflected in his blue eyes and everything about him in that moment seemed to melt. Even the amber night lamp behind Hutch haloed him, his uncombed blond hair, and accented the smooth and perfect line of his shoulder. “That,” he added, “and that you want so badly what I want right now, too.”

He had apparently read Starsky’s silent thoughts and felt Starsky’s desire to touch him.

Momentarily, the revelation made Starsky speechless. How well they could read each other. And for all those years. “I was right about you that first day,” he said. “I knew you so well in a matter of seconds that all I needed was to fill in the details—which came across to you as some kind of interview. But the heart of you, that I knew then. That’s never changed.”

* * *

EXHIBIT E

“Thank you for the details,” Dobey told Hutch. “I know that couldn’t have been easy for you.”

“It is what it is,” Hutch replied. He sat in the captain’s office, along with his partner, and the Internal Affairs agent assigned to the case, who just happened to be his friend. “As is my embarrassment and shame,” Hutch added, barely audibly, about things being what they were. And then he braved eye contact with Davis because he figured Davis was none too pleased to learn all he had, and it was time for Hutch to face that music, too.

But Davis didn’t say a word. He simply looked back at Hutch and waited, as they all did, for Dobey’s direction. In his relaxed posture as he leaned against the closed door, Davis seemed to pass no judgment, either way.

“Do you think more may have happened in that bathroom than you can remember?” Dobey asked Hutch on cue.

“I can’t say,” Hutch replied. He felt Starsky shift uneasily in the chair beside him, and hadn’t meant to send the message that more may have transpired in the men’s room that night. “But for the absolute life of me, I can’t remember anything else.”

“The bartender might be able to shed light on that,” Davis suggested. “He may know how long it was between cutting Hutch off and the raid. If it was only, say, ten or fifteen minutes between the two, then I’d have to believe nothing else, but what Hutch remembers, is what happened in there.”

“This is where I ask you,” Dobey said to Hutch, “why you believe you’re not guilty?”

“I never said I wasn’t guilty of my actions,” Hutch replied, breaking eye contact with Davis to look over at his captain. He was disappointed that Davis hadn’t responded to him; even a disgusted expression would have been welcomed—and deserved. But Hutch was also keenly aware of Starsky’s quiet patience beside him, too, and that calmed his nerves. “I said I wasn’t guilty as charged.”

Dobey ruffled through his papers looking for those legal complaints while Davis did his best to explain.

“A year ago,” he said, “when Starsky was attacked … Hutch and I read through all that penal code stuff, dissecting every word of it—and I’ve refreshed my memory these past few days. This area is definitely rife in shades of grey.”

“Yeah, well,” Dobey huffed, finding his notes, “some of it’s fairly black-and-white, too. ‘Public indecency.’ Hutch admits to exposing himself in public.”

“He didn’t expose himself,” Starsky argued. “Those guys did it for him.”

“He let it happen,” Dobey countered.

“But the law is specific to his motives,” Davis injected. “Some of this is going to be his word against theirs, and therefore no substantiating evidence.”

“Their word,” Dobey debated him, “will be to save themselves: they’re going to put it on Hutch, on his motives, on his actions.”

“Why don’t we figure out which charge is the most damaging to my career,” Hutch suggested, “and then I can plead guilty to three if they drop the one—and also spare the Department an embarrassing trial.”

“Which of the four charges is most damaging depends on which one is the most relevant,” Davis said, briefly locking eyes with Hutch. “For example, take ‘lewd conduct,’” he explained, addressing Dobey again. “It requires a touching action—on his part. If Hutch didn’t touch himself or another person, then he’s not guilty of that charge. The rest of that particular penal code doesn’t then apply.”

“He touched their heads,” Dobey reminded them.

“The law specifies that he’d have to touch his dick—or theirs. It’s a sex and genital charge. That’s my point: shades of grey. It goes on from there. He’d have to ‘intend’ to annoy or offend those around him; I doubt any of those guys were annoyed or offended. And then there’s a little matter of the definition of a ‘public’ place.”

“‘Public intoxication’ is more about a safety issue,” Dobey recalled, “and Hutch was so drunk he couldn’t mind his own welfare.”

“Maybe that’s the one charge that sticks,” Davis agreed.

“So what are you saying?” Starsky asked. “It’s all so vague and technically unsubstantiated that it won’t hold water in a court of law?”

“Possibly,” Davis said.

“‘Resisting arrest,’” Dobey noted. He apparently wanted to discuss the imagined battle on their hands from one side of the accusations to the other. “Those are police officer charges—”

“Against a police officer,” Davis said. “But they didn’t know that at the time. Maybe they wouldn’t have charged him with any of this had they known. But they can’t drop them now, not on those grounds. So he says he wanted to zip his jeans before they handcuffed him and they wouldn’t let him; goes to a welfare issue. They could drop that charge on those grounds and save everybody face.”

Silence settled over the room. Hutch noticed the dust that reflected in the sunbeam coming through the window behind Dobey. He allowed himself to drift away on it while he rolled the conversation through his mind. What did any of it matter, anyway? He was guilty of stupidity. That alone was something he should pay for, but it wasn’t worth losing his badge over. He shifted his eyes to Davis and finally got a reaction from his friend, an expression that seemed to ask, “Sounds like we have a chance to survive this after all, no?”

“Whatever happens,” Hutch said into the silence, “the Department will reprimand me somehow.”

“Suspended without pay is what we’ll recommend until the trial’s over,” Dobey said, “and you’re almost a week into serving that punishment.”

“So this goes to court,” Starsky assumed.

“Given the grey areas,” Davis explained, “I think that’s the only viable option. Let a judge hear it out.”

“And if a judge finds him guilty on all charges,” Starsky wondered, “is that the end of his career—and mine with it?”

Hutch clamped his jaw when he heard Starsky’s question. To damage his own career was one thing; to destroy both their careers was unforgivable. He looked to Dobey for reassurance.

“You were an innocent bystander,” Dobey answered Starsky. “You weren’t even in the building when Hutch was arrested.”

“I wasn’t talking about my reputation,” Starsky argued. “But if they fire him over this, guilty or not, I quit. That’s what I’m sayin’. It won’t have been the first time I left this place without my badge, but it will be the last. And not that they would give a goddamn, but just so you know going in.”

Hutch would normally have argued with Starsky, but there was no point, and it wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with others in the room, not even others he respected and cared about as much as he did Dobey and Davis. No doubt Starsky needed to blow off steam, too.

“Then maybe it makes it all the more critical,” Dobey said, “that we turn this around on the other players. Hutch is guilty of drinking so much he couldn’t defend himself; he was taken advantage of. This is a misdemeanor sexual assault, pure and simple.”

“Pure and simple,” Davis said, “but not cut-and-dry. Thirteen other men will testify against that accusation.”

“And I don’t want to make it, either,” Hutch said with heartfelt conviction. “Regardless of my ‘public intoxication,’ or maybe because of it, I am my own keeper. I’m responsible for my actions and for their consequences.”

“You’re too good a cop to go down over this,” Dobey complained. “Yes, it was stupid, but there are no victims—other than you two,” and he pointed at both Hutch and Starsky with a roll of his finger. “I’m going to pull out the stops to defend you. It may be all you have to save your careers. Your reputations are up to you.”

“I appreciate your support, Captain,” Hutch said, “but I can’t let those guys take the rap for something that, first, they never did, and second, I’m responsible for.”

“I’ll take this one step further,” Starsky said, getting to his feet. He approached Dobey’s desk, reached into his back jeans pocket, and removed his leather fold. “So long as he’s suspended,” he said, dropping his badge on Dobey’s desk, “you can suspend me, too. If anybody’s responsible for Hutch’s actions that night, it was me, because it sure wasn’t him.”

Before Hutch could argue, Starsky interrupted him to tell Dobey something completely off topic. “A friend of mine says he goes past the Newton house on his way to work every day and that he could easily make that drive from it to the train station in less than an hour. Pass that on to your other detectives. It’s a viable lead.”

He turned to face Hutch. “We’re done here,” he said. “Next step: the judge. In the meantime, let’s go buy your buddy Davis a beer—or an iced tea, if you rather—and then call it a day. I’m beginning to miss my retirement already.”

* * *

“You’ll have to ride in the back,” Starsky said. He pulled the seat forward to allow Davis into the rear. “We older guys have seniority.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hutch teased, climbing into the passenger front as Starsky got behind the wheel. “You’re the oldest among us.”

“How long have you had this car?” Davis asked Starsky.

“Ten years this year,” Starsky said proudly. “See?” he noted with pride as he turned the ignition and the engine came to life. “Still humming despite its age.”

“It does make itself known,” Davis agreed. “But it was a heavier feel to drive than I expected.”

“When did you drive my car?” Starsky asked. He shifted the gear to reverse and half-turned to see behind him as he backed the vehicle from its parking spot.

“I had to get it from the airport after you got killed in that airplane accident,” Davis said. “Hutch couldn’t bear to look at it, so I drove it from the city to the farm and put it in your garage for him.”

An unplanned silence fell over them at that moment until Davis broke it with a provocative question. Maybe he did it to ease the underlying strain. “You guys ever mess around in this car?”

“We’ve been known to sleep in the back during a stakeout,” Starsky told him, “but it’s been a while.”

“I don’t think he meant sleep,” Hutch said dryly.

Starsky hit the brake and looked sharply at Hutch as he tried to figure out, without asking, what else Davis could have meant. When it finally dawned on him, he made firm eye contact with Davis. “Hell, no,” he said, emphatically. “We’ve never messed around in here, like that, I mean. We’ve slept in the back, separately.”

“And often had fun climbing over each other to take turns,” Hutch recalled with a fondness in his voice. “You forgot to mention that part.”

“Brushed up against each other’s man parts?” Davis wondered.

Starsky looked at Hutch. “I wish you’d never told him.”

“Told him what?”

“About us.”

“What about you guys?” Davis innocently asked.

“You said you told him,” Starsky remembered, snapping at Hutch. He wasn’t serious about having been outed to Davis by Hutch during his two-month-long South Pacific stay; the banter was part of the cheer that morning. But he was alarmed when he realized Hutch had kidded him about Davis knowing their intimate secret. “You said Davis knew about us.”

“Knew what?” Davis insisted. He sat forward on the rear bench seat, closer to Starsky than to Hutch. “You guys wanking each other or something?”

Starsky held eye contact with his partner. He didn’t want to breathe a word until Hutch did. But Hutch simply gazed back at him, lifting his brow as if to say he didn’t know what Starsky wanted. Impatiently, Starsky asked directly, “Did you tell Davis that you and me are having sex?”

“I think you just did,” Hutch mumbled.

“You guys are having sex?” Davis wondered, not sounding as bewildered as his words implied. “You’re sucking each other off and stuff?”

When Hutch tried to repress his smile, but couldn’t, Starsky realized he’d been played by both men. “Assholes,” he commented under his breath. He finished backing out of the parking spot. “But to answer your question,” he said to Davis, “we’ve never messed around in this car, not like that, so don’t go thinking we left jizz back there. The only thing we’ve ever done in the back seat is sleep during a stakeout.”

It was only at that moment, when Starsky shifted to drive and the car began to move forward, that he noticed Hutch’s abrupt turn away from him. Hutch looked out the passenger window, and not the way he often did, which was casually and profiled to Starsky, but this time sort of suddenly and completely, so Starsky couldn’t see Hutch’s face. The turn-away was coupled with a slump throughout the rest of him, too, as if Starsky had said something stupid or insulting or hurtful, and Hutch wanted to escape him. “Hey,” he said to get Hutch’s attention, but Hutch didn’t respond.

So they left the parking lot before Starsky could concentrate again on his partner’s demeanor. He rewound the conversation through his mind. Hutch had seemed quite comfortable and even playful about the talk regarding their private relationship with each other. It was when Starsky said they’d only slept in the back seat during a stakeout that Hutch had reacted. What possible reason could Hutch have to find that disheartening?

They rode in silence for a minute before Starsky tried again to get Hutch’s attention. “Hey, Hutch,” he said above a whisper. When that failed to work, he reached across the center console and clasped Hutch’s sleeved forearm in a gentle, but firm grip—and he didn’t let go. “You okay?”

Hutch nodded, mumbled an “I’m sorry,” but didn’t show his face.

“It’s the car,” Davis decided.

“He’s been in the car,” Starsky replied. Hutch had even since reinstalled the sun visor and the sideview mirror that he’d removed prior to Starsky’s funeral. Was that the memory Hutch had just stumbled on? He squeezed Hutch to force a reaction out of him beyond words, and it did as hoped.

Hutch looked over at him. The answer to Starsky’s question was all over Hutch’s face and in his shimmering blue eyes, evidence of the painful reminder of the experience Hutch had endured, believing his partner was dead and buried—and the car his haunting ghost. “I’m okay,” Hutch whispered.

“All these times you’ve been in the car,” Starsky said, “and you’ve been all right. Why now? What did I say, specifically?”

“The back seat,” Hutch said, looking out the window again. “But I’m okay. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“The back seat? Did you rip it up, too?”

“I spent time on it,” Hutch said flatly—to end the matter, it seemed. His voice was somewhat muffled against the glass of the window he faced.

Starsky threaded the pieces together and came to the conclusion he wished he’d come to silently so he didn’t have to expose his partner’s emotional vulnerability. In the end, however, Davis was a trusted friend, so no harm was done, but Starsky still chastised himself for pushing it. He continued to hold Hutch’s arm, that time to let Hutch know he was sorry, too. He never meant to remind Hutch of his death—nor the times Hutch had spent alone in the back seat.

“Maybe he’d feel a lot better,” Davis said, presumably to change the mood in the air, “if you loved him at least as much as you love this car.”

Starsky appreciatively took the bait, despite how close those words were to the personal dilemma he and Hutch battled those past few days. “That’s just not possible,” he said jokingly. “This car don’t give me no shit, catch my drift?”

“I don’t know, man,” Davis replied. “I think you’d love Hutch more cuz I’m assuming this car can’t blow you.”

“Jesus,” Starsky said, laughing. “You cut to the chase, doncha?”

“But it’s got a stick,” Davis continued. “I bet you could blow it.”

“He probably does,” Hutch said in a low voice, attempting to break his melancholy and join the fun.

“And this is why I would go down on my car,” Starsky snarled. “In ten years, it’s never given me any crap.”

“I beg to differ,” Hutch said, glancing in mock contempt at Starsky. “I can’t count the times it’s left us stranded. Several times in a heat wave comes to mind.”

“Whatever,” Starsky grumbled. He was mostly happy to have Hutch’s lightheartedness in play again. “The point is, this car isn’t going anywhere—”

“Until he runs it into the ground,” Hutch decided. “I tried to buy him a brand new one for his birthday last year, but he wouldn’t bite.”

“There’s a lesson in here,” Starsky reminded him. He continued to hold Hutch’s forearm in his right hand while he drove with his left. “And it’s called loyalty. You wouldn’t have wanted me to trade you in for a prettier, younger model, would you have?”

“I don’t suppose so.”

“Yeah, Hutch,” Davis condescendingly said, “you eventually want him to run you into the ground, too, right?”

“You’re not helping matters,” Starsky said with a light laugh.

“One of these days, he’ll have to part with this car,” Hutch replied, “because he’ll have wrapped it around a tree for the last time. I just hope I’m not in it when he does.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Starsky complained in playful gist. “Besides, my car is going to last me another ten years. Maybe fifteen. You’ll see.”

“Good,” Hutch chided him. “I know I have that long before you enter into a permanent state of mourning.”

“But is it true, Hutch?” Davis asked.

“Is what true?”

“That you’re jealous of the car?”

Hutch scoffed and looked out the window for a while.

Starsky noticed that, too, that Hutch had withdrawn again. How close Davis was to Hutch’s real jealousy, and Hutch’s recent insecurities about how much and how deeply Starsky loved him, made the late morning’s banter rather bittersweet, and somewhat prophetic, too. He squeezed Hutch’s arm again, having not let go since he first grasped it, to send home the message that the talk that morning was purely to tease each other, and that Starsky genuinely did love Hutch—and more than he could ever love his car.

Hutch gripped Starsky’s forearm in silent reply.

And Davis must have heard what was unspoken between them because he was also wordless for a few minutes while they drove that surface street to the restaurant where they’d share some sort of drink. He sat forward in his seat and, no doubt, noticed that the men in the front touched each other, held each other in the only way possible under the physical circumstances of their culture. Then, perhaps to not feel excluded, Davis asked Hutch, “Are we still on for the game Sunday?”

Hutch looked over at Starsky, his compelling blue eyes seeking an answer, as if he needed Starsky’s permission, especially after all the frustration and embarrassment he’d put them both through since Saturday night.

“Of course he is,” Starsky said, without revealing that he knew Hutch sought him out in that instance. “When he goes to the games with you,” he further told Davis, “I get to hang out at the farm all by myself—and I can’t tell you how sweet that is to not have this big lug there to order me around like the hired hand, know what I mean? ‘Dig this hole.’ ‘Mend that fence.’ ‘Make me a sandwich.’ ‘Pick up after yourself.’”

“Nag, nag, nag,” Hutch pretended to mock him, under his breath. “Looks like I’m going to the game with you on Sunday,” he then said to Davis. “Let’s give Starsky his peace of mind.”

Perfect, Starsky thought. He couldn’t have planned it better had he tried—because he really did want to spend those few hours on Sunday at the farm—without Hutch.

* * *

“Goodnight, cowboy.”

Those were the words Starsky used to close out the day with his partner, that late evening after they buried themselves under the blankets. Normally, Starsky would have rolled over and turned off his lamp when he heard Hutch’s, “Goodnight, Starsk,” in reply. But, on that night, he didn’t. He didn’t roll over and turn out the light. Instead, he lay on his side, facing Hutch—who had already turned his back to him. He studied Hutch’s combed hair, its soft curl at the base of his neck, Hutch’s smooth skin, the way the sheet draped over his shoulder. Leaning gently away from Hutch, he was able to lift the blanket just enough to peer along Hutch’s spine, see the familiar mole on his lower back, then the provocative curve of his buttocks as they came into view.

The aching in Starsky’s groin made him abruptly abandon his endeavor and instead lower the blanket, sigh inaudibly, and return his line of sight to Hutch’s blond hair and his strong shoulder and the back of his head. Didn’t Hutch want it as much? Why would he be so stupid as to jeopardize the one unique thing they had between them?

Of course, Hutch would argue that it wasn’t the one unique thing between them; Hutch would find other things to celebrate. Their loyalty. Their trust in each other. Well, at least Starsky’s trust in Hutch. Hutch seemed to have lost some faith in his partner after Starsky’s sexual experiment with Adam. But Hutch would still say he and Starsky had an uncommon love for each other. There they lay, after all, in a bed together, sans the sex, but wanting the other’s company beside him just the same.

Hutch rolled his shoulder, half-turned, his profile to Starsky, his eyes open.

The move startled Starsky and snapped him out of his thoughts; he felt caught in the act of something. Had he been thinking out loud?

“What’s going on back there?” Hutch asked. His voice was whispery soft and inviting in its nature.

“Nothing,” Starsky said. He gave himself a moment to calm his beating heart, and then wondered, “Am I keeping you awake?”

“I haven’t gone to sleep yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because the light is still on. And because something’s going on behind my back. I feel it.”

“I’m wanting what I can’t get,” Starsky admitted, surrendering to his truth. There was no hiding from his partner. “And I don’t know if I should be pissed off about it, or…”

Hutch rolled all the way over, so he faced Starsky. “Or, what?” Their blue eyes met. Hutch’s were inquisitive and somehow sorry. And he appeared relaxed, as if he had all the time in the world to hear Starsky out—if Starsky had anything more to add than his pouting whims. “Or, what?” he asked again.

“Or … maybe I should just stop wanting what I can’t get. How do you do it?”

“Who says I have?”

“You’re bucking it up,” Starsky decided. “You’re going at it, like, like … ‘it is what it is.’”

“What other way is there?” Hutch said. “I fucked up and there isn’t anything I can do to change that.”

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed. He said it under his breath, wishing he didn’t have to. “I just don’t know how long I can go without, you know?”

“You went without for two months while you were on that island,” Hutch reminded him.

“You weren’t laying beside me,” Starsky explained. Couldn’t Hutch see the difference?

“Do you want me to sleep in the other room then?” Hutch asked. He began to turn away when Starsky stopped him.

“No. Don’t go. It’s just…” He looked at Hutch’s face, his bared chest, his nipples, the muscles of his upper arm. If only he could figure it out for himself, let alone for his lover.

“Maybe I should sleep in pajamas then,” Hutch said, obviously failing to read Starsky’s mind when he didn’t finish his sentence, but making an effort. “Or I could give you a hand.”

“I’m not sure that’s safe,” Starsky replied. It sure did sound nice, though. He felt the stirring in his loins again. “But, didn’t we agree no touching until you get the results?”

“And you’re sure I can’t get tested for two months?”

“Incubation period, they said.”

“Suppose I give you a handjob while you wear a rubber?”

Starsky about choked. “That would just make me feel pathetic.”

“Or really good.”

“Nah. I know me. I wouldn’t like it. It would feel weird.”

“Then why don’t you give yourself a hand?”

“I never have and I never will.”

“I’ll talk dirty to you while you do it.”

“I’m never going to play with myself.”

“It’ll be like I’m playing with you—by proxy.”

“That doesn’t sound exciting,” Starsky mumbled.

“Are you looking for excitement or are you looking for an off?”

Starsky laughed, and lost his ache, feeling frustrated and annoyed instead. “I’m wanting to fuck you,” he confessed, “and playing with myself is a long way from that.”

“What’s the masturbation hangup?”

“I don’t know.” He had never analyzed why he didn’t masturbate; he simply hadn’t, never did, couldn’t imagine himself wanting to. Even on that island, seven thousand miles from his lover, not certain when he’d see him again, and wanting a release sometimes, he couldn’t bring himself to masturbate. His friend, Daniel, had no problem, stranded as they were, and apparently needing that kind of sexual gratification on occasion. Of course, Daniel was younger. It didn’t explain Hutch, though. He’d never had an issue handling himself—and he’d been raised by a preacher. Maybe it was rebellion.

“Well, there isn’t anything physically wrong with you,” Hutch noted, “so it has to be emotional or psychological or both.”

“Some detective.”

“Are you a bad boy if you do it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Gonna burn in hell?”

Starsky laughed again. The irony. “If I was going to burn in hell,” he said, “I’d do it for fucking you and letting you fuck me. Playing with myself would be the least of Satan’s concerns.”

“If there was a Satan,” Hutch said. He obviously could never not say it. Those kinds of comments always brought out the ire in him. “So, do you think it’s nasty, then?”

“I don’t know, man,” Starsky lamented. “I’ve never thought about it.” He sincerely hadn’t. It just wasn’t anything he’d done. His sex life began at an early age and he never had difficulty scoring with women.

“Get a grip on yourself now,” Hutch suggested with a wink, “and I’ll walk you through it. We can find the answer together.”

“Not on your life,” Starsky promised him. “How about you just help me deal with the next two months, get back a negative test result, and then make up for lost time?”

“That is the plan,” Hutch said whimsically.

“So?”

“So, what?”

“So, help me deal with it.”

Hutch laughed that time. Yes, he’d already made the effort to help Starsky ‘deal with it,’ by suggesting that Starsky masturbate, or to let him, Hutch, masturbate Starsky on his behalf, using a protective condom. What other ways could Hutch help him sexually survive the next couple of months?

“Are you wanting me to give you permission for a surrogate?” Hutch asked.

Hutch’s expression had become pained, Starsky noticed, and he didn’t understand why. He supposed it lay in the word ‘surrogate.’ “How do you mean that?” he asked.

“Do you want someone else to play with until I get the all-clear?”

“You mean, do I want to have sex with somebody else while we wait?”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

“Fuck, no,” Starsky said, emphatically. He desperately wanted to put his hand to Hutch’s face, to stroke his cheek, to ease that dreadful look, to convince him, once and for all and forever, that he sincerely didn’t have desire for anyone else, not anyone else, not even when he was sexually frustrated and unfulfilled. But he couldn’t touch Hutch. That was the advice he’d gotten, to just play it safe for the next sixty days. There was no point to both of them contracting a deadly virus, the idea of which made him shudder even then. But what would they do if those gay men had passed on something as dangerous as what was going around among them? What would it mean for their lives, his and Hutch’s, if Hutch tested positive?

Starsky had to break eye contact with him to stop his thoughts dead in their tracks. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said in a whisper, not realizing he was thinking out loud.

“Which bridge is that?” Hutch asked.

“What we’ll do based on the blood test,” Starsky clarified.

“You mean,” Hutch said, seeking more clarity, “you might want a surrogate if I test positive?”

That’s not what Starsky meant. He kicked himself for being vague and giving Hutch another reason to worry. He was sorry for the entire conversation they’d had that night. If he’d just kept his desire and his want to himself, bucked it up, as he liked to say, accepted it as all he could do, they wouldn’t be in that moment of more pain and apprehension.

“No,” Starsky said, that time softly and with affection, using his sincere voice and the only words he could find to convey his seriousness and conviction, “I don’t want anybody else. Not then. Not ever. So, what’s it going to take?”

“To get you off?”

“To convince you that I’m hot and horny for you—and only you?”

* * *

“Adam?”

Hutch had pulled off the highway, parked haphazardly on its shoulder, and left his idling truck, when he realized the stopped vehicle on the other side of the deserted country road was one he vaguely recognized. As he approached the car from across the medium, he was certain the driver was Adam, Starsky’s friend. Adam Love. He’d seen the car a couple of times over the past few months—and that it was in the proximity of the farm helped to confirm his conviction.

Hutch hadn’t stopped out of suspicion, but because he was concerned; someone broken down on a highway out in the country wasn’t an ordinary thing, and always something that required assistance. When he reached the door to the vehicle, he noticed the driver’s window was down, so he asked again, “Adam?” That close, however, and he knew for sure it was who he thought it was.

“Hey, Hutch,” Adam said, self-consciously looking up at him. He was definitely startled by Hutch’s approach. At least, he appeared as much, and not smiling, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, seeming physically awkward, unkempt, disorganized, not rehearsed. “Hiya,” he further added, that time forcing a certain bravado and cheerfulness. “How’re ya?” He wiped his face, brushed his hair with his fingers.

“Are you okay?” Hutch asked. He himself was likewise disoriented by the unexpected meet on the side of the road. It was Adam in Adam’s car, all right—and not far from the farm, maybe less than a quarter mile. But Adam did seem, well, almost embarrassed to have been found on the side of the road. “Everything all right?”

“I’m okay,” Adam said, convincingly. “Just getting myself situated for the long drive home.”

“Nothing’s wrong with the car?”

“No,” Adam said. He cleared his throat. “It’s all okay.”

“Were you at the farm?” Hutch’s heart began to noticeably beat. He hadn’t been home since late that morning when he met Davis at the Sunday ballgame in the valley. It had ended early, but Hutch wasn’t interested in having a beer with his friend afterward. He wanted to get home, to be in Starsky’s company, the person he’d grown to feel anxious being away from. Davis understood.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I was at the farm. Just for a little while.” He turned the ignition. “But I best get going so I don’t have to drive in the dark.”

“Did you see Starsky?” Hutch wondered. He leaned on the door frame so Adam wouldn’t leave until he’d answered Hutch’s questions.

“Yeah, he’s okay,” Adam replied. He broke eye contact to look through the windshield. “He’s all right,” he added, biting his lip. After an apparent pause, he said, “He’s just fine. So are you.” He shifted the gear into drive. “But I have to go.”

Hutch didn’t know what to think; Adam wasn’t normally rude, but maybe Hutch scared him, especially to have been cornered by him, and given how he’d treated Adam the previous summer when Hutch confronted him about Starsky’s sex with Adam. Hutch pushed off the car. He didn’t want to intimidate Adam. “Okay,” he said, stepping back. “Drive safe.”

And, on that note, Adam drove away.

Hutch watched him until he disappeared behind the bend, and then he got into his truck to make his own way home. It was close to late-afternoon; Starsky’s car was in the driveway, where it was when Hutch had left that morning. Hutch parked beside it, killed the engine, and went into the house—with his stomach in his throat.

“Hey!” Starsky said in a friendly voice upon Hutch’s entrance, and following it with, “You’re home early.”

“You are the detective you claim to be,” Hutch said. He tried to sound friendly, too, cheerful, unsuspicious, but he wasn’t certain he pulled it off. “What have you been doing all day without me?”

“Nothing,” Starsky said. He didn’t leave the sofa to greet Hutch; they had agreed not to touch each other for two months, but they were clothed, and that had been earlier precedent, hadn’t it? Therefore, Hutch didn’t like the non-greeting he got. Why the stall this time?

He stopped beside the coffee table and gazed down at Starsky, looking him over for those clues he resented himself for fearing he’d find. “Nothing? This isn’t where I left you this morning,” he noted, hoping it would trigger a better answer than the one he got.

“Okay,” Starsky admitted, crossing his ankles on the coffee table, and affectionately tapping Hutch’s knee with his shoe. “You win. I went from the kitchen stool to the sofa. Are you calling me lazy?”

“If that’s all you did, then, yeah, lazy is as lazy does.”

“Good one,” Starsky replied. “We should use that line in our book.”

“The book I’m writing that I haven’t started writing?”

“That book.”

“Whatever,” Hutch mumbled. He waited. He gave Starsky a minute to remember that he’d spent some of that day in an Adam visit, and he’d mention it, explain it, put Hutch’s mind to ease.

But Starsky slowly became puzzled and withdrawn. He cocked his head at Hutch to elicit a reaction and, when that didn’t work, he asked, “How was the game?”

“Shorter than expected.”

“Obviously. Didn’t I say you were home early? But how was it? Good game?”

“Yeah.”

Hutch tucked his hands into his back pockets and looked about the room. Nothing seemed out of place. There were no wine glasses or alcohol bottles in sight. The sofa pillows weren’t smashed into their corners. But Starsky himself … Hutch looked back at him again … Starsky seemed quite relaxed and content, the way he might be after…

“Are you hungry?” Starsky asked. “want to go into town and get something to eat with me?” He didn’t sound excited, just hungry.

“Yeah, sure,” Hutch said in a surrendering voice. He really wasn’t certain what he wanted in that minute—except to know the truth, whatever it was. But to ask for it seemed inappropriate, untrusting, insulting. He knew better. Didn’t he? Hadn’t he been there before? More than once? Oh, how he hated himself in moments like that. He tore himself away from Starsky, left the room, went to the guest bathroom to splash water on his face, to snap himself out of his unrelenting insecurity and all-consuming jealousy.

But first he stopped in the doorway to the master bedroom to lay eyes on the bed, neatly made as it was, showing no signs of use, not even from the night before. He also looked in the guest bedroom to see its bed likewise.

He then splashed cold water on his face, repeatedly, and bit down on his self-loathing and his resentment. He felt a repeat of a day coming over him: his jealousy and hurt, his suspicions and insecurities, his fears and his apprehensions, coupled with another rendezvous into town for a meal or a drink, so he could, what? Get that drunk again? Do something as stupid again?

He heard Starsky’s voice in the doorway behind him. “You okay?” he’d asked, sounding concerned.

Hutch straightened and grabbed a towel to pat his face dry, and then looked over at Starsky, noticing how attractive he was in his open-collared shirt and tight-fitting jeans, his expectant expression and his absolutely sexy way of leaning against the doorframe, good enough to eat right there on the spot. How could Adam not want that man in his arms, his mouth, his body?

Hutch could only think of one way to avoid a repeat of a stupid day—and that was to confront it head-on.

“I ran into Adam,” he said. To ease the blow of his words, he tried humor. “Well, I didn’t run run into him; I didn’t hit him with my car. I saw him parked on the side of the road.”

Starsky’s expression turned to a deeper unease; his brow furrowed and he crossed his arms. “On the side of the road?” he asked.

“About a quarter mile from the farm—headed out.”

“When?”

“Minutes before I got home.”

“Was he all right?” Starsky sounded more concerned for Adam.

“He said he was, but he wasn’t comfortable. I made him nervous.”

Starsky nodded, shifted his weight. “He left here almost an hour ago,” he said, sounding careful. “I don’t know why he’d have been on the side of the road.”

“He didn’t say; just that he was getting ‘situated’ to go home, whatever that meant.”

Starsky slowly nodded again, wordless that time.

So Hutch stood patiently but helplessly in the room, holding a hand towel, waiting for Starsky to erase all of his bad feelings and his sorry again.

They looked at each other for nearly a minute before Starsky spoke.

“It wasn’t a plan,” he said. “I called him this morning and he said he’d be in the area, so I invited him out.”

Hutch felt the hurt wash over him. That he had to ask, that he felt a need to ask, that he couldn’t not ask, broke his heart that little bit more. He wanted to believe; he truly did, but his fear of losing Starsky was far too great, too overwhelming at times. This was one of those times. “You didn’t mention it when I asked you what you did today,” he said. What he really wanted was to beg Starsky to find those words, the proof, the ‘whatever’ that was missing, to convince him that there was nothing between Adam and Starsky that wasn’t there between Hutch and Davis, or even Starsky and Davis.

But Hutch had already done that stupid thing—the stupid, embarrassing, shameful act that deprived them both of the sex they had grown to love and expect from each other—and he knew Starsky was needy, needier than he himself was, and that Starsky may have thought a ‘surrogate’ was a wise idea after all. This, despite that there was no evidence he’d manhandled his friend.

“Do you suspect me?” Starsky asked. His voice was as low, as tempered, as if he, too, labored to keep emotions under control. “Do you think I didn’t tell you Adam was here because I had something to hide, or do you think maybe I didn’t tell you because I knew it would upset you?”

That made sense. It was the only thing that did. And Hutch sorely needed sense.

“Do I suspect you?” he said, mulling the answer before he voiced it. “No. I don’t. Am I afraid my suspicions are sound? Not really. But, if you ask me how terrified I am—despite all the words and the promises and the belief I have in you—that you’ll want to go somewhere else with someone else, yeah, I can almost measure that fear.”

“Then you ask me whatever you want to ask me,” Starsky said. His voice was firm. “I mean it. You’ve got questions you don’t think you should say out loud, but I’m telling you to.”

“Why did you call him?” Hutch blurted. The escape from his anxiety was there and he took it.

“To tell him I wasn’t going to make it to this month’s workshop.”

“Because?”

“Because we’re going to be at the cabin for my birthday. We, meaning you and me.”

“Your birthday’s on a Sunday.”

“We’re going to spend a week there.”

“News to me.”

Starsky rolled his eyes then, as if nothing he would say would be good enough, and he was at a loss. “Next?” he asked, sighing heavily, but standing his ground, and provoking another question purely from his posture.

“Adam was in the neighborhood?” Hutch asked.

“Oxnard,” Starsky said. “That’s the neighborhood, isn’t it? It’s a lot closer than the city.”

“And he came out this way, why?”

“He said he was on his way to the Farmer’s Market there. He goes every other Sunday. We’ve been. You and me, I mean. You know the one.”

Silence enveloped them.

Starsky waited, and then finally said, “C’mon. I know there’s got to be more. Let’s get this in the open.”

“How long was he here?” Hutch asked.

“I don’t know. Hour, maybe? Ninety minutes.”

“Did you drink or—?”

“No. Didn’t eat, either. Just hung out a while. Had a chat.”

Hutch could see the fire in Starsky’s eyes; he was determined to answer every question Hutch asked, and to do it truthfully, despite how it was read. Or misread. Hutch comforted in that notion. But he wasn’t done with the purge.

“Did you fuck him?”

“No.”

“Suck him?”

“No.”

“He do those things to you?”

“No.”

“Did you tell him you love him?”

That was the question to set Starsky off; he pushed away from the doorframe, apparently and obviously annoyed, maybe even angry. “C’mon, Hutch,” he said. “Enough of this shit. You need to get over it. And I’m hungry.” As he left the doorway, he said, “Come with me to get something to eat, or don’t, but you know better than this. My fault for opening a can of worms.”

And there Hutch stood, frozen in place in the bathroom, still holding to a hand towel, feeling the tremble throughout his every pore and his pulse race and his palms sweat and his breathing become audible and his heart break that little bit more.

* * *

They ended up at Mom’s Cafe, an eatery that had become an extension of their kitchen; it was located in the nearest town, off the beaten track, usually rather quiet at the time of day or evening when they visited, and always their corner table was available. That late afternoon was no exception. Starsky took the shotgun side of the booth, as he often did, so it was he who got to keep an eye inside the restaurant. Hutch didn’t mind. He rather preferred, instead, to watch the passersby outside the window, the traffic, and the sky.

But he wasn’t in the mood for much at all, not even a meal. He could tell Starsky wasn’t enthusiastic, either, and no doubt because of the confrontation they’d had before they left the house. The ride from the farm to the diner was filled mostly with silence—or small talk: The weather. The road work they passed along the way. How the ballgame ended early. But having to face each other across the table was an entirely different animal.

Hutch set his menu aside. A salad was about all he could eat, maybe with a beer. But drinking was probably something he shouldn’t do, given the state of mind he was in. He sat with his elbows on the table, hands folded in front of him, slouched against the cushioned seat at his back, and watched Starsky.

Those familiar, heavy lidded eyes eventually peered at him from over the top of the opened menu: piercing blue eyes, raised dark brows, that deep brown wavy hair tousled over his forehead. Hutch actually couldn’t read Starsky’s expression at that moment because most of Starsky’s face was hidden, but Hutch did know the provocative behavior was a mischievous one—and did its job to disarm him.

“Stop playing with your food,” Hutch said, to join in the silliness and release the knot in his stomach.

“It isn’t food yet,” Starsky replied, dropping his menu to the table. “So, what are you going to have?”

“I think I’ll just have a garden salad.”

“C’mon,” Starsky pleaded with him, frowning. “Eat something with substance, will you? Have some spaghetti.”

The encouragement did the trick, so Hutch said he’d consider it. “And you?”

“The baby back ribs doused in barbecue sauce, with a side of creamed corn.” But his straight face didn’t last long. Hutch’s stare broke it. “I’m going to have spaghetti,” Starsky said truthfully, “with mare-ee-nare-ah sauce.”

Hutch rolled his eyes when Starsky butchered the word. “Have some green with that,” he suggested.

“Okay. Two spaghettis with the tomato stuff and two garden salads. Beer?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll be all right. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

Hutch couldn’t laugh, despite that he wanted to; finding humor in his past misconduct would have diluted the seriousness of his ‘lewd act’ a week earlier, and he wasn’t entitled to water it down. “One beer,” he swore.

“If you want more than that,” Starsky said, “I’ll siphon it out to you in measured spoonfuls.”

“A spoonful is a measure, so that’s redundant.”

“In measured swallows then.”

Hutch looked out the window, mocking annoyance. On reflection, he’d have given anything to have gotten ‘measured swallows’ of alcohol that Saturday night. It would have spared him the obnoxious intoxication. He got lost in those regrets, momentarily, until Starsky’s question brought him out of them.

“I’m not helping matters, am I?” Starsky said.

Hutch looked back at him, into those blue eyes, that apologetic expression, to Starsky’s forever appealing appearance, his sexiness and his maleness, to the absolute preciousness of the man. “You’re not the problem,” he said sincerely.

“Adam is?”

It was questions and comments like those that made Hutch hate his insecurities all that much more. “I’m the problem,” he said. “And it’s kind of like …” He broke his hand clasp to follow the outlines of the squares on the checkered tablecloth with the tip of a finger as he searched for a way to explain it. All he could settle on was, “Remember how fucked up you felt when you were, um, dragging me into this thing with you?”

“So, now it’s your turn to feel fucked up?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said with a light laugh, relieved that Starsky understood him. “My turn, that’s all.”

“Then maybe you ought to do what I did when I was in that place.”

“What did you do?”

“Saw Jade, remember?”

Starsky had a point. A good one. A sound one. Speak to Jade. Jade would give Hutch direction, if nothing else.

“Besides,” Starsky added, “I’d love to give the guy an in-person hello, know what I mean?”

Hutch had called Jade from the Brisbane hotel not long after their arrival there from Tetepare while Starsky slept. Hutch couldn’t call friends and family fast enough, and Jade was at the top of the list, right behind Starsky’s brother, Nick. Nick had told him he would contact everyone who’d left condolences or attended the funeral; he remembered distinctly asking Nick to make certain those calls included Emma and Jana—and Adam. When Starsky arrived in the states, and after several days had passed in which he settled into the routine of being home, he made his own calls to family and friends—and one, in particular, to Jade. Hutch remembered how Jade had cried when he first learned the news of Starsky’s rescue, and then again, some days later, when he actually heard Starsky’s voice.

“Jade, it is,” Hutch said, convinced. “He’ll be happy to knock sense into me again.”

“I didn’t mean to invite myself, so I’ll ask you. Do you want to go alone or can I go with you?”

“I assumed you’d go with me.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“I want you to go with me.”

Starsky winked at him.

Then they ordered their meals—spaghetti, salads, and beer. While they waited for them, Hutch drummed the tabletop with his fingers, whistled under his breath, watched the goings-on outside, and pretended to not notice that Starsky studied him all the while. Finally, when he couldn’t take the scrutiny any longer, he stopped his drumming, shifted just his eyes to Starsky’s, and asked, “What are you looking at?”

“One fucked up dude,” Starsky said. He tried to hide his smile, but couldn’t. “But, hey, if it makes you feel any better, I think it takes one to know one.”

“Don’t cut yourself short. You’ve got a handle on life now.”

“Not as much as you think. I mean, I haven’t been able to unfuck you.”

“Or fuck me, for that matter.”

They paused on that notation. Hutch did intend to be light-hearted, but the underlying reason for their abstention hit them square in the face. “I’m sorry, Starsk,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to make fun.”

Starsky threw a sugar packet at him and hit him in the shoulder.

But maybe they should take a more proactive position on the matter, Hutch thought, because some things didn’t make sense to him. “This virus going around,” he said, easing into the topic. “It’s not airborne contagious, right? I mean, if it was, I wouldn’t even be here with you, if quarantining me is the objective.”

“Okay,” Starsky agreed, leaning back against the booth cushion. “So, what are you wondering?”

“Your buddy Adam used a condom,” Hutch said, sounding as unaccusatory as he possibly could, and mainly because he didn’t feel negatively about it, “and I’m assuming he wore one to protect himself from you.”

“He said he got regularly tested,” Starsky explained, “because he wasn’t always sure Kyle was faithful. Adam’s last test was actually about a month before I went over there, when Kyle broke up with him, and it was negative, but he said he should have gotten another test before fucking around with me, so he wore one to protect me.”

“Did he know you were safe?”

“I told him I’d gotten all those tests after the … rapes, so, yeah.”

Hutch was pleased to know Adam had been as adult about it as he apparently had been—and more pleased that Starsky was forthright in his answers, though his partner did appear a bit nervous about where the conversation might be headed. It wasn’t targeted at Adam, at least that wasn’t Hutch’s intention, so he broached the matter from a different line of questions. “Were you tested two months after having been with him?”

“Didn’t see a need to. I was only with him the one time and he used a rubber, the latex kind. Plus, I never even kissed him. And the only two people I played with after that was Grace and you; she was a virgin, and you’d been tested.”

“And you trust a condom—of any material—to protect you from something that dangerous?”

“If what you’re asking me is, Will I wear a rubber with you so we can have sex now, then—”

“That’s not what I’m asking.” Hutch didn’t like using condoms any more than Starsky did, though he’d do so if Starsky wanted sex with him badly enough to endure it. “I’m asking if—”

“If maybe I should get tested to rule out the effectiveness—”

“Or lack of effectiveness.”

“—of the rubber with my … um … sex with Adam?”

“That’s what I’m wondering.” Hutch also wanted to begin their lives on the other side of the scandalous ordeal he’d put them through the past week with as clean a slate as they both could manage. “And I don’t mean to be insulting or—”

“It’s a fair request,” Starsky said. He seemed to relax, to realize the conversation wasn’t about Adam, but about safe sex, and he was game to take that step forward, too. “So, how about I get tested right away? It’s been five months since I’ve been with anybody, but you. Grace, I mean. I mean, anybody,” he refigured, stumbling over his words. “I mean, the last person I was with was her, outside of you, I’m sayin’. And she was five months ago. Six, maybe.”

Hutch gave him a moment to say more if more was forthcoming, as if Starsky had confused himself and needed a minute to organize his thoughts before he spoke. But Starsky didn’t say another word. He gave Hutch a sort of meek smile under that thick head of dark brown hair, flashed an eyebrow at Hutch, and waited for Hutch to speak first.

“Are you done?” Hutch asked.

The waitress arrived with their salads and a couple of beers, apologizing for interrupting them, told them their spaghettis would be delivered soon, and then left them to their apparently private conversation.

Starsky picked up a fork, stabbed a slice of tomato with it, lifted it to his mouth, and made eye contact with Hutch—who still waited for the answer to his last question. “I have nothing else to say,” he said to Hutch, popping the fruit into his mouth and chewing. “I’m telling you I’ll get myself tested. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“Let me ask this again,” Hutch replied. He tossed his salad with a fork while he spoke. “Do you feel confident that condoms can protect us against something like what’s going around?”

“The latex kind. That’s what I’ve heard.”

“You heard that from Adam.”

“Yeah, okay, from Adam.”

“But it’s not something you’ve researched yourself.”

“I will if you want me to.”

“But you haven’t already.”

“Maybe we could do it together,” Starsky said. He ate his salad, slowly, almost carefully, as if he walked on eggshells, then seemed to brave voicing his thoughts. “But does it matter? I mean, we’re not going to use one, right? I don’t want to use one. Do you?”

“If they’re that safe,” Hutch said, “I want you to have the option.”

“I won’t be having the option,” Starsky said with conviction. “I hate those things and so do you.”

“How’d you ever survive not getting somebody pregnant?”

“Who says I did?”

“You didn’t?”

“Far as I know I did, but who really knows, right?”

“So, like I just asked, how’d you dodge that bullet?”

“Same as you.”

“The odds were in my favor—with one rare exception.”

He was certain they both knew then he meant Grace’s pregnancy.

“Yeah, okay,” Starsky said to obviously bypass it, “but are you judging me?”

“No, and I’m sorry it came across that way.”

Hutch didn’t mean to make Starsky uncomfortable, especially not since they’d opened that discussion, so perhaps it was time to close it. He’d gotten the answers he wanted, and he was pleased to know Starsky would be tested, that they both would be, so that their negative results would enable them to live their lives without such a threat—and Hutch would never, not ever, put himself in such a stupid position like that past one again. Further, Starsky knew Hutch was willing to engage a condom, if condoms protected them, if Starsky got so needy he wanted to change his mind.

The one thing that needed changing just then, however, was the subject.

“Should we put off having your brother visit?” Hutch asked, taking them into a different line of thought. He, too, slowly ate his salad, drank beer, remained as calm and as unassuming as he felt. “Maybe we should wait until after this legal matter blows over.”

“It’ll be all right,” Starsky countered him. “He should come out as planned. I want to see him and he wants to see me. We need some sibling time. Besides, it’ll help kill some.”

“Some?”

“Time.”

That suggestion was sound, too.

“And when he arrives,” Hutch assumed, “you and he will sleep at the Grace House, like you all did before Christmas?”

Starsky frowned, but maybe for a different reason from the pain it caused Hutch. “Seems the smart thing to do, doesn’t it?” Starsky wondered. “I mean, don’t we have enough on our plate to deal with? Let’s just keep it simple, okay?”

“Okay. But, then, how smart and how simple is it to bring your brother out while we’re embroiled in a sex scandal?”

Starsky laughed, but not like he was amused; more as if he found it all tragically sadly funny—because it was those things. “Well,” he said, giving it apparent thought, “after my birthday’s over, and after Nick leaves, we’ll have killed enough time that maybe this sex scandal will have been decided one way or the other. You’ll have been blood tested, too—and then you and me can get back to ourselves, however that ends up going.” He winked at Hutch. “Like I said before, in the end, I’m counting on you to have some serious fucking time to make up for.”

* * *

“Hey, Hutch?!”

Starsky’s voluminous yell into what he perceived as the possible emptiness of the house was answered similarly by Hutch’s, “In here!” from the gym room. Relieved to know his partner hadn’t disappeared on him, Starsky sauntered down the hallway in the direction of Hutch’s voice, tapping the quadruple-folded newspaper against his knee along the way.

He found Hutch lying on the weight bench, his feet on the floor, his arms lifting and lowering a barbell with several large weights on either end. So Starsky leaned on the doorframe and watched him for a minute, knowing Hutch knew he was present. Life would sure be easier if he didn’t feel that persistent urge to crawl on the man every time he laid eyes on him, and yet he allowed himself to immensely enjoy watching Hutch’s biceps contract, and his belly heave, and listen to his deep breathing.

Hutch eventually seated the weight bar, staring for a minute at the ceiling while he rested, before he turned his head and made eye contact with Starsky. “What’s up?” he asked.

Starsky wouldn’t dare tell him the thoughts he’d been having while he watched Hutch work out. He hoped they didn’t show themselves, either, such as in the arousal he felt in his groin. So he held the paper against his thigh to nonchalantly cover himself, and answered, “Maybe we ought to sell this place.”

As expected, Hutch appeared both concerned and somewhat alarmed—as well as delicious to lay eyes on, what with his slightly sweated tee-shirt and his loose sweatpants, that perspiration over his furrowed brow, his shapely, toned muscles, and his intense eye speak, one that reflected his unnerving. “Why would we want to sell this place?” he asked.

“For the money,” Starsky said.

“Why do we need money?”

“To get us a new place, dummy. Do the math.”

Hutch then sat up, swinging his leg over the bench to put both feet on the floor in front of him. He was calmer, too. “I’m sure I’m missing a part of this story.”

Starsky tossed the newspaper at him, and then he watched while Hutch turned it right side up, scanned it with his blue eyes, found the headline Starsky assumed he’d eventually see, and waited while the short article got read.

The item in question was the usual weekly police report—except that time it featured a notation about the multiple-arrest at a local gay bar and, in particular, the one cop who was facing four criminal charges, three of which were related to sexual misconduct. If Hutch wasn’t already sweating, the article might have made him break a cold one.

When finished, Hutch looked sharply at Starsky and, for a moment, he was speechless, which made Starsky fairly certain it was because Hutch was stunned or embarrassed or both. But then Hutch said, “At least they used a nice picture of me, huh? one they got from my Academy days, you know, back when I had a baby face.”

Starsky smirked at him. “Well, conviction or no conviction,” he said, “we’re going to have to live this down some way. I thought we should maybe move to … Colorado. Like that cowboy said in that TV show …”

“What cowboy in what TV show?”

“That one I liked that I told you about.”

“It must have been a while ago.”

Starsky recalled that the television show he referenced was actually an early 1970s series—1971, was it?—and that he shouldn’t expect Hutch to remember it, least of all as fondly as Starsky did; he was the westerns buff between them. “It was called Alias Smith and Jones,” he explained. “There was this cowboy in it, and I remember him saying, ‘Denver is a likable town.’ That line always stayed with me.” He couldn’t recall why that particular comment had remained in his memory, but there it was.

“So we take Bolivia off the list?” Hutch asked.

And that’s why Starsky remembered the television series; it had been a spoof on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, about a couple of outlaws who fled to Bolivia. “Denver is closer,” Starsky decided, as if he just realized it. “We won’t even need a passport.”

“I’m sorry about this, buddy,” Hutch said solemnly. He dropped the newspaper to the floor and stared at it. “I really fucked us up.”

“We can blame me—”

“But we won’t.”

“—because I talked you into all this man sex stuff in the first place.”

“But we won’t,” Hutch repeated. He looked up at Starsky. “We won’t blame you,” he said again, “but we can think about moving to Colorado.”

“Then, c’mon,” Starsky encouraged him, pushing off the doorframe to leave the room, “let’s go for a run and burn off all this pent up sexual tension I’m feeling.”

* * *

Naturally, it was raining on the day they visited Jade for the first time in many months. The overcast skies and the gloom they cast magnified Hutch’s melancholy by the time they arrived at their destination; it wasn’t until he left the farm house and headed in Jade’s direction that he realized, all over again, just how pathetic he felt—and probably was. He heard his own voice in his head, the one that told him he knew better than to be jealous and hurt and angry, the one even Starsky used with those very same words, and that Jade would lecture him likewise.

Hutch further didn’t make the situation any less pathetic, in his mind, when—upon seeing each other for the first time since the airplane accident—Jade and Starsky grabbed each other in a long-overdue embrace and, while Jade’s tears streamed from his eyes and his words of “God, it’s so good to see you,” and “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” and other such terms of affection flowed from his mouth, Hutch couldn’t stop himself. “You better let go,” he had warned Starsky, “or I’m liable to be jealous of this guy, too.”

Neither man heeded his request, nor was Hutch serious by any stretch, but just the same, Starsky hit Hutch on the back of his head and firmly told him, “Don’t be an asshole.”

It was the collateral damage of Hutch’s insecurities; he could no longer even joke with his partner about being jealous.

There he then sat, avoiding eye contact with Jade, after telling him what he’d done in a men’s restroom, at a gay bar, and how weak and juvenile he’d since behaved. “So here we are,” he concluded when done, “not sure why I came—except that maybe I’m looking for more punishment, at least more than he’s given me.”

Jade didn’t comment. Perhaps he just wanted Hutch to squirm for a while longer.

“Whatever you say,” Hutch added, “I have it coming.”

“Why don’t we bypass the self-abuse,” Jade suggested, finally breaking his contemplative silence, “and concentrate on what you’re really afraid of.” He had pushed back in his seat after learning about Hutch’s bad behavior with a group of other men, about his being under the influence of more alcohol than any of them could imagine Hutch could drink at one time, and, without looking once at Starsky, didn’t take his eyes off Hutch. “I haven’t forgotten how devastated you were when you were here last,” Jade recalled, “but I think you’re missing a bigger picture, one that’s keeping you a prisoner in your fear.”

Jade’s observation was profound and Hutch couldn’t help but be taken aback by it. He believed himself to be an intelligent man, and he certainly lived with and loved an intelligent man, so how these bigger pictures got past them on occasion came as a surprise, and a humbling one at that.

“I don’t think he’ll leave me,” Hutch said, mostly with conviction. “Not leave leave me, anyway.”

“You think he might want to be with somebody else part time as well as be part-time with you,” Jade surmised. “Or he’ll love somebody else with that little bit of extra that should be reserved for only you.”

“Or that he’ll get killed,” Hutch injected. “His leaving me doesn’t have to be into somebody else’s arms.”

“Granted.”

Starsky didn’t say anything. In fact, other than his in-person greeting and subsequent hug with Jade, Starsky had remained silent. He sat near Hutch, quite close to him, even leaned on his armrest nearest Hutch, but gave him no moral support or direction or opinion. Maybe he waited for Jade to open a wound so he could pile on. That was Hutch’s self-deprecating concern, anyway.

He sure felt he deserved it. Having to tell Jade about what he’d done—that he’d been arrested for criminal charges of sexual misconduct—humiliated him all over again, and deeper in degree. When he saw himself through the eyes of a real adult, he was ashamed. “Starsky keeps saying he needs to prove to me what I distrust,” Hutch said to Jade, “so that I’ll believe he won’t leave me. But his trying to prove something to me would just make me all the more pathetic.”

“What could he possibly do to prove his devotion to you that he hasn’t already proven?” Jade asked, and not facetiously or with malice, but with genuine wonder. “What one possible thing could he do?”

“Nothing,” Hutch answered, “and I wouldn’t want him to try.” Still, Hutch privately desired some assurance, but there was no God in his life, so there were no guarantees.

“The confidence is yours to make,” Jade said, as if he’d read Hutch’s mind. “But, as long as you miss the bigger picture, you’ll never gain that confidence.”

Hutch listened to the drizzling rain and the battering wind outside the window for a minute as he contemplated Jade’s direction. Not understanding what Jade meant, he finally said, “Are you going to tell me what that bigger picture is … or is this one of those find-it-for-myself kind of dialogues?”

Jade passed him a gentle smile. His eyes even softened. “Oh, you know me so well,” he affectionately said. He winked at Starsky before he readdressed Hutch. “I’m going to ask you some questions that are designed to help you find what’s really troubling you; they’ll seem as if I don’t care about how you feel or what the answers may be, but judge them for their purpose, okay?”

Hutch said he would brave it. He shifted in his chair to get comfortable, felt Starsky’s silent and empowering presence beside him, and prepared himself for the third-degree.

“Suppose Starsky left you for Adam?” Jade bluntly asked, throwing out his first purpose-filled question.

Hutch’s comfort got slammed back to discomfort until he remembered what Jade had said just seconds before. “Okay,” he braced himself, seeking his answer to that otherwise hostile question, “so let’s assume he leaves me for Adam. How would I feel? Obviously, hurt. Angry. Betrayed.”

“So what if you’re hurt and angry and betrayed?”

Hutch had to again remember that the questions were designed to help him search, not to belittle how he felt. He rolled this latest provocative one through his mind several times as he sought a way to respond to it, and finally settled on, “My life would be ruined,” he concluded. “I’d wallow in that kind of misery for the rest of my days—much the way I did when Starsky was presumed dead for two months.”

Jade didn’t let up. “So what if your life was ruined?”

Hutch shrugged. Where he could possibly take that? Did Jade want to know, again, whether he would consider suicide? Was that the bigger picture? “I made Starsky a promise,” he said to defend and explain himself, “that I would never end my life.”

“We both made that promise to each other,” Starsky offered, his only comment until then.

“So what if your life was ruined?” Jade repeated himself. He was apparently in no mood for a discussion, but in pursuit of an objective. He didn’t even look at Starsky when Starsky spoke. His focus, like his eyes, were on Hutch. He even repeated his question when Hutch didn’t answer him right away.

“If my life was ruined,” Hutch said, letting his impulse drive him, “I wouldn’t be of much use to myself or anyone else.”

“So what if you weren’t of much use?”

“I’d be nothing to no one.”

“So what if you were nothing to no one?”

“I’d be empty and therefore alone and lonely.”

“So what if you were empty and alone and lonely?”

Hutch hit on the last thing he could think to say, not sure it meant anything to Jade’s mission, but it was all he had. “I wouldn’t kill myself,” he reiterated, “but I’d sure as hell want to check out of this world. A life of that kind of miserable emptiness is …”

“Is, what?”

“Unbearable,” Hutch said. Didn’t they know that already? Hadn’t Hutch even been there recently? Didn’t he come close to that very scenario after Starsky got killed?

“Unbearable,” Jade repeated, then again, more quietly. “Unbearable. So, has it occurred to you, Hutch, that what scares you most is that Starsky’s leaving you—whether it be for another lover or because he got killed—would make your life unbearable?”

“It has occurred to me,” Hutch replied, playing down his sarcasm, and despite knowing Jade’s question was rhetorical; Jade knew how unbearable Hutch’s life had been. “The last time I was here … I told you so then, too.”

“Yes, you did,” Jade agreed. “So, can you see that losing Starsky isn’t as much about losing Starsky—though I’m not making light about that whatsoever—as much as it is about being left with a shell of a life if you lost him?”

Hutch understood what Jade supposed. It even had merit. “Okay,” he said, to concur and move the conversation forward.

“You’re afraid of being faced again with that kind of emptiness,” Jade said, “to live with that perpetual aloneness, that pain and grief and loss. That’s what scares you. It’s a formidable demon, a life like that.”

Hutch silently agreed. It certainly had been.

“But can you see another truth, Hutch?” Jade asked him.

“I guess I don’t.”

“That, as bad and as painful as that life was—or could be—that you can withstand it?”

“I’m not so sure,” Hutch argued. Maybe Jade, maybe not even Starsky, knew just how much Starsky meant to him and how much more his partner had come to matter to him with each passing day.

“When you know what I know,” Jade advised him, “you’ll be confident in yourself again, and you’ll trust in your life again, and—in being confident and trusting again—you’ll rise above this fear. And after you’ve done that,” he explained, “after you’ve risen above your fear of losing him, you won’t need proof that he won’t leave you, and you won’t need assurances that he won’t die on you, and you won’t feel threatened or jealous or … angry and hurt over the things he says and does with someone else anymore.”

It made sense, to some degree, but Jade missed a bigger part of the picture than the one he’d tried to draw, so Hutch redrew it for him. “The problem as I see it,” he said, “is that I already lost him once and I barely survived it; I couldn’t handle that kind of pain again.”

“No,” Jade challenged him. “What you’re not seeing—the lesson you haven’t yet learned from that loss—is that you can survive that kind of pain. And you know how I know that?”

“How?”

“Because you already have. Despite the agony of it—and I know it was agony—you’ve already proven to yourself what you can withstand.”

* * *

“When will you know?” Hutch asked.

Starsky had just gotten into the car and closed his door, so he sat for half a second before it seemed he heard Hutch’s question, and then replied, “They’ll let me know by mail in less than a week, they said.”

“They’re sending you the test results by mail?”

Hutch had never heard of such a thing; when he was blood-tested for all the sexually transmitted diseases known to man, he’d gotten his results via a phone call to his doctor’s office.

“They asked if I wanted them sent to the house or to come all this way back to the clinic,” Starsky explained, “so I figured …”

“Okay.” What else could Hutch say anyway? His question was pointed toward the timing of the results, not how they’d be delivered.

“It’s rather hush-hush,” Starsky added, starting the car. “Something to do with how it’s gotten, I guess, you know? through guys fucking guys.”

“And then there’s the death scare associated with it,” Hutch imagined.

It was still raining when they left Jade’s office that morning—and Starsky’s impulsive decision to stop at a clinic for his STD blood draw didn’t help alleviate the gloom of that otherwise wet and grey day. Neither did the rhythmic sound of the wiper blades against the windshield. Nor did talking about the stigma and shame that surrounded this relatively misunderstood and contagious illness. Further, that either one of them could be at risk—or positive—wasn’t anything Hutch wanted to muse about that morning. He definitely rather have focused on what he’d learned from Jade instead.

“I’m guilty,” Starsky said. He turned out of the parking lot and onto the main street before he explained his comment. “I mean, I let another guy fuck me—once. Now I’m afraid to even touch a hair on your head,” he sorrily admitted, “let alone your beautiful bad boy.”

Hutch looked out the window. He wouldn’t get to think about conquering jealousy and fear. And Starsky must have noticed or sensed Hutch’s disappointment because he followed up his observations with additional disclosures.

“And if it had only been one guy going down on you,” Starsky said, “or maybe even a couple, that would be one thing. I mean, if the risk was lower, you know? But there were three—maybe more—”

“There weren’t more than three,” Hutch insisted, interrupting him.

“That you remember.”

How could Hutch argue that one, either? He continued to look out the window, watch the rain fall on the asphalt and the sidewalks, empathize with the people hurrying, notice the reflections of brake lights on the wet pavement. If he couldn’t escape his own personal shame, he’d at least try to bury it in the passing scenery, as demoralizing as it continued to be.

“I’m not judging, okay?” Starsky told him, breaking into Hutch’s thoughts. “I mean, let’s look at it this way: we’re even now. My play with a guy last summer next to your play …”

At that moment, Hutch wasn’t certain which scenario made him feel worse, and he didn’t dare try to figure it out, either. Not then.

So they rode in silence for a few minutes before Hutch slowly realized that they didn’t head north out of town, but south, and to who-knew-where, but Starsky? He thought about asking his partner where they were going, but his mood didn’t allow him to speak. He’d have to be provoked into saying something, into saying anything.

Starsky provoked him.

“It’s my birthday on Sunday,” he said.

“This, I know,” Hutch answered him.

“So I’m thinking we should go up to the cabin on Saturday.”

“Fine by me.”

“Looks like it’s going to rain up there, too, so we need to think of some things to do while we’re stuck inside.”

Conjuring up ideas to kill boredom didn’t exactly excite Hutch. He was already too bored to think about it. “We can finish the jigsaw puzzle,” he suggested. It was easier to remember the things they had done than to dream up new ones.

“Good idea,” Starsky commented. He braked for a stoplight. “I’ll get more marshmallows, too.”

The joy of eating roasted marshmallows from beside a fire in their cabin in the woods was mostly special because it had involved sexual intimacy, one they couldn’t share during their upcoming visit. But Hutch wouldn’t argue. He’d created the dismal situation, so he should be the one to suffer the personal consequences; Starsky, after all, had no problem reminiscing about roasting marshmallows, not even in his tone of voice. Perhaps they should do something else on Starsky’s birthday, like … stay home.

“It seems a long way to go,” Hutch said, “to spend time doing what we can do at the farm.”

“You don’t want to head up there this weekend?”

“I associate the place with sex.”

“You liked being up there over Christmas with the snow and stuff … when you didn’t know if you were going to have sex or not.”

“We went up there over Christmas to get away from Christmas.”

“And look where it got us,” Starsky said cheerfully. He stepped on the gas pedal and accelerated out of the intersection when the light turned green. “We had a great time.”

“We communed in body, mind, and soul,” Hutch recalled. “Are you saying we’ll have some sex up there and—”

“I’m not saying that.”

“—some touch time? Maybe have—”

“No.”

“—a great time—”

“Killing time.”

“—a great time killing time with each other in some sort of intimate fashion?” Hutch wondered.

Starsky didn’t comment that time; his frustration came through in his silence. He set his elbow on the door handle, his temple in his hand, and steered them along the street to still-who-knew-where?

For another couple of minutes, they didn’t speak to each other.

Starsky was the one to break the mild tension between them. “There are trees,” he noted, presumably about the woods surrounding their cabin. “I mean, if we have to stay inside for some of that time, it’s nice to be surrounded by trees. Isn’t that enough for you? And to be where you can see all the little animals?”

Hutch tried not to smile at that last crack. Starsky definitely tried to cheer him, if nothing else. “Hey,” Hutch surrendered. “You want to go to the cabin for your birthday, then we go.”

“I wanted something different than what we see every day,” Starsky explained. He straightened in his seat to purge his previously disheartened feelings. “And to go somewhere special, which that place is to us,” he added. He slowed the car and turned into a mall parking lot. “I didn’t have a birthday last year.”

“You mean you didn’t celebrate a birthday last year,” Hutch pointed out. Starsky had only been out of the hospital a couple of weeks following the gang attack, and he simply hadn’t wanted to eat birthday cake or open presents then, not even for having completed his 40th trip around the sun.

“That’s why I want to make up for last time,” Starsky concluded. He pulled into a parking spot, turned off the wipers, and killed the engine. “And I’m going to have you make up for last time, too—not because you owe me,” he said quickly, “but because you’re going to help me make up for it—with me.”

“Okay. Deal.”

“So, what you’re going to do,” Starsky told him, “is you’re going to go into that there mall—all by yourself—and buy me something nice for my birthday.”

“Am I?” Hutch said, playing along. He did appreciate the change in their moods.

“And money’s no object,” Starsky insisted.

“It isn’t?”

“And you won’t come out for an hour—”

“That long?”

“—so you’ll have to put serious time into something meaningful. I don’t want you walking into the first store you see and buying me a stupid sweater or some dumb thing like that.”

“I see.”

Hutch waited for more instruction. When none came, he asked, “What are you going to do while I’m in there for an hour?”

“Or longer.”

“Or longer. Huh? You’re just going to sit in the car all that time?”

“I,” Starsky said, using a voice that implied that, although it wasn’t Hutch’s business, he would tell him anyway, “am going over there.” He pointed to across the street, outside the mall parking lot, “to that 7-Eleven, and I’m going to get me a pad of paper and a pen.”

Hutch was momentarily at a loss to figure out what Starsky would do with paper-and-pen, but then he remembered. “You’ll start writing that book you keep talking about?”

“I’ll start making notes,” Starsky said, reminding Hutch, “You’re the one who’s going to write it.”

“Stupid of me to forget.”

“Right?”

“So that’s the only rule? I have to shop for sixty minutes?”

“Sixty. Ninety. I want to see something on Sunday that proves you really gave this some thinking.”

“And it has to be from a mall?”

“Well, if you can’t find anything in an hour, we’ll go someplace else. But you have to give it a conceded effort.”

“You mean a concerted effort.”

“Whatever.” Starsky checked his watch. “Get going,” he ordered. “I don’t want to sit here all day talking about it. Get in there and do it.”

When Hutch got out of the car and into the cold rain, he was certain Starsky had given some of that instruction to punish him. Why they couldn’t wait for the rain to stop or to shop on a different day, he had to wonder. He pulled his jacket’s lapels around his neck, braced his face against the wet of rain and wind, his composure against the cold, and jogged toward the mall entrance doors. Yep. Starsky definitely wanted him to put effort into this birthday quest. Hutch was nearly sopping wet when he entered the mall.

Needless to say, despite the hour and forty minutes he spent in the building, tackling just about every store it offered, he came up empty-handed. Starsky wanted something meaningful, and he deserved something meaningful; Hutch simply couldn’t find it in the knick knack displays or clothes racks he traipsed through. He would give serious thought to Starsky’s gift in the days to come and he’d be sure to have something special for him on that Sunday, but he was at a loss for a solid idea that morning.

By the time he left the mall for the car, the rain had let up some and the wind had died to a breezable level. Still, he had to remember where Starsky had parked because his first sense of direction didn’t pan out. He found the white-striped, red Torino closer to the side of the building, not so far away.

“Decided to drive to that 7-Eleven, did you?” Hutch asked when he got in the car out of the rain. He looked over at Starsky and found him to be both happy to see him—and wet himself.

“Guess again,” Starsky said. “I braved walking in it, same as you. Got me a notepad and pen, too, just like I said I would. I did my part. But it looks like you didn’t do yours.”

He’d noticed that Hutch had returned without a bag or box.

“Let’s just say,” Hutch explained, “that I saw a lot of what I didn’t want to get you.”

“So where should I take you next then?”

‘To bed’ is where Hutch wanted to say. But he didn’t. “Let me think about it.” He’d need to get his mind focused from his latest thought onto a new one before he could answer that question authentically.

In the meantime, Starsky turned the ignition, backed out of their spot, and they left the mall parking lot to a fueling station across the street, on an opposite corner from the 7-Eleven. Starsky had to again venture into the cold wet air to gas the car while Hutch used those minutes to set the heater to warm for the ride home and to be glad he was out of the rain.

It was several minutes later when, not seeing where Starsky had gone, that Hutch looked through the rear side windows to locate him. He saw his partner just as he emerged from the mini mart with some sort of candy stick in his mouth. It was also at that moment that Hutch noticed the writing pad and pack of pens that Starsky had purchased, lying on the back seat. As Starsky finished fueling the car, Hutch grabbed the pad, both curious and excited to see what sort of stories Starsky had remembered that he wanted included in this book idea of his—but the pad was blank.

Hutch even felt along the glued seam to see if a page or two had been torn off it, but there was no evidence that any had been removed. When Starsky closed the fuel door and got back into the car—that time eating a chocolate bar, Hutch held the blank paper up for Starsky’s notice.

“What of it?” Starsky asked when he spied it.

“It’s blank.”

“Because I couldn’t think of anything.”

“In nearly two hours, you couldn’t remember a single bad guy case worth noting in our twelve years on the Force?”

“Nothing spectacular.”

“Then you’ve got rain water on the brain.”

“So tell me some things.”

Hutch tossed the pad onto the back seat again. “I’m not doing all the work on your book. You figure it out.”

“It’s our book.”

“Just the same.”

They left the gas station for the street.

“So what did you do while I was shopping?” Hutch asked.

“What do you think I did?”

“Napped.”

“Sometimes I do hate how well we know each other,” Starsky said with an affectionate laugh.

Hutch felt likewise—because he was sure Starsky had moved the car while he was in the mall. He’d gone somewhere and done something other than he said he would. And that’s why the pad of paper on the backseat didn’t have a single word written on it.

* * *

Hutch had just finished several strenuous exercise routines and was too exhausted to get off the weight bench to answer the phone when it rang, not even to go into the office, which was only across the hall. Luckily for him, Starsky was in the house, having returned minutes earlier from ‘regularly scheduled engine maintenance’ on his car—or so he’d said. But just when Hutch was about to sluggishly push himself into a seated position in his less-than-enthusiastic intentions to answer the caller, he heard Starsky energetically pick up the line from the kitchen.

The call finally being answered isn’t what made Hutch abandon his effort to sit up; it was Starsky’s cheerful and masculine, “Hey! How are ya?” enthusiasm from the other room, after he’d said that initial hello, that made Hutch slump back into reluctant surrender. He folded his hands over his chest, stared at the ceiling, and listened to the one-sided audio of what appeared to be a most friendly, but short, conversation.

“Yeah, yeah,” Starsky said decidedly, “sure.” His voice turned more contemplative, coupled with a few ‘um’s and some ‘uh’s, and then said, with certainty, “You betcha.” If only Starsky sounded that determined and excited when he spoke to Hutch, rather than when he talked to Adam, Hutch might just feel more … important to him.

It was at that lucid moment that Hutch recalled Jade’s words—about what really frightened him. Underneath all the worry and concern, the jealousy and hurt, the anger and disappointment, lay his fear of not being able to withstand losing Starsky. But he’d already lost him—for forever, in fact—and, despite the agony of that loss, he did survive it. And Hutch knew that truth in his heart of hearts because he’d initially wanted to avoid Starsky’s memorial service and then did the unthinkable of not only attending, but creating a musical visual which he performed before hundreds of mourners. He hated life then, absolutely loathed it, but he rose above the pain and the loss to honor the memory of the person he loved and adored most. He could survive, if he had to. As Jade had reminded him: he already had.

And, on that thought, Hutch exhaled his sudden jealousy and fear.

That’s also when he heard Starsky say from the other room, “But, seriously, come on out. You know you’re only twenty minutes away.”

The idea that Adam would be in Hutch’s presence, after having just assimilated him in his mind, made Hutch laugh at himself for believing he’d been so brave just a minute earlier. The real test would be in a face-to-face with Adam after having overheard Starsky tell Adam he loved him that night, and then himself falling victim to a sexual misconduct arrest some two weeks later. How much would Jade’s words help him then?

Starsky told Adam goodbye, after which Hutch heard him return the receiver to its cradle, followed by the sound of Starsky’s footsteps as they came down the hall to the gym room. Hutch was the one, in the end, who technically owned the man, so why be so jealous?

“Hey, Hutch?” Starsky called him. “You still in here?” He appeared seconds later in the doorway.

Hutch turned his head and his eyes over to meet Starsky’s. He tried a smile when he assumed he appeared exhausted because of his physical workout, and not his mental one. “Still here,” he said above a whisper.

Still here.

It meant more than just the answer to Starsky’s question.

Hutch was still there—with Starsky—and would be for as long as they lived. Nothing else mattered. That’s another truth Hutch embraced in that moment. It eased his anxiety about facing Adam.

“Hey,” Starsky said, leaning against the door, passing Hutch a friendly smile, “you don’t mind that I invited Davis out, do you?”

Hutch couldn’t help but to reply with an affectionate, albeit embarrassed, smile. He learned another lesson in that moment and was proud of himself for having done so. He’d faced his demon in those minutes and was prepared to confront them again. Jade would be proud of him, too. Maybe Starsky would, as well.

One of Jade’s closing suggestions during their last counseling session was that Hutch learn to not assume the future. He’d done it just then by believing Starsky spoke to Adam, before he knew the truth of that phone call. And he was aware of the ways he foresaw his assumptions, so he silently promised himself not to entertain those kinds of thoughts again.

Or at least strive not to.

“He said he was in the area,” Starsky explained, when Hutch seemed to stall in his answer, “so I told him to come for a visit. You don’t mind, right?”

* * *

EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES

“Damn!” Starsky cussed under his breath.

They had barely made it out of the rain and under the shelter of the porch overhang before they were nearly drenched to the skin. But they laughed while they swore and shook the water off them as if they were a couple of mallards leaving the lake.

“And to think that you didn’t want to take time earlier to cover the firewood,” Hutch chastised Starsky. He knew his partner was as glad as he was that they’d bought firewood—rather than chopped it at the cabin in the rain—and then secured a plastic tarp over their cargo in the truck bed, even though the delay put them on the road much later than planned. It had rained nearly all the way from the city, despite the forecast of a dry late morning, and overcast skies notwithstanding.

“Yeah, yeah,” Starsky agreed, drawing a deep breath. “You win, O Magnificent Practical One.”

“Always better safe than sorry, right?”

“Maybe,” Starsky replied with a hint of regret in his voice.

Hutch instinctively knew his partner had referenced his devil-may-care attitude a couple of weeks prior in that gay men’s restroom on the edge of town. Hutch feared that the subsequent and expected insults would never stop coming, but he wasn’t entitled to absolution, so there’d be no complaint on his part. He took them in stride. But what would he do if his upcoming blood test proved to be positive? Could he survive a lifetime of Starsky’s verbal punishment? He’d certainly deserve it.

Before his immediate melancholy got the best of him, Hutch leaned on a corner post and drowned his grey mood in the visual beauty of the downpour that had caught them nearly unawares in their patch of woods. Its sound, smell, and fury also cleansed him of his self-degrading thoughts as he lost himself in the scenery of the surrounding trees and dampened ground.

Starsky watched with him for a couple of minutes, but his musings were probably closer to how they would get the wood off the truck without it getting wet, or whether he should have backed the pickup closer to the porch than he had, or if the bears had come out of hibernation and were on the prowl even in the rain.

“Hey,” Starsky said.

Hutch looked over at him.

“Forgive that crack,” Starsky added apologetically. “It was uncalled for.”

“What crack?”

“You know what I’m talking about: the comment I just made about you wanting to be sorry more than you wanted to be safe.”

“I was just thinking how much your abuse wasn’t uncalled for.”

Apparently, Starsky hadn’t been thinking about practicalities—or ursines. “Nah,” he disagreed with Hutch. “It was a cheap shot. I told you that was behind us and I need to act like it is.”

“Except it’s not behind us. I have my first hearing the day after we get back.”

“But that part of it is over, the ‘crime’ itself, I mean.”

Neither of them would ever forget it, but—in the interest of healing—Hutch agreed to let Starsky forgive him for it, at least for then. “So what next?” he asked.

“Next we get that wood into the fireplace so we can warm up the cabin,” Starsky said.

They hadn’t even entered the building; it couldn’t possibly be any colder inside than it was outside, and the feel in the air was comfortably temperate even then.

“I say we open some windows first,” Hutch suggested. He pushed off the pillar to unlock the door. “And then let’s see how much damage the field mice and the snakes have done in our absence.”

“Don’t go talking snakes to me,” Starsky warned him. “I’m never going to forget that one in Dobey’s cabin.”

“I seriously doubt we’ve got a Satanic cult in our midsts out here,” Hutch countered him. “One to a lifetime.” He opened the door and pocketed the key, and they entered their home away from home together, first Hutch, Starsky right behind him.

The place was as they had left it: clean, quaint, quiet, secure. But the air was mildly musty, so Hutch crossed the room to open a window on the far side of the living area. “Maybe the rain will let up in a while,” he imagined, “and we can unload the truck under dry skies.”

“I don’t see that happening,” Starsky lamented. He stomped water off his boots before he completely entered the cabin. “Those are some nasty clouds out there.”

“Then we brave it.”

“You first,” Starsky said with a laugh. “I’m going to shake out the blankets to scare off all them mice you think are hiding in here.”

They hadn’t left anything edible behind when they departed the property on New Year’s Day, but it did get cold in the mountains and there was probably a lot of snow on the ground at some point over winter, so what better refuge for furry beasties than the safe and dry wooden walls of their interior cabin retreat?

“If you catch any,” Hutch teased him, “we can bash their little heads in and eat them for lunch.”

“And now you remind me of that Pacific island I was trapped on for two months.”

Hutch unlocked the shutters on the larger window and opened them. The fresh air that immediately passed through the room was energizing; it instantly consumed the mustiness and replaced it with a natural lightness he sorely needed. “I’m going to keep my mouth shut for a while, okay? Nothing personal. I keep saying the wrong shit.”

He went to the kitchen window to open it, too, while Starsky busied himself with blanket fluffing, taking each of them from the bed to the porch to shake them out, then piling them on the small table, whistling while he worked.

Hutch’s nonverbal reset enabled him to hear the rhythmic sound of the rain on the roof, and of it on the leaves of the trees outside, and to feel its refreshing sprinkles on occasion as they filtered through the room on the breeze. All that was missing, Hutch thought, were the claps of lightning and their subsequent rumbles of thunder.

But he thought too soon then, too.

“Did you hear that?” Starsky excitedly asked. “I think we’re about to get slammed.”

Nature had sent Hutch the message that, despite all of his self-deprecating punishment, she would decide his mood. She had a way of centering him.

“C’mon,” Starsky encouraged him, “let’s get the wood and the food and stuff … before we can’t, okay?”

Hutch didn’t argue, so together they endured the drenching downpour, untied the rear corner flaps of the tarp and, while Hutch pulled the short, heavy logs to the tailgate, Starsky hurriedly took them inside, two and three at a time. He giggled as they endeavored in their wet environment, and he whistled some, too, but mostly he was his usual boyish self, full of excitement and innocence and playful skips up the steps and back, despite his arm loads of heavy burdens.

But soon he was winded. With his wet face and his hair plastered to his forehead, panting from the exertion, he impatiently waited at the edge of the tailgate for the last batch of firewood.

“If we’d used your car,” Hutch reminded him when he noticed Starsky’s fatigue, “we would have brought a lot less, and you wouldn’t be so drenched and drained as you are now.”

“If we’d used my car,” Starsky countered him, allowing Hutch to load his arms with four logs that time, “we wouldn’t have had room for all this firewood and even you would be freezing your ass off on Night Three out here.”

When Starsky disappeared up the steps and into the cabin, Hutch hauled the filled-to-the-brim ice chest from the back of the bed to the tailgate. The one thing he did know is that they would both need to change out of their wet, cold clothes and into dry ones as soon as they could get the duffel bags into the room, despite the cool air on their bare skin.

“You’re just making excuses for wanting to drive my truck this morning,” Hutch told him when Starsky returned to help him with the other end of the ice chest. “And now that you’ve driven it, you know why it’s the manlier vehicle between us.”

“It doesn’t make you manly.”

“But it does reflect manliness. So why don’t you just man up and admit you know my truck can outmuscle your Striped Tomato anywhere, any time.”

“Hey,” Starsky defended himself, and not his car, “I tell you all the time that you’ve got the bigger man muscle. I’m not insecure.”

“Not about your dick, maybe,” Hutch argued, “but you still haven’t admitted my truck can roll right over the top of your toy car like a pebble in the road.”

“But it couldn’t outrace it.”

Together, they stumbled on the steps as they dragged the heavy ice chest off the back of the truck and onto the porch. It made them laugh and cuss, and forced Hutch to tell him they should have brought less to eat, too, especially when they had all those ‘mouses’ to consume.

“I didn’t see a single one,” Starsky said with relief. “You’re just out to rattle my cage and fuck with my appetite.”

“That, I am.”

“It won’t work this time.”

“Who says I’m done?”

They set the chest in the doorway and straightened as another rumble of thunder, much closer, rolled in the grey sky.

“Is this place grounded?” Starsky nervously asked.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Hutch continued to tease him. “Maybe we won’t need to make a fire. Maybe a bolt of lightning will fry the place.”

“Okay,” Starsky insisted, pushing Hutch with his complaining voice, “enough is enough.”

“Because my harassment is beginning to work?”

“Yeah. You win. But I’ll beat you on Round Two. You’ll see.”

It was probably too much for Starsky, to be flooded with so many of his underlying fears: mice, snakes, lightning. He’d probably had thoughts about bears by then, too. It was time to release him. “Let’s get this thing all the way in,” Hutch decided, “and while you make us a warm fire, I’ll unload the back seat of the truck.” There were still duffel bags and dry goods to bring in. “The cabin is safe; I saw the grounding rod when we pulled in.” He hadn’t, but he could tell his words already had an immediate and calming effect on his partner. “We can change into dry clothes, and I’ll make us some hot cocoa; how’s that sound?”

“Delicious,” Starsky said, “on all counts.”

As Hutch bent over to grab the chest handle again, he heard Starsky say ‘hey,’ so he straightened and looked him in the eye instead.

“I admit it,” Starsky said.

“Admit what?”

“That your truck can outmuscle my car.”

Both their expressions softened; small smiles came to their lips; their blue eyes met in that forever respect for each other. Hutch felt Starsky’s submissive love.

“And more than that,” Starsky added, “I don’t mind.”

* * *

“What are you making over there?”

“Dinner,” Hutch said. He had his back to Starsky while he busied himself in their kitchen area with several steaming pots that Starsky could see from his resting place on the blankets in front of the fire.

Starsky sipped hot cocoa, bundled in his thermal underwear and one of Hutch’s sweatshirts, played half-focused with a deck of cards, and was snuggled in the warmth of the room—appreciating the fact that the brunt of the thunderstorm had relatively missed them. Now he was hungry, and the air itself smelled good enough to eat.

“Dinner?” he mumbled; then, under his breath, a barely audible, “Asshole.” It was an affectionate term, as it often was, but he made his point and forced Hutch to answer his initial question seriously that time.

“Chili,” Hutch said. In a singsong voice, and with obvious pride, he added, “with the biggest, fattest, meatiest kidney beans you ever did see, let alone ate.”

“Chili?” Starsky echoed, bothered by the answer. He lifted his head and looked over at Hutch to locate the clue he needed that would tell him Hutch continued to kid him. But Hutch hummed while he stood with his back to the stove, his neck draped with a hand towel, dressed as he was in sweat clothes, his blond hair haloed in candlelight and from the battery-powered lantern that sat on the table between them. “Are you serious?” Starsky asked when he couldn’t find the physical cues to Hutch’s sincerity.

“Serious about chili?”

“Yeah.”

“You bet I am. Got a problem with it?” He half-turned, glanced over his shoulder at Starsky, somewhat alarmed, or so it appeared in his eyes and his face, to think he’d slaved away on their meal that evening and Starsky wasn’t up to eating it.

“Well, I mean,” Starsky explained, trying to sound kind, “why would you make chili … while we’re in this small room together for the next few days?” He was actually disappointed. He’d hoped for something more appropriate under the circumstances.

“I thought it might be fun to see which one of us is the most creative with the backfiring,” Hutch whimsically told him. “What else are we to do here, huh?”

“Well, not that,” Starsky insisted. He was the last one to be squeamish about intestinal gas, but there was a time and place for such bathroom humor, least of all a purposeful endeavor to produce it. That, and he wanted a romantic evening with Hutch, despite that they couldn’t engage each other sexually. But it was too late to change the dinner menu, so he decided he would feign lack of appetite, only eat a small portion of the chili, tell Hutch how good it was, and dig out cookies later that night instead. Or maybe … “Are we going to have crackers with it, at least?”

“Did we bring crackers?”

“I don’t know. You did the shopping. I know we’ve got cookies in there because I brought those. And marshmallows.”

“You can have dessert after dinner,” Hutch decided for him. “I don’t think I packed any crackers. I don’t think we have any bread, either.”

“But of course you brought bread,” Starsky whined, as if he knew, “because how else are we going to make sandwiches?”

“That’s what the local market is for,” Hutch explained. “Whatever I didn’t bring, we can get tomorrow.”

Starsky’s attempt to control his food intake that night was a losing battle. He tossed the cards onto the blanket and surrendered to not playing with them anymore as he gave in to Hutch’s meal choice. He would need something else to cheer himself, to put his mind into, since romance would also be unavailable. Admittedly, he was disappointed in Hutch for not thinking ahead. Crass behavior had never been anything Hutch tolerated; in fact, Hutch’s response to it was often the opposite, putting Starsky in his place whenever he made cracks about flatulence, let alone encouraged it. So maybe that’s what Starsky didn’t like about the upcoming scenario: Hutch wasn’t being himself. Perhaps he wanted to impress Starsky, to appease him somehow, but why would he choose that way to do it?

Starsky crawled off the blankets he’d piled in front of the fireplace to drag the jigsaw puzzle on its board from its place under the bed and over to where he’d settled on the floor. He would lose his thoughts in the puzzle and have no more words for Hutch. So he contented himself with sips of hot cocoa and cozied into the warmth he had brought into the room, its amber light and safety. While he listened to the pops of fire, the rhythmic, light rain on the roof, and Hutch’s soft humming, he would enjoy the romance by himself while it lasted and later eat roasted marshmallows. Besides, he was dressed in Hutch’s sweatshirt. How much closer could he be to the man under the no-touch policy?

When Starsky heard Hutch’s socked-feet approach, he didn’t look up. He was a moment away from telling Hutch the white lie about not having much of an appetite, and to not take it personally, when his words got stopped before he could utter a single one of them.

Hutch set a glass of red wine on the puzzle board in front of him, not knowing he’d interrupted Starsky’s planned and untruthful confession. “That’s all yours,” Hutch told him. “I’ll use my own glass—to keep with the rules.” He left Starsky with the glass. “I hope you like it.”

“It’s perfect,” Starsky said after drinking some of it, disappointed to hear he’d be drinking alone from the glass. He lost himself in minutes-long searches of puzzle piecing while Hutch continued to hum, and the rain continued to fall, both with a soothing sound. But, after a while, he heard Hutch dish their food into bowls, along with the rattle of utensils, and the grunts his partner made over the effort to bring it all to where Starsky lay on the blankets. And damn if Hutch didn’t have both their meals in his hands when he arrived—forks, spoons, and paper napkins, as well.

Starsky made his second attempt to let Hutch know he wouldn’t be eating much of the chili, and he had to do it before he tasted it or Hutch was liable to think he didn’t like it, but he was intercepted again.

“Here,” Hutch said, bending over to hand Starsky his dinner. “I hope it was worth the wait. I’ve never made this before.”

Starsky sat up to take the plate—not a bowl—from Hutch, and he immediately discovered that the plate was filled with farro, sautéed spinach, chopped peanuts, and heaped with roasted oyster and shiitake mushrooms in some sort of seasoned sauce. “Lemon, oil, and garlic,” Hutch said. As a side, a bright orange mash of what Starsky assumed was, “Sweet potatoes?”

“Just the way you’ll eat them—right out of that can,” Hutch said. He sat cross-legged on the blankets, his knee almost touching Starsky’s. “But don’t eat what I made if you don’t like it,” Hutch added. “I’ll make something else if you want me to, so no false bravado here, okay?”

Starsky didn’t dare tell him how close he’d come to voicing such a lie. “So you weren’t making chili,” he concluded.

“And ruin this ambiance?” Hutch asked, glancing around the room as if doing so would make Starsky see it for the first time. “You don’t know me very well.”

“Better than you think,” Starsky mumbled. He took his first bite of the entree and sincerely did love the taste. “I knew no matter what you made it would be great.” Even the chili would have tasted good; he simply didn’t want the ‘backfiring.’

“What about protein?” Starsky asked, his mouth full of food. “Since we’re not eating beans—”

“All protein is plant protein,” Hutch explained. “How do you think they grow cows and pigs and the rest, huh? We’re just cutting out the ‘middle man’ is all.”

Starsky ate eagerly and with gratitude. “Feels better, too,” he said, recalling, against his will, the kinds of ‘middle man’ so-called foods he had to eat on Tetepare. It made him shudder. If he’d known more about plants then, he could have spared himself the nightmares.

“What do you think elephants eat for protein?” Hutch provoked him.

“Lions?” Starsky joked. He didn’t mean to open a dialogue about diets and nutrition, but he did appreciate Hutch’s knowledge about such things. “I love you, Hutch,” he then said without thinking.

“Where did that come from?” Hutch wondered, speaking while he ate, too. “I mean, I love you, too, but?”

“I don’t know. It came from … thirteen years.”

Almost a decade and a half to that point in time.

“I should trust you better to take care of me,” Starsky added.

And it was in that moment that he felt the sinking feeling in his gut—and he didn’t know why he felt it, except to think, for a split second and then to let it go, that he’d done a poor job of taking care of Hutch. He looked into those blue eyes and noticed how they immediately simmered when they sensed Starsky’s momentary stumble. “I’m okay,” he told Hutch. “I was just thinking something I don’t want to talk about. Not now, anyway.”

Hutch nodded at him. “Well, I’m here for you when you want to, Starsk.”

“Yeah, I know,” Starsky replied with genuine gratitude. If only he could feel lately that he’d been likewise for Hutch.

* * *

“What are you in deep thought about over there?” Hutch asked him. He’d noticed that Starsky had laid down on his back on the blankets before the fire, after dinner and without any mention of dessert, that he stared at the ceiling, or sometimes closed his eyes, his arms crossed over his chest, relaxed, but apparently reflective. Hutch had immersed himself in the puzzle, drinking the last of the wine from his glass, and feeling satiated and content. “Are you bored already?”

“I’m just working something out,” Starsky said. He didn’t sound burdened.

“Can I help you do it?”

“No.”

“Because you’re afraid of what I’ll say?”

“Because you’re not smart enough.”

The crack made Hutch smile. He should have known Starsky would find a way to get even for his tease about the non-existent chili. “Well,” he suggested, locking a piece of the puzzle into place, “maybe from all my stupid questions, you’ll hear your own answers.”

“I have to work this through myself.”

Hutch looked over at his partner, read his retrospective posture, and then, because he’d been dismissed, not just not invited, said all he could think to say. “If you need me …”

“Yeah, I know.”

Hutch knew he knew. “Did you like dinner?” he asked.

“You know I did. I had two helpings.”

“Maybe you placated me.”

“Does that sound like me?”

Sometimes, Hutch thought. At least lately. “Is there something else you’d rather do than this? I mean, besides wait for me to finish this puzzle?”

Starsky sat up, scooted closer to the jigsaw, cross-legged, studied the pieces. “I wasn’t bored,” he mumbled. He set his elbow on his knee, his chin in his palm. “But it is a sad state of affairs, don’t you think, how little there is to do when we’re not working a case or sucking each other’s peenies?”

“Peenies?” Hutch couldn’t help but smile at Starsky’s word. “Sucking each other’s peenies only took us twenty to thirty minutes. We found other things to do for hours before and after.”

“Hmm,” Starsky said. “I can’t remember that far back.”

“It’s only been a couple of weeks.”

“Like I said.”

Hutch concentrated on the puzzle for a few minutes, and then reminded Starsky, as if Starsky could have forgotten, “Tomorrow is your birthday.”

“And you got me something meaningful, right?”

“I think so.”

Starsky looked at him, intently and with the silent plea that Hutch didn’t tease him.

“I think I did,” Hutch swore. “But I guess only you will know whether it is.”

“What if we start a new tradition,” Starsky suggested, going back to the puzzle, “where we have a Birthday Eve party and we give each other our presents the night before our birthdays?”

“Better yet, what if we didn’t do that?”

“But, I mean, what if we did?”

“If we did, then I’d have to give you your present tonight and I’m not going to do that, Snarky.”

“Because you’re mean?” Starsky asked with a laugh.

“Because it’s not your birthday.”

“You give presents on Christmas Eve when it’s not Christmas.”

“Only because I can’t stand your begging otherwise.”

“So if I beg tonight?”

“Like it was with Christmas Eve, it’ll take years for me to succumb.”

“Looks like I better start now then,” Starsky replied, giggling. He found a piece of the puzzle and fit it in place. “That way, by the time I’m fifty, you’ll be celebrating Birthday Eves with me.”

“Such a dreamer,” Hutch said in a whispery voice.

“Can you at least give me a hint of what you got me?”

“Of what I’m going to give you tomorrow?”

“Whatever.”

“I was thinking I’d give you a rain check for a handjob.”

Starsky glared at him. “You’re not serious.”

“You don’t want one?” Hutch wondered, trying his best to sound insulted, but no actor he.

“I wanted something with meaning,” Starsky whined.

“My handjobs aren’t meaningful?”

Starsky scowled at him.

“I’m hurt,” Hutch further pretended.

“You’re hurt? I’m the one who’s out a serious birthday present.”

“Nah. You’re not.”

They went back to the puzzle.

After a couple of minutes of listening to the fire and the steady, light rain on the roof, as well as each other’s sighs and grunts, Starsky apparently tried to flesh Hutch out some other way.

“So, give me a hint,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be a big one.”

“It involves a woman.”

Starsky looked at Hutch again, startled and amused all at once. “That’s kind of a big hint. What, then? Did you buy me a massage or something?”

“Yeah, complete with a happy ending.”

“C’mon,” Starsky implored him, “can you be serious for one minute already?”

“You’re not getting hints and you’re not getting the present tonight, so let it go.”

“I’m going to make marshmallows,” Starsky said, getting to his feet and going to the kitchen.

When Hutch heard him rummage through bags of groceries and other items, he told him, “You won’t find it in there, so stop looking for it. I’ve covered all my bases. You don’t think I know by now how to keep expensive property out of the hands of toddlers?”

“Fuck you,” Starsky replied, abandoning his search, but returning with a bag of marshmallows and their hanger skewers. He sat in front of the fire again to prepare his treats. “If you loved me—”

“If I loved you?”

“Never mind.”

“Are you going to bake one of those for me?” Hutch wondered, about the marshmallows. He found several new pieces of puzzle to fill in the upper left corner, and couldn’t help but remember how they ate marshmallows in front of the fire over Christmas, how Starsky licked the sugary candy right from his fingers, his mouth warm and wet and arousing; maybe the treat even aroused Starsky.

“Make your own,” Starsky said. “I’m going to pout all night until you give in and celebrate Birthday Eve with me. I mean, if it’s as good a present as you say it is, wouldn’t it be better if I opened it at nighttime, all romantic like this, than tomorrow when it will be a cold, grey, rainy day?”

Hutch looked over to Starsky’s profile, and to his little boy posture, as he sat before the fireplace on the blankets, bundled in Hutch’s sweatshirt and his thermal pajamas, his thick socks and his thicker eyelashes, fire and candlelight in his eyes, removing marshmallows from a plastic bag and pushing them onto the end of his thin metal rod, four in total. Starsky definitely appeared to be in a ‘pout’ of sorts, and had been since dinner ended. He had even hinted that there was something on his mind that he didn’t want to talk about, but was it all a ruse to get Hutch to deliver the goods?

“If it means that much to you,” Hutch finally said, trailing off his sentence.

Starsky’s eyes lit up the way they always did when he was about to get something special—or just his way. “You won’t be sorry,” he promised. “I’ll be as happy to get it now as I would be tomorrow. Happier, in fact. Because it’s a romantic night, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Hutch said sincerely. “But I haven’t wrapped it yet. I was going to get the paper tomorrow when we go to town.”

“Does it have to be wrapped?”

“You’re that desperate for it, huh?”

“I’ll even get it if you tell me where it is.”

“Inside jacket pocket,” Hutch said, “and I know I’m going to hate myself in the morning for letting you get away with this.”

“No, you won’t,” Starsky said, jumping to his feet, “because I won’t let you. I’ll remind you how happy you made me and that my happy always makes you happy.”

It did indeed; Hutch’s happiness reached its pinnacle whenever Starsky was elated.

He watched Starsky cross to the table, to the chair where Hutch had hung his jacket, and then rifle through its inside pockets until he found the legal-sized envelope.

“Is this it?” Starsky asked, holding it up for Hutch to see.

“It’s what’s in the envelope,” Hutch said, to tease him further.

“Well, yeah,” Starsky replied. “I figured that part out all on my own, numb nuts.” He returned to the blankets, sat beside Hutch, close to him, but not touching, and drew a deep breath. When he opened the envelope and removed its contents, he studied the two pieces of card stock paper for half a minute to figure out exactly what they were—other than the obvious appearance that they were airplane tickets.

Starsky finally found the details he sought. “Bolivia?!” he exclaimed, laughing out loud. “No shit?”

“We’re always talking about going—and you want to see a … how did you once put it? a ‘bona fide llama.’”

Starsky giggled while he laughed. “This is crazy!” He definitely sounded excited, despite the perceived insanity of the gift. “Wow,” he mumbled. He continued to study the print on the tickets until he said, “October. We go in October?”

“It’s spring there then,” Hutch explained. He was thrilled that Starsky wasn’t opposed to the trip. “You’re going to be okay flying down there, aren’t you, buddy?”

“With you, I will be,” Starsky said with determination, lowering his voice. “Whatever happens to you will happen to me, and I’m okay with that.”

* * *

When Hutch opened his eyes, he was surprised to find Starsky awake beside him, and facing him, as if he hadn’t slept at all that night, but instead watched Hutch sleep. They’d gone to bed, under blankets, while the fire died down and after they had snuffed out the candles, but the lantern on the table still shined on its dimmest setting.

“Is it morning already?” Hutch asked. He could sleep another four hours if someone let him. They had also stripped naked for bed, so Hutch noticed Starsky’s bared shoulder and his haired chest, the scruffy whiskers on his face, the intensity in his eyes. There was a time when he could have touched Starsky’s warm skin. Finding him awake and silently watching him wasn’t a new experience, but it had been a while since the last time he’d been privileged to see it. Hutch did, however, notice that Starsky’s wide eyes belied his sleepiness, and he searched for an explanation. “Are you hoping to get a jump on your birthday?”

A roll of thunder grumbled across the nighttime sky.

“Oh,” Hutch said, realizing that Starsky was awake because an electrical storm was in the area. “But don’t you worry, honey bear. Just remember this: if you see the flash, it missed you.”

Starsky smirked at him.

Hutch reached to turn Starsky’s wrist so he could read the time, but caught himself at the last moment when he remembered he wasn’t allowed to make skin-to-skin contact with his partner.

Starsky glanced at his watch for him, and said, “Three a.m.”

“Is it passing or arriving?”

“Sounds like it’s getting closer,” Starsky anxiously said, “and I don’t like it one bit.”

“We’re safe.”

A loud crack, followed immediately by a vibrating clash of thunder surprised them both; even Hutch laughed at his own startle. “On the bright side,” he said, as it faded away, and to ease Starsky’s apprehension, especially that look of alarm over his face, “you made it to 41, which is more than I can say; I’m still 40.”

Starsky smirked at him again. “What can we do to be …”

“There’s nothing to do, Starsk,” Hutch advised him, no tease, “but lie here and let it pass. This is one of those moments in life when we go with the flow of things. It’s all we can do.”

“Shouldn’t we go out and get in the truck? Isn’t it safer there?”

“Maybe. But it isn’t safer between the cabin and the truck.”

“You’re supposed to be holding me now,” Starsky said, sounding angry, pushed there, Hutch assumed, by his fear of the storm. “If I get killed from this, you’ll have had it coming.”

Hutch absorbed the blow; the inevitable punch had been his doing and he accepted it.

Another strike of lightning nearby, so close it lit up the inside of the cabin, despite the shuttered windows, and then slammed it with a deafening roar of thunder, vibrating in intensity, rolling in an almost seemingly endless rumble.

“Shit!” Starsky said with a hiss. “That was close!”

Rain pounded the roof.

Starsky was obviously paralyzed by his fear, staring into Hutch’s eyes with a sort of begging plea for comfort, but all Hutch had were words for him. “It’s passing,” he said to calm Starsky. He noticed Starsky gripped the sheet and perspiration broke over his forehead. “You can hear the wind,” he told him, giving Starsky a moment to listen with him, “so it’s blowing on by.”

Wind rattled the locked door while it whistled past the kitchen window.

“You understand now why we were safer in here than trying to get to the truck, right?” When he got Starsky’s nod, he knew Starsky’s fear was passing, too.

A thunderclap boomed, with less ferocity, further away.

“You see?” Hutch said again. “It’s passing now. The worst is over.”

He didn’t leave eye contact with Starsky to purposefully let him know he was right there with him, no matter what happened, that he would do his best to ease the fear, even if his arsenal was simply comprised of words. “This won’t be how we leave this life,” Hutch promised him, soothingly.

Wind gave way to heavy rain; it pounded the rooftop in a voluminous downpour.

“She’s just emptying the sky,” he said in a whimsical voice, purposefully softening it to lighten his partner’s tremble. “It’s as timeless as Earth itself.”

Starsky swallowed, licked his lips, seemed to ease off his scare, especially after they heard the next rumble of thunder, further away still.

They continued to look into each other’s eyes. Starsky never left the contact; it was apparently his salvation. He cussed to expel his tension when the rain finally began to dissipate.

“That was another thing I hated about that island,” he said when he steadied his quivering voice. “Every day there was a thunderstorm, a nasty one, like this one, right overhead. Every day.”

“I’m sorry, Starsk.”

“And there was no way to get away from it, you know?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“I didn’t want to leave that hatchery after we found it; at least we could get out of the rain and not feel so … helpless.”

“The trees take the lightning.”

“Then you worry if the tree will fall on you.” He wasn’t facetious. “I just don’t like them, these storms. I never have. From the time I was a little boy until now—and that island made me more scared.”

“You’re still a little boy,” Hutch said affectionately. “It’s one of the things I admire about you. You haven’t lost your innocence, not really.”

“I’m sorry for what I said a minute ago, about it being on you if I got killed.”

“It’s okay. I had that much coming.”

“No, it’s not okay. I was scared witless then, and I said something I wouldn’t have said.”

“Forgiven.”

“It was mean of me to make a comment about my being dead.”

Hutch sighed. What could he say to that? Then he remembered. “Jade is teaching me how to let go, to live in the moment, to not wallow in what was—or what I believed was, anyway. So you do that, too. Let it go. Be yourself, Starsky, and don’t apologize for it. Besides, I’m betting it helped you to get through those scary minutes.”

“Maybe.” He touched Hutch’s shoulder through the blanket, warmly and with a strong squeeze. “Mostly, you helped me get through it.”

Thunder rolled on a distant horizon and the rain had simmered, so Starsky tried a smile, appearing embarrassed. “I wet the mattress,” he admitted. He flashed a discomfited press of his lips.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

Hutch’s heart sank with empathy for him, but still he couldn’t believe it. “You didn’t really do that, buddy, did you?”

“It scared the piss right out of me.”

Hutch lifted the sheet to see for himself.

But there was no wet spot, no urine stain, no such occurrence.

“Payback’s a bitch,” Starsky said in a whisper, and then laughed, obviously pleased with his prank. “But if it makes you feel any better, I sure thought I was going to pee the bed. Oh, and, by the way, you can put the sheet down now. You’re making me cold.”

Hutch realized only then that he’d continued to peek at Starsky, to have noticed his snugged sac and his flaccid penis tucked against his haired and darker skin, a stall he used to savor and to crave while he drank in their familiar shapes and size, to subconsciously reminisce about the pleasure he got from them—and the ecstasy he gave. He felt his own erection emerge.

But Starsky still had to pull the sheet from Hutch’s fingers to recover himself. “Enough of that,” he said. “You can touch it again when you’ve got the green light—and not a minute before.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want me to talk you through a self-pleasing hand job?”

“Self-pleasing, as in, for you?”

“No, you idiot. Your hand on your dick.”

“Not on your life.”

“Would you be offended if I got myself off—while looking at you?”

“Hell, yeah. If I don’t get any, you don’t get any—especially on my birthday.”

They didn’t speak for a couple of minutes. Only the sound of the light rain on the roof was heard, but they didn’t leave wordless eye contact, either.

“Shall we get some sleep?” Hutch finally suggested. He tried not to let his disappointment shine through, but he wasn’t certain he succeeded.

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed, rolling away from him. “Let’s get some sleep, partner. We’ve got a long day of puzzle-piecing and marshmallow-roasting ahead of us.”

* * *

Starsky got his pancakes for breakfast—“the best in all the world”—and he excitedly talked to Hutch throughout the meal about their October trip to Bolivia, as if he would plan it out in a day. And then, after their hot showers, but before building a fire, they went to town for their additional supplies, one of which was more propane for the stove. Starsky wanted that eggplant pasta Hutch had made for him last summer, and Hutch set out to oblige him. He even let Starsky pick out his own birthday cake, a fat chocolate one with double fudge icing.

It rained still, off and on, but no thunderstorm dampened the day or Starsky’s mood. The locals talked about the weather and that it was expected to leave the area by morning. The day after Starsky’s birthday would be warm with sunshine.

“Maybe we can have a picnic,” Starsky said excitedly, “down there by our pond.”

So Hutch made certain to buy picnic food for the endeavor while he shopped: chips and beer, crackers and nuts, fresh fruit and bottled water, canned beans and applesauce.

Before heading back to the cabin, they stopped at the local bar for several games of pool and to watch the sports broadcast on the only television in the establishment. There were a few people in the restaurant, mostly the townsfolk, but a touristy family with several children was on hand, too, to bring an innocent cheerfulness to the otherwise grey day.

Their pool games were watched by several older men who sat on bar stools and wagered on them, laughing and harassing each other when they tried to change their bets several times depending on which of the two—Starsky or Hutch—took the lead in the game.

“I win, you win,” Hutch said, his voice of a volume only Starsky could hear, “so everybody wins?”

“Sure. You win first.”

And so they played an even-numbered of games, alternating the outcome, to keep the elders happy and drinking.

After a while, Hutch heard Starsky tell him, “At two o’clock.”

Hutch had earlier noticed the less-than-appropriate attention they got from a younger man seated at the end of the bar. “I don’t think he’s a threat,” he decided, a conclusion he’d already made.

“Agreed,” Starsky said, striking a ball with his cue stick, and straightening to examine the new arrangement he’d made on the table. “More like he’s hoping for a lay.”

“You do him,” Hutch suggested, “and I’ll do me while I watch.”

“Will you get off that?” Starsky snapped with a snarl.

“I’m just trying to keep us happy.”

“Don’t I look happy? I’m going to La Paz.”

“In six months.”

“So, six months of happy.”

“I know how much you need a fuck fix,” Hutch argued.

“Not that much.”

When Starsky walked around Hutch to position himself for another strike at the ball, Hutch said, “He’s a pretty boy; you can pretend he’s me.” The young man was sandy blond and blue-eyed, dressed in a warm blue sweater and Levi jeans. Thirty-something, maybe, if that. “So, what if I do him and you watch?” Hutch suggested. “Maybe that’ll help you to finally wank your own chain.”

“Did you want to pretend to win this round,” Starsky asked, an apparent effort to avoid Hutch’s stupid ideas, “or are you going to let Grandpa down while I cream your ass?”

The second he said it, he and Hutch realized the innuendo together and busted out laughing, so much that Starsky had to momentarily walk away from the table to regain his composure.

“Musta been funny,” the oldest gentleman said.

“Yeah,” Hutch agreed. “He just bet me he’d win this round. Funny that, right?”

The two cops were the spark of life in the room that early afternoon, aware as well that they were being sized up by a lone redneck at the end of the bar. So, when they left the establishment during a break in the rain, having satisfied the old men’s bets, they expected some kind of interaction with their admirer in the parking lot—and they weren’t disappointed.

“Hey, guys!”

They turned around midway to the truck and faced the hustler. He approached with a slight, but obvious femininity in his stride.

It was the first time in their lives when neither Hutch nor Starsky felt wary of the direct approach, but instead assumed they were about to be sexually solicited.

“Danny Stevens,” the stranger introduced himself, extending his hand in greeting. “I own the hardware store in town. Well, new ownership, as of about two weeks ago.”

Starsky introduced himself and his partner and returned the greeting with a handshake. But when Hutch attempted to do likewise, Starsky knocked Hutch’s hand away before the two men could make contact. “No touch,” he told Hutch.

Hutch was certain the action was meant for him, that he protected Danny from whatever Hutch may have contracted in that bathroom stall weeks earlier. But then he wasn’t so certain, especially as the conversation played out and Starsky seemed guarded. Did he think Danny was contagious—simply because he was seemingly gay?

“You guys are the police officers who bought the Harmon place, yah?” Danny asked. He was no doubt aware that Starsky had blocked his handshake with Hutch, but because Starsky had willingly offered his own hand, perhaps Danny hadn’t been offended.

“And you want to know, because?” Hutch queried him.

“Well, I mean, you live there together,” Danny explained.

“We stay there together … sometimes,” Starsky told him. “What’s your question?”

“I was having some trouble.”

Danny appeared nervous, not certain he could or should say what he wanted to, seeming to fidget with indecisiveness.

“With a person or a thing?” Hutch asked to ease the concern he saw in the man’s eyes and help him with his inquiry.

“A person.”

“Dead or alive?” Starsky cracked.

Hutch knew right then that Starsky’s hackles were up, and he didn’t know why. He hadn’t gotten a read from Danny that told him to be careful, other than perhaps wording a rejection to a sexual advance. Was Hutch that out of step with his partner’s hunches?

“I’m like you guys,” Danny said.

“Police officer?” Starsky asked.

“No,” Danny replied with apparent frustration in his voice. “I’m the kind of guy that makes, you know, some people uncomfortable.”

“We’re not those kinds of guys,” Starsky immediately shot back.

Danny appeared confused then. “I’m sorry,” he said under his breath. “It’s gotten around town that you guys are … a … couple.”

“A couple of what?”

“Starsk,” Hutch warned Starsky, using just his name to ask him to back down, and to Danny, he said, “Whether we’re those kinds of guys or we’re not those kinds of guys, we are police officers—detectives—so if you’re having trouble, let’s hear it.”

“I took over the hardware store, like I was tellin’ ya, and a couple of the guys in this town want to see me leave, cuz, well, because they don’t like men who … um … like men, and I thought maybe you could do something about that for me, but now I don’t know.”

Starsky eased off, and not because, Hutch didn’t think, he realized he was speaking to a gay man, nor because he was speaking to one who had braved telling them so, but because Hutch had warned him to disarm himself. Hutch was certain Starsky knew, from the moment he’d begun to feel Danny’s attention in the bar, that he’d been approached by a man who pleasured men.

“If you can point them out to us while we’re in town for the week,” Starsky suggested, “we’ll see what we can do.”

“They come to the bar every Friday night, so if you’re around then, I can show you.” He paused, looked at them both, and added, “I’m sorry if I insulted you.”

“You didn’t,” Hutch said. He spoke before Starsky could say anything and further hurt the young man’s sensibilities. “We’ve just had our share of trouble with guys like those guys, and my partner is a bit defensive because of it.”

Starsky made eye contact with Hutch, but Hutch couldn’t read whether he should feel reprimanded by the fire in those eyes, or forgiven.

“Thank you, officers,” Danny said. He turned to walk away until Starsky stopped him in his tracks with a follow up comment.

“Maybe someday you won’t have to put up with assholes like them,” Starsky said, “and not because somebody intervened on your behalf, but because assholes like them just don’t count anymore.”

Hutch couldn’t help but think Starsky’s words were meant for Starsky, as well.

* * *

They each had two pieces of birthday cake after dinner, a sort of first for Hutch, but it was just that good. It had followed eggplant and mushroom pasta, and a healthy salad, so they figured they earned it. They sat at the table for a couple of hours afterward, nursing a bottle of wine from two glasses between them, and reminiscing and discussing a wide variety of subjects, not the least of which was the content for Starsky’s proposed book—the one Hutch had been unwittingly conscripted to write.

But Hutch was more interested in the present, not the past; at least, he was that night.

“Why’d you get so defensive with Danny Boy this afternoon?” he asked. “He seemed like a guy in need, but you were in self-preservation mode. He’s no different from your friend Adam, is he?”

Starsky frowned as he appeared to contemplate the answer to that question. He toyed with the bottle cork, spinning it on the table, one direction and then another. Whatever his reason for feeling uncomfortable around Danny, it seemed it wasn’t valid, because he apologized instead. “I guess I still don’t want to be thought of as one of ‘those guys.’”

“Because you’re afraid of retaliation?”

“Dunno,” Starsky replied with a shrug. “Maybe it’s more that guys ‘like that’ are considered nasty and immoral … and I’m not those things, am I, Hutch?”

It was a rhetorical question as far as Hutch was concerned. He studied Starsky’s demeanor, his relaxed comfort in that otherwise hard wooden chair, his warm clothes and darker features, his sleepy eyes and whiskered face. “Then, maybe,” Hutch said, “it might behoove you to not care about what other people think.”

“Like a pony?”

“A pony?”

“Behoove.”

Hutch rolled his eyes. “Behoove … um … that it would be good for you … suitable … appropriate.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say it that way?” He tossed the cork at Hutch and hit him in the chest. “You writers,” he mumbled.

“As if I’m that.”

“You will be.”

“Such faith in me.”

“Always.”

They gazed at each other over the small candle in the center of the table. Hutch relished the look of light reflecting in Starsky’s blue eyes—and that they appeared so fond of him in that minute. The expression on Starsky’s face was one of contentment, relaxation, and invitation. A man in love.

“You want me?” Hutch asked, using his sexy voice. “You want, need, respect, trust, love the hell out of me, do ya?”

“Like a motherfucker,” Starsky replied.

* * *

“This is another reason we needed your truck,” Starsky explained.

They had just loaded a used picnic table and benches into the bed, a weathered three-piece set they bought at the local antiques and collectibles store along the highway that next day. The sun did shine, as forecasted, and they took advantage of its warming energy.

The table was Starsky’s idea. He was afraid the ground would be too wet to sit on for the picnic he planned to have later that day and he didn’t want to sit on the plastic tarp, either, even if it was under a blanket. Starsky had his own ideas about things and Hutch went along for the ride.

“I never argued with you about bringing the truck,” Hutch debated him. He closed the tailgate, impressed by how neatly the new load fit inside the bed.

“Oh,” Starsky said, mocking a certain surprise. “I remember now: it was that you didn’t want me driving your truck.”

“I never said that, either.”

“Not in those words, maybe.”

“Not in any words,” Hutch said.

“You wanted to drive—but I won that battle, remember?” Starsky reminded him, proudly.

“That’s different from not wanting to bring the truck.”

“Is it?”

They got into the vehicle, Hutch behind the wheel. He inserted the key into the ignition, but before he turned it, he looked over at his partner. “Do you want to drive it now?”

“I had my fill yesterday bringing us up here. I’m good.”

When Hutch backed the truck out of its parking space and headed to the highway, Starsky added, “Besides … when we get stuck in the mud out there, we’ll have you to blame.”

“You’d blame me even if it wasn’t my fault.”

They didn’t need to stop at the homestead upon their return; they’d already packed the truck with their food and blankets, binoculars and other ‘stuff’ Starsky said he needed, so they drove past the cabin on the gravel road and slowly made their way to that area on the plot map, the one that promised a pond; it was drawn to be at the bottom of a gentle slope, but how gentle didn’t occur to them until they reached it.

The gravel had given way to packed dirt, somewhat muddy in places, but Hutch was able to maneuver around those spots by using the grassier sides of the worn road, and both purposefully and definitely making Starsky repeatedly tell him to ‘be careful’—as if Hutch planned it any other way. When they stopped on the wooded ridge, that slope to the pond was steeper than they anticipated, but the pond was full of water, and it was tucked in by the meadow on one side and woods on the other. A perfect place for a picnic, if ever there was one.

Hutch shifted the gear to park and turned off the engine. “I’m thinking what you’re thinking,” he assumed, “and betting if we go down there in the truck, we may not make it back. It’s not a four-wheel drive.”

“So we carry the table down there?”

“Only if we plan to leave it. I’d rather not struggle bringing it up the hill.”

Starsky contemplated the situation with him for a few minutes. “I say we leave it,” he finally decided. “That way it’ll be out here whenever we want to use it. If we want one closer to the cabin, like we talked about last night, we can always get another one.”

“You know we’re running out of Uncle Ted’s money, right?”

Bewildered, Starsky asked, “How’d that happen? Because we bought a $75 picnic table?”

“Because we’re going to Bolivia in October. Airfare. Hotels. Food. And, if things go badly here, we might need to hide out there forever.”

“Okay, I get it. Well, then, the next picnic table is on me.”

“You don’t have any money.”

“I have $75, for crissakes. And, unlike you, I’ve still got a job when the time comes.”

It was another one of those awkward, thoughtless, hurtful moments. Hutch could tell right away that Starsky realized the implications in his latest comment—and there was more than one—because Starsky grimaced, a sort of self-resentful expression, and quickly said, “It just means I’ll keep the job until I’ve paid off the table.”

Starsky had promised to do whatever Hutch did in life; if Hutch lost his job over a sexual misconduct conviction, he and Starsky would find new jobs together.

Hutch wanted to believe they were in that predicament together, but he also couldn’t be greedy. “You worked as hard as I did to get that badge,” he told him. “Don’t be giving up your dreams because of me.”

“Like we’re going to have this conversation right now,” Starsky said dryly. He opened the door and slid out of the truck with a parting shot, allowing a subtle breeze to pass through the cab before he closed it. “Besides, my new dream job is to have a bestseller.”

Suppose Starsky was right about writing a book, a sort of real life Sherlock Holmes collection of murder mysteries unique unto them—and it sold like gangbusters? Maybe they could retire on their memoirs.

Hutch opened his door and climbed out too. “It sure is beautiful,” he said with a whistle when he stopped beside Starsky on the passenger side of the truck and they looked out over the sweeping meadow to the pond. Starsky might not ever see the beauty in the natural world to the degree Hutch saw it, but he couldn’t not be impressed by the view before them. How could anyone not be?

“All the more beautiful,” Starsky said, “because we own it.”

Possession did add a certain loveliness.

“Shall we walk down there first and test the surface before unloading the truck?” Hutch suggested. It was rhetorical, of course, and served its purpose to move them off the ridge and step onto the sloping hill of meadow, covered in a hint of green grasses and purple wildflowers.

Though soft and still slightly damp, the ground wasn’t muddy. They walked half a dozen yards from the truck into the sunshine and gave themselves a minute to enjoy yet another view of the landscape, this one from a centered place in the wilderness.

And then the wilderness came to them.

Hutch heard it first, or maybe he was the only one who did, tuned as he was into nature more than his partner ever could be: the rustle of movement in the trees behind them near the truck. He half-turned and was immediately alarmed into a fight-or-flight posture. He instinctively grabbed Starsky’s forearm, seizing him tightly, almost painfully, and firmly ordered him, “Don’t move. Do what I tell you to do, you understand?”

At that same moment, Starsky also turned, followed Hutch’s line of sight toward the truck, saw what Hutch had already seen, and instantly froze. Hutch could feel the tension throughout Starsky’s every muscle just from where he gripped his arm.

Two black bears, one large, the other quite small, had appeared in the road at the front of their vehicle, heads high, sniffing the wind. They cautiously circled the truck.

“Oh, shit,” Starsky whispered, terrified, much the way he’d been during that violent thunderstorm. “Oh, shit, Hutch, what do we do?”

“We don’t move.”

Hutch didn’t let go of Starsky while he sized up the situation, thinking out loud. “It’s a mother and cub,” he decided, a conclusion he realized made it a dangerous predicament for them. “They’ve come for the food—which she probably smelled when we opened the doors.” He heard Starsky’s audible panting, and tried to ease his partner’s panic. “Give her a minute to figure out she can’t get in and then she’ll leave.”

They watched while the larger bear rose onto her hind legs, set her front paws against the passenger window glass, and sniffed around the door edges.

“We should have made it so she could get in,” Starsky said, his voice quivering. “That way she’d eat our shit and not us.”

“She won’t eat us,” Hutch assured him. But he did know she could be aggressive if compelled to defend her cub. “Let’s walk backward … down the hill … slowly.” He made a small first step, to let Starsky know how slowly he intended for them to move—and he didn’t loosen his grip on Starsky’s arm. “Bears can’t go downhill very well,” he added, after they took several steps and the she-bear didn’t seem to notice them, not their voices or their movement, or she at least didn’t care.

“Bears can’t go downhill? You’re making that fact up,” Starsky whined.

“I’m not,” Hutch replied, his voice as serious as he could sound. He needed Starsky to trust him. “Their front legs are shorter than their back ones; it’s not that they can’t go downhill; it’s that it’s much harder for them. So, let’s keep backing in this direction, okay?”

“Yeah. Oh, shit, Hutch.”

“It’s going to be fine, buddy. She’s just looking for something easy to eat.”

“Like us.”

“Not like us … or she’d be coming for us, but let’s clear out of her way.”

They continued to walk slowly, backward, down the sloping hill toward the pond, all the while keeping an eye on their intimidating visitors. The bears had circled the truck several times by then, testing ways to enter the tightly sealed vehicle, and having no luck. And whatever the mama bear did, the baby bear imitated. If she stood on her hind legs and repeatedly pushed the glass with her front paws, baby bear stood up beside her, paws on the door, pushing at it, too, the way his mama did.

Eventually, they gave up, and stood on the ridge, gazing down at the humans who had, by then, reached the center of the meadow.

Hutch stopped them at that moment. He waited for the bears’ next move before he’d decide on theirs. “You watch,” he predicted aloud. “She’s going to either go down the road or she’s going to cut across the meadow at an angle … because it’ll be easier for her than coming straight toward us.”

Minutes, that undoubtedly felt like eternities to Starsky, slowly passed. The bears sniffed the wind; they searched directions, took several steps, stopped again. Finally, in what appeared to be a scene from out of a movie Hutch had directed, the bears set off slowly across the meadow—at an angle—toward its opposite side, the one more populated by trees.

“Let’s go,” Hutch said. As the bears moved further out of their proximity, he led Starsky back up the hill, as slowly as they had descended it. When they were within safe running distance of the truck—should they need to outrun a charging black bear—Hutch let go of Starsky’s arm.

“All’s well that ends well, right?” Hutch said when they reached the parked vehicle. He was, admittedly, relieved, but he at least felt more prepared to defend himself—and Starsky with him—than the reverse; having to defend his partner gave him strength he may not have had otherwise.

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit,” Starsky repeatedly swore. He bent over and held his knees to catch his breath. “Oh, shit, Hutch.”

“I’m proud of you,” Hutch told him. He gave Starsky a firm pat on the back. “You faced your worst nightmare and stood your ground.”

“I was scared shitless,” Starsky confessed. He didn’t straighten for several minutes, panting while he spoke, and visibly trembling, too. “Oh, Jesus, Hutch. I never want to go through that again.”

“You did good, buddy boy.”

“I almost died.”

“She didn’t have reason to hurt us.”

“I almost died of fright,” Starsky clarified.

Hutch laughed. “But you didn’t.”

“I would have if she’d come for us.”

“You’d have gone into fight or flight response, and probably the latter. You’ve confronted worse—from human killers. You’ve handled crazy before and come out smelling like roses. Don’t underestimate yourself.”

“There were two of them.”

“The baby would have run away; climbed a tree—and Mama would have gone after it as soon as she realized it was out of danger. Animals do things with reason.”

Starsky straightened, looked Hutch in the eye. “Was it true what you said about them not being able to go downhill very well?”

“You don’t really want to know the answer to that question, do you? I mean, Dumbo’s magic feather and all that, right?”

“You’re a son-of-a-bitch.”

“It kept you from doing the wrong thing,” Hutch explained. “And now that you’ve been through this, you’ll know what to do next time, right?”

“I hope there won’t be a next time,” Starsky swore, appearing then to swallow his anxiety, and releasing his unspent adrenaline. The relaxation came through in his voice, too. “Man, that was amazing! Did you see how they were trying to open the doors and windows?”

“Proving to you that animals have brains—and hunting us down and chewing on our faces wasn’t anything that interested her. She wanted your cookies.”

Starsky laughed, letting Hutch know, purely from his laughter, that he’d risen above his scare. “She can have my cookies,” he said. “I was about to throw them up, anyway. But now what? If we go down there and have our lunch, she’ll smell it and come over.”

“That’s when we run to the truck and leave the food to her.”

“Okay,” Starsky said, accepting that strategy. “So first we carry the food down there so we have a Plan B.”

They opened the truck doors and began to unload the bags of groceries, setting them on the ground so they could gather it up together and take it out to the pond. But Hutch saw movement from the corner of his eye and stopped them both again “Looks like we’ve got a new and different kind of visitor,” he said, pointing in the direction from which the bears had eventually disappeared.

Two hikers had emerged from the woods and slowly made their way toward them. “They’re just girls,” Starsky noted when the humans got close enough to tell. “Either that, or we’re about to have another run-in with a Satanic cult—and I believe you said there’s only one of those to a lifetime.”

“On the bright side,” Hutch chuckled, “you’re not in your underwear this time.” He was certain the odds were still in their favor. “Just girls,” he said under his breath. “Of course, girls is still scarier than bears,” he added with a laugh, “so let’s say we keep them away from the truck or at least check their backpacks for snakes beforehand.”

“You check ’em, Mr. Nature Boy.”

Like Starsky, Hutch abandoned the bag-gathering effort, and faced the arrivals with as much curiosity and intrigue as did his partner.

“Good morning,” the women said in friendly greeting as they approached. “Lovely day, no?”

Starsky and Hutch agreed, and then they introduced themselves, not shaking hands. Michele. Kate. One blonde and one brunette, respectively; both somewhere in their late 20s, probably, and both obviously attractive and well fit. They wore hiking pants and worn boots, light sweatshirts and backpacks.

“Did you see the bears?” Michele asked. She shielded her face with her hand under the brim of her straw hat. “They passed right by us just to the east of your property markers, there in the woods.” She pointed in the appropriate direction.

“They tried getting into our truck a couple of minutes ago,” Starsky excitedly said.

“While you were in it?”

“We were down there a ways,” he told her, motioning toward the pond.

“I’d seen her out here before,” Kate informed them, about the bear. “This time she had a baby with her.”

“What about snakes?” Starsky asked. “See any of those lately?”

“You hike these parts regularly?” Hutch asked the women before Starsky could get too far beyond the niceties. Hikers were more of an interest to him anyway; if he and Starsky wanted to flip a coin in the woods to see which one of them got to suck the other first, he’d be sure to look for hikers and not reptiles. He’d told Starsky in the past that they should expect wilderness lovers to abound—at least bears—and to not engage in that kind of intimate behavior outside, and Kate was about to confirm his better judgment.

Michele explained that she had been born in the area, that her family owned some of the real estate, a portion of which landlocked the property Hutch and Starsky owned. She said she often hiked, and brought friends along to do likewise, such as Kate, and that they also rode horses on occasion. She said she tried to abide the rules of the property lines, but on this day, given their unexpected encounter with the bears, they got sidelined onto private property, and decided it might be safer to meet up with the men they had spied on the ridge above the meadow.

“We assume you’re the police officers who bought the Harmon cabin,” Michele added.

“You assume right,” Starsky said with pride.

“So we’re safer still,” she noted, sounding pleased. “What are you boys up to this afternoon?”

“Hauling our loot down to the pond,” Starsky replied, and beating Hutch to the answer, “and a picnic table we just bought.”

Hutch observed the women noticing the furniture in the bed of the pickup. He also couldn’t help but sense that Starsky was a bit nervous, in an excited way, like a virgin on a first date, trying to impress upon the girl—or, in this case, the girls—his ability to plan and provide.

No matter how they felt about each other, Hutch and Starsky were still straight men, and being confronted by attractive young women, who were also quite friendly, brought out that hard-wired male response in them, despite their best efforts or wishes to do otherwise—and the female attention excited one of them more than the other.

But maybe that was a good thing.

Maybe Starsky could strike up a friendship with one of the women, the one of his choosing, and use her—like one would use a friend, that is—for his sexual needs, if Hutch’s blood test proved to be positive and he had to abandon sex with his partner.

That heavy thought drove Hutch’s next question. “You girls want to join us for an outdoor lunch? We’ve got plenty to eat.”

Their acceptance of the invitation seemed to relax Starsky. Maybe he felt there’d be more strength in numbers should the bears return. Or maybe it gave him a reason to abandon his weakness, his fears of snakes and bears and lightning, and prove to himself he was still a masculine man, a formidable foe, a planner and a provider for those weaker than himself.

The women offered to take the food bags and other items to the pond while the men unloaded the picnic table and its benches. They collectively and wordlessly agreed on the best spot to set up the lunch, using a small blanket as a tablecloth, to give the presentation more class. The women also shared the food from their backpacks. So, between the red wine and crackers, dried fruit and nuts, chips and dips, they would dine on chopped celery and carrots, olives and sourdough bread, and chocolate chip cookies. And not a single snake.

“How did you ever survive the run-in with those bears?” Starsky asked when he feasted his eyes on the food they’d brought. “I would think they’d have tackled you and ripped open your backpacks.”

“We had bear spray,” Kate said.

“Bear spray,” Starsky mumbled, glancing over at Hutch, making eye contact, and presumably asking, without words, why the hell he and Hutch didn’t have any.

Hutch shrugged at him. He’d never heard of it before.

“It’s like mace,” Michele explained, “except stronger.”

“Made for bears, Starsky,” Hutch quipped, as if he’d known it all along.

“You call him Starsky?” Kate wondered. “It was David, wasn’t it?”

“And I call him Hutch,” Starsky said. “So do most people who know us.”

“And even people who don’t know call us Starsky and Hutch,” Hutch said with a laugh, “when they can’t get our attention any other way.”

While Hutch laid out paper napkins, utensils, and salt and pepper shakers, Starsky uncorked the wine bottle, occasionally passing the women his broad smile as they watched him, but he opened it like a pro, despite his apparent self-conscious tension that only Hutch seemed to notice.

“Just one glass?” Kate asked, holding up the only one she found in the box at the end of the table.

“You only brought one wine glass?” Hutch asked Starsky, sounding incredulous and not seriously chastising at once. He didn’t fully understand it because he and Starsky weren’t permitted to share a glass. “I made certain to have two with us at the cabin,” he told his partner.

Starsky pretended to sneer at him and then fired back, “You always drink out of the bottle, anyway, so I figured, why bother?”

Hutch never drank from a wine bottle and he didn’t like the insinuation, especially in light of his recent drunkenness, or maybe because of it, so he shot a reprimanding scowl in Starsky’s direction.

Michele told them not to worry, that she had a solution, and then produced a couple of plastic camping cups. “I’ve only got two,” she said apologetically.

“He won’t mind,” Starsky said. “We’ll pour ours first and leave him to the rest of his bottle.” He winked at Hutch. “C’mon, be a sport.”

Only because Starsky tried to cover for his absent-mindedness in bringing only one glass did Hutch decide to join the fun instead. “Just be sure there’s enough for me; that’s all I ask.”

And so their picnic began, the women on one side of the table, blonde across from blond, the men on the other, brunette across from likewise. They dined. They drank. They talked. They laughed. They relaxed. They enjoyed each other’s company, old friends and new. And no bears arrived to chase them away. The sun stayed shining and the weather warmed to a comfortable degree.

Hutch couldn’t help but think Starsky had taken a liking to Kate. She was very different from Grace, more like Terri in appearance, much like Kira in personality. Maybe Starsky was just relieved to be able to showcase his sexuality, having been unable to do so for the past couple of weeks. Maybe it was what he needed, to flaunt it in that way, with his intellect and his wit, with his sexy smile and his boyish charisma. Even Hutch enjoyed watching it in play.

But the wind got knocked out of Starsky’s sails when Michele nonchalantly asked, “How long have you boys been in a relationship?”

“We’ve been police officers, together, for about twelve years now,” Starsky quickly said.

“I meant,” Michele reworded herself, “how long have you been … boyfriends?”

“Who says we’re boyfriends?”

Hutch knew right away that Starsky was back on that defensive playing field again.

“Rumor has it around here that you guys are gay,” she explained, “but, honestly, you couldn’t prove it by me. You seem more interested in us than each other.” Maybe the wine had given her the courage to tell them such a thing.

“We’re not gay,” Starsky told her. His voice was firm, direct, borderline adamant. “I don’t know how that rumor got started.”

Hutch looked over at Kate to draw her attention, smiled at her, and playfully said, with motivating intent, “He’s as straight as they come, but maybe you’d like him to prove it.”

Starsky glared at Hutch. “What are you doing?” he asked in a repressed voice.

“Helping you along.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“He’s doing just fine on his own,” Kate agreed, giggling.

“Well,” Hutch said to Starsky, “if you’re not gay, you’re straight. Am I right? And if you come off as straight, then women, like these beautiful beauties, are going to want to see it through.”

Starsky set his eyes on Kate again. “I’m not available,” he bluntly told her.

“Oh,” was her disappointing reply.

“I’m sorry,” Starsky said. “What my idiot partner isn’t telling you is that, although we’re not gay, we’re actually in a relationship with each other—a sexual and romantic one.”

Hutch was more stunned by that public disclosure than the women appeared to be.

Never, not once, had Starsky admitted to anyone—with the exception of Dr. Steven Jade, and Grace, only because he had to—that he was sexually engaged with a member of his own gender.

“I didn’t mean to lead you on,” Starsky told the women, sitting back with an expression of shame on his face. “I was just having fun. We were all having fun—enjoying the company and the pretty day.”

“We were indeed,” Michele said. “But let me get this, um, straight,” she added, laughing at her pun, “you guys aren’t gay, yet you—”

“We aren’t attracted to men,” Starsky further explained.

Hutch had given him full rein to decide what to say and what not to say—and Starsky seemed to be on a roll.

“We’re just attracted to each other,” Starsky finished. “Twelve years of practically living on top of each other, of working as a team with bullets whizzing by our heads—and a year before that in the Academy together—well, I mean, we built a kind of trust and loyalty that’s so rare in this world, it’s even hard for us to believe it exists, and we just kind of fell into it, know what I mean?”

“Fascinating,” Michele whispered.

“And no room for women?” Kate wondered, “not even as side dishes?”

Hutch waited. He’d made it clear on several occasions that he was willing to give Starsky a surrogate during those two months of abstinence; would Starsky finally take the bait?

Starsky laughed, friendly and flattered. “It’s a nice thought,” he said, “but look at this boy, will ya? When I have a main dish like this one, why would I want a side dish, hm?”

“I do understand that,” Michele agreed, smiling at Hutch, flattering him.

But, mostly, Hutch had been flattered by Starsky.

And in a way he never expected.

* * *

“I was trying to get you laid,” Hutch said, defending his actions.

“Don’t try so hard,” Starsky warned him. “I’m not looking to get laid. Besides, how do you think you’d really feel if I’d gone off with one of them and got myself a poke, hm?”

“You would have deserved it.”

“Because you caused the reason we’re not fucking each other?”

“Something like that.”

They found themselves on their bed of blankets in front of another fire. They didn’t have an appetite, given how much they’d eaten at lunch, and they didn’t open a wine bottle, either. Too lazy for meal preparation, they snacked on leftover picnic food instead.

“Quite a day, though,” Starsky recalled. “Bears and babes.”

Hutch waited for Starsky to figure out what he wanted to do with that deck of cards he kept shuffling in his hands. Would they play a game? Banter over puzzle puzzlements instead? Roast marshmallows? Discuss the meaning of life?

Starsky tossed the full deck onto the blanket between them. “I’m bored,” he complained. “Killing time isn’t as fun as I thought it’d be.”

“Because you’re tired.”

“It’s scary how much being scared can take out of me.”

“How about I read you a bedtime story?”

“Yeah,” Starsky said, coming back to life. “Read me some Sherlock, Goldilocks.”

* * *

Starsky leaned into Hutch without touching him as Hutch began to get out of the driver’s side of the truck, a sort of effort on Starsky’s part, it seemed, to stall his partner from leaving the vehicle for the restaurant that morning. So Hutch sat back and scowled at him. He was hungry and didn’t appreciate the delay. “What do you need?” If asked in a court of law, Hutch wouldn’t have been able to specify any particular action or nuance that told him Starsky wanted something from him, but the overall subconscious feel and timing of Starsky’s posturing convinced Hutch he was about to be solicited.

“A dime,” Starsky said. He showed Hutch his empty jeans pockets by going through them with both hands at once and presenting his open palms. “I need to make a call.”

“It can’t wait until later?”

“They’re doubling the cost of payphone calls in July to twenty cents. Two dimes, if you can believe that. All I’m asking for is one.”

“I didn’t mean that much later,” Hutch said with a laugh. He reached into his right front pocket after stretching out his leg and retrieved a dime from his loose change for Starsky. “Who do you need to call anyway?”

“A man about a horse,” Starsky said, snatching the dime from Hutch’s fingers without touching him and before Hutch could change his mind.

“A man about a horse is a pissing metaphor, you idiot.”

“Unless I was buying a horse,” Starsky countered him with a smirk. He pushed away from the truck and headed for the phone booth in the far corner of the restaurant’s parking lot.

“Who are you calling?” Hutch asked in a raised voice. He got out of the truck. As he closed the door, he heard Starsky say something, but he couldn’t decipher the exact words because Starsky had spoken them with his back to him. “I’ll meet you in the restaurant,” Hutch yelled. He saw Starsky raise his hand to signal that he’d heard Hutch, and they parted company.

The aroma inside the diner was enticing, adding a certain warmth and ambiance to the room itself. Both he and Starsky had come to recognize the waitresses and they them; their mountain community truly was a sort of home-away-from-home. Hutch seated himself in a booth at a window that overlooked the parking lot. From there, he could see Starsky at the payphone. Then Hutch said hello to Mary, his waitress, and asked for black coffee while he waited.

Hutch wasn’t suspicious about who Starsky called, at least not then, but he was intrigued. They’d gone to their cabin retreat for the week to relax, commune, kill time, enjoy each other in all ways but one. So what could Starsky possibly have to do that needed doing that morning?

When Starsky finally ended his ten-minute call and headed for the diner’s entry doors, Hutch enjoyed an extra special moment he hadn’t planned: watching Starsky walk across the parking lot with that hip-first stride of his. That man was so familiar to Hutch, he couldn’t imagine anyone else being so perfect or interesting to him. But he was interrupted when the waitress brought his coffee and a menu, told him a cheerful, ‘Good morning,’ and left him to his vices; by then, Starsky had disappeared from view.

So, when Starsky finally joined him at the table, Hutch immediately asked, “Who did you call?”

“My brother,” Starsky said. “Did you drink from that yet?” he asked about Hutch’s coffee. When Hutch said he hadn’t, Starsky grabbed the cup from him.

“On a dime?” Hutch wondered. “You made a long-distance call on a dime?”

After a sip of the brew, and a scrunched face to show his displeasure with the taste, Starsky replied, “I called collect.” He slid the cup back to Hutch. “I don’t know how you drink it straight up like that.”

Hutch held out his hand. “I want my dime back.”

“I’m holding onto it for my next call. Finder’s keepers and all that.”

It was Starsky’s reluctance to tell him what had transpired on the phone that ended up making Hutch suspicious. “You made a local call,” he decided.

The waitress arrived with Starsky’s coffee. After she left, he looked Hutch in the eye and said, “You need to mind your own business.”

But his words of warning didn’t stop Hutch. “What did you need to call Nick about that couldn’t wait until we got home?”

“A horse, dammit,” Starsky said. “Didn’t I tell you I needed to call a man about a horse?”

Hutch knew Starsky well enough to know his stupid answer was an effort to elude disclosing the real one. So did Starsky talk to Nick about something he didn’t want to tell Hutch? Or did he call Nick at all? And, if he didn’t call Nick, who did he call?

“I called Adam,” Starsky said, with a level of contempt in his voice, as if he hated being pushed into a confession he didn’t want to make. “Are you happy now?”

“No.”

Hutch was actually crestfallen to learn what he just did.

“Sure you are,” Starsky debated him. “It’s what you were assuming I’d done. So that has to make you happy: to be right about your hunches.”

Hutch looked out the window to find his way to self-control; he didn’t know whether to be hurt, angry, disgusted with himself, sorry, all or none of the above.

“And let me see if I can make this even more fun for you,” Starsky said. “I told Adam to meet me tonight—around midnight.”

Hutch looked back at him, jarred by the admittance. His heart began to noticeably pound.

“I told him you’d probably be asleep by then,” Starsky continued, “so you wouldn’t hear me sneak out of the cabin.”

Hutch felt patronized—as well as uncertain about something, but couldn’t pinpoint what.

“And then Adam said,” Starsky furthered, “that he’d have a reserved room waiting for us over at the motor lodge off the highway.”

That’s when Hutch knew Starsky’s entire testimony was pure fiction.

“We’re going to fuck for about four hours, I figure,” Starsky concluded. “Fuck and suck. Probably get five or six good cums between us in that amount of time, don’t you think? And that’d still give me an hour to get back into our bed before you wake up.”

“Okay. Enough,” Hutch said, stopping more of what he believed to be Starsky’s moronic punishment. “C’mon, though, give me some credit. You’re making a phone call from our vacation up here, and I can’t know who you’re calling—and why—without thinking it’s related to something nefarious on your part?”

“I don’t know what the hell that word means, but, yeah, you can wonder. Wonder all you like. But you can also know it isn’t any of your business who I’m calling and why.”

Starsky was definitely heated; it came through in his rigid voice and his intense eye contact. “But I will tell you this much,” he said, “because I don’t need any more of your suspicious distrust in me while we’re here. I called Davis. He’s doing me a favor, but don’t ask me what the favor is because I won’t be telling you. Not now, anyway.”

Hutch was definitely floored by the truth, and he appreciated hearing it, so much that he would honor Starsky’s request, except to ask, “Is it related to this case against me?”

“Yes.”

Hutch nodded, broke eye contact, and picked up a menu. While he scanned it for something to eat, he said under his breath, “Sometimes you’re as much of an asshole as I am. Let’s be clear about that.”

* * *

“How about one of these?” Starsky asked. He showed Hutch a multi-functional pocket tool that sported a couple of different screwdrivers, a cutting blade, a bottle opener, and a flashlight. “Kind of nifty, hm?”

“We’ll start using it on your brain; first see if it can fix that,” Hutch said. His interest was in something useful, not a gadget, so he ignored Starsky while he browsed the big boy tools. Starsky followed behind him, humming along. They were relatively alone in the small store, so Starsky was his usual boyish self.

“What about a chainsaw?” Starsky decided, stopping them at the aisle that featured one on sale. “For firewood. Sure could save us a lot of time.”

“Because of our busy schedule?” Hutch joked. “Or just because you’re lazy?” He watched Starsky caress the casing on the blade, as if he’d only get to adore it from afar and parting was such sweet sorrow. “C’mon,” he told him, tugging Starsky’s sleeve, “let’s find something practical. Besides, we don’t have to chop wood on this trip; we brought enough with us, remember?”

They’d gone into the Golden Rule Hardware Store to make amends for Starsky’s hostile behavior toward Danny two days earlier. Starsky wanted to purchase something to show good faith and no harm intended, but Hutch thought it should be an item they could actually use. Why waste good money?

Danny appeared, dressed in jeans, sweater, and shop apron, asked what he could do to help, and only then recognized them. “Oh, hey,” he said under his breath, sounding pleased, but mostly surprised. “I’ll give you guys 10% off anything you want.”

“We’ll take one of these,” Hutch said after he spied the hanging wind chimes. He ran his hand along the flutes of several of them to hear their harmonic sounds, and was drawn specifically to the largest and most expensive. If Starsky was going to make amends, it should be a dignified apology.

“And we’ll need a hook to hang it with,” Starsky said, “and whatever tool it takes to bolt the hook to a rafter.”

“Pliers?”

They followed Danny around the store while he gathered those items for them, and then they trailed him to the cash register, where he rang them up. Danny seemed more timid than the first time they’d met. Perhaps he’d been permanently scarred by Starsky’s previous sarcasm; he appeared to be intimidated even then, passing Hutch a warm smile when Hutch handed over the credit card, but defensively watching Starsky’s every move with a keener eye. That, or he was attracted to the brunette and that made him nervous.

Starsky fidgeted with gadgets at the sales counter, seeming to lose himself in those, and forget his purpose. So Hutch cleared his throat at one point and, failing to get Starsky’s attention that way, used his name instead.

“Yeah, so, hey, Danny,” Starsky said, taking the small paper bag with the pliers and the large brass hook from him, and lowering his voice when he spoke, “I blocked my partner from touching you the other day because we thought he might be coming down with something, and not because I think you’re sick.”

“Okay,” Danny replied in a subdued voice. He handed a copy of the receipt to Hutch after Hutch signed the original.

“Well, anyway,” Starsky continued, “I want you to know that Hutch and me aren’t those kind of men—”

“That’s what you already said.”

“Yeah, but … we are those kind of men with each other.”

Hutch was stunned for the second time. It never occurred to him that Starsky’s apology to Danny would be a confession, a truth-telling explanation, a ‘coming out’ of sorts. Hutch was dumbfounded—but in a good way. Starsky’s personal openness in that specific regard showed strength, honesty, and courage—actions not familiar in those ways to Starsky—or even Hutch—until then. This private disclosure by Starsky was two admittances in two days to two strangers.

“Do you know what I mean?” Starsky asked Danny. “Do you know what I mean when I say we’re only that way with each other? We don’t have those kinds of urges for other guys—and not because there’s anything wrong with how you all feel about each other or what you do in private. We definitely get it; oh, boy, do we get it. But to set the record straight—” He laughed at his word choice, embarrassed and proud at once. “Let’s just say, it’s a long story. The him and me story: it’s a long one with many twists and turns.”

“You mean to say you’re in love with each other,” Danny astutely assumed.

“Yeah,” Hutch said sweetly, liking the sound of it. “That’s what he means to say.”

“Yeah,” Starsky echoed, turning his eyes to Hutch’s and smiling warmly, affectionately, and with admiration at his partner. “What he and me have here is definitely a love story.”

* * *

“Oh, I’ve missed you so much.”

Starsky spoke the words with such depth of feeling, he felt the irrepressible emotion swell in his chest and the tears burn in his eyes.

They sat at the edge of the meadow, nearer the pond than not, on dry ground and green grass, Hutch with his legs crossed, Starsky in his lap. The colors around them were of vivid greens and browns, and the bluest sky above. There was no breeze, but there were birds and wildflowers and an otherwise magnificent silence.

Starsky lay on his side in Hutch’s lap, his shoulders and head snugged into the crevice at Hutch’s groin. He hugged Hutch’s jeaned knee, tightly, as if he’d never let go, and gazed out over the beauty around them. To feel Hutch in his arms again, his muscle and his presence, overwhelmed him. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’m right here,” Hutch said in that warm buttery voice. “I’ve always been here.”

“Please don’t ever stop loving me.”

“I won’t, Starsk. I won’t.”

“Please pet me.”

He felt Hutch’s hand, caressing his hair with a forever and uninhibited affection, over and again, and the warmth of it, Hutch’s love and admiration for him in every stroke, brought him to those tears. “Don’t you ever give up on me,” Starsky said pleadingly. “I know I’ve let you down.”

“I’ll never give up,” Hutch replied softly. “And you haven’t let me down.”

“Tell me you’ll always love me, Hutchy.”

“Forever and one day.”

Tears rolled off Starsky’s cheeks. “I’ve missed you so much. I’ve missed being close to you.” He squeezed Hutch again, feeling his strength and his physical presence. “I want to always be close to you, Hutch. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“You’re close to me now, darling. Dry your eyes.”

“I want to be closer.”

“When we can, baby,” Hutch said. “When we can.”

Starsky opened his eyes, his vision blurred by the wet in them, but the grass was vibrantly green just the same. And that’s when he saw them: the bears. They emerged at the far edge of the meadow. Two different bears this time. Two big bears. The size of rhinoceroses.

“Hutch,” Starsky said, not sure his voice was audible. “Hutch,” he said again, squeezing his partner’s knee, holding tightly. “They’re over there.”

“It’s okay,” Hutch said. “They won’t hurt us.”

“They’re as big as rhinoceroses. Not like the other day. They’re huge.”

Fear replaced his lovemaking with Hutch. He squeezed tighter. “We won’t be able to fight them off. Do something.”

“Don’t you worry, buddy,” Hutch said. “I’ll make sure they won’t hurt you.”

Starsky’s heart pounded, his palms sweat, he broke out in a tremble. “I’m scared, Hutch.”

“It’s going to be all right.” Hutch continued to pet his hair, to hold him close, to tell him to not be afraid. “I won’t let anything hurt you, not ever again.”

The bears suddenly wandered away. Into the woods, they went. Hutch had been right about that, about them not doing harm as he and Hutch lay in the meadow together, touching for the first time in weeks, making love with their words. Hutch was always right about the bears. It made Starsky love Hutch all the more, want him all the more, need him so desperately.

“What are you doing up?” he asked, rubbing his eyes to clear his vision.

Hutch sat at the table in the center of their cabin, his profile to Starsky. He did something there, something Starsky couldn’t quite make out. “What are you doing?”

Hutch was busy writing and didn’t hear him.

“Hutch?” Starsky called him. He had to use his name a few times before Hutch turned his head and they made eye contact. “What are you doing?” Starsky asked again.

“Making notes.”

“For our book?”

“Yeah, for our book.”

Starsky dropped his head back into his pillow. “I thought that’s what you were doing,” he said surely. “I thought you were writing for our book.”

“Can I get you something? Some coffee, maybe?”

“Some kisses,” Starsky sleepily replied. He didn’t want to wake up. “Give me some kisses on my special areas. Please, Hutch? Kiss my peenie for me?”

He heard Hutch stir from the chair, rise to his feet, crawl onto the mattress at the foot of the bed and then over him, felt his breath on his skin, his bared legs and belly. A kiss at his navel. Gentle kiss. Tender kiss. Oh, it felt so good. He quivered.

“I’ve missed you so much, Hutch,” he said. Didn’t Hutch understand how much he missed him?

Starsky’s penis swelled and he opened his eyes again. That time he only saw the ceiling, its wooden beams, and the morning light that gave them shadow and texture. He lifted his head and rose to his elbows. Hutch wasn’t on the bed; instead, he sat at their small dining table, facing him that time, dressed in sweat clothes, appearing surprised and pleased to see Starsky awake.

“Good morning,” Hutch said. He was disheveled, as if he’d only been awake himself for a short while.

Starsky noticed the fire in the fireplace, a new one, and one he hadn’t built. He smelled coffee and noticed that Hutch sat with a steaming cup. A pad of paper was on the table beside him and he held a pen in his right hand. He seemed to wait for Starsky to say something, so Starsky said all he could think to say in that moment. “I was having some dreams.” His voice was rough, still waking.

“That last one sounded nice,” Hutch said affectionately. “I thought maybe I was going to watch something I’d never seen before.”

“We were in a meadow,” Starsky explained, amazed by how vivid his dreams had been, and ignoring Hutch’s comment about masturbation, “and there were some bears the size of rhinoceroses.”

“A nightmare then.”

“No. You said they wouldn’t hurt us, so they didn’t.”

“I see.”

“And then we were here—”

“Oh, that’s the part I must have heard,” Hutch said flirtatiously. “What was I doing to you?”

“You were about to kiss my specials.”

When Hutch laughed, Starsky heard himself. It made him laugh, too. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m just missing your mouth on me.”

“Is that an invitation?” Hutch asked. “I’d be happy to oblige.”

“I wish it could be,” Starsky sorrily said. He slumped back into his pillow and audibly exhaled with his frustration, realizing only then that his penis had, indeed, swelled, and its warmth still permeated his blood. He hated the feeling because there wasn’t anything he could do about it. On the plus side, he didn’t have a wet dream while Hutch watched him. It may have ended in disaster—Hutch misreading his dreams, and it ending in actual sex between them. And he hated why that couldn’t be. He whispered ‘shit’ under his breath and then fully woke when the silence in the room, with the exception of a quietly burning fire, forced another apology out of him.

Hutch didn’t reply to it, so Starsky climbed back to his elbows, pushed himself into a seated position against the headboard, and gazed at Hutch. Their blue eyes met. Hutch looked so good to him, even in his sorry expression, but not because of it. He looked warm and male, whiskered and unkempt, willing and, oh, so able. Starsky wanted to apologize to him again because it was he that morning who’d brought up the subject of sex, even without trying, yet nonetheless, but any further talk of it would only aggravate the situation. So he took his mind off his mild erection to give it time to fade, and asked, “Couldn’t you sleep?”

“I slept good,” Hutch said. “It’s 10:30.”

“Oh.” Starsky couldn’t believe how late it was. “Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?”

“You must have needed it.”

“All that scary stuff caught up with me, I guess.”

“I guess so, too. Want some coffee?”

“Yeah, sure.” He scratched his head and combed his hair with his fingers. When Hutch rose from the chair to get him a cup, Starsky asked, “What have you been doing all morning besides making us a fire and coffee?”

“Not much.”

“I see you’re writing something?”

“Notes,” Hutch said as he stood at the counter and poured hot coffee into a cup. “For the book.”

Starsky must have heard him, must have heard Hutch make coffee, find a pen, get the paper, bring warmth to the room, sit at the table. Write notes. At least that part of his dream had been accurate.

“In my dream, you told me you’d always love me,” Starsky said aloud, recalling other parts of his dreams. “You said you’d never let anything hurt me again.”

“You have my word,” he heard Hutch say.

And no dream that time, either.

* * *

The afternoon had warmed. It made them feel lazy, so they moved the so-called dining table to the porch, positioned the two chairs on either side of it, piled it with leftover picnic snacks, and sat there drinking beer and looking into the woods as they basked in the soft sunshine.

“How’d you ever come to love nature so much?” Starsky asked him. His voice hinted of reflection, not just interest.

After half a minute, Hutch found his answer. “I guess because, when I came to terms with my atheism, I had to find real answers in the things around me, not in the intangible. If this is it,” he continued, gazing over the view before them, the gravel road, the trees, the blue sky, “and I believe it is it, then it’s fantastic and precious and sacred—because it’s all we’ve got.”

Starsky munched a pretzel, seemed to mull Hutch’s answer; his silence indicating as much. He didn’t laugh or giggle. He didn’t huff or scoff. He didn’t even argue or debate. He sat with Hutch, quietly, retrospectively, contemplatively, dressed in jeans and a light sweater, his hiking boots and wrist watch, and studied the landscape with him.

“The more I let go of what I was excepted to believe,” Hutch added, “the more in love with life I became. And now with you, too.”

Starsky froze mid-bite. Then, after seeming to push past Hutch’s musings, he finished eating what was in his mouth and said, “So, it’s all the same package for you. You’re always blurring the lines. Always evolving.”

“I’m erasing lines—and always evolving.”

“So, do you still get as much meaning out of your work as ever, or does it lose itself to a different meaning, the one you find each new day?”

Hutch squinted at him. “Are you interviewing me for the city newspaper?”

“No, you moron. I’m just curious. Can’t I be curious about my soulmate?”

“I thought you knew me well enough to not have to ask.”

“I thought you knew me well enough to know I have to ask.”

They laughed, feigning disgust over their conversation.

“Hey, Hutch?” Starsky wondered again, sounding inviting that time.

Naturally, Hutch accepted the invitation. “Yeah, buddy?”

“Davis and I are working on something.”

“Related to my case?”

“Yeah, like I said earlier—to do with your case. But I need something from you.”

“Whatever you need, consider it yours.”

He was definitely interested in knowing the details of Davis’ plans, especially if they included Starsky. Or vice versa.

“I need you to keep out of our way,” Starsky unexpectedly said. He bit into another pretzel and gave Hutch a pursed-lipped grimace. “Got me? That means: no questions, no input, no worries, and no suspicions.”

Hutch mocked a grimace back at him. “That’s a tall order.”

“One you’ve already promised to fulfill. Isn’t that what you said a second ago, to consider what I need as already mine?”

“Yeah. You win. But what if you need me on this case?”

“If we need you, we’ll ask for your two cents. In the meantime, stay out of our way.”

* * *

They wedged the two men between them after Danny pointed them out in the bar, leaning their shoulders into the perps’ shoulders so tightly that the only thing their targets could do was verbally complain. But before the nonverbal assault evolved into something more physical, Starsky told them, “We’re not those kind of guys.”

“So what do you want then?” the beefier of the two whined, leaning back into Starsky to push him off, but not having any luck.

“Well, you see that guy over there?” Starsky asked, pointing to Danny. “He’s one of those kinds of guys.”

“Yeah, we know,” said the guy with a mousier build; perhaps he was a repressed gay man, taking his self-hate out on someone who obviously wasn’t closeted. “He owns the hardware store.”

“And he’s going to continue to own the hardware store,” Hutch informed them, “because we’re the kind of guys who don’t like the kind of guys who threaten those kind of guys. Got me?”

“I think even I followed you,” Starsky said to Hutch, “so these two dudes, given how much smarter they are than us, musta got it, too.” He wished they had their badges with them so they could pile on additional pressure. Instead, he gave the would-be thugs the necessary information. “My partner and me—that’s him on your other side—say hello, Blondie.”

“Hello, Blondie,” Hutch echoed.

“Well, he and I bought the Harmon cabin up the road. You’ve probably heard about us by now. Folks thought us being partners meant we’re boyfriends, too. Don’t matter. What matters is that you’ve also heard we’re two police officers from the Big City. And we’ve brought our zero tolerance for bullshit to this little mountain town.”

“We may not always be around,” Hutch admitted, “but Danny is a friend of ours, so if he ever tells us you’ve given him grief, then—”

“We’re going to have to get serious,” Starsky said. He felt Hutch push into the men between them, so he held his ground to squeeze them tighter. “One of our side hobbies is customer relocation, if you know what I mean.”

“Hey, guys, c’mon,” the lesser threatening of the two pleaded, “we was just having fun with him, you know?”

“And we’re having fun with you, aren’t we?” Hutch asked. “You’re having fun, aren’t you, partner?”

“A blast,” Starsky said.

“We just don’t like coming up here on vacation,” Hutch explained, “and having to be serious. So, let’s all just—”

“Live and let live,” Starsky suggested. He straightened and released their captives, sensing that Hutch did likewise, in unison. “And, in the meantime,” he added, “ask Danny to play a game of pool with you sometime. You might find he’s an okay guy.”

“Because one thing my partner doesn’t do,” Hutch said, “is threaten or bully other people.”

“Or act tougher than he really is,” Starsky concluded. “I mean, you don’t want to know how tough we can be, even when we’re acting.”

“Or especially then,” Hutch warned them.

* * *

Starsky had gone further than just physical pressure and stern words that night; by the time the bar shut down, he’d gotten everybody in the place who was capable of holding a cue stick to play pool with everyone else, even the would-be tough guys—in games with Danny, no less; the consensus was that all parties had let down their guards.

“If we lose our badges,” Starsky told Hutch later, while they were lying in bed, “we can always start something like … a conflict resolution program.”

“I do like your mind,” Hutch said. He also liked Starsky’s face, his eyes and his mouth and his nose, but those were his private thoughts; Starsky seemed to be on another mission, one that involved their future.

“I mean,” Starsky said, “we could do something like … we open some kind of place … a bar maybe … and we have people interact with each other, not just, you know, lecture them.”

Hutch so badly wanted to stroke Starsky’s hair. “You’re always evolving, too,” he said warmly.

“Aw, shucks, Hutch.”

“I’m not being facetious. You’ve come a long way from not appreciating ‘guys like that’ to defending them in public. Don’t you think that’s an evolution?”

“Yeah, okay. So, maybe that’s the purpose of life.”

“One of them, anyway.”

“What would you say is another?”

“I think the purpose of life is life—and it comes with all that life is and isn’t.”

“You’re one weird mind-fuck, you know that?”

“Just because philosophy isn’t one of your finer—”

“I can philosophize as best as you can.”

“You just can’t do it in English,” Hutch teased him. He still wanted to pet Starsky’s hair, but couldn’t. “Never mind that, okay?” he said instead. “The point I was making is that you’ve come a long way—and I’m proud of you for it.”

“Pride accepted.”

As if it needed to be.

If Hutch expressed his amusement of Starsky every time he bathed in it, Starsky would probably feel abused, so Hutch often kept it to himself, as he did then. “I do love you,” he said.

“I wasn’t doubting you.”

“I wasn’t doubting your doubt.”

Starsky rolled his eyes. “Is this how it’s going to be for the next month? You and me trying to keep ourselves from getting bored?”

“What did we do before we got into … peenies?”

“We had girlfriends,” Starsky said with a laugh, presumably from Hutch’s use of his ‘peenies’ word.

“Not when we’d go camping.”

“I’d go fishing,” Starsky reminded him, “but you won’t let me do that anymore.”

“I didn’t stop you. You stopped you.”

Starsky broke eye contact and gazed into the narrow space between them, obviously thinking back to his reasons for not fishing anymore. “I never did like hooking worms,” he admitted regretfully, “let alone the fish. I guess, you know, when it’s on your plate, you don’t think about what it was or how it got there. You don’t want to know.”

“That’s actually what turned me,” Hutch said. “I realized I couldn’t look at how ‘that’ all got made, because I knew it would be too disturbing to lay eyes on, so why did I eat what I couldn’t even look at? That’s where the beginning of the end was for me.”

Starsky thought about what Hutch said; he ran it through his mind, or so his wandering eyes proved he did, and then he made eye contact, and said, “Funny what you say, but not like haha. I mean, all these years, we’re disgusted by the idea of putting some guy’s dick in our mouth, and that’s something we could actually look at, if we had to; but we put in our mouth—or you and me used to—things we couldn’t even watch be made, even with a gun to our head. I mean, you’ll never catch me in a slaughterhouse watching someone slit their throats and hear all that screaming. I know what I saw on Teet …”

“Tetepare.”

“—and that was revolting enough. People are funny,” he added, as if to end the conversation because even talk of butchering animals was enough to shut it down. “I’m glad we’ve evolved that way, too. No point in fighting violence if we’re only going to create it elsewhere just from the things we eat, know what I mean?”

Hutch smiled at him, a warm, pleasing, affectionate, love-filled smile, and not just on his lips, but in his eyes, too. If he let himself think too deeply about Starsky’s evolution, he might just cry, and he didn’t want to do that. It was best to take Starsky’s lead and move to another topic of conversation.

“There has to be something we can do,” he said, “to avoid boredom that doesn’t involve fishing or fucking.”

Starsky laughed. “I’m not really bored,” he said. “I think it’s just that I’m aware we’re killing time, so it seems to drag because of that.”

“Then let’s not think in those terms. Let’s decide we’re here for some serious R and R. We’ve had a rough year-and-a-half and some of it isn’t over, so we’re going to relax these next couple of days, truly unwind and be in the moments, so we’re stronger to face the music I began to play.”

“Which reminds me: you forgot to bring your guitar.”

“I realized that about five minutes after we hit the highway.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because you were already annoyed with me for taking time to cover the firewood.”

“Not so annoyed I wouldn’t have gone back for that guitar.”

Hutch smiled at him again. The ways Starsky loved him weren’t always explicitly obvious, but they were eternally under the surface. “I can read you another bedtime story,” he suggested.

Their eyes melted into each other’s. Hutch didn’t know why. Starsky loved his readings—but he didn’t jump to get Hutch a Sherlock Holmes book from their stash under the window, either.

“What?” Hutch finally asked him, whispering.

“I’m going to get you out of this mess,” Starsky said with certainty. “I’m going to get you out of all of it. You’ll see.”

And only then did he leave the bed to retrieve a book.

* * *

MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES

“May I say something, your Honor?”

Dressed in suit and tie, Starsky stood by his seat in the galley in the first row aisle. He didn’t have a prepared speech. All he had were his thoughts and feelings and a compulsion to say what was in his heart, for whatever that may have mattered to the judge. In fact, he expected to be told to sit down, having spoken without any formal permission or procedure, so he was nervous about the reprimand, but not enough to care.

“Who are you?” Judge Ross asked him. She had lifted her chin and peered over her reading glasses at him.

“I’m David Starsky, Officer Ken Hutchinson’s partner,” he said. He inconspicuously pointed toward Hutch—who stood before the judge in a lineup with thirteen other men.

“His boyfriend?” she asked, not sarcastically or with any ill will in her tone.

“Police partner,” Starsky respectfully clarified. On that day, it was the only partnership of consequence. “We’ve been a detective team for twelve years now.”

“Come forward,” she said. She motioned to an area beside the lineup in front of the galley for him to address the court.

Starsky didn’t know what Hutch would think about his desire to unofficially testify; he didn’t know whether Hutch would decide it was a good idea or a terrible, stupid mistake, if it would help or hurt their case. But Starsky couldn’t leave the courtroom having not said a word. He would not have been able to live with himself—and especially because it appeared that the elder judge, from the proceedings, was about to find the men guilty and sentence them all in one motion.

“Um, your Honor,” he began, mildly wringing his hands and feeling the perspiration break over his skin; he never was comfortable speaking before a crowd, let alone a legal one. “I’ve known Detective Hutchinson since our Academy days. The reason I was drawn to work with him was because, when our instructor asked him if he’d give up his badge and his career to instead violate the law in order to put a wounded animal out of its misery, he said he’d kill the animal rather than see it suffer.”

There was a shuffle in the room, but no one laughed. It wasn’t a laughing matter.

“Some of our colleagues joked that he might not make it as an officer because of his ‘sensitivity’ to things like that,” Starsky continued, “but in the past twelve years, he and I have put away more than our share of drug dealers, child molesters, rapists, and murderers. We hope to continue doing that for the rest of our lives.”

“If this is about his character,” the judge said to him, “I’ve already read what there is to know about your partner. I am impressed, but—”

“With all due respect,” Starsky said, interrupting her, “what I want to say, if I may, isn’t about him. It’s about me.” He sensed Hutch’s stoicism, his keen hang on every word Starsky spoke, maybe even Hutch’s implicit trust in him in those minutes. “Not unlike our fellow officers,” Starsky said to Judge Ross, “Hutch and I have faced some deadly circumstances. We’ve been shot at and shot. We’ve been poisoned and beat to hell. We’ve been kidnapped and blackmailed. And the one thing he and I have always known about each other is that we’ve always got the other guy’s back. When I go into a dangerous situation, I know he’s there to—”

“You said this wasn’t about him.”

“It’s not. It’s to say to you—and to him, by way of an official apology in this court of law—that I didn’t have his back on that Saturday night when he got lost and made that drunken mistake in the men’s room. It’s to say that I knew he was drinking more than he usually did when I left him alone at the bar. It’s to say that I walked away from him at a time when he was emotionally weak and physically compromised.” He felt the shift in the room, the one he expected, because it sounded as if he blamed himself and not Hutch, and that he blamed the other thirteen men who stood before the court, neither of which was his intention.

“These guys aren’t predators,” he quickly said to calm the uneasiness his words may have caused. “They’re not drug dealers or child molesters or rapists—or sexual assaulters of any kind. They’re grown men, men who prefer men, and men who have no other place in our society to be themselves, to make adult decisions with each other, to enjoy the kind of company only they desire—and dare I say, also need—than in the kinds of places such as the bar where my partner and I stopped for a drink. So please make no mistake: this isn’t about them, either.”

He noticed Judge Ross write something on a paper pad and then gave him her attention again.

“My wife got killed in an airplane accident,” he told her, hoping for context before he’d get cut off, “and I was stranded with a couple of other passengers for two months on an island called Tet … tete …”

Hutch spoke then, answering for him. “Tetepare.” His voice was rather subdued, but he was heard just the same throughout the otherwise silence of the courtroom.

And Judge Ross made more notes.

“Tetepare,” Starsky said. “Like everybody on the planet, Hutch believed I was dead—until he accidentally discovered that there wasn’t a body in the coffin. He’s an evidence guy, like me. When he learned he didn’t have a body, he had no choice but to immediately look for me—and that’s how I’m able to stand here before you today.”

He felt his thoughts were all over the place, so he circled back. “Emotions have been high since then, is what I’m trying to say. And raw. And so we got into a debate that night about something, something so stupid as to be embarrassing, arguing until we pissed each other off, and—despite that I already knew he was rather drunk—I left the building to my car to wait for him.”

The judge looked at him, expecting him to finish, he thought.

“He had every right to go into the men’s room,” Starsky concluded. “And I’m not going to pass judgement on what is moral or not moral in a room like that, but to fall on my knees, Your Honor, and ask that you consider context in this case; it simply has to matter. These other men don’t have a place to go to be themselves. My partner simply wasn’t able to make a clear-headed decision; he was too drunk. And, I know,” he said quickly, raising his hand to stop the murmur in the room, “that it sounds as if I’m saying he was a victim of Penal Code 208. Having been a victim of that Penal Code myself, I can say this with all honesty: When Hutch gave me the explicit details of that night, I knew these men legitimately misunderstood him and his actions. If Your Honor would consider hearing the specifics in closed chambers, I’d be—”

“That won’t be necessary,” she said, writing more on her pad. “Is there anything else you wish to say?”

“Just that he’s my responsibility,” Starsky said, his heart filled with pride and with sorry, and it came through in his emotional voice. “He’s mine and I’m his. In fact, being responsible for him is a privilege whose badge I hope to wear until end of days. When you trade your life for someone, and when you’ve done it as much and as often as he and I have done it for each other, you take that responsibility head on and no regrets. But, on that night, in that bar, in that room, under those circumstances, Your Honor, I was derelict of duty.”

* * *

The relief could be measured in tonnages. The decibels of cheers topped the scales.

All charges against the fourteen men were dropped—there and then—as soon as Starsky finished his unprepared verbal statement to the court. He, Hutch, and Davis walked to a nearby bar afterward to celebrate. Davis had attended the proceedings and told the boys that he’d held his breath until he nearly asphyxiated, and then was stunned by the court’s decision. “It’s one of those circumstances,” he said, confessing his apprehension over Starsky’s tactic, “where you make a case for one position and create another, sometimes a worse one—and then don’t know which way it’ll go.”

“I thank you both for writing the script,” Hutch said, lifting his glass in a toast to Davis and Starsky.

“I’m going to forgive that remark,” Starsky told him, scowling at Hutch as he spoke, but clicking his glass to Hutch’s just the same, “because nobody wrote it for me.”

“Oh,” Hutch said, not taking that first sip, and ashamed for his assumption. “I thought you and Davis were up to ‘something.’ Isn’t that what you said some while back? That you and he were working together on my case?” He looked at Davis for verification, but Davis didn’t immediately commit.

“I didn’t have any input on what Starsky told the court,” Davis promised when it was apparent Hutch wanted an answer. “I didn’t even know he was going to do that.”

“Yeah, buddy,” Starsky affectionately said to Hutch. “Maybe it’s that you teaching me better English helped me pull it off.” He winked at Hutch, then said, “But, seriously … it simply called for the best defense I could manage.”

“Thank you, Starsk,” Hutch replied.” Oh, how he wanted to hug Starsky, to squeeze him tightly, laugh in his ear, feel physically bonded to him. But couldn’t.

“Hold your apology,” Starsky said, leaning closer to Hutch, and saying what he did despite that Davis could still hear him, “because we’re not out of the woods yet. If the overall ends badly, you’re going to want to kill me.”

And, by that, Hutch realized that there was still a blood draw to be made, lab results to be published, a deadly virus to possibly be challenged. If Hutch was Starsky’s responsibility—‘until end of days’—then the outcome of that medical procedure would fall on Starsky’s shoulders as much as it would on Hutch’s. That was the message Hutch heard in Starsky’s appeal.

But maybe that outcome would be as good for them as the dismissal of charges had been.

Only time would tell.

* * *

“What you got there, Starsk?”

Starsky stood before him in the living room with a large manila envelope in his hands. He’d gone out on his own to get the mail from the box at the end of the long driveway while Hutch remained on the sofa, elbows resting on his thighs, and poured over more book notes on various sheets of paper scattered around the coffee table.

“My lab results,” Starsky said when he apparently realized what was in the envelope. “All the diseases known to man,” he mumbled. There appeared to be several pages to the document. “You want to look at this with me?”

“But, of course,” Hutch said. He patted the sofa cushion beside him to let Starsky know he wanted to be right there with him when they laid eyes on the paper. Hutch was admittedly nervous about the results; he didn’t want either of them to be sick. Presumably, neither did Starsky, but Hutch didn’t want to let on just how anxious he felt.

Together they scanned the cover page, which simply told them who, what, where, and when, and then Starsky flipped it to get to the actual lab findings. He ran his finger down the list, neither of them really knowing what every acronym referred to, except to notice the right-side column that gave them the positive/negative readings: all were negative—and/or ‘non-detectable.’

He flipped to the next page.

Its list had the same conclusions.

‘Negative/non-detectable.’

The third page contained a shorter list to wrap it up.

All ‘negative/non-detectable.’

They breathed a sigh of relief.

“One down, one to go,” Starsky said, meaning himself and then Hutch.

They reviewed the pages in more detail to connect specific acronyms with their respective diseases: syphilis, herpes, gonorrhea, and some they couldn’t possibly figure out on their own.

“Who knew there’d be so many?” Starsky wondered incredulously.

“Or that sex was out to kill us all?” Hutch complained. “I think we’ve been luckier than we ever realized.”

“Here’s hoping for more luck,” Starsky said under his breath. “But we can celebrate one of us now, right? Let’s go have some pasta. Your treat.”

* * *

Hutch was already in bed by the time Starsky finished brushing his teeth, used the toilet, and joined him. It was late night; they’d fallen asleep together on the sofa after having watched a movie, and then seemed to wake around the same time to go into the bedroom together for a proper night’s rest.

Hutch lay on his side, a pillow folded under his head, and watched Starsky come into the room. Starsky was dressed in a black crew neck sweater and jeans, and he sat on the edge of the mattress, facing the wall while he untied his shoelaces. They hadn’t said a word to each other as they readied for bed, but that wasn’t for any particular reason, other than that they were sleepy, and the hour was late, and they had little to nothing to say.

So Hutch used the quiet time to admire the look of his man in the light from the lamp on his own side of the bed, throwing it over his shoulder and onto his partner, outlining him there in black, Starsky’s back to him, bent over, untying his shoes, no sound.

Starsky straightened, stared at the floor, and remained motionless for a minute before Hutch had to ask if he was all right. “Or maybe you forgot what you’re doing,” Hutch lightly teased him.

“I’m okay,” Starsky said as softly. “Just thinking.”

“Anything you’d like to share? Seems like a heavy thought.”

“Working stuff out still is all.”

“Stuff?”

Starsky stood to take off his sweater, pulled it over his head, and tossed it onto the nearby armchair. He often wore a tee-shirt under his shirts and sweaters, but on this particular night, he hadn’t.

Hutch couldn’t but continue to admire the sexy beauty of his man’s physique, his haired chest, muscled arms, flat belly, navel, slightly erect nipples, his neck and his face, and…

“Stuff?” Starsky wondered.

“You said you’re working ‘stuff’ out still.”

“Oh,” Starsky said, absent-mindedly, then explaining, “I’m playing around … with…”

Hutch was both amused by Starsky’s mindless wandering as he was unsettled by it. “You’re very vague, buddy,” he noted aloud.

“I’m planning our lives,” Starsky said more directly. He removed a lip balm from the solitary drawer of his nightstand, and sat on the edge of the mattress again as he used it on his lips, facing Hutch. “I have some ideas about how we can get ourselves into a workable groove.”

“As I just said,” Hutch repeated, “you’re quite obtuse.”

“Is that the word you used?”

“I originally said vague.”

“So why not stick with it? You confuse me otherwise.”

“You’re vague and you’re a simpleton,” Hutch said, rising to his elbow, propping his temple in his palm, and deciding to help his partner along in explaining his comments. “You’re planning our lives, working through stuff, figuring out how we can get along better; is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yeah, like that,” Starsky said. He flashed his warm smile at Hutch and gave him a wink. “You do read code.”

“What you call code, I call inarticulation.”

“And you only call it that so you can impress me with your big words. Or try to. But you’re not fooling me. I know you’re a pompous ass.” He went to recap his lip balm tube, but accidentally dropped the cap, cussed, and bent over to fetch it off the floor. “Lucky for you, though,” he said, “I love your ass.”

Hutch smiled, flattered and pleased, tickled by Starsky’s stupid play on words, but Starsky didn’t see the affection because he was still bent over searching for the top of his toiletry. When he straightened, he did so with a small decorative cardboard box in one hand. It was olive green with tiny yellow embroidered flowers all over it. A keepsake box. “What’s this?” he wondered. He tossed the lip tube at Hutch, along with its unfastened cap.

Even Hutch had to wonder what the box was. “Where did you find it?” He used the balm before capping the tube.

“On the lower shelf of my table here,” Starsky said. “I never noticed it before.”

It wasn’t until he flipped the lid on the box that Hutch remembered what was in it and where it had come from. “Emma gave it to me,” he said. “She put all my condolences cards in it.” He’d completely forgotten about its existence until then.

Starsky removed the envelopes from the box and leafed through them, one by one, slowly and with carefulness. More than three dozen cards had been stored in the box, neatly stacked. “This really was a thing,” he said solemnly, “me being dead and you in all that pain.”

For the first time since the airplane accident, Hutch wasn’t hurt by the remembrance, probably because he lay there, late at night, with a solitary lamp on in the room, giving his lover’s skin an amber glow, watching him sit on the edge of his mattress, shirtless, haired chest, belted jeans still buckled, his shapely arms and shoulders, mussed hair and whiskered face. It was difficult in that moment to think about Starsky’s death when Starsky was so alive and warm and inviting on the bed beside him right then.

Starsky opened some of the cards and read their inscriptions and who’d sent them. “‘Grief,’” he said aloud from the first one, “‘is love’s unwillingness to let go.’” He studied the graphic on the card, whatever it was, and whispered, “Wow,” as the weight of the words reached his consciousness. “That was from Emma,” he said, tucking it back into its envelope to open another.

Hutch noticed that Starsky didn’t read what she’d written in her own handwriting; perhaps it would have emotionally wounded him; and he was glad Starsky avoided that long-lost pain. He watched instead and listened carefully as Starsky sorted through the cards, reading off the names of their senders, until he hit “Adam.”

“He said he sent you one,” Starsky said in a reminiscent voice. “Did you ever read it?”

Hutch found his courage. “I never read any of them. I couldn’t bear it at the time.”

Starsky removed the card from the envelope and opened it. He silently read it, pursed his lips, and then returned it to its envelope. A tear spilled from his eye and onto the stack of cards in his hands.

“I didn’t read any of them, Starsky,” Hutch reiterated. “It wasn’t anything personal to Adam.”

“I know,” Starsky insisted, not unkindly. “It’s just so awful, that whole thing, know what I mean?”

It was a rhetorical question. No one knew better than Hutch just how awful it was.

Starsky read a few more cards in silence before he put them away, closed the box, and returned it to its shelf.

“How is Adam?” Hutch wondered. He wanted Starsky to know that no harm had been done that evening, that he could handle the mention of Adam’s name, to have witnessed that Starsky had been touched by the condolence card Adam had given him, and that he, too, was capable of getting them into a ‘workable groove,’ as Starsky had earlier put it.

Starsky got to his feet to unbuckle his belt. “He’s all right,” he answered, about Adam.

“You haven’t mentioned him in a while,” Hutch noticed. “I hope you’re not afraid to talk about him around me. I can’t win out over my jealousy and fear if I don’t have a formidable opponent.” He said what he did to make light of his own insecurities, but Starsky remained sober in his answers.

“He’s got himself a boyfriend now,” Starsky explained, sounding sorry. Or was he jealous? “I guess I rejected him enough times that he got the message and corralled himself a bona fide beau.”

“I see.” Hutch couldn’t pretend to be displeased to hear it, but he didn’t want to bask in the victory, either, particularly since it wasn’t of his own making. “So no time for you anymore, huh?”

“Seems not,” Starsky mumbled. He pulled off his pants, tossed them over his sweater on the chair, was completely nude in the lamplight. Haired legs, taut buttocks, flaccid penis, snugged sac, all as Hutch remembered and desired them. “On the bright side,” Starsky said, sounding cheerful, or at least trying to, “it leaves more time for you and me.”

“As if we need more time,” Hutch replied, without thinking. He meant it as a reflection on their recently jobless days, not in any other way, but it backfired on him.

Starsky stood at the edge of the bed, stark naked, and glared at him. “He’s not not hanging out with me so he can hurt us,” Starsky defended Adam.

“That’s not what I intended to say.”

“Then you’re saying you don’t want more time with me.”

“That’s not what I meant, either. I’m sorry, Starsk.” Hutch was mildly bewildered by how sensitive Starsky was to his comment. He tried again to explain it. “It’s that all we have lately is time on our hands; that’s what I meant by it.”

“Yeah, well,” Starsky said in reply, reeling in his hostility, “we’re going to work on Monday now that you’ve got your badge back—and me, mine—so it was a stupid thing to say anyway.”

Hutch didn’t know how or why he’d so easily offended Starsky, but he did know to let it go, to not argue his position, or defend himself. To change the subject, he asked instead, “Did anyone solve the Newton House murder?”

“Not that I know of,” Starsky answered him, climbing into bed under the sheet and blanket. “So I guess we got that to finish.” He covered himself, fluffed his pillow and, surprisingly, faced Hutch when he finally lay down to rest; he didn’t roll away to pout. “That’s something to look forward to, right, Hutch?” he asked. “The Newton House murder?”

“Right, Starsk.”

“Sounds like the title to a Sherlock Holmes mystery, too, doesn’t it? ‘The Case of the Newton House Murder.’” He chuckled, proud of himself.

“You’re getting the writing bug,” Hutch noted, relieved to see how quickly and completely Starsky had abandoned his earlier sensitivity. No doubt Starsky felt somewhat betrayed to have been neglected by his friend Adam—especially for the affections of another man—and simply because Starsky wouldn’t provide the carnal pleasures Adam wanted from him. It wasn’t a conversation Hutch felt safe to have with Starsky, not then, so he shelved it for a time when Starsky might wish to discuss it. In the meantime, he cheered his partner with talk of their upcoming bestseller. “What’s our next step, do you think?”

“We’ve got the outline figured out,” Starsky concluded. His eyes shimmered in the light, his lids heavy with sleepiness, but his voice tinged with excitement. “And we’ve got some key cases to include, so I’m thinking we start remembering the details of those, don’t you agree? Maybe it’ll also help us to remember some cases we might be missing or didn’t think were important enough until then.”

“Sounds like a feasible plan,” Hutch said.

“I love working on this with you.”

“Same here, buddy boy.”

“I love working on anything with you,” Starsky added, his eyes closing. He even smiled before he drifted off to sleep, but not before he said, “And I’m glad that all the time on our hands is now just ours.”

* * *

The first thing they did about the Newton House murder, after physically picking up their badges and pistols from Dobey’s office, was to drive the route from the train station to the crime scene, the very thing they had suggested their replacement detectives do, but who never did. Starsky and Hutch drove it at rush-hour, as well, just to give themselves the worst-case-scenario set-up in which to operate.

“What you got there?” Hutch asked him about time.

“Thirty-four minutes,” Starsky said when he pulled over to the curb in front of the Newton house.

They looked at each other, verbally wordless, but speaking the same thoughts: the murderer would have had plenty of time to get from the rail station to the house, commit a planned murder, and return to it to catch the 1:05 train, even at rush hour—if he’d stashed an owned automobile nearby. So, either he committed the crime under those circumstances, or he was no murderer. It was as simple as that.

“The hard part,” Hutch considered as they pulled away from the curb, “is figuring out—if he used a purchased car—from where did he drive it and where is it now?”

“And can we prove he used it even if we found it?”

They ended up contemplating their own deductions while Starsky drove them out of the city and headed to the farm. “What would Sherlock think?” he wondered as he maneuvered the Torino through traffic. “What special thing would he put into play to figure out the answer, hm?”

“He’d have an easier time,” Hutch decided. He basked in the warmth of the sunshine that poured into his opened window and the light breeze that passed through the car. It was a gloriously beautiful day. “Sherlock wouldn’t have VIN numbers to extrapolate from; he’d have horse manure and horseshoe sizes and buggy tracks.”

Starsky laughed. “I think you just deducted the Great Deductor.”

“Well, we’ve done our process of elimination: no way for the killer to have walked it in that time; no cab, no bicycle, no bus, no helicopter, no rented or private car service.”

“Motorcycle then?”

Possibly.

They examined that idea in silence, too.

“Hell,” Starsky said after a while, “maybe he used a horse!”

“We should be looking for horse shit,” Hutch echoed him.

They cracked up laughing.

“Maybe this is one we don’t solve,” Starsky lamented, and then said, “but we include it in the book so folks can know criminal cases aren’t always winnable.”

“It’d make the solved ones more impressive.”

“Let’s get some spaghetti,” Starsky suggested, as if he’d settled one pressing matter and now needed to settle another. “I’m craving pasta again.”

“Are we going to go to yet another Italian restaurant that reminds you of your grandmother?”

“Maybe I’m craving my grandma,” Starsky said, laughing.

“And all this time you thought it was linguini.”

When they stopped laughing, they rode in silence for a while, taking it slow up Ventura Blvd., looking for a place to eat, but not in a rushed manner, enjoying the city scenery along the way. Then Starsky asked, “Are we still going to go to Bolivia now that we don’t have to?”

“If you want to,” Hutch said. “I wasn’t serious about going there as fugitives anyway.”

“I’d like to go. Let’s do something different like that. Maybe we can also find the shooting locations where they made the movie.”

“What movie?”

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“They filmed it in Mexico.”

Starsky looked abruptly at Hutch for a second. “No shit? So, is Bolivia just like Mexico?”

“Hardly.”

The difference seemed to appease Starsky by implying Bolivia was a more attractively exotic idea. “I like that you know so much,” he said.

Hutch studied Starsky’s profile, the way Starsky sat behind the wheel, so familiarly driving them someplace, wearing sunglasses, an open collared shirt, and snug jeans.

And flattering Hutch, yet again.

* * *

“Who was it?” Hutch asked. He’d heard the phone ring, heard Starsky pick up the line in the kitchen, but then didn’t seem to hear much more than that. Perhaps he was so preoccupied with his detective work on the Newton murder—that, and his helping Starsky earlier to set up a new round of subcontractors for the Grace House preparation—that he simply tuned out whatever conversation Starsky had with the caller. “Anybody I know?”

“They hung up when I answered,” Starsky told him. “Twice now in 24 hours.”

Hutch pretended to figure it out. “Somebody musta scribbled my name and number on the men’s room toilet stalls, but when they call, they’re only hearing your whiny voice.”

Were there still a criminal case in progress, it would have been the totally wrong thing to say, but because that part of their lives was over, they got a good laugh out of it—that is, until Starsky, apparently, remembered Phase Two of their predicament.

“Here’s to getting out of this thing completely alive,” he said. “You can get tested ten days from now, by the way, and it’ll be less than a week for the results, and then we should know what our situation is.”

The reminder of the blood draw sank Hutch’s otherwise cheerful mood. It wasn’t that he forgot about the pending lab tests; he simply didn’t want to consciously remember it, especially when it was triggered by the stupid things he said, such as his crack about his name and number on men’s toilet room walls.

“What are we going to do, Starsk, if this thing comes back—”

“We’re not going to even think about about the future until then,” Starsky said, interrupting him, “so shut thy lips, you blond beauty, and let’s go over to the Grace House right now and rethink our list of what-needs-doing.”

* * *

“Another wrong number?” Hutch asked. Two days later and it seemed as if Starsky hadn’t said more than hello to the mysterious caller before he had to hang up the line.

“Maybe it’s not a wrong number,” Starsky said, half-joking, “so much as it is the right number but the wrong one of us answering it. You get it next time.”

That would prove interesting.

“Are you going to drive with me to the airport to pick up my brother?” Starsky asked him, “or do you want to stay here and do whatever boring thing you’re doing while I’m gone?”

“You’re leaving now?”

“In a few minutes.”

“Why so early? His flight isn’t due for another four hours.”

“I want to beat the traffic,” Starsky said, impatiently. “And maybe we’ll stop for something to eat along the way.”

“You and me? We just had breakfast.”

“Nick and me.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re leaving so early to get him.”

“You know you’re a pain in the ass, right?” Starsky said, not kindly. “Are you coming or not? And, if you’re not, then clean up this place before we get back so I don’t have to be so embarrassed by it.”

Of course, Starsky joked about that. Though they were two bachelors—meaning, without women—they kept a rather tidy house. First, because it was Hutch’s nature to be domestically meticulous, but secondly, the detectives in them needed that kind of organization so as to not feel stressed in their own surroundings. Stuff simply needed to be in its place to keep their minds calm on other matters. “Now, there’s something we haven’t talked about,” Hutch said.

“I’m talking about it now, numb-nuts.”

“No, I mean, we haven’t decided where he’s going to sleep if you stay at our house. Or do you plan to move back to the Grace House with him while he’s here? And, if so, then—because you’ll have some quality time with him at the other house—I’ll ride with you to the airport and get to spend time with you guys that way.”

“Why do you make everything so damn difficult?” Starsky complained. He stood at the edge of the coffee table, hands on hips, and stared at Hutch as he sat on the sofa, demanding an answer to what Hutch considered an invalid question. “Not everything has to be figured out beforehand,” Starsky ruefully explained.

“Isn’t he going to wonder why you’re here now and he’s there, assuming you’ll stay here—in our bed? Isn’t this something we should figure out beforehand?”

Starsky must have understood the delicate nature of the situation because he spun a couple of times, expressing his immediate frustration and annoyance through his posturing, but having no verbal answer. After half a minute of silence, he suggested, “How about this? You stay here. I’ll go get him—and I’ll figure it out on my own before I get to the airport. That way, you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about it.”

“I remind you it’s a pretty big head,” Hutch replied—mostly to pull them both out of the fragility of the conversation, let alone the situation—and succeeding in his intention. “Do whatever you think is right and know that I’ll back you a hundred percent.” He returned to his paperwork task.

“Hey, Hutch,” Starsky cooed at him.

Hutch looked up into those beautiful, sultry blue eyes. “Yeah, buddy?”

Starsky kissed at him.

“Thanks, partner.”

“Anytime.”

Hutch watched him walk to the front door, noticing his man’s tight, sexy jeaned ass as he did so, and desperately hoping he’d be given another chance to play with it.

When Starsky got to the door, he grasped the handle, turned back to Hutch, and intuitively asked, “Did you enjoy that, too?”

Hutch laughed, caught in the act. “I sure damn did.”

* * *

It just so happened that the phone rang in the house while Starsky was at the airport. He’d be gone for hours. Maybe he and his brother would stop at a restaurant—presumably an Italian one—and be gone even longer. Hutch had the farm to himself for the first time in months—and not because Starsky was dead, either. So, he tidied the house, especially the kitchen, made a list of food items he’d purchase while Nick was visiting, and watered the indoor plants. His day had been a rather uneventful one—it was actually pleasant—until the phone call arrived.

“Hutch?” the vaguely familiar male voice on the end of the line asked, sounding hoarse.

“Who is this?” Hutch demanded to know.

“Adam,” was the startling reply.

“Adam? Starsky’s Adam?”

“I need to talk to you, Hutch.”

Hutch thought fast, but he had no luck in coming up with the right thing to say, except to ask, “What about?”

“Starsky.”

“What about Starsky?”

“I need to talk to you … about what he’s done.”

“Give me more details, Adam.”

“I remembered this morning that his brother is coming for a visit … arriving today,” Adam explained, his voice breaking on certain words, “and I hoped you’d be the one to answer the phone. Can we meet somewhere? I’ll go wherever you want me to, but I really need to talk to you, Hutch.”

“Is this about Starsky and me?” Hutch asked, finally alarmed—mostly because of Adam’s inability, or perhaps his refusal, to answer him straight out. “Or is it about you and Starsky?”

“Well, all three of us, I guess you might say. Please, Hutch?”

* * *

“You got it made,” Nick said, and not with any jealousy or envy, but more from pride and respect for his brother and Hutch. “You guys sure have earned it.”

They surveyed the grounds together, in silence, as they sat at the picnic table under the large shade trees between the two houses that afternoon and were about to share an even later lunch of beer and sandwiches. Starsky and Nick hadn’t returned from the airport for at least a half hour after Hutch expected them—and not because Starsky and Nick had stopped for lunch—they hadn’t—but because Starsky had gotten yet another parking ticket in front of the terminal, and then spent twenty minutes arguing with the traffic cop over it. Hutch joked that it was apparently some sort of ritual Starsky needed: to get into legal problems whenever he visited an airport. Would he ever learn?

Starsky’s comeback was to tell Hutch that he was the smarter of the two of them because his legal problems were never as serious as those Hutch had earned—and he recalled the arrest warrant they eluded years earlier when Hutch’s ex-wife Vanessa had been murdered in Hutch’s apartment. But Starsky’s witty reply also lent itself to their silently shared knowledge: that Hutch had recently endured another serious legal matter, for which he also escaped, relatively unscathed. To cover for the reference known only to himself and Hutch, Starsky said, “Hey, Hutch, that should go into our book!” He meant the murder case, not the sexual misconduct one, but Hutch was quick to change the subject to the book itself and answer all of Nick’s expected questions about it.

“And because I’m the smarter of the two of us,” Starsky said deadpanned to Nick, opening the bag of bread and removing four slices, “this place wouldn’t be the same without my living out here because of it.” He set the bread on a plate in front of him and gave Hutch a wink. “The farm was a dump before I took over. It wasn’t even a farm then. You shoulda seen it.”

“The improvement is because his house blocks the view of the warehouse across the road,” Hutch explained, “and makes my house all the more attractive.”

“Well, it was clever for you guys to create this joint property together and turn it into such a peaceful place,” Nick decided, ignoring their banter, “especially given the work you do.” He sat beside Hutch, the both of them across from Starsky, and opened the bag of potato chips. “It’s kind of a refuge, isn’t it, away from all that city crime? and it sure looks a lot better in spring than it did four months ago.”

“It’s still a work in progress,” Starsky told him. “We’re turning the house behind me into a safe one for inner city kids.” He was definitely proud of that endeavor and it reflected in his voice.

Hutch couldn’t help but see the man in context, juxtaposed as he was with the house behind him, and sitting as he did across the table, dressed in light sweater and jeans, neatly groomed, and sounding pleased and content with the way his life had played out: from those early days at the Academy to that peaceful midday in late March—despite all its trials and tribulations—and in the presence of both his brothers, the one by blood, the other by fate.

“So you’re going to live there with all them troubled kids?” Nick asked. He split open the bag of chips and centered it on the table between them after popping a few in his mouth. “That, I’d like to see,” he added with a laugh.

“I don’t live there anymore,” Starsky said factly. “I live with him now.” He didn’t distinguish who the ‘him’ was with any outward gesture, but he did stick a knife into the peanut butter jar to scoop out a glob of the spread as if to confirm his unspecified claim. “And I’ve been living with him ever since I got home from that island.”

It seemed it was only Hutch who sensed Nick’s pause; there appeared, at least, to be a break in the cadence of the conversation itself, or maybe it was Hutch’s hypersensitivity that cornered him. He wasn’t certain where Starsky planned to take that dialogue, so he waited for returned eye contact, some subtle expression or manner that gave him a lead he could follow. None came. Starsky was busy spreading peanut butter on his bread, as if he hadn’t said a single provocative thing in his entire lifetime.

“You and Hutch live together now?” Nick asked, following it with a lightly said, “I always knew this day would come.”

There wasn’t any doubt in Hutch’s mind that Nick had made a facetious comment. He felt the perspiration break over him as he imagined what Starsky might say in reply.

Starsky looked up, on cue, a glob of peanut butter at the end of his knife, noticed that both men apparently stared at him, and then, quite bluntly said to his brother, “So, yeah, I sleep with him, too, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t going that far,” Nick said with a laugh. It was obvious, from his quiet snort, that he believed Starsky was joking.

“Does my sleeping with him go too far?” Starsky pretended to wonder aloud. He returned to preparing his sandwich—reaching for the jelly jar.

“Starsk?” Hutch queried him, speaking in a lower voice as though he couldn’t say it any quieter and still be heard.

Starsky finished his peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich preparation and only then looked at Hutch, making softer eye contact than Hutch expected, presumably, by look alone, so Starsky could ease the blow his words had already landed.

“I can lie to the waiter and the cashier and the dentist and the building inspector,” Starsky told Hutch, “and everybody in between. I can even lie to the police about it. Hell, I’ll lie to your father if you still want me to. But I’m not going to lie to my family, least of all to my own brother.”

“Maybe you haven’t thought this through,” Hutch suggested. His heart had begun to noticeably pound. He didn’t want to see a confrontation—or worse, a falling out—between the Starsky brothers, nor did Hutch wish that they offend or shock the people who respected them, especially without having discussed it first themselves, so maybe his partner didn’t fully grasp the ramifications of his actions.

“I made up my mind on the way to the airport,” Starsky firmly told him, cutting off Hutch’s thoughts without realizing it. “I decided I wasn’t going to pretend to be somebody I’m not around the people who love me and the people I love.” Then, without looking at either man, Starsky set the sandwich squarely on a plate and placed it in front of Hutch. To his brother, he said, “You and I have come to some understandings over the years. I hope this will be one of them.”

Hutch couldn’t stop his partner from what he was about to say. It was too late. All he could do was brace for impact.

“Well, about a year ago,” Starsky confessed to Nick, “I was gang-raped because some guys thought Hutch and I were way too close, if you know what I mean.”

There was no frivolity in Starsky’s revelation; anyone listening to him just then, despite the beautiful spring day and the peacefulness of the moment, knew just how serious he was from his voice alone.

Nick was apparently too stunned to speak. He didn’t move a muscle, as far as Hutch could tell, sitting as he was beside him.

Hutch himself was stunned. But, then, Starsky was full of surprises lately.

“Long and painful story short,” Starsky continued, as he reached into the potato chips bag and transferred a handful of the snack onto Hutch’s plate, “we caught the bad guys; one is dead and the other two are serving life sentences without parole. But I got to thinking about why it would have been so terrible if Hutch and I were doing what these assholes thought we were doing: which was having sex with each other.”

Hutch prayed for a breeze to cool the sweat over his brow. He didn’t take his eyes off Starsky while he hoped for a personal contact—but didn’t get—in order to guide Starsky’s seemingly impulsive purge.

“Well, anyway,” Starsky said, spreading peanut butter on another piece of bread, “after months of therapy and a lot of soul-searching, I came to the conclusion—and so did Hutch—that that kind of a relationship was within our capability after all.”

Nick sat, stone-faced, riveted.

“And I’m sure you’re going to think,” Starsky assumed about his brother, “that getting gang-banged turned me into a fag, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. He didn’t get gang-raped,” he added, about Hutch, as if he’d just realized it, “and yet he’s as much into me as I am into him.” He passed his brother a natural smile. “It’s called love, baby—without boundaries.” Then he looked at Hutch and said, “Eat your sandwich.”

Hutch could barely even look at it he was so blown away by Starsky’s confession. He instead swallowed the tension that choked his throat and reached for a beer instead.

Starsky finished making his own sandwich and cut it in half. “I’ll answer all of your questions,” he promised Nick, “but to sum it up: I live with him now. He’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.” He pushed the peanut butter and jelly jars over to Nick and affectionately said, “It’s not that I love you less; I just love you different. And I know how he likes his sandwiches.”

Silence settled over them. Starsky nonchalantly ate his meal while Hutch waited for his cue to action. And Nick seemed to be lost, or at least temporarily blindsided, so much he couldn’t utter a single word.

“You’re welcome to stay at the Grace House,” Starsky finally concluded. “Or you can have the guest room at our house—which is what I hope you’ll do. But don’t leave. Don’t leave until you’ve asked me every single question going through your mind right now—and all the ones you’ll have later when the shock wears off. Do me that much, will you, kid?” He handed Nick a beer.

“I’m not leaving,” Nick swore under his breath. He laughed lightly, as if to shake off the unexpected assault on his sensibilities, and added, “Like I said a minute ago … I always knew this day would come.”

“Yeah,” Hutch mumbled, shrugging off his own dismay when he realized the sky hadn’t fallen, “but maybe next time he could tell me first before he comes out to his family—so it’s not a shock to all of us.”

“Well, now you know where I stand,” Starsky said, giving Hutch an air kiss. “So, again, I say, eat your sandwich, partner.”

* * *

Far better than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips and beer, Hutch made them a vegetable pasta dinner—complete with side dishes of tossed green salad, roasted Brussels sprouts, and crispy garlic bread, and topped with a bottle of fine red wine. He sang and whistled as he cooked, and while the Starsky brothers kept him company, rooted as they were on the counter stools, nursing their second beer bottle later that evening.

“I’m noticing things about him I hadn’t before,” Nick admitted to his brother regarding Hutch. When asked what those things were, he said, “I knew he could sing—and I’ve certainly heard him do it—but now I’m listening to him sing and watching him sing and seeing him through your eyes, Big Brother.”

“But hands to yourself,” Starsky joked. “He’s all mine.”

The comment triggered a brief, unexpected, but knowing eye contact between Starsky and Hutch—because there had been other hands on Starsky’s man several weeks earlier in what had become—despite the dismissal of legal charges—a sex scandal, not to mention a painful experience for them both.

“Well, anyway,” Starsky mumbled, “figure it this way: everything on this ten-acre property, as we speak, belongs to me.” It was a lame, lighthearted comment to follow up what he felt had been his previous stupid one, and then he shrugged it off for a requested taste of the pasta—which Hutch refused to give him.

“You can eat with the rest of us,” Hutch said, not surrendering to Starsky’s impatience. “No special privileges for the plantation owner. I think self-proclaimed ownership of everything out here is all you get for now.”

They sat at the dining table when dinner was finally served—in a room that Starsky and Hutch seldom used when they were alone together—and reminisced about their respective childhoods, their careers, and relationships. Starsky had set the table—haphazardly, and not without half a dozen candles—so the ambiance in the room was one of relaxation and comfort, and the kind of warmth to which he and Hutch had grown accustomed.

And, of course, the topic of relationships couldn’t help but turn to the one between Starsky and Hutch. “You know I have questions,” Nick said. “I mean, you said earlier today that you figured I’d—”

“Ask away,” Starsky invited him. He held garlic toast with one hand, a fork in his other, gave Nick that pause to know he’d be taken seriously, and waited. “So long as you don’t want to know the graphic details,” he added, “you can ask me anything.”

“I knew there was a caveat,” Nick joked, but then said, “I don’t think I could handle the graphic details. But, I mean, what are you telling me? That you spent the last forty years of your life wondering about your sexuality—despite all those women?”

“I’m not saying that at all,” Starsky replied. He resumed eating while he spoke. “I’m saying I fell for this guy in that way about ten months ago. It’s not a gay thing. And it wasn’t a choice.”

“A gay thing isn’t a choice,” Hutch insisted.

“But my point is … I didn’t have these romantic feelings for you or any guy while growing up.”

“Oh,” Nick said, seemingly confused. “So, there aren’t really any graphic details. It’s only an emotional falling, you’re saying.”

Frustrated, Starsky tried again. “Just because you have a homosexual relationship with someone doesn’t make you a homosexual.” He looked at Hutch, who seemed both proud of him and perplexed, and asked, “Did I say that right?”

“You did.”

To Nick, Starsky added, “It means I don’t have those urges for other guys.”

“Well…” Hutch argued—with just the one word.

“It wasn’t an urge I had for him,” Starsky snapped. “It was an experiment—gone bad.”

“So there was another guy?” Nick wondered, sounding dismayed. “You’ve been holding out on me all this time, brother.”

“Hutch wouldn’t play with me in the beginning,” Starsky defensively said, “so I experimented with a gay friend of mine.” His blood pressure rose and he felt flushed. He never meant to tell anyone about that part of his experience, or to ever say it again in front of Hutch, but he also couldn’t and wouldn’t lie to his brother. To close his case, he further defended himself. “That’s how I knew it wasn’t a gay thing, and that I only had those kinds of urges for this guy,” and he motioned to Hutch. “And he knows it, too, so I don’t know why he’s yanking my chain just now.” He passed Hutch a glare to force an explanation out of him, but all he got back were pursed lips and an apparent refusal to comment.

“Would that gay friend be that Adam guy?” Nick asked.

Although they’d been talking about Adam without mentioning him by name, Starsky was all the more unsettled when his name did come up—because he’d spent the last couple of weeks making a special effort to not say “Adam” in front of Hutch. “Yeah, that guy,” he mumbled, chewing while he spoke to muffle the sound of his answer. “How do you know him?”

“From the funeral,” Nick explained. “He introduced himself. Struck me as gay.”

The three of them ate in silence for a minute on that notation, until Starsky finally braved glancing at Hutch to read his demeanor after forcing Hutch to discuss Adam—during a meal Hutch had created, no less, and in the way they had discussed him. But Hutch was busy eating and he didn’t look up, not even if he sensed Starsky’s need for the healing eye contact—and Starsky was fairly certain he did.

“So you only have sex urges for your partner,” Nick decided to know.

“For him and only him,” Starsky replied. He hoped that would make Hutch look at him, so he could ask for forgiveness for having even mentioned Adam—but it didn’t succeed.

“Did Grace know?” Nick asked. “I mean, six months ago or so you were married to her.”

“She knew,” Hutch said, eating, not looking at either man. His voice was warm, quiet. “And she accepted it—and even encouraged it.”

“Wow,” Nick whispered. “You all hid it very well at the wedding.”

“But I didn’t lie,” Starsky reminded him. “It was nobody’s business; I didn’t have anything to hide. But here, now, because I have to explain to you why I don’t live over there anymore—and because he’s it and will be and I don’t want to have to lie about that to you, like he’s some kind of dirty secret—you’re getting all the gory details.”

Starsky was impressed by how well Nick had taken the news when he broke it, and how quickly he seemed to be adjusted to it, too, so much that Nick had already expressed his desire to stay in the guest room at the house. “I’m proud of you,” Starsky said again, and, admittedly, he was a bit proud of himself, as well. Although he didn’t believe it took courage to tell his brother the intimate details of his personal life, he was aware all over again by how certain he was about the direction of his new life, and that gave him self-satisfaction.

“Hey,” Nick said, seeming to downplay the praise, “who you love is who you love, right? I mean, I’ve always known—everybody has always known—just how close you guys are. I went through a period of jealousy for years, one I never told you about, when I saw just how into this guy you were then, let alone now.”

“Yeah?” both Hutch and Starsky said in unison.

“Well, I’m past it,” Nick explained. “I grew up in the summer of ’79,” he sort of sang, adding, “my new mantra. After getting in trouble with Stryker—and having you guys bail me out—I realized how far my insecurity and jealousy went.”

They were silent about that for a few minutes, too, eating quietly, enjoying the tastes, listening to each other’s unspoken thoughts.

“You know you’ll always be my kid brother,” Starsky affectionately said, easing the underlying strain.

“I wanted to be more than that.”

“What’s more than that? My big brother?”

“A partner of some kind,” Nick said, as if it were obvious, but he waved it away. “Water under the bridge. I knew I was out of my element even before I had to face it. You guys are class A, and I have nothing but respect for you both.”

“Well,” Starsky said sincerely, “it works both ways. Anyone who can see the light before it got darker on him is to be respected, too.”

They hadn’t expected the conversation to go the direction it had; there had been wounds in the past, now mended, revisited, and assimilated in all their lives. At least they had an understanding about their collective journey, even if there wasn’t much detail to mull.

In bed later that night, Starsky lay facing Hutch, unable to sleep. He watched Hutch doze peacefully beside him, studied Hutch’s blond hair, his closed eyes, bared shoulder, and muscled arm. It seemed to Starsky that he’d hurt two men in his life, the two he was closest to. He’d done it without intention. And he’d been forgiven for it. Still, he couldn’t help but sense there was something else at play, some distrust or … no, that wasn’t the word … more like a suspicion, at least on Hutch’s end, that he hadn’t yet erased. How did Starsky’s love for a blood brother, and for the one who wasn’t, make these otherwise strong men so insecure?

He was about to find humor in his self-given answer, that somehow he was such a catch of sorts, when Hutch opened his eyes then, and startled Starsky so much, he smiled to purge the feeling.

“What’s so funny?” Hutch whispered. He appeared too sleepy to smile back.

“Nothing,” Starsky replied. Never tell an insecure person anything that might deepen their anxieties, even if it was purely for fun, he thought. “Just watching you sleep and liking what I see.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“I’m still liking what I see.”

Hutch smiled, the corners of his fuller lips turning up to soften his expression, bringing warmth to his blue eyes. “You flatter me.”

“I’d rather fuck you,” Starsky said. He still felt playful.

“I rather you fucked me, too,” Hutch answered him.

“Hey,” Starsky called him—to get Hutch’s full attention on him and not on his silly comments. “I’m sorry about talk earlier … you know … mentioning … Adam.”

Hutch briefly closed his eyes.

Without words, Starsky couldn’t read him. He tried again. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Hutch softly said. He made eye contact with Starsky, not so firm, not so telling, but then, in an even softer voice, expressed his wishes. “After your brother has gone,” he said, “let’s talk about Adam then, okay?”

Hutch’s words took Starsky by surprise; was there as much to them as was implied? Hutch didn’t say he wished to talk about the conversation they’d had that night regarding Adam; he said he wished to talk about Adam after Nick went home.

“Is there more on your mind than what we all said tonight?” he wondered.

“Yeah,” Hutch admitted, “much more—which is why we should wait until Nick has left.”

Starsky’s pulse raced and his stomach felt instantly queasy. “Have I done something wrong?”

“Wrong is a relative term,” Hutch said, closing his eyes, and not opening them that time.

Starsky’s mouth went agape. He panted off his anxiety. He’d tried so hard for a couple of weeks to do right by Hutch, to not talk about Adam, to fix the problem, not create more of one, and Hutch’s cryptic words destroyed what Starsky had come to believe had been a success. In opening himself up to his brother, he’d created another wound, one he would never have inflicted on Hutch had he foreseen it. But he had no idea what it was or what he’d done to trigger it.

“How am I supposed to sleep now?” he asked into the silence.

“Sleep well, buddy boy,” Hutch told him, himself seeming to be at the edge of slumber. “Sleep well.”

* * *

They met Wade Davis at The Pits the following day, late in the afternoon, for rounds of pool, snacks, and beer. Huggy had moved his restaurant the previous year to a better locale in the city (with a little help from his inheritance-rich friend) and had matured in both his choice of personal contacts, as well as his business savvy. The joint was crowded, but still casual and inviting, with two pool tables at this location, a longer bar with more comfortable stools, additional dining tables, and even a small, quaint outdoor courtyard. Huggy joined them for a few games, but customer demand required his attention elsewhere throughout most of their visit.

Afterward, he joined his friends at their table, nudging Starsky up against Hutch at one point to squeeze himself onto the booth bench while they waited for their order, and to get caught up with Nick on his life’s changes. “It’s so great,” Huggy said to Starsky’s brother, “to see you under these circumstances,” he joked, “and Starsky acting as if being scrunched up to his partner is a bad thing. You know he missed Hutch while he was out there playing dead.” He pushed harder into his friend to shove Starsky deeper into Hutch.

Of course, Hutch knew why Starsky was reluctant to be crammed against him, so he immediately dropped his hands to his lap, to quarantine them between his knees, to silently let Starsky know he did his best to keep from making any skin-to-skin contact with him during that unexpected, albeit affectionate, action on Huggy’s part.

Huggy didn’t stay long; he was back on the job after a few minutes, but he stopped by on occasion to speak to them about their businesses and careers, their personal lives, and to engage in the banter that resulted when Huggy went to collect the money he’d won during the pool playoffs.

Upon one of his departures from the table, both Davis and Starsky got up to temporarily leave, too.

“Are you all going to the john together?” Nick asked, laughing.

“I’m going back to work,” Huggy said. “I’ll catch you in a few.”

“I’m going to powder my nose,” Starsky replied in an affected accent.

“And I’m going to make sure he does it properly,” Davis said.

But Hutch wasn’t buying their playful elusiveness, not Starsky’s and Davis’, and not for a minute. “Where are you two off to and why?” he demanded to know.

Starsky walked away from the table, by several feet, and then turned back to wait for Davis, seeming impatient in his posture and annoyed that his new friend had stalled on their way out of the bar.

“We’re off to see a man about a horse,” Davis told Hutch.

“C’mon,” Hutch pleaded. “What’s up with you two, huh?”

Starsky grabbed Davis’ arm. “Let’s go,” he said, ignoring Hutch. “We still have to get us some carrots and we’re running out of time.”

As they walked away, Hutch called out to them. “I’d better see a real-life equine in here when you guys come back.” His tone was jovial, but he was internally serious. He didn’t like this second meeting he saw between Starsky and Davis, especially since the charges of sexual misconduct had been dropped against him and he therefore saw no reason that his two pals should be colluding with each other—about anything.

“Hey,” Nick said above a whisper, getting Hutch’s attention, “you don’t think those guys are …”

“No,” Hutch said quickly, to nip Nick’s supposition in the bud. “Never crossed my mind.” It hadn’t. And it wouldn’t. It did trouble him, however, that he couldn’t figure out why Starsky and Davis left the table together. “But they are up to something. Of this, I am sure.”

“Well, I was going to say,” Nick continued, “that my brother would never do anything like that to you, if that’s what you were thinking he was doing.”

Nick was naive, Hutch believed. Starsky was capable of more than Nick could ever probably even guess—and had already, on some levels, in some ways, hurt Hutch, deeply and profoundly, but he did agree with Nick on that point: that Starsky wouldn’t cheat on him with Hutch’s closest friend—who wasn’t gay in the first place—and certainly not under his nose like that.

Not like that.

“So you’re saying,” Hutch replied, “that they might actually be out buying a horse?”

“And carrots,” Nick said, as dead-panned.

The comic relief was welcomed, especially after Hutch entertained the thought that Starsky and Davis had met or spoken to each other more than the two times he was aware of, this immediate occurrence simply being out in the open, under the influence of several beers between them. “Well, I hope it’s a white one,” Hutch mumbled, trying to find the humor in it.

“I grew up with him,” Nick said. “I suspect you know him better, but I was with him in those early years, back when he was being shaped by his environment, and our father’s death, and his first love, you know? When he moved out here to live with our aunt, I was really heartbroken. He wasn’t just a big brother to me; he was someone to contend with. He has … presence. He’s someone I wanted to be. He’s honorable.”

“That he is,” Hutch agreed. “Honorable to a fault.”

“So whatever he’s doing with Davis, it’s a good thing,” Nick concluded.

“Do you know what it is?”

“No. I’m not even sure he’s ‘doing’ something with Davis; maybe they just went out for a smoke.”

“Neither smokes.”

“Maybe Davis is having a problem; maybe it’s not about David at all.”

“Davis would come to me,” Hutch decided. He realized his insecurity had surfaced and decided to bury it again—so at least Dr. Jade would be proud. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, thanking Nick for his effort to calm his nerves, “because you’re right: whatever it is, it’s a good thing.”

* * *

“So what are you saying, Starsky? I can’t ask about your personal life without it being because I’m jealous or suspicious or insecure? I can’t simply be curious?” He’d raised his voice, felt heated. But he may not have been so offended had they not come through the past stupid month of his admitted jealousy, suspiciousness, and insecurity, so even he realized, especially as the words were leaving his mouth, that he’d created the wretched situation in the first place.

Starsky backed down despite that obvious fact. “Okay, okay, you win this round,” he angrily consented. “You can be curious. Wonder all you like. I’ve said before that you can ask me anything, but it doesn’t mean you get answers.”

It was past bed time and they weren’t even undressed yet, standing as they were at the foot of the bed, arguing their respective cases. Hutch had asked Starsky for details about his slip earlier that night out the restaurant’s front door with Davis for roughly 20 minutes—and Starsky was reluctant to reply, eluding answers with sort of sing-song quips of nonsense—until it angered Hutch into a serious conversation.

“What is it you don’t want me to know?” he asked when he realized Starsky’s latest answer was also elusive. “You’ll let me be curious, thank you very much; I just can’t know what you and he are up to—because, why? Why can’t I know? Is that a fair question?”

“I’m working something through,” Starsky reluctantly said. “How many times have I told you I have something on my mind? I have to hear myself think and he’s helping me do it.”

“And I can’t help you do that?”

“Not on this matter.”

“Because you don’t think I’ll understand?”

“Because you’ll influence me—and he won’t.”

Hutch had been careful not to ask Starsky what the ‘matter’ was specifically; his partner had made it clear he didn’t want to share those details, but at least he answered the questions about why he wouldn’t talk to him about it. Hutch had one final question and then he’d let it go—or at least try to. “Is what you’re talking to him about related to what I did in that men’s room?” Starsky’s odd behavior had surfaced since then, so it was the only logical conclusion Hutch could make.

Starsky seemed to search the air with his eyes, as if he would carefully word his answer, but replied, using a firm voice, “Yes.”

Hutch would have let it lie there, but it was such a provocative notion, he couldn’t help himself. “And, this, despite that the charges against me were dropped?”

“Yeah,” Starsky said, making firmer eye contact.

“So it must be a personal problem, then.”

“You need to let me work this out,” Starsky warned him, obviously not appreciating Hutch’s continued effort to know more, and he raised his own voice, too. “I’m sorry that I can’t do better than this right now. But when I have it worked out, and not a minute before then, I’ll fill you in. You have my word on that.”

“And you don’t think Davis would tell me if I asked him?”

“Why put him in that position? Why can’t you leave this alone, hm?”

“Because you’re playing it out in front of me.”

“It’s not like there’s anywhere else to play it,” Starsky argued, that intense expression filling his eyes with more anger. “I live here now, remember?” He’d been pushed into his unexpected defense and that had apparently riled him further. “I eat, drink, sleep, and shit here—with you in the next room. If they ever make cord-free house phones, I’ll leave with one to tend to my private life, but until then, where else do you think I can go without you that doesn’t peak your ‘curiosity’?”

“So let me get this straight,” Hutch shot back him. “We can share the same house, the same bed, the same body—as you once put it—the same heart and mind, but you’re so troubled by something that I did that you have to talk to somebody else about it?”

Starsky was about to reply to that inciting question when they both heard the unexpected knock at the closed bedroom door. “Yeah?” Starsky snapped instead. He used the interruption to turn on his heel, his back to Hutch.

Nick opened the door, dressed in Starsky’s old pajamas. “Hey, guys,” he sleepily said, but sounding upbeat and cautious, too. “I was afraid I’d be hearing the unwanted sounds of man-on-man sex from across the hall during my visit, but this is even worse.”

It didn’t make either Hutch or Starsky laugh, but it did serve to stop them in their tracks. No doubt Starsky did likewise to realize how inappropriate their flare up had been when it was filtered through the eyes and ears of their houseguest. “I’m sorry, kid,” he told his brother. “We’re done with it. Go back to sleep.”

Hutch had gotten shut down again. Out of frustration, anger, and helplessness, he walked to his side of the bed and pulled his sweater off over his head. It did the necessary trick and made Nick close the door so Hutch could end his argument with Starsky with a parting shot. “Now, none of us gets to sleep,” he mumbled sarcastically. “Thank you very much.”

* * *

Nick told Starsky how proud of him he was for his honesty about his relationship with Hutch, and that he appreciated not having to hear them have sex while he was there, but that they shouldn’t fight so much.

“We’re a couple of hotheads up against each other,” Starsky explained to him, “but if it’s any consolation, we love a lot more than we fight.”

“Dammit, Starsk,” Hutch growled. “Speak for yourself, dickhead.”

They all busted up laughing.

It was goodbye time, that inevitable trip back to the airport, this run with the three of them, to share farewells and “I’ll see you soon”s, after which Nick made sure to let Starsky know how proud of him he was. But when he went to hug Hutch, Hutch stopped him with a raised hand. “Still don’t know if I’m coming down with something,” he warned.

“I couldn’t hug you hello,” Nick countered him, sounding disappointed, not just confused, “and now I can’t hug you goodbye, either? What sort of sickness do you think you might have?”

“The Hugging Disease,” Starsky injected. He stepped partly between his brother and Hutch to make certain Nick took them seriously. Although he’d shared the details of his personal feelings for Hutch with Nick, he didn’t share Hutch’s private life, despite that it affected them both. Some things simply weren’t anybody’s business but his and Hutch’s—or the police department’s, the F.B.I.’s, and the local newspapers’, of course. Nick never got a chance to see any of the publications, so their scandal was secretly intact.

“Maybe next time,” Hutch said, regarding an embrace with Nick. “And maybe next time we’ll come visit you.”

Nick liked that idea and hoped it would be sooner than later. They walked him to his gate, Starsky carrying his bag for him, bid him a smooth flight home, and then watched the plane taxi out to the runway, before he and Hutch casually departed from the airport. As they left the terminal into the outside sunshine, they noticed, together, that a traffic cop was ticketing the car parked behind Starsky’s at the curb.

“C’mon,” Starsky said hurriedly, pushing Hutch in the middle of his back, and forcing a couple of stumbled steps from him, “let’s get out of here before she gets to my car!”

Hutch didn’t change his speed, so Starsky ended up running around the rear of the vehicle and jumping into the driver’s seat before Hutch caught up with him. “C’mon!” he yelled again through the opened window.

When Hutch got into the car, he half-turned to his partner, and said, “You’d have deserved that ticket, you know that, right? There’s a reason you keep getting those.”

Starsky immediately started the engine and peeled away from the curb. “I have a tax-exempt license plate,” he argued.

“Not to break the law, dipshit, and especially not at an airport.”

“If they were all that concerned about security,” Starsky complained, “they’d make it so you can’t go to the gate without a paid plane ticket to match identification—to rule out somebody just wanting to hurt somebody—and they’d—”

“Stop it already. There’s no excuse for your traffic violations. Never has been. Never will be. And you call yourself an officer of the law.”

Starsky shrugged at him, wordlessly, as if Hutch’s chastising was merely background noise, then asked, “want to get something to eat before we go home?”

“Yeah, sure.”

They drove for a while without communicating—except by way of communing: with the fresh outside air, with the soothing feel of the car beneath them, with each other’s company and context. Hutch even watched Starsky sometimes, the way Starsky kept an eye on his rearview and side mirrors, on the way his hands—dusted in light black hair—gripped the steering wheel, changing position as he maneuvered the car through traffic, at his familiar profile and his relaxed posture, his casual clothes and thick dark hair. Now that Nick’s visit had ended, it wouldn’t be too long before Hutch would be able to have that planned blood draw and get back the results. But what would they do if he tested positive? Would he ever be able to lay hands on Starsky again? Even the questions, without the answers, sent a shudder down his spine.

“So talk to me,” Starsky said after some many minutes had passed. “Tell me what you didn’t want to tell me while Nick was here.”

“When we get home,” Hutch promised. “I don’t want to talk about it while you’re driving.”

His answer made Starsky go silent again, for longer that time.

So they stopped for lunch, enjoyed their filling meals and the upbeat conversation, and then they drove home from there in relative silence, cordially and casually, commenting on the beauty of the property when they eventually arrived, as if seeing it together for the first time. Hutch had overheard Starsky tell Nick on one of those past mornings just how much work and love Hutch had invested into the farm—and he saw it then through the Starsky brothers’ eyes: its beautiful shade trees, landscaped and grassy pastures, fruit orchard and vegetable garden, their safe house—and their home.

It filled him with pride.

And gratitude—for being able to share it with his soulmate.

After Hutch got out of the car, he wanted to hug Starsky, hold and touch him, bask in the sunshine with him—feel the man in his arms. Instead, he stopped at the bottom of the steps and watched Starsky go up ahead of him, noticing—as he planned—the arousing beauty of Starsky from behind, in his tight jeans.

When Starsky got to the front door, he must have realized Hutch wasn’t on his heels. He turned, saw Hutch at the foot of the stairs and, with a puzzled expression, asked, “Shall I get us some beer and meet you on the porch?”

“Sure,” Hutch said gratefully. He ascended the steps when Starsky disappeared into the house. Then, disappointed because he hadn’t been able to fulfill any of his wishful fantasies, he slumped into a cushioned lawn chair and turned his gaze into the fruit orchard instead. The apple and pear trees had fully leafed, and even the fig tree showed signs of promise.

If only he and Starsky could lounge there that afternoon, share a beer, and simply watch the grass grow. But that was just another fantasy: there was a heart-to-heart yet to have. After a couple of minutes, he heard Starsky’s shoes on the hardwood floor as he approached, the screen door open and close, the movement of his partner behind him as Starsky leaned over him and held an uncapped beer bottle in front his nose.

“For you, my love,” Starsky said in a British accent. He pulled a chair directly in front of Hutch and sat before him, face-to-face, knees to each other’s clothed knees. “So, tell me what’s on your mind about Adam. I’m ready.”

Hutch looked him over; he first noticed that Starsky understandably drank from his own uncontaminated beer bottle—another broken fantasy Hutch had hoped to live—and then he allowed himself a minute to enjoy the look of his partner, too. Oh, those beautiful, sultry blue eyes, his anticipating expression, his apparent courage, knowing Hutch would talk about Adam, and the way he sat forward in his chair, as if eager, making affectionate eye contact with Hutch while he waited.

Hutch drank a long swallow of beer to cool the warm that flushed over him, and then addressed the issue. “Those phone hangups were Adam trying to reach me—which he succeeded in doing when you left for the airport—because you left for the airport.”

“Oh,” Starsky said under his breath. He sat back against the chair seat, pushed there by the revelation and what it ultimately meant.

“Why’d you do it, Starsk?” Hutch asked, trying not to sound as reprimanding as he suddenly felt. Of course, he knew why Starsky had done what he’d done—because Adam had given him every detail.

* * *

Hutch didn’t intend to sound condescending when he refused to shake Adam’s hand. “Nothing personal,” was all he said—because it wasn’t. He had met Adam at the table in the nearby diner, a booth beside the window, but not the one Starsky and he usually frequented. The restaurant on this particular afternoon had sparse patronage, so Hutch was relieved that their location was relatively private. A waitress handed them their menus as soon as he sat down and took their drink orders of iced tea and lemon.

Adam was too nervous to eat, but Hutch ordered a small loaf of sourdough bread and a sliced tomato. He almost said, ‘striped tomato’ to the waitress, but caught himself in time. Still, it did make him smile, and Adam noticed it.

“I appreciate you taking the time to meet me,” he told Hutch. “Given how you feel about me, I know this can’t be easy for you.”

“I thought we’d gotten past that,” Hutch replied. Of course, he didn’t know what Starsky may have told Adam about Hutch’s deeper feelings, but he wouldn’t play his hand until he knew.

“I thought we had, too,” Adam confessed. He tried a smile at Hutch, then said, “Hey, listen, I never meant to hurt anybody, least of all you guys.”

“We’re beyond it,” Hutch said again. He noticed the blue in Adam’s eyes, and how genuinely they reflected his remorse. Hutch did give Starsky credit for one thing: he chose authentic friends. “Starsky and I have gotten past it, so let’s let it go. Tell me what you’ve come to tell me.” He sat back against the booth seat, his hands folded on the table in front of him, and braced himself for Adam’s announcement.

Adam began with a steady voice while he fidgeted with the edge of his paper napkin. “First let me say this,” he said, breaking eye contact with Hutch when he spoke, “that I very much love Starsky. He’s been a good friend to me, probably the best friend I’ve ever had. I never want to do anything to hurt him, and I figure he’d be unhappy with my telling you what I’m going to tell you, but I don’t come here with any intention to hurt him.”

The set up for Adam’s declaration didn’t ease the nervousness in Hutch’s belly, but he accepted the disclaimer with a nod.

“Having said that,” Adam continued, still fidgeting, his voice more even-tempered, “I don’t want to hurt you, either. I hope you’ll both forgive me.” He drew a deep breath and obviously braved his next words. “That day you found me on the side of the road not far from your place … well, I’d called him from a payphone while I was in Oxnard to see if I could come out for a visit. I didn’t go out there hoping to get laid,” he quickly said, “but I did have it on my mind—especially when he told me he’d called my house earlier, and then followed it up by telling me you’d gone to a sports game with a friend of yours for the afternoon.”

Hutch swallowed his anxiety as best he could, but it didn’t ease it completely; what little he could shake got replaced with a gnawing anger.

“I promise I won’t lie to you, Hutch,” Adam said, speaking fluidly, “so I’ll tell you—although I love that man dearly as a friend and a mentor—because he sure helped me through a bad time—the truth is I also want to lay him, and always have. I think maybe I’m in love with him. In fact, I’m willing to tell you anything you want to know about how I feel about him.”

“Let’s start with telling me what happened at the farm that day,” Hutch firmly said, his voice wavering when he spoke, revealing his deepening apprehension. It was he who fidgeted with the edge of a paper napkin. “He told me you guys didn’t play around that day—and I still want to believe him. But don’t lie to me. You promised you wouldn’t.”

* * *

“He’s definitely the beautiful one,” Adam said, “but you’re the one who oozes sex out of every pore.” He’d stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up at Starsky; Starsky was dressed in jeans, an untucked shirt, and barefoot. His blue eyes, haired chest, and dark wavy hair, coupled with his casual posture, hands in front pockets, and his somewhat unreadable expression, all tugged at Adam’s desire for him. He took that minute to simply feast his eyes on the boy.

“You’re too kind,” Starsky said in reply. His voice was gentle, but he didn’t smile. Perhaps the compliment embarrassed him too much.

“A fact,” Adam countered him just the same. And, then, because he wanted to avoid an even more awkward moment later, he added, “Got my latest test results back on Tuesday and they were negative, so feel free to eat me alive.”

When Starsky didn’t comment, not even with an expression, Adam ascended the steps so he could at least take Starsky in a friendly, genuine embrace. The hug lasted longer than Adam expected, and he was admittedly most pleased to have experienced it.

“Come on in,” Starsky coaxed him after they left each other’s arms. He turned to lead the way.

Adam thought Starsky might be nervous—like he had been the previous summer when he drove all those miles to Adam’s house to talk himself into sex with a man. Adam wouldn’t pressure him, not then. They had several hours to kill, according to Starsky’s earlier comment about Hutch’s whereabouts, so there needn’t be a rush. “May I use the john?” he asked when he entered the living room; it had been a long drive from the city. He surveyed the house interior: its warm wood furniture, fabrics in subtle earth colors, healthy houseplants, numerous books, and a fresh tidiness. “Oh, my,” he said under his breath. “Your partner sure does keep an inviting place.” He knew Starsky lived with Hutch due to the safe house construction, but he’d been in that house and it didn’t feel the same as walking into this one felt; the homey touches were undoubtedly Hutch’s.

“Down the hall,” Starsky said, to direct Adam to the bathroom, “second door on the right. And, you nailed it,” he added lightly, “Hutch does make a good housekeeper.”

“And interior decorator, too,” Adam echoed as he wandered off down the hall. He paused along the way to study the framed prints on the walls, admire the clean area rugs, the rich wood floors, the polished tiled bathroom itself, with its aesthetically attractive shower curtain and matching towels. He’d passed the bedrooms without notice because he was genuinely in need of a toilet then, but he did plan to spy on them on his way back. It was Adam’s fantasy that he and Starsky would end up on Starsky’s bed that afternoon, but Starsky was either too nervous to immediately play or he didn’t plan to. Adam’s read was that Starsky was contradictory: friendly, but not pursuant.

“So did your partner get the master bedroom?” Adam asked on his return to the living room, noticing the king-sized bed as he passed by the doorway, and only getting a glimpse of the queen bed in the guest room before he was in Starsky’s presence again. “Or did you guys flip a coin to determine who gets to sleep where? I imagine Hutch didn’t give up his bed without a fight, huh? I know I wouldn’t have.”

He found Starsky sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, the side of it that opened into the living room, and facing him as he approached, making uninhibited eye contact, too, appearing friendly and comfortable, but not rising to greet him—as if they wouldn’t get right to making the most of their alone time. So Adam stopped in front of Starsky when Starsky didn’t answer right away. “Everything okay?” he asked.

Starsky clasped Adam’s hand and pulled him closer, but not intimately close. “I need to tell you something,” he said in an apologetic voice, pausing the lightness between them by its tone alone, “so, before you say anything else, let me tell you what I need to tell you first, okay?”

Adam imagined that he would hear a speech about how Starsky didn’t want their playing around with each other to be misunderstood as acts of passion they’d engage as matter of routine. Or that Starsky was still nervous about sexual play with him, about man-on-man sex, despite having experienced it once already. Or simply that Starsky would lay down the rules and safeguards the way he had the last time.

“Can I get you a beer or some water or anything?” Starsky asked. He let go of Adam’s hand, so Adam sat on the stool beside him, and declined a beverage.

“I’m fine,” he replied. He’d nursed water from a bottle all the way from the city and felt quite hydrated. But because Starsky didn’t get up to get himself a beer, Adam passed on that, too. He noticed that Starsky protectively crossed his arms over his chest. “C’mon,” Adam told him, hoping to break Starsky’s defensiveness, “we’ve been buddies a long time now, gone through some heavy shit together. You can tell me anything. You know that.”

“It’s what I’ve never told you that shames me,” Starsky said. He broke eye contact and seemed to finally brave his words. “It’s what I should have told you, but didn’t. And I don’t know why I never told you—self-preservation, fear of rejection, avoiding judgment—but I should have told you, so let me ease into this, okay? I’m not sure I can do it any other way.”

Adam’s fear was that Starsky had tested positive for a sexually transmittable disease and was contagious during the one-time sex encounter they’d shared the previous summer, so his mind raced ahead to assimilate it before Starsky could tell him. He remembered that he’d worn a condom, mostly to protect Starsky from whatever Kyle may have unknowingly passed on, but would there be irony here?

“I was already playing around with Hutch when I went to your house that night,” Starsky said flatly. From the context and his wording, Adam knew he referenced the night he and Starsky had shared the bed, engaged in protective sex, but—despite the details Starsky would say next—Adam couldn’t escape what he just heard.

“Let me get this straight,” he said quickly. “You and Hutch were having sex?”

“Handjobs,” Starsky explained. “And … what’s that F word?”

“Fellatio?”

“Yeah. Me to him.”

Adam was stunned. It made him speechless. Not even his mind could get up to speed on how to process the revelation. It seemed one thing that Starsky had sought out sex with a man; Starsky had a valid reason at the time. But for Hutch to be similarly engaged was more than Adam could understand at that minute. What reason could Hutch possibly have to fellate another man except that he was gay—or at least bisexual? And how did either of those scenarios previously escape him?

“I pressured him into the handjobs,” Starsky explained, sensing Adam’s confusion, no doubt, “and I seduced him into fellatio. But when I asked him for the anal, he turned me down. That, and because I believed all along that he didn’t want to be doing any of that stuff with me, I made the decision to see you instead.”

“Okay,” Adam replied, speaking the word with a slowing cadence. So maybe Starsky’s confession wasn’t about sexually transmitted diseases after all. It was time to listen, not to react. Adam couldn’t possibly guess what Starsky needed to tell him.

“Well, he caught me in the driveway the day I went over to your place,” Starsky continued, his arms still crossed, but making the effort on occasion to look Adam in the eye, “and he did his best to stop me. In fact, he begged me not to go; said he’d rather I gave him an hour to change his mind, to experiment with him instead.” Starsky did make eye contact that time because the facts drove him to it. “We all know what I ended up doing.”

“Starsky, I had no idea.”

“Because I never told you,” Starsky insisted, forgivingly. “But, in trying not to hurt him, I actually hurt him bad.”

“I’m sorry, Starsky.”

“It’s not your fault. You’re an innocent in all of this. Trust me on that.”

“I’m still sorry. I’m sorry you hurt him—because I also know that hurting him hurt you.”

“He lost trust in me,” Starsky recalled in a faraway tone; his voice broke then, too, became strained. “Maybe not so much trust,” he said on second thought. “Maybe it was faith he lost. He lost some faith in me. He lost some ability to believe in me. What I should have done was do without, especially if I wasn’t going to do it with him. What I shouldn’t have done was replace him.”

And no wonder Hutch had been so resentful that afternoon when he confronted Adam at Starsky’s house. He had been more than angry; he had been deeply wounded by jealousy. “So where does that put you with him now?” Adam asked.

Did Starsky need to register a caveat before he could play with Adam? Was he about to say that, whatever he did with Adam, Hutch would need to know, and deserve to know? Or that Hutch should never know?

“Well, since then,” Starsky replied, easing into his words, “he and I have been … lovers.”

Adam sat back. He didn’t see that disclosure materializing until it was already upon him. He was stunned for the second time that day. He assumed Starsky’s comment about regretting his ‘replacing’ Hutch had meant Starsky hadn’t entered into a sexual relationship with Hutch, at least not to that degree, but that Hutch would need to give permission—or Hutch would need fair warning beforehand—if Starsky wanted to have sex with Adam. “Lovers,” he said, mulling the word. How did Starsky mean that term?

“As in,” Starsky said, as if he read Adam’s mind, “we share the same bed. We eat, sleep, drink, and fuck together. Every day. Well, not every day.” He paused, gathered more thoughts, and then confessed, “After I got back from that island, his paranoia over losing me again got worse. Then, that night you and me sat on the porch at the other house until four in the morning, remember? Well, he was in the doorway at this house when you and I came back to your car that night to say goodbye, and he overheard me tell you I love you.”

And that was when, that very moment they were in, that Adam got the first hint that Starsky would give him some very bad news—which is exactly what Starsky did next.

“Last Saturday night, Hutch and I went to that gay bar you recommended; you know the one: off the beaten track in Ventura?”

Adam remembered.

“We got into an argument there over something stupid,” Starsky continued, “and he got really drunk. I couldn’t get him to leave with me, so I left without him. Went out to my car, fell asleep there, and eventually got awakened by the police, telling me there’d been a sting operation and everyone in the bar had been arrested—including and especially Hutch—on charges of sexual misconduct and lewd indecency or whatever those specifics are—because Hutch was the center of a game they play in those places called ‘musical chairs’.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Adam whispered. “I can’t—”

“That’s a whole other can of worms,” Starsky said with a wave of his hand. “We’ll have to see this through the lawyers and the courts, but why I’m telling you is because he was fucked up that night over having heard me tell you I love you. That, and all the other times I’ve talked about you—reminding him, I guess, of how I’d hurt him by experimenting with you. Rather, reminding him of how easily he might still be hurt by me. Or lose me.”

“But none of this,” Adam guessed, his heart beginning to pound, “is why you’re telling me any of it.”

Starsky exchanged a longer eye contact with him and said, affectionately and with sincerity, but still seemingly pained, “I do love you, Adam.”

That’s when Adam knew what he had previously miscalculated. Starsky hadn’t invited him to the farm that afternoon to play with him; he invited him for just the opposite. It’s why Starsky had originally been adamant about meeting Adam in town, so he could deliver the blow in a neutral environment. It was Adam who convinced Starsky to meet at the farm. He wasn’t sorry he’d come all that way; better to be in a private place for such a conversation. But … “Please, Starsky,” he whispered, bracing for the inevitable impact, “please don’t do this.”

“I can’t hurt him anymore,” Starsky explained. “I’d give anything to be able to prove to him what he now means to me, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what that would be. All the same, the truth is that I have to end this friendship between you and me because it’s only hurting him and hurting him isn’t anything I can do anymore.”

“Starsky …”

“You’ll be justified in your anger,” Starsky added, “and I’ll deserve the pain of that. I should have told you last summer. In some ways, I know I’ve led you on, even though I’ve been up front about what I couldn’t do with you. You should have known the real reasons.”

“Starsky,” Adam begged him, feeling his hurt rise in his chest, his voice begin to tremor, “there’s got to be another way around this. I can’t lose you.”

“There’s no other way,” Starsky said solemnly. He lowered his sight to the floor between them. “I’ve looked at it from every angle I can think of.”

“We can talk to Hutch. He’ll under—”

“He’ll say it’s okay,” Starsky agreed, “like he did before. But it’s not okay. He’ll feel like shit for believing he was the weak one, the one in the wrong, when it was me who caused all this. He’ll give us his blessing, but the fear will always be under the surface. No, Adam, I’ve thought long-and-hard about this, and—”

“Please, Starsky.”

“I have to do what’s best for the person who’s getting hurt by our friendship. And I’m really sorry that it means you’ll get hurt and I’ll get hurt, but his hurt is deeper. His hurt is a fear he doesn’t deserve. His hurt will only go away with time—long after I’ve stopped mentioning your name.”

“Starsky.”

“Say what you need to say before you go,” Starsky advised him. “Don’t hold back. You won’t get this chance again.”

“Please don’t do this,” Adam pleaded. “I didn’t know you were in that kind of relationship with him. Had I known, I would never have been—”

“I know you didn’t know and I know you’d have been better behaved. It’s not your fault.”

“You’re special to me, Starsky. You’re the best friend I have.”

“I’m going to tell him you have a boyfriend and haven’t got time for me anymore.”

That Starsky would lie to Hutch about the situation made Adam realize how determined Starsky was, and that Starsky had, indeed, given it serious thought—and that there’d be no changing his mind. What was there left to say? Adam had just lost his best friend, his mentor and his pal, his fantasies and his realities. There was no calling him back. He gazed into Starsky’s pained blue eyes and knew in his heart of hearts that Starsky had already closed that door. His own eyes blurred with tears until he could no longer see Starsky’s handsome face or his open-collared shirt and haired chest, his athletic body and his posture; just that he was still close, still in the room with him, still in his present. He couldn’t bring himself to let go.

“I’m so sorry, Adam,” he heard Starsky tell him. Masculine voice. Sincere. He knew Starsky was sorry. He knew the man well enough to know that Starsky’s pain wasn’t purely one of loss, but of the harm he’d done, or perceived he’d done, that it was mixed with shame, and coupled with a sort of helplessness and regret. Could he fault Starsky? No, but he couldn’t bare to lose him, either.

Adam dropped his face into his hands and audibly cried. He was too paralyzed to have left the house and purged his grief alone in the car—though he would, unknowingly, pull over on the side of the road later to cry there, and be unexpectedly happened upon by Hutch. For then, it was all Adam could do to control his tears—and he failed in that, miserably.

He heard Starsky get off the stool, felt his approach, then his arms encircle him as he took Adam in a tight, sorry-filled embrace, holding Adam as he sat with his face in his hands and cried. “You’ve been such a good friend,” Starsky said, his voice low in Adam’s ear, breaking, too, with its own emotion. “Don’t you ever think, not even for a second, that I’ll have forgotten about you. We had a special friendship. We went through a hell together and came out the other side in ways most people going through something like that never get to—because we had each other. Then we did some good work together. We changed some lives for the better. I’ll never forget you, Adam. Or that you helped me through a rough time.”

Adam simply wept. He clung to Starsky’s shirt and cried. “Please, Starsky …”

“But, Hutch,” Starsky said, tightening his arms around Adam when Adam pulled him as close as possible, “he comes first. First before you. First before me. I know you understand that. And I’d love to say I wish things were different, but I can’t say that—because I wouldn’t trade what I have with him for anything or anyone. I know that’s harsh, Adam. Truth is harsh.” He lovingly kissed the side of Adam’s head. “Truth is also what we’ll lean on when the road gets rough—that we ended this for a higher good. We ended it for him.”

* * *

“I’m just trying to fix things, Hutch,” Starsky said defensively. He sounded as dumbstruck as he appeared. No doubt he never expected to be found out.

“I know you are, buddy,” Hutch affectionately said. He could see Starsky’s effort in his bewildered expression, and in his slumped posture, and he could hear it in his subdued voice. “I know you are. But breaking two hearts—yours and his—isn’t the way to do it, if it needs doing at all.”

“I don’t have any other ways,” Starsky complained. He rubbed his face and groaned with apparent disappointment. “The one way I did have, Adam undid. What did he expect from you, anyway?” He didn’t ask his question with accusatory undertones, but purely from curiosity.

“He begged me to reconsider my feelings about him and about you-and-him,” Hutch replied, reflecting back over his emotional conversation with Adam that day. “No,” he said, voicing a second thought, “he implored me to reconsider—he beseeched me—and to give you guys a second chance to prove yourselves.”

Starsky lowered his eyes to under Hutch’s chair, was speechless.

“He sat at that table and cried,” Hutch continued, “and begged me—repeatedly—to give him back his friend, promising me that he would never see you unless I was present, that neither of you would be in each other’s company without my being there with you guys.”

Starsky raised his eyes to look at Hutch, his face lined in absolute dejection, it seemed. Did Starsky beg for the same? Did he wish to be reunited with Adam? Probably; okay, yes, but did Starsky also think supervision was the answer to the Adam question? Hutch couldn’t tell, not by any readable expression on Starsky’s face, anyway, but it didn’t matter. Hutch had already made up his mind. “Consider this Adam matter fixed,” he said factly. “Had he not told me what you’d done, I would have gone into my life believing he’d found himself a boyfriend and no longer had time for you, and that you guys had drifted apart years ago. You’d have never talked about him again, he’d never be around, and the memories of this chapter in our lives would have eventually been buried under the passing of time.”

Starsky held his beer bottle, but didn’t drink from it, appearing too disheartened to enjoy the beautiful day. What could he say anyway? He’d failed in an endeavor that had been no small feat for him.

“You’re beautiful, Starsk,” Hutch said to follow up, but he felt emotionally moved, too, and it hinted in his voice. “What you did … the sacrifice you made for me … you know I wish you hadn’t done it, but you did do it, and I love you for it.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Starsky mumbled, speaking with a barely noticeable shrug.

Well, that Hutch was: a romantic. It was a label he proudly wore. He knew Starsky had heard his underlying gratitude and felt his love, so he sipped cold beer, basked in the warming sunshine, allowed time to slow, and thoroughly immersed himself in the physically close proximity of his partner, sitting in chairs as they were on the porch, knee to knee, bathing in their mutual love for each other. He looked Starsky in the eye—bore right into those beautiful, soulful, sultry, but seemingly wistful blue eyes—and said, “Don’t keep your buddy waiting, okay?”

“Waiting?”

“Give him a call. Take him back. You made your point.”

Starsky looked blankly at him for half a minute.

“I told him I wouldn’t be talking to you about this if I talked to you at all—until after your brother left,” Hutch added, “so he’s waited long enough to know what my decision is—and I’m as certain of it as I am that the sky is blue.”

Tears emerged in Starsky’s eyes.

“Don’t give up your friends for me,” Hutch said, knowing Starsky had been hurt by the loss—and had silently suffered through it for more than a month, “least of all because I’m stupidly insecure and jealous. Don’t break more hearts—especially yours. You know I never wanted that. I’m over this. I promise you that. No false bravado. And no babysitter needed, either. Your effort succeeded—but you don’t have to forever pay its price. So, go. Call him. Take him back. It’s what I want you to do.”

Starsky wiped his eyes and then stood. As he passed Hutch on the way into the house, he paused beside him, bent over, leaned into him, his cheek as close to Hutch’s cheek as he could get without actual contact, and then held them in that suspended moment until the warmth of its declaration and gratitude washed over Hutch.

It was the only physical affection they could engage at that moment—and it was profoundly shared. Hutch bit his lip to stall his own tearful reaction. “You’re welcome, buddy,” he said in a whisper. “And I love you, too.”

And then Starsky left him on the porch.

* * *

EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE

With his heart in his throat, Hutch returned to the house from the mailbox with the manila envelope he both feared and desperately needed, the test results they’d been waiting on for a week, the blood draw procedure he’d nervously undergone that otherwise sunny Monday. Starsky had taken up the construction of a new plastic model he’d recently purchased, this one of a sports car—and he’d been so engrossed in it for over a week that Hutch could barely get a word in edge-wise when Starsky fiddled with it, sometimes for hours, and especially while he made apparent progress. So it was up to Hutch to fetch the mail those days. He didn’t mind, in the end. The 800-foot walk to the county road was always pleasant, more so as spring officially claimed the day and nighttime temperatures rose. It also gave him a chance to literally smell the flowers along the way, to monitor watering lines, and to listen to birds in the fully leafed trees. But, on this day, the long walk back to the house was excruciating.

Starsky sat on the sofa in Hutch’s sweats, his toy model, in pieces, sprawled over the coffee table, and—eventually, seemingly reluctantly—he glanced up at Hutch after obviously sensing Hutch’s presence. “What’s up?” he asked, sounding disinterested. He seemed to notice the envelope in Hutch’s hands, but he went back to his model construction, glueing one piece of something to another, and taking his sweet time to do it, too.

“It’s here,” Hutch finally said. He impatiently waved the envelope so Starsky could better notice it, as if Starsky hadn’t seen it until then.

“So?” Starsky asked.

“Shall we open it now?”

“You can see I’m really busy, right?” Starsky replied with a low growl.

“Busy playing, for sure,” Hutch argued, anger swelling in his chest. “But don’t you think this is more important?”

“It could be,” Starsky said, dismissively, “but that all depends on the results now, don’t it?”

“That’s a shitty answer,” Hutch said. He felt overwhelmed with emotion, too, inexplicable feelings he couldn’t define: that Starsky didn’t think the test results were more important than his goddamned sports car model? or that he was himself so impatient for the results—so they could resume their lives—that nothing short of ripping the envelope open and reading the results just then would appease him, and Starsky was an innocent who simply wanted a few more minutes of calm to prepare himself for the inevitable.

“We can do it later,” Starsky said, ignoring Hutch as he tended to his glueing task. He was dressed comfortably, sat comfortably, spoke comfortably—as if the new chapter of their lives could wait until he and he alone was ready to open it. “I’m in a good mood right now,” he explained, “and I don’t need no positive results to piss me off.”

“It’s possible they’re negative,” Hutch reminded him.

“Whatever,” Starsky mumbled.

Hutch was beside himself with dismay. Disbelief. Bewilderment. He truly didn’t understand Starsky’s stall. The envelope in his hands was one they’d lived their lives around for two months, and yet Starsky couldn’t care less. “Is this your way of throwing one last punch at me while you still can?” It was the only thing that made sense to Hutch, that Starsky wanted to get in that last final bit of punishment for Hutch’s indiscretion and inexcusable actions in that men’s restroom.

But Starsky didn’t comment. He squeezed glue from the tip of the tube onto a plastic headlight and continued to ignore Hutch.

“Fine,” Hutch said with noticeable contempt. “Let me know when you want to do this. In the meantime,” he added, tossing the envelope onto the coffee table, “I’m going for a walk. A long one. You’ve pissed me off too much to care right now, either.”

And, on that parting shot, he turned on his heel and headed for the front door. When he reached it, he paused, gave Starsky that moment to call him back, didn’t hear from him, and instead exited the house.

* * *

Hutch had turned left, not right, when he reached the county road. He figured, in doing so, he’d at least inconvenience Starsky if and when Starsky went looking for him, because the route into town required a southbound turn. Starsky wouldn’t assume first that Hutch had gone in the opposite direction. Further, Hutch kept to the left side of the road so he’d be even more inconspicuous by a passing car. Vindictive? Certainly, but it would be the most he would do. He couldn’t harm Starsky beyond that kind of pettiness.

Hutch was nearly an hour into his walk before he decided he should head home or risk returning dangerously after dusk along a relatively deserted county road. He’d already walked several miles on its paved shoulder, but the distance, nor the time it took him, did much to calm his mind. The only thing that did slow him was the notion that Starsky had stalled in learning the results of Hutch’s blood test because he was afraid of them. But why not say so? It wasn’t as if Starsky would have been alone with those kinds of feelings. Hutch was nervous about them, too; sometimes, he was downright terrified. The ink on those pages would determine how they would physically and sexually relate to each other for the rest of their lives. Didn’t Starsky want to know the outcome as desperately as Hutch did, whatever it was?

Still, Hutch shouldn’t have walked away. He should have torn open the envelope, read the results aloud, and forced Starsky to deal with them then and there. In fact, it wasn’t too late to put such a plan into action. Hutch could be back in another hour, walk boldly into the house, open the envelope, read out the results, and then—quite possibly—celebrate the rest of the night by having long-overdue intimacy and sex with Starsky. If the news was good news, why would Starsky want to wait?

But just when Hutch was about to turn on his heel to do that very thing, he heard the slow and steady rumble of the car come up behind him. He knew that sound anywhere: the machinery of Starsky’s Ford Gran Torino. It didn’t make Hutch smile to know Starsky had found him, not even inwardly, but it did break his stride into something more casual, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Why give Starsky the satisfaction of knowing he’d been angry all that time?

The car immediately slowed, as if Starsky had spotted Hutch on the opposite side of the road and he no longer needed the faster speed. The vehicle then crossed the center line and pulled up alongside Hutch, keeping pace with him, but Hutch pretended to ignore Starsky—or that there was a car there at all.

And, so, they traveled together in tandem for nearly a minute before Hutch heard Starsky’s familiar voice say, “Hey, handsome.” It was disarming, too, and resulted in the beginning of Hutch’s inevitable capitulation, slowing his gait even more, but he didn’t stop.

The Torino haltingly idled until it eventually overtook Hutch by half a car’s length, and Starsky himself was nearly within arm’s reach beside him.

“I said, ‘hey handsome’,” Starsky repeated. “Going my way?”

Both those sounds were beyond familiar to Hutch: the rumbling engine of that damn car and the masculinity of Starsky’s voice; they were embedded in Hutch’s soul, ingrained forever in the history of his life. He stopped in his tracks and the car likewise. He couldn’t hold a grudge against Starsky, not even over something as angry as Starsky had earlier made him.

But when Hutch didn’t look at him, Starsky baited him with a friendlier voice. “C’mon,” he said, sounding cheerful, “I have some good news for you. Get in. You’re going to want to hear this.”

Relief washed over Hutch and broke through all of his stoic resolve. He didn’t need to hear the words to know the details of the news; it came through in Starsky’s relaxed voice, his choice of words, his light-hearted, unburdened wish for Hutch’s company, and that he’d gotten in his car to hunt down his partner on the side of the road. The news Hutch had so desperately wanted to know was further confirmed for him when he finally turned to look at Starsky, to see it in his bright, blue eyes as they made affectionate contact with him, in Starsky’s broad, happy smile, and in his casual posture behind the wheel.

“C’mon,” Starsky encouraged him again when Hutch stood too long on the road’s shoulder, stunned by the news, relieved and emotional. “I can’t wait to get my hands on you. I’m betting you feel the same.”

It was all Hutch needed to move him out of his paralysis. But he couldn’t wait to touch Starsky; as he walked past the driver’s door to the rear of the vehicle, he clasped Starsky’s hand as it was offered to him, and they held each other’s for a quarter minute before he was freed to finish the trip around the car. He got into the vehicle with tears in his eyes—and Starsky stepped on the accelerator.

“You’re not crying are you?” Starsky teased him as he returned to the right lane.

“Didn’t you?” Hutch asked, laughing at himself, and giving Starsky’s knee a firm and lengthy squeeze.

“Maybe,” Starsky replied, giggling. “But you’ve always been the bigger baby between us, so I’ll never tell.”

Hutch couldn’t get enough of Starsky then: not of looking at him, of touching him—his knee, his arm, the back of his neck, his fingers through Starsky’s hair. He even noticed that Starsky had since changed from Hutch’s sweat clothes into his nicer jeans and a button-down shirt, and that he appeared to have showered and shaved, too. Everything about Starsky in those minutes shined from the inside out. A great burden had been lifted, a green light had finally come back into play, and the rest of their lives arrived in the renewed beats of their hearts.

“I couldn’t wait another minute,” Starsky admitted. He pulled into a small turnout to make the U-turn for the farm, but then immediately braked to a stop and shifted the gear into park. “In fact,” he said eagerly, flashing both his eyebrows and his tooth-filled smile at Hutch, “I have an idea.” He turned off the ignition and brought a sudden and near-deafening silence to the country air around them. He hit Hutch’s knee to prod him out of the car. “C’mon,” he coaxed as he left the Torino and closed its door before Hutch could do likewise. “I have an idea,” he excitedly repeated.

As Hutch got out of the car and Starsky came around its front, Hutch noticed again how well-groomed and light in his step Starsky appeared. Admittedly, Hutch expected a kiss when Starsky came at him the way he did, with such energy and determination, and he certainly hoped for a kiss, but Starsky instead grabbed Hutch’s elbow and turned them both toward the wooded area that sloped up to the sky. He pushed Hutch along in front of him. “C’mon,” he kept saying, “let’s go. Don’t keep me waiting.”

Hutch laughed all the way to Starsky’s perceived destination, stumbling on the rocks and the forest debris, nudged forward by him with nearly every step he took. “This isn’t where you repeatedly stab me in the forest and leave me for dead, is it?” he joked.

Starsky laughed with him, still pushing him. “Sticking a knife in you isn’t the object I have in mind.”

He stopped Hutch about halfway up the treed embankment, turned him around, enabled them both to secure their footing on the somewhat slippery ground, and then gently shoved Hutch to his seat onto a fallen log. “I want to tell you something,” Starsky said, breathlessly. “God, you make me hot, but besides that.”

Hutch hadn’t let go of him, so when he went down, he took Starsky with him, accidentally situating his partner right between his legs. Starsky was below Hutch on the wooded hill and, in trying to settle himself, he temporarily slipped face-first into Hutch’s crotch—and came up laughing. “Well, that’s more like it,” he said devilishly. “But I want to tell you something.”

“I’m listening,” Hutch said. His heart danced. He couldn’t wait for whatever it was Starsky had to tell him. What he didn’t expect, however, was that Starsky’s declaration wouldn’t be in the form of words.

As Starsky got traction on the slippery slope and rose to his knees, he grabbed the front of Hutch’s shirt and pulled him close at the same time—and then he kissed Hutch. No fanfare, no other lead-in, except the silly struggle they’d shared getting situated on the side of the forested hill, led up to it. He kissed Hutch, wet lips to Hutch’s lips, with a playful desperation, or maybe it was sincere, but definitely one that made them both laugh.

Hutch was afraid he’d lose Starsky down the hill, so he tightly gripped his neck and held him in that precious lip-lock until they both forgot about the danger of their environment and instead passionately devoured each other’s lips and tongues, reciprocating the pleasures and sensations of their flesh with each other’s flesh, laughing and moaning, and out of breath.

At the same time Hutch felt his erection emerge in his jeans, he also felt the tears burn behind his closed eyes. He and Starsky had returned from their animated suspension with each other, to a place of flesh-and-blood that Hutch had feared he’d never get to experience again. The smell of Starsky, his skin and his cologne, the feel and the warmth of him, the sound of his breathing and his quiet moans of enjoyment, his laughter and his childish giggles, spurred by their physical intimacy, were gifts Hutch thought could be forever taken from him—again. And then weren’t.

When Starsky began to break the contact between them, Hutch sucked harder on Starsky’s tongue, pulled him closer with his hands, squeezed him tighter between his legs—until Starsky surrendered and filled the quiet woods with the desired smacking sounds of their lips. Hutch unbuttoned the top two buttons of Starsky’s shirt, and was about to release the third one from its hole when Starsky’s fingers found his and stopped him. Hutch had always been the one to lecture them about avoiding public displays of sexual affection, no matter how secluded they were, but he didn’t care that time.

“Wait,” Starsky said after he was able to end the kisses and speak that time. “Wait. I have an idea.”

“I thought this was the idea,” Hutch hopelessly replied, only then realizing he had broken a sweat, that his heart noticeably pounded, that his penis had actually swelled, and that he was happily out of breath.

Starsky laughed with him. “That’s part of the idea,” he promised, giggling at Hutch, as if it was only Hutch who had been desperate for a resumption to their lovemaking. “But I have this idea,” Starsky repeated, that time impatiently. “Let me tell you, okay?”

Hutch gave Starsky a final squeeze and then released him. “I’m listening,” he promised.

“So, we’ve got this clean slate,” Starsky explained, “and I’m thinking we should use it to begin again, know what I mean?”

Hutch leaned in for another kiss. “Good idea. And we’re off to a good start.”

“Wait,” Starsky implored him, laughing like a schoolboy as he stopped Hutch from making physical contact. “I’m thinking … let’s start over romantically.”

“Romantic sex?”

“Start over romantically.”

The idea intrigued Hutch so much he surrendered to hearing his partner out rather than ravish him in the woods. “Speak your mind.”

“Let me take you to dinner,” Starsky suggested. “A romantic place. On me. Wine and candles and spaghetti and stuff. Then we go home and—”

“Fuck?”

“And suck, too. Don’t forget sucking.”

Starsky seemed noticeably patient with Hutch, as if Hutch had diminished the romance he’d hoped to have between them, but he didn’t want to disappoint Hutch, either.

“I’m sorry, Starsk,” Hutch said, about his irrepressible impatience. “I’m a bit starved for you. So, are you saying, you want this new start to be all romance, no sex?”

“God, no,” Starsky replied emphatically. “Are you kidding me? But I do want some romance first. I want to start over with you from a place we never got to start before: no therapy sessions, no fights over ‘are we going to or aren’t we?’ no third-party sex partners, no airplane crashes, no Pacific islands, no blood tests, and no living apart, not even across the hallway.”

Hutch solicitously smiled at him while he lovingly combed Starsky’s hair with his fingers. “You know you make me into mush,” he said in a whispery voice, feeling emotionally overwhelmed. And, oh, those beautiful, hopeful blue eyes of his. “You know I’ll never say no to you. Please don’t say no to me.”

“So you’ll have dinner with me then?”

“Tonight and always.”

“And we’ll go home afterward and you’ll let me love you first before I fuck the hell out of you?”

“Whatever that means,” Hutch said, laughing through the tears that continued to blur his vision, “but, yes, whatever it means; yes, whatever you want.”

Starsky rose to hug Hutch around his neck and press their cheeks together. They held each other that way for several minutes in the enveloping silence of the woods; not even with the sounds of singing birds or insects, not even a noisy car passed on the roadway below; they were haloed simply by a peacefulness and tranquility that reaffirmed their promises to each other. Neither of them seemed to want to be released from the tight embrace of the other, the feel of his arms around the other’s body, their muscles and their sighs. But it was Starsky who eventually broke them—to cradle Hutch’s face in his hands and look deeply into his eyes.

“I love that you love me so much it makes you cry,” he said. “I love that you’ll never say no.” His own voice wavered with emotion. “I love that we’re beyond all this, that we have a clean slate and we can start over. You may be mad at me again—hell, you may be pissed as hell at me tomorrow—but we start tonight from a different place.”

“From a different place,” Hutch echoed, not having the words to tell Starsky in that moment just how much he also loved his eyes, his mouth, his lips, his hair, his smell, his voice, his face … “A clean slate,” he recalled instead, “with no STDs.”

“And no women or girlfriends or wives,” Starsky added.

“And no men, past or present, known or unknown.”

Starsky laughed. “And no eating praying mantises,” he concluded, making them groan with disgust. “Well,” he said, giggling again, “I just thought we should know all the rules going in, know what I mean?”

* * *

“Clever of you,” Hutch said. He busied his necktie knot while Starsky did likewise with his own. “You knew I’d accept the invite to dinner, didn’t ya?” Hutch added. “I mean, there was no doubt in your mind when you asked me, because I can see you came prepared.”

Starsky had driven them from the wooded hillside directly to Oxnard, parked outside what appeared to be a higher-class Italian restaurant, and told Hutch they’d have to wear jackets and ties in order to enter the establishment. “Lucky for us,” he had quipped with an air of arrogance, “I happen to have brought the necessary attire.” He produced two jackets and two neckties from the backseat, handed Hutch his, and then proceeded to dress appropriately.

“I need a damn mirror,” Hutch complained. The knot felt right to him, but unless he could see it, he wasn’t comfortable showing it off.

“Look at me,” Starsky said. “I’ll fix it for you.” When Hutch turned toward him, Starsky first loosened Hutch’s tie. “Had I known you were so bad at this,” he teased, “I’d have brought a ‘damn mirror.’”

“Had I known I was going to be invited to a really posh restaurant tonight without a chance to get home and clean up,” Hutch countered him, “I’d have dressed nicely before I stormed out of the house.”

They both chuckled when they remembered their playful romp on the hillside earlier; neither was seriously complaining.

“And you got to shave, too,” Hutch noted. “I didn’t.”

Starsky retied Hutch’s necktie and then straightened it. “Better on you,” he said in a sexy voice, scratching Hutch’s cheek with his fingers, and gazing longingly into his eyes. “You’re so manly man male. I’m going to nibble on your hairy face later.”

“I hope that won’t be all,” Hutch said with a laugh. He got out of the car before his urge to kiss Starsky on the mouth got the better of him. Although dusk had since settled, the lights from the restaurant and the incoming cars to the parking lot could have caught them in a private, taboo moment.

“Never fear,” Starsky replied as he exited the vehicle. “Your hopes will soon be realized.”

They put their jackets on once they’d closed the car doors, pulled their shirt sleeves to the jacket cuffs to straighten them, and joked about how classy they were dressed from the waist up, while wearing jeans below. “And you had time to get into a pair of slacks,” Hutch reminded him, “yet still you decided on denim, huh?”

“I didn’t want you to think I knew you’d have dinner with me,” Starsky defended himself. “That would be a bad reflection on you, after all.”

“How so?”

“It would show your desperation for me.”

“I see.”

They walked toward the restaurant’s front door, Starsky leading.

“You don’t own slacks,” Hutch decided with mock contempt. Most of Starsky’s butt was covered by his jacket, but it didn’t stop Hutch from remembering its finer attributes. “But that’s okay,” he added with a desiring voice, “because your ass is a mighty fine one in jeans and I wouldn’t want to see it dressed any other way.”

Starsky opened the front door of the restaurant and gave him an ‘oh you wish’ glare as Hutch walked past him and into the lobby.

“Okay,” Hutch said to Starsky’s silent message, “so we both know the truth of the matter is that your ass is a mighty fine one and I can’t wait to climb into it.”

“Like I said,” Starsky answered, ravenously, “your hopes will soon be realized.”

* * *

“Are you sure you want to pay for this by yourself?” Hutch asked. He didn’t look up from his menu when he posed the question because he was too busy scanning its appetizing fare. “We can split the bill.”

“Nope,” Starsky mumbled from across the small table. “I said it was my treat and it’s my treat.”

“Then we should stick to the cheaper stuff, huh?”

“I have money,” Starsky claimed, sounding insulted, “so order whatever makes your tummy feel pretty.”

Hutch dropped the left top edge of his menu so he could look over it at his partner, to read Starsky’s mood better than the one in play, but Starsky didn’t acknowledge his attention, buried as he was in his own menu. “Dress you in a jacket and tie,” Hutch observed, “and you lose your little mind.”

“Ah,” Starsky replied good-naturedly, “but you’re assuming I have a mind to lose.”

Hutch loved Starsky’s boyish behavior, but to hear him talk as silly as he did then—while dressed nicely and dining at a stylish restaurant—gave him an even more child-like persona, and Hutch wanted Starsky to know it hadn’t gotten past his appreciative sensibilities. But, despite the pause, Starsky still didn’t look up at him.

“You’re such a kid,” Hutch commented, resuming his menu browse when Starsky didn’t cater to his observations.

“A kid with money,” Starsky emphatically said. “So, go on, eat what you want. Be happy.”

They had been seated in a relatively quiet corner of the restaurant—at a small square table within reach of each other, bordered by a wooden screen divider that gave them an even more exclusive private space. The area was surrounded with lush potted plants decorated in soft, tiny white string lights. A bouquet of wildflowers and several burning votive candles, all in stemmed vases, adorned the table, which was topped with a white tablecloth and matching linen napkins, and utensils that included salad forks and two larger-than-average sized wine glasses. The restaurant was top-notch—with warm, amber lighting, live piano music, a rich, alluring aroma, and formally dressed waiters. In fact, upon entering the establishment, a young, good-looking, darker-skinned waiter greeted Starsky in a rather professional, albeit friendly manner.

“Hello, Officer Starch,” he had said, smiling big.

“Hey, man,” Starsky greeted him, giving the boy an affectionate shoulder bump. “Thanks for setting this up for us on such short notice.”

“It was all planned and just waiting to hear from you,” was the accommodating reply, “so there wasn’t much to do once I got the green light from you.”

Wondering only a little about what that ‘inside’ conversation meant—because it simply didn’t make sense to him—Hutch followed Starsky and the waiter through the crowded room to the table in the corner, weaving in and out of the smartly dressed patrons and other busy waiters. Once seated, he and Starsky were handed their weighty menus, immediately after which Hutch had noticed the hefty prices, too. But Starsky wanted to treat him to dinner, so the only way Hutch could give the man what he wanted was to indulge himself and to order anything of his liking.

After Hutch decided on his meal choice, he set the menu aside and glanced into the room through the slatted partition beside him. “Is this when you tell me how this place reminds you of the one your grandmother used to live over when you were a kid?”

“No,” Starsky said, mocking snideness, “don’t flatter yourself.”

“Those two things aren’t related; you know that, right?”

“You think you have me figured.”

“I see. That’s the part where I was self-flattering, huh?”

“My grandmother lived over an Italian diner, not a real restaurant like this. Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

“Wouldn’t say so, anyway. How’d you find this place?” For the first time, Hutch sincerely didn’t care if Starsky told him Adam had recommended it. He hadn’t felt this romanced in years—and never by David Starsky. Nothing could break his mood.

“I know the waiter,” Starsky said. He too finished his menu browsing and set it aside. “But it’s nicer here than he described it,” he decided.

“How do you know the waiter?”

Starsky looked into Hutch’s eyes. “I did business with him once.”

“What business?”

“Is this an interrogation?”

“No,” Hutch said with a laugh—in a failed effort to break Starsky’s glare. “Can’t I ask about the business you’ve done with someone—that I’ve never even known existed until tonight—without it coming across as—” He stopped himself, closed his mouth, broke eye contact to stare at the tabletop. He’d been to blame for the awkwardness between them. Starsky had every right to react the way he did. “Sorry,” Hutch mumbled, turning his attention to the room, and especially to the piano player in the opposite corner, to lose himself in the man’s music, as well as in the ambiance and visual tranquility of the establishment itself.

“Hey,” Starsky said, after a minute.

Hutch shifted his eyes over to him.

Starsky blew him a kiss and was about to tell Hutch something when the waiter interrupted him to take their orders.

“Matteo,” Starsky said to the young man he’d earlier bumped shoulders with, “you remember my partner, Hutch.”

“It’s a pleasure to actually meet your face,” Matteo said to Hutch, offering his hand.

Starsky gently intercepted the contact between the two men by clasping Hutch’s hand instead, and said to his partner, while stroking his fingers, “If you had come out from under your jacket long enough, you’d recognize this boy.”

Hutch was keenly aware that Starsky had purposefully prevented him from touching Matteo, and he was momentarily confused as to why he’d been so ‘quarantined,’ until Matteo said what he did next—and Hutch realized Starsky had protectively prevented Matteo from touching Hutch, not the other way around.

“He paid me a nice sum of cash,” Matteo explained, “to make sure nobody touched you while we were in lockup a couple months back.”

Starsky let go of Hutch’s hand.

“Ah. Thanks for a job well done then,” Hutch replied, genuinely appreciative of Matteo’s guardianship. He gave Starsky a wink to let him know he understood: the shoulder bump, how Starsky knew the waiter, the ‘business’ Starsky and Matteo had done together, and the interruption of the handshake.

After Matteo wrote down their orders, he told them, “Whatever else you guys need, lemme know. I got you the extra candles you asked for,” he pointed out to Starsky, “and the flowers, too. In fact, I picked them myself this afternoon. And now I’ll bring you the wine and leave you to yourselves until dinner is ready.” He spoke in a Bolivian accent, though Hutch couldn’t have identified it as such.

“La Paz,” Starsky said after Matteo left. “He’s been giving me some tips on our trip to South America.”

“I see.”

Hutch couldn’t but smile at his man. He’d underestimated Starsky—yet again—and was too embarrassed to admit it. But he believed they both knew that Starsky had put Hutch back in his unsuspicious place—and that he was grateful for the gentle way he did it, too.

“Were you pissed off at me when you went south on the county road this afternoon and didn’t find me?” Hutch asked. He felt regretful about that and figured it was time to apologize for it. “I was pouting,” he confessed.

“I didn’t go south,” Starsky replied with a mock cockiness. “I went north—figuring you would have gone that way to spite me.”

Hutch bit the inside of his cheek. “No getting around you.”

“Not always.”

“I’m going to have to stop wanting to.”

“I’ll second that motion. Try climbing on me instead.”

Hutch repressed a shy smile and only succeeded because Matteo returned to their table with an unopened bottle of red wine. With a corkscrew, he uncapped it, telling them what a great vintage he’d been told it was, and that Starsky had chosen it wisely. After Matteo poured a taster in Starsky’s glass, and Starsky tasted it—at Hutch’s instruction—Matteo filled their glasses, set the bottle on the table, and left them again to their privacy.

Hutch drank a sip of wine from his glass and was impressed. “You did do good,” he proudly said to him, winking. “You’re becoming quite the connoisseur.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“In this case, it means you’re becoming an expert in the taste of fine wine.”

“Ooh, I like that,” Starsky said with smugness. He drank wine, too, and concurred with a nod.

“But shouldn’t it be me treating you to dinner tonight?” Hutch asked, trying again to make amends. “I mean, I was the bad boy. I should be atoning for my nasty behavior and treating you to—”

“Which part of ‘clean slate’ didn’t you understand?” Starsky asked with a grunt. “Is it the N in the first word or the T in the second?”

Hutch surveyed the table: its candles and flowers, the wine and the linens, the privacy and the decorative lights. He could argue his case, that he had a lot to make up for, that he’d been forgiven way too easily, but they were already embedded in the romance Starsky so desperately wanted to have that night and anything that detracted from it would only dig Hutch’s hole deeper—at least in his own mind.

“Hey,” Starsky said excitedly. “I have an idea.”

“Another one?” Hutch wondered, making friendly eye contact with him. “Two in one day?”

Starsky gave him that ‘shut up’ stare, and said, “Let’s pretend we’re meeting for the first time.”

“We’re meeting like this for the first time?”

“We’re meeting for the first time. We’ve never met before right now. We don’t have a history with each other.” He leaned on the table, toward Hutch, and explained it with more words, as if Hutch hadn’t understood his previous ones. “Let’s say we just sat down to have dinner and we’re getting to know one another. We’re starting over,” he said lastly, “from a clean slate. And I’ll go first.” He drank a sip of wine as if to prepare a speech, never leaving eye contact with Hutch, and seductively asked, “So what brings you here, Big Guy?”

“Wait,” Hutch said, trying not to laugh. “Let’s lay down some better guidelines, okay? I mean, how did we get here—to this point in time, at this table, with each other, huh? Were we beamed down by the U.S.S. Enterprise or something?”

Starsky parted with an easy laugh; he did seem to enjoy every word of their conversation that night, even the lame ones. “Okay,” he said, regrouping, “let’s say we walked into the restaurant at the same time, separately but together, know what I mean? And the waiter said, if we didn’t mind sharing a table, he could seat us both right away. We didn’t want to wait, so we accepted the offer. Thus … here we are. My name is David Starsky. What’s yours, Blondie?”

“So, this waiter,” Hutch said, noticing Starsky’s furrowed brow as he squinted at Hutch for not following through with his game, “is he still someone you know?”

“You’ll find out when you ask me.”

“I just did.”

“That’s not how you would start this conversation, is it?”

“Apparently.”

“Try again. Pretend you don’t know anything about me except I got put here with you. Geez. This doesn’t have to be so hard, does it? So, what’s your name, Blondie?”

“Blondie.”

“Your other name.”

“Idiot—for agreeing to do this with you.”

“C’mon,” Starsky coaxed him with a chuckle. “Let’s be serious. Let’s start over, you and me. See how far we get to letting go of the stupid things we’ve done in the past.”

That did sound like a worthwhile endeavor when it was put to him that way. “Ken,” Hutch said, still somewhat reluctantly, and not sure the stupid game wouldn’t get them into more trouble, not less of it, but finally playing along. “Ken Hutchinson.”

“Nice to meet you, Ken.”

“So, is it David or Davey?”

Starsky failed to repress his smile; he was obviously and overwhelmingly pleased by Hutch’s first official question into their new game. “It’s Starsky to you,” he eventually said. “Think of it as an affectionate term.”

Affectionate was definitely how Hutch felt toward him in that minute, but he didn’t let it show as part of their performance. “Does anybody else call you Starsky?”

From Starsky’s blank stare, Hutch pretended to know the answer, and then continued to play along by saying, “I’ll call you Starsk. That can be exclusive to me, okay?”

“You got it …”

“Hutch.”

“Hutch.”

“Let me cut to the chase,” Hutch added. He was further amused when Starsky set his elbow on the table, propped his chin in his palm, and appeared eager to hear every word that came out of Hutch’s mouth. “I’m the son of a preacher man,” Hutch began, “from a small town in Minnesota that you’ve probably never heard of, and I came out here more than a decade ago to try my luck in the music industry.”

“You’re a singer,” Starsky assumed to guess, mumbling into his curled fingers at his lips.

“I write songs and play instruments, too,” Hutch added.

“Ooh,” Starsky said with awe—and Hutch tried again not to smile.

“Decided to help people instead,” he continued, “so I joined the police force. I’m now a veteran detective in the homicide division. Lost the job a couple of times; quit once, have been suspended off and on, but still hanging in there.”

“No shit,” Starsky commented, dropping his hand from his face, sounding amazed. “I have the same story, except I’m the son of a fallen police officer; I’m from New York City, someplace you’ve probably heard of, and I came out here to live with my aunt, taking odd jobs—I was once a doorman, can you believe that? And another time a hack.”

“An old horse or—”

“A cab driver,” Starsky said, pretending to be annoyed—or maybe he really was. “Anyway, I eventually decided to enroll at the Academy. All you said—about losing the job, quitting, getting suspended off and on—me, too, and still hanging in there.”

“Splendid,” Hutch said, “and now that we’ve got the incidentals out of the way, tell me something more interesting. Describe yourself in one word.”

“Good one,” Starsky replied, sounding as impressed as he probably was. He reached across himself with his left hand to pick up Hutch’s wine glass—and then drank from it, passing Hutch a wink. “Let me think about that for a minute. You first.”

“Ah, so you’re a follower, not a leader.”

Starsky smirked at him. “C’mon. Be a sport.”

“One word to describe myself? Loyal.”

“Good to know,” Starsky said.

“You?”

“Well, if you were asking me to describe myself with one word a decade ago, I’d say … immature. But today … I’ll go with … devoted.”

“To what?”

“To love.”

They gazed longingly at each other.

“Have you found it, true love?” Hutch asked.

“Maybe I’ll find it tonight.”

Hutch almost kissed at him, but stopped when he remembered they were in a public place, despite the private room divider.

They were unexpectedly interrupted by the delivery of their salads. “Pepper?” Matteo asked them, holding the grinder over the table. Hutch asked for a pinch, Starsky declined. The dishes were colorful even in the amber light of the restaurant: a variety of leafy lettuces, mixed with sliced tomatoes and mushrooms, shredded carrots, candied pecans, and cranberries, and tossed in a raspberry vinaigrette. And both of them were hungry enough and lured by the appetizing fare to temporarily abandon the conversation to begin eating.

Matteo later returned with a basket of warm, toasted bread, a plate of olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. He must have noticed the easy, nonverbal pause that had settled over his customers because he didn’t say much that time, except to ask if they needed anything else and to let them know their entrees were still in the oven.

“I could make a meal out of this bread,” Hutch said after Matteo left. “It’s toasted to perfection.”

Their stomachs had begun to already feel satiated.

“I’m good at math,” Starsky blurted. He ate his salad, savoring it, and nibbled on bread dipped in oil and vinegar. “Did you hear me?”

“I’m better at English,” Hutch said to counter him. He ate his salad, pausing only briefly to make longing eye speak with Starsky, and drank wine.

“I like cowboy movies,” Starsky admitted.

“I prefer Mozart.”

“I love my car.”

“I hate your car.”

“You don’t even know my car,” Starsky pretended to complain. “How can you hate something you don’t know?” He picked apart a piece of bread while he waited for an answer. “Hm?”

“Let me guess,” Hutch suggested, teasingly. “Your car is fast … it’s loud … and it’s … red.”

Starsky laughed. “Maybe you’re a better detective than I realized. What’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” Hutch said, not missing a beat. “I like growing things.”

“I like glueing things,” Starsky followed him.

“I read.”

“I watch,” Starsky replied, pushing bread into his mouth as he quickly added, “I watch TV, I mean … or, you know, whatever.”

“Whatever?” Hutch wondered, raising an eyebrow.

“Whatever,” Starsky echoed, laughing. “Tell me something else.”

“I’m a bit of a clothes horse,” Hutch confessed.

“I’m … not.”

They laughed at him.

“So, tell me something really personal, Hutch,” Starsky coaxed him, as they finished their salads.

“What do you want to know?”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Define ‘in love.’”

Starsky bit the inside of his cheek for a moment. Hutch was certain Starsky wanted to tell him how much he hated Hutch’s word dissections, but the agreement was that they’d never met before, so Starsky had to shut his mouth instead.

“It means,” Starsky finally said, in between sips of wine, as if he needed a drink to calm his mildly irritated nerves, “that you put somebody else above yourself.”

“Like … on a pedestal?”

“No,” Starsky replied with a reluctant laugh, “not like on a pedestal. Like …” He searched the air for his answer, and then met Hutch’s blue eyes with his own when he found his words. “It’s when someone else’s life matters more to you than your own.”

Hutch was impressed. Starsky had never put that definition into such a concise description—which meant, in Hutch’s mind, that Starsky sincerely believed it. His partner had evolved, maybe even as recently as the past couple of months. But because they hadn’t yet met, Hutch could only answer the question one way. “No,” he said, “I’ve never been in love. What about you?”

“No,” was Starsky’s certain reply, and coyly, he added, “But the night’s still young.” He flashed his eyebrows at Hutch, sent him over a warm smile, coupled with a wink.

How handsome Starsky looked in that dress jacket and tie, oozing romance and sex appeal all at once, and enough to knock Hutch out of his chair if he didn’t hold on tight.

They were interrupted again when a busboy arrived to clear away their salad plates and forks, and to sweep off the bread crumbs from the white tablecloth with the edge of a butter knife. Moments later, Matteo brought them another basket of freshly baked bread and replenished the olive oil and vinegar dish. While he did so, Starsky smiled at Hutch, letting him know, through facial expression alone, how impressed he was by the service, and that he hoped Hutch appreciated it as much.

Hutch returned the smile, but he was poised to tease Starsky about how far he’d come in recognizing the finer traits of the upper class … until he remembered that they had never met before.

Instead, he opened the discussion with something more provocative. “Tell me how you’ve evolved,” he said. He ate small pieces of bread, drank long from the wine glass, enjoyed both those tastes, and especially together, and waited on his partner. When Hutch eventually realized Starsky didn’t understand what he meant, he explained it. “You said earlier you used to be ‘immature,’ but now you’re ‘devoted.’ Tell me how you evolved.”

It was only when Starsky picked up Hutch’s wine glass that Hutch also realized Starsky had been alternating between them—first his own glass, then Hutch’s, making certain to put the last glass he used in front of Hutch, so that Hutch had unknowingly drank from both of them, as well. They’d been sharing the same two glasses all evening. “Clever,” Hutch whispered—and he let Starsky know how pleased he was by that fact with an extended friendly smile. “So,” he continued, “let me hear about your evolution.”

Starsky set his elbows on the table and leaned in, making sincerer contact with Hutch’s eyes, winning even more undivided attention; Hutch had strayed into the memory of their kissing on the wooded hill earlier that evening. If only they could bypass the small talk, despite how much he enjoyed this ‘first date,’ Hutch thought, and go right back to those kisses.

“Well,” Starsky began, “I’ve always seen myself, you know, as somebody who cares about other people.”

“Hence your line of work.”

“Yeah, so, I think I’m a fairly good guy.”

“I have no doubt.”

“But it’s taken me a really long time to see that I wasn’t as thoughtful about the feelings and the lives of the people I care about the most.”

“Why do you figure?”

“Because I expected them to forgive me for all my stupidness and callous disregard. Did I say that right? ‘Callous disregard’?”

Starsky’s eyes seemed exceptionally sultry in the candlelight just then. Maybe his confessions purged him of certain anxieties and he was finally relaxed in his own skin; it translated into his more noble use of the English language, too. Hutch couldn’t help but be proud of the man.

“Life got real complicated for me recently,” Starsky expounded. “I mean, I had a near-death experience that also took my newlywed’s life. And then I got stranded on an island, pretty much alone, and did a lot of soul-searching and deep thinking for a couple of months. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but my point is that I came to understand that those I love deserve more from me—and they especially deserve my not assuming they’ll forgive me for my mistakes simply because they love me, you know?”

Hutch didn’t comment. He knew exactly what Starsky meant—and that he specifically spoke about Hutch. Starsky was being rhetorical, not just enlightened. They held loving eye contact for a minute, sharing that mutual respect for each other’s journey through yet another nonverbal conversation—a dialogue interrupted only by the waiter who’d arrived with their entrees. They had each chosen a pasta with a different noodle and different sauces and seasonings, but both plates were attractive to the eye and wafted a palatable aroma, arousing their senses in yet another compelling way. No parmesan cheese on Hutch’s pasta, but Starsky accepted a little, and not enough to make Hutch care.

After he began eating, Starsky asked Hutch to tell him about his evolution, “assuming you’ve had one,” he snickered playfully.

“I have,” Hutch said proudly. He was further impressed by the tastiness of his meal and savored the first bite of angel hair pasta before he embarked on his own tale. “My evolution has been rather personal, I think … I’ve been learning how to control my fears and paranoia.”

“That can only be a good thing.”

“And I’ve become more aware of the world itself and my role in it.”

“From the local people to the global people?”

“Yeah, something like that. Everything we do affects everything around us, so I choose more wisely now. It’s the Butterfly Effect.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Chaos theory,” Hutch said, incorporating his authoritatively scientific voice, “that something quite small can have an effect on something quite large.”

“So, a butterfly could …?”

“Flap its wings,” Hutch explained, as if it were obvious and his new friend was unbelievably dense, “and set in motion a tornado.”

Starsky stared blankly at him.

Hutch knew that look: Starsky’s mouth, agape, his eyes in intense startle, as if he didn’t know what had hit him, and his frozen posture, this time with a fork wrapped in boiled linguini. “Couple that with my Buddhist leanings,” Hutch continued, unfazed, “with my desire to ‘do no harm,’ and I’ve gone from not caring about where hamburgers and turkey sandwiches and furniture polish come from to, well, to giving a shit.”

“No shit.”

“Well, some shit.”

“Some shit,” Starsky echoed, still appearing dazed, but laughing at Hutch.

“Eat your linguini.”

“It’s spaghetti,” Starsky claimed, snapping out of his mental trance in time to notice the food at the end of his fork—before it fell back onto his plate.

“It’s linguini,” Hutch insisted, ignoring him to eat his own meal.

“I ordered spaghetti.”

“You ordered linguini.”

“I meant to order spaghetti.”

“The dish you ordered is made with linguini.”

“Okay,” Starsky said with a huff, but smiling despite it, “you win. Are you always this difficult?”

“Sometimes I’m more difficult,” Hutch replied with a smirk.

“Will you make me cry?”

“Are you planning to stay a while?”

“Well, I was beginning to like ya.”

Hutch enjoyed the banter, mostly because Starsky kept up with him—as Starsky was known to do. But Starsky was also so damn attractive that night, too: in his white shirt, blue jacket, and matching tie, his groomed and dark hair, that amber glow of sparkle in his blue eyes, the way the soft candlelight accentuated his familiar face, his nose and his brow, his cheeks and his chin, and his deeper warmth and closeness reflecting off the glow of his skin. Even when Hutch thought they wouldn’t have much to say to each other—as he previously believed this game would prove—they found ways to keep themselves satisfyingly amused and further bonded.

“So,” Starsky said, easing into his question as they resumed eating their meals, “you’ve really never been in love?”

“Not yet,” Hutch quipped. He chewed while they spoke—as did Starsky—and listened to the piano music, savored the taste of his food, and tried his best to keep his mind on the conversation and not on what he excitedly expected to experience between them later in the evening.

“Are you over 40?” was Starsky’s next, albeit unusual, inquiry.

“Not yet,” Hutch repeated, that time with a grunt. “Is that some magical number?”

“Maybe. I mean, I just turned 41 and I’m falling in love for the first time.”

“Yeah?” Hutch wondered, pretending to be clueless. “Who is she?”

“She’s … you.”

“I’m no she.”

“No shit, Sherlock—explaining why this might be my first time. There’s something special about you, know what I mean? But, do you think that’s weird, me falling in love with you, given that we’re both guys?”

“Not really,” Hutch answered him, making brief eye contact to let Starsky know he was flattered, even despite the game. “I’m a lovable kind of guy.”

“You’re beautiful, too,” Starsky said.

His comment made them both pause.

Hutch was deeply touched by the casual conviction of Starsky’s statement; the matter-of-fact manner in which he said it was obviously heartfelt and un-retractable, emotionally jarring Hutch, and forcing him into speechlessness. Starsky’s stall, alternatively, was primarily a result of Hutch’s silent, but conveyed gratitude, and he, too, was momentarily without words.

“Well,” Starsky finally said, breaking the abrupt and suspended moment between them, “I’m just pointing out what’s obvious. Facts is facts.”

“I suppose they are—but beauty is also in the eyes of the beholder.”

“Who else but me is there to behold you, hm?”

They gazed at each other again, longer that time, with soft smiles.

And then they resumed eating—because the answer to Starsky’s question was self-evident.

“So, hey, Hootch,” he said, chewing a mouthful of pasta. “You ever been married?”

“It’s Hutch, Stuffy.”

“Right. Hutch. Have you?”

“I was married about a decade ago. Ended in divorce. Some years after that, she got killed …” He drank wine to ease the self-inflicted blow.

“So we have …”

“… dead …”

“… wives …”

“… in common.”

Alone they couldn’t have made the comparison, not in those specific words, but together they were able to complete the sentence.

“And it’s Starsky, not Stuffy,” Starsky said—no doubt to bring a lightness back to their conversation. “So … would you think it weird then if I told you I’m feeling kind of … sexy toward you?”

“Sexy? Losing our wives makes you feel that way toward a guy?”

“That we have so much in common makes me feel that way—toward you.”

“I see,” Hutch said, pretending to mull over the prospect. Even in play, he felt a need to be elusive. Perhaps it was the ego boost he craved. “I’ll have to think about that.”

“But, I mean, do you think it’s weird?”

“Again, not really. I’m a sexy kind of guy.”

Starsky winked at him. “Don’t you know it …”

They poured more wine between them and finished their entrees, eating from each other’s plates, and not leaving a single morsel behind, not even from the bread basket. While they waited for a dessert menu, Starsky asked Hutch if his meal had been tasty. Hutch said it had been. He asked Hutch if he liked the wine. Hutch said he loved it. He asked Hutch if he enjoyed the music. Hutch said he thought it was a perfect backdrop to their charming conversation. He asked Hutch if he liked the candles. Hutch said they were heartwarming. He asked Hutch what he thought about the flowers. Hutch said they were ‘lovely.’ He asked Hutch if he would consider the evening a romantic one.

“The most romantic evening I’ve ever had,” Hutch promised. He leaned back in his chair when he answered and made bonding eye speak with Starsky, then added, “It’s been nothing but an absolute pleasure to meet and get to know you.”

Starsky lay his arm on the table, the one furthest from the other patrons, out of their view, his hand palm up, his eyes a-sparkle. “So if I invited you back to my place,” he said in an intimate voice, “and treated you to music like this and candles like that and flowers as ‘lovely,’ would you come?”

“Come?” Hutch asked, flirtatiously.

Starsky laughed and wiggled his fingers to draw Hutch’s attention there, succeeding. “Would you accept the invite?”

“Are you inviting me?”

“Yes,” Starsky said, emphatically. He motioned again for Hutch to hold his hand. “I realize it might take more than music, candles, and flowers to make you come, but you’re definitely invited.”

“I’m invited to come?”

Starsky laughed again, obviously enjoying Hutch’s play on words, but also with frustration in his tone because Hutch hadn’t yet taken his hand. “Yeah,” he said with certainty, “you’re invited to come. Come back to my place and come.”

“That does sound inviting.”

“But what happens to you happens to me,” Starsky advised him.

“If I come, you come?”

“Something like that.”

Starsky never withdrew his request to hold hands with Hutch, not even after they’d finished their entrees and a busboy removed their empty plates.

“This night sure has taken an interesting turn,” Hutch commented. He clasped Starsky’s hand then—the way he once did, years earlier, when they were terrified Starsky wouldn’t survive the night and Starsky wanted Hutch to know he was everything to him—even then. Starsky’s fingers were as warm, his grip as affectionate and sincere, the way his voice was, too. “Whatever happens to you,” he repeated, “happens to me.”

“So you said.”

“Then let’s have dessert—something with tons of chocolate inside and out—and then we go back to my place.”

“And come.”

“But only if you don’t think that’s weird,” Starsky quickly said, still playing the game, and trying to sound credible. “I mean, two straight guys, meeting by chance, having a meal and all that … and then going home to—”

“Come?”

Starsky laughed. “Yeah. You could say we’re coming home.”

“We’ll talk about the weirdness afterward,” Hutch decided just as they were handed dessert menus and broke the hand clasp. “Right now, I’m more interested in something gooey—followed by something gooey-er later, if you know what I mean.”

* * *

When Hutch entered the house that night, he did so with Starsky’s excited encouragement. “C’mon,” his partner impatiently coaxed him, “we’ve been waiting for this for two months now. What’s taking you so long?”—and other such nonsensical bait. Hutch was as wanting as was Starsky, and he’d made that abundantly clear on the ride home. Starsky first opened the front door for him, then repeatedly told him, “the bedroom awaits,” as he led them down the hall in its direction—and toward the sound of music. Rather, Hutch was nudged along the way, poked and prodded as if he didn’t know the floor plan or couldn’t remember it. But it wasn’t until he entered the bedroom that Hutch better understood Starsky’s urgency.

Starsky’s nightstand lamp was on, casting a velvety light throughout the room, adding ambiance to the softly playing music, a harmonious classical piano and strings that emanated from the portable radio they seldom used.

Sometime between Hutch’s bolt from the house earlier that day to Starsky’s finding him on the side of the road, Starsky had apparently moved the armchair in the room from its place in the corner against the wall to the center of the empty space much closer to the bed. Beside it, he had positioned Hutch’s nightstand without its lamp. Atop the relocated nightstand were about a dozen unlit candles in various sizes and colors. There were others on the dressers, too. As Starsky gently pushed Hutch toward the chair, Hutch also noticed the small plastic almond oil bottle, filled to its brim, tucked among the candles, partnered with a box of matches, and—the thing that touched Hutch the most—a bouquet of hand-picked flowers from a number of places around the farm in a water-filled glass vase.

It took Hutch’s breath away, and not just the view and its promise of what lay ahead, but because Starsky had planned it—right down to asking Hutch during dinner if he’d appreciate music, candles, and flowers in a more private setting, all the while knowing what he had set up at home.

Hutch apparently stood too long, appreciating it, because Starsky took him by his arms and forced Hutch to face him.

“What are you waiting for now?” Starsky asked, demandingly.

“To get my wits about me,” Hutch replied. His voice conveyed his amazement and made Starsky giggle.

“Well, wits aren’t required,” Starsky said. He loosened Hutch’s tie, undid its knot, and pulled it from around Hutch’s neck. “I’m going to treat you to something you’ve never had before.” After he tossed the tie to the floor behind him, he unbuttoned Hutch’s shirt.

“Are we still playing a game?” Hutch wondered.

“What game?”

Hutch had his answer. Or so he thought. It wasn’t until he felt Starsky’s fingers release his waistband button that he realized what Starsky actually meant: this was no game.

“You finish doing that and then sit in the chair, okay?” Starsky instructed him. “I’ll light the candles.” He picked up the matchbox, opened it, and removed a match. “C’mon,” he verbally pushed Hutch, “why are you stalling?” He lit the candles on the nightstand while he kept an eye on his partner.

“Because I’m thinking,” Hutch said, “after all I put us through, that I should be doing this for you.”

“But I want you to know how much I love you,” Starsky insisted. “So I get to decide what we do and when we do it tonight. I’m going to get you over this insecurity of yours. I said I would and I will.”

“I see.”

“Besides,” Starsky added, “this is how we began last summer: you first, then me. Remember?”

Hutch remembered. How could he forget? How could he forget anything he had done or did with Starsky? Starsky was the absolute love and light and life of his life. So he removed his shirt, tossed it to the foot of the bed, and unzipped his fly. His erection had begun to swell, so much it ached. “You’re too good to me,” he mumbled, removing his jeans, but first his shoes and socks.

“Well, this night isn’t over,” Starsky reminded him, lighting candle after candle, sometimes impatiently waiting for its wick to catch. “We’ve got hours to go and I’m sure you’re going to be ‘too good to me’ before morning.”

That part was true, Hutch thought. He’d give Starsky anything. Anytime. He sat in the chair, stark naked, and realized when he did that a towel draped over its seat—no doubt Starsky’s way of protecting the furniture, mostly from the oil. Another towel had been folded and placed on the floor beneath his feet. And so the picture in Hutch’s mind began to develop as the picture before his eyes—of Starsky, excited and smiling while he lit at least two dozen candles in the room—continued to arouse all of his senses.

The mental images were these: the second Starsky had learned they were in the all-clear, he’d gone into the bedroom, moved the chair to its present location, set aside Hutch’s lamp, repositioned the nightstand, found candles from every place in the house he could think to find them, got the matchbox out of the kitchen’s junk drawer, filled the small almond bottle from the gallon jug they kept in the refrigerator, retrieved, folded, and strategically positioned bath towels on and near the chair, turned on the radio—finding a classical station, no less—and then went out for a romp into their fields and garden beds to pick flowers, placing them in a water-filled glass vase on the nightstand. He had also shaved and showered, smartly dressed, and packed up their jackets and corresponding ties. Hutch could only have been gone an hour during that time, so Starsky had to work in overdrive. All of that, alone, had been something Hutch “never had before.”

He fondled his tumescent penis while he watched Starsky turn off the lamp and light the candles on the dresser in his line of sight. Starsky was deliberate, despite his own urgency to be sexually engaged, and he was obviously pleased with himself, too, because that smile never left his lips—or his eyes when he occasionally looked over at Hutch. And there was something even more tantalizing about his having done all that while still dressed in a jacket and tie. Perhaps it was the animal Hutch sensed beneath the surface, more keenly aware of it because it was hidden under his clothes.

“God, you’re gorgeous sitting there doing that,” Starsky said as he passed Hutch to the dresser behind him. “If that isn’t the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is.”

Hutch’s penis felt large even to him; he hadn’t touched it in months, and it achingly anticipated Starsky’s every move. While Hutch waited and lightly stroked himself, and waited and felt the cooling air wash over his warming skin, and waited in the now soft candlelit glow in the room, he slowly lost the guilt he’d felt for being the one between them to enjoy sex first. His body overruled his mind.

Starsky finished the candle lighting and stood in front of Hutch, looked down at him, and ate him alive with his eyes, the expectation it caused him reflecting on his handsome face. “I’ve waited a long time for this,” he admitted. Despite his excitement and urgency, he also seemed to want to savor the moments, too, because he didn’t immediately undress. Instead, he swept his gaze over Hutch, lingering particularly on Hutch’s hardened penis in Hutch’s opened fist, self-pleasing it, slowly.

“You like that, huh?” Hutch asked. He stole a glance at his penis to get a better idea of what Starsky actually saw. “You like the look of him, do ya?”

“I like the look of you playing with him, too,” Starsky furthered, “so don’t stop on my account.” He rubbed the outside of his own zipper to draw attention to the bulge evidenced there.

But Hutch had no intention of stopping—least of all when Starsky knelt on the floor before him and opened Hutch’s legs.

* * *

Starsky may have forgotten to disrobe had he not felt overly heated in those initial minutes. While he knelt between Hutch’s feet on the area-carpeted floor, he admired Hutch’s naked beauty. Without hurrying, he stripped out of his dinner jacket and tossed it aside, devouring the look of Hutch with his eyes. He hadn’t forgotten the sizable shape of Hutch’s upright and aroused penis, emerging as it had from its wafer-thin foreskin as it anticipated Starsky’s pleasure-giving touch—nor had he disremembered the size of Hutch’s bulging and seamed scrotum, tightly rounded against his joining legs, nor his muscular and well-proportioned thighs, nor his flat and slowly rolling belly, nor his already erect nipples, visually rousing as they were in the smoldering amber of candlelight, nor his smooth, unblemished, and hairless skin—but Starsky had definitely and sorely missed their well-loved attributes: their appealing presentation, at his permissible mercy, and the promise of their certain sensual feel.

Starsky loosened his tie as he lifted his eyes to Hutch’s, and detected the faint blue shimmer that fondly gazed at him in return. Hutch’s head was tilted against the seat back for a better view; he was relaxed, and yet fully awake in the honey glow of the flamed light. Starsky noticed that Hutch couldn’t smile, wasn’t able, though it radiated from his soft expression; he was too embedded in his suspenseful excitement to do anything but hang on the wait.

“I haven’t even touched you,” Starsky noted. “Hey, Blondie,” he said in a soft voice, forgiving and tender. How far they’d come from that first time, that initial experience on Hutch’s bed, a late Sunday morning neither of them expected would end the way it had, or could possibly foresee would open a door to more heightened pleasures between them. But this was the night to come full circle. Starsky believed it. He believed it because he knew what Hutch didn’t know. And what Hutch didn’t know was just how much Starsky loved him. Worshipped him. Adored and admired him. Idolized him. Despite the banter and the sometimes accidental wounds they caused each other, there was no love greater than theirs. They had proven it over the years: taking bullets, racing time, risking that ultimate gift of life for the other. And Starsky was about to prove it again—one more time, without Hutch’s knowledge, and in a way he hoped would forever end Hutch’s unfounded jealousy and his senseless fears, that would erase Hutch’s lifelong insecurities and his relentless self-doubts.

Starsky had found the means, and it lay in Hutch’s orgasm.

“You have beautiful hands,” Starsky said, and not the first time, aware again of Hutch’s shapely and masculine fingers, his manicured nails, his more slender wrists—and stroking them as he swept his gaze over Hutch’s bared chest and his powerful biceps, caressing both of Hutch’s hands at once as they rested on Hutch’s thighs, massaging Hutch’s strong forearms, enjoying their visual appeal in the flickering lights. He did want to bask in Hutch’s loveliness for as long as they could both hold out because he knew Hutch’s expectations would intensify in the stall and provide him an even deeper orgasmic ecstasy.

“Everything about you …” he trailed away, carried off by the subtle distinctions he saw that no words could possibly describe.

He unbuttoned the front of his shirt, pulled it from his jeans to release that last catch, made longing eye contact again, and smiled when Hutch’s respiration noticeably accelerated just from the dialogue that passed between their eyes.

“I love all I see,” Starsky said, “and I sure have missed you.”

Hutch perceptively nodded and pushed lower in the chair, as if even a fraction of an inch closer would elicit the physical touch he so obviously craved. An unheard ‘please?’

Starsky slipped his jeans’ waistband button out of its hole and painstakingly lowered the zipper. He didn’t want to undress, but he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by the constraints of his clothes, or their fueling of his internal fire, or the nagging pain that his jeans, in particular, would cause him as his own penis began its swell and pressed for escape.

“Are you going to be speechless all night?” he tauntingly asked.

Hutch let his breath speak for him: a heavy, quivering sigh.

“Maybe this’ll help,” Starsky said gently. He picked up the small, plastic almond oil bottle, turned it upside down, and squeezed more than a few drops of its liquid content over Hutch’s belly and navel. The sudden contact with his sensitive skin made Hutch abruptly inhale, followed by an unintentional moan when the unexpected drizzle met the desperation of his pleasure-starved shaft. “Yep,” Starsky said playfully, “that did help.”

His empathy with Hutch’s arousal and with Hutch’s wanting desire caused a similar and primal ache in him; he rose to his knees to lower his jeans, just enough to free his own hardening penis from its confines, and then sat on his socked heels to allow the otherwise warm air to cool his even warmer skin.

“Touch yourself again,” he prodded Hutch while he rolled his shirt sleeves to his elbows, first the one, then the other. “Let me see your beautiful hand on your beautiful dick one more time.”

Hutch seemed paralyzed, holding intense eye contact with Starsky, but not obliging, unable perhaps—until Starsky told him he wouldn’t take him until he witnessed a minute of Hutch’s self-pleasing.

“I knew you’d eventually hurt me,” Hutch replied in a husky, not serious voice, gripping his enlarged and stiffened shaft and stroking himself, as if he’d be the one to ejaculate him, and he didn’t want to be, but pumping himself teasingly and with intent to placate Starsky. “You’re going to make me wait and wait.”

“Until you can’t anymore,” Starsky said.

“I can’t anymore.”

“Get yourself oiled and I’ll see what I can do.”

He watched Hutch coat himself with the almond oil he reclaimed from both his undulating belly and his blood-filled penis, giving them a magnificent shine in the light of the nearby burning candles. Hushed music amplified the captivating epitome of Hutch’s sexiness—and all Starsky could do in those minutes was sit back and savor the seductive play before him, hands to his sides; he didn’t dare follow Hutch’s lead, not even briefly, not even for the enhancement of his own sexual good.

Although Starsky would end his month-long mission that night, he certainly loved the journey, too.

“Let me help you with that,” he decided, rising to his knees, opening his shirt to cool his perspiring and haired chest, and nudging Hutch’s hand away so he could be the one to elevate the mood and deepen the man’s pleasure. But he wasn’t prepared for the tantalizing feel he encountered from Hutch’s hot flesh; he’d forgotten about that elusive element of their lovemaking: Hutch’s heat. His meatiness, his aliveness in Starsky’s hand, his resulting deep moans and heavy breaths, his faint quiver—all invigorated Starsky until it was he who fell victim to impatience. Maybe he’d made them both wait too long.

As he slid a loose fist around the sturdy shaft of Hutch’s thickened sex muscle, he was unable to pull its foreskin up over the completely unsheathed crown, but he tasted its oiled muskiness against his tongue on the downward stroke of his enclosing mouth.

“Oh god,” Hutch whispered, expelling an uncontrollable grunt. “Oh you goddamn sweet boy.” His fingers immediately found their way into Starsky’s hair; he apparently wasn’t about to let Starsky tease him with further stalls in the momentum.

But Starsky had no intention of slowing him. The fullness of Hutch in his mouth and hand, of his fleshy warmness, of his familiar length, and the exhilarating beefiness of his aching organ, coupled with Hutch’s soft moans and his light cusses and his audible breathing, of the wetness and slickness of the oil on his swollen skin, fueled Starsky’s urgency to finish him. He didn’t want to, not then, but the prize of his soon-to-be completed mission also spurred him.

To ease his impulse to thwart the ending, even momentarily, Starsky switched hands; his least practiced right hand on Hutch’s fattened genital, his other on Hutch’s fleshier, more delicate sac, stroking the one while he caressed the other—and sucking and licking and teasing its head and frenulum only briefly, despite the pleasures they gave—did the job to interrupt the inevitable. He himself broke a sweat, under his arms, over his forehead, throughout his body. He desired Hutch’s cum, sought to extract and consume it, could barely wait to squeeze it out of him for both their respective benefits, and not just the eventual one of his own orgasm, but also the inescapable one in his heart and soul.

Hutch seemed close to his eruption. He panted and he quaked, rolling his head from side to side, and he murmured and he whimpered—all familiar and necessary primal utterances that fed Starsky’s ego.

He didn’t lose the rhythm of his mouth stroke, of his tightly wrapped lips around Hutch’s enlarged, craving, and hyper-charged penis, its bulging crown and smooth cap, the indentation of its slit, the feel of its textured and dilated veins and tangible passion. Starsky didn’t miss a beat in the firming and repeated pumping he gave Hutch; he subconsciously—mindlessly, unthinkingly—enhanced it, instinctively feeling along the curves of Hutch’s buttocks until he found the expected depression, and then gently, but determinedly, slipping an oiled finger into his anus. The insertion was coupled with a downstroke on Hutch’s penis with his mouth-and-hand, and with a withdrawal on the corresponding upstroke.

“Oh sweetheart,” he heard Hutch call him under a heavy pant.

The dual sensations, combined with an accelerated rhythm of repeated digital penetrations deep into his man, and the slick sucking of Hutch’s sex-driven organ, of Starsky’s kissing and licking sounds, of their commingled breathing and increasingly frenzied and uninhibited race to the finish, pushed Hutch over that unstoppable edge. He crested, and then spilled, crying loudly as the ecstasy washed over him, as it pulsed and racked his convulsing body, as he writhed in its pleasure.

Only then did Starsky end his strokes, the internal and the external; he froze to let Hutch experience the joy of their joined flesh to its fullest, without distraction, without the risk of interrupting the fluidness of their union. Only then did Starsky realize he’d grown painfully erect himself and desired an immediate release he could not achieve in that minute, for which he was both thankful for the reprieve and disappointed. Only then did he realize how tightly Hutch held his head, his fingers entwined in Starsky’s wavy hair, to make certain he wouldn’t be abandoned at that critical moment. Only then did Starsky realize that the object of his own specific desire that night—Hutch’s cum—filled his mouth with an unusual amount of cream—and he naturally swallowed it, without distaste, without hesitancy, with a loving willingness, and personal satisfaction.

It was at that virtually planned moment that Starsky knew in his heart of hearts that he’d succeeded in his month-long mission to change their lives forever. Hutch now belonged to him—and in a way he had not before.

* * *

Starsky got to his feet as he gently tapped the inside of Hutch’s knee. “C’mon,” he encouraged him, “let’s go to the bed.” He’d given Hutch plenty of time to climb down from his euphoria to his senses, and he himself could no longer sit on his heels without beginning to feel the pain in his ankles.

“I’m getting too old to be on the floor anymore,” he said, “so enjoy these chair visits while you can.”

“And I’m getting too old to come that hard,” Hutch joked, “but I’m not complaining. I just hope I can live through them all.” He offered Starsky his hand.

“It was a wipe out,” Starsky agreed, closing his zipper halfway, and then gripping Hutch by his wrist to give him the initial tug he needed to get off his seat. “You stored up a lot of jizz these past two months, so thanks for that extra dessert.”

“I’m sure you’ll have as much to give me when the time comes,” Hutch answered him, “pun intended.” He stopped Starsky from turning away by grabbing his elbow and swinging him back around. Hutch’s blue eyes sparkled in the candlelit room and his smile was as soft as their light. “That was a mighty fine reentry into our sex lives,” he said. “Thank you.” He tenderly touched Starsky’s lips, first with a fingertip and then with a kiss, lightly sucking on Starsky’s mouth to apparently encourage his tongue in a dance with his, and was receptively obliged.

Starsky would never turn down Hutch. Not for anything he wanted.

They devoured each other in a lengthy series of full-bodied kisses, inhaling their respective scents in deep, tandem breaths, immersing themselves in their communal warmth, sharing the taste of almond oil and semen, and lightly laughing when they eventually broke apart, exhilarated by the more intimate contact between them and the closeness of their faces.

“Do me a favor?” Hutch asked. He caressed Starsky’s arm as if he could ply him with a softer touch.

“Name it,” Starsky replied. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Hutch.

“Wash your hands?”

Starsky didn’t laugh because the request was absurd, nor did it embarrass him or make him feel reprimanded. His irrepressible and amused reaction was rooted purely in the unexpectedness of Hutch’s question.

“For me?” Hutch implored him, parting with a shy smile. “I know you don’t mind where your hands have been, but…”

“Sure, pal,” Starsky said, kindly. He understood Hutch’s sensibilities—and he accepted them, too; they were the essence of his man, after all. So he left Hutch to head off to the bathroom, to both relieve his bladder and to wash his hands afterward. When he returned to the room, he paused at the foot of the bed to gaze again over the beauty of his ever-so-willing and eager lover, bathed as he was in a warm glow of amber, on his back, fully nude, shoulders in pillows behind his head, relaxed and contented, bare-skinned, flaccid and re-sheathed, but exposed enough to remind Starsky that their night of sex play was not yet over. It had only just begun. He crawled onto the mattress and lay beside Hutch in the romantic afterglow of his partner’s orgasmic purge. “You sure are pretty in a tuxedo,” he said, “but I’d rather see you naked every day of the week.”

“Speaking of which,” Hutch said, “are you going to take your clothes off or do I have to do it?” He rolled into Starsky, draped his arm over his waist, smiled into his blue eyes, held him close. “Or is there some purpose to your dragging this out?”

“Why do you care?” Starsky replied with a chuckle. “You got yours. Your first one, anyway.”

“But I’m not happy until you’ve had yours, too.”

Another reason Starsky loved him. He combed Hutch’s blond hair with his fingers. “I’ll get mine,” he said wistfully.

They gazed longingly into each other’s eyes, listened to the piano music, lay quietly on the made bed, without spoken words, while minutes passed. Starsky was still dressed in his nearly zipped jeans, his socks, his unbuttoned and rolled-to-the-elbows sleeved shirt. He felt warm, just this side of perspiring again. But he wasn’t in a hurry, either. “I ate your cum,” he eventually said.

Hutch raised an eyebrow. No doubt it was a strange segue from a romantic moment into such an explicit one. “Don’t you always?”

“Pretty much, yeah, but I wanted you to know I did it this time, for sure, I mean. There was a lot of it.”

Hutch gave Starsky a nudge. “I’m thinking you want me to apologize for—”

“No,” Starsky said quickly. “Just a matter of fact is all. No apology needed. I didn’t mind. I loved it, really. Your cum…”

“Yeah?”

“Out of your balls and into my mouth.”

“Okay,” Hutch replied, easing out the word.

Starsky could tell that Hutch didn’t know how to respond to his disclosures because he didn’t fully understand their importance. Admittedly, Starsky enjoyed the mystery he gave the detective. “And I’m not done eating you, either,” he eventually added with conviction to his voice.

“Eating me?” Hutch wondered. “I’ll need a little time to refuel. You meant to say that I’ll eat you now, right?”

Starsky leaned over and gently bit Hutch’s shoulder, not enough to hurt him, but with intention just the same. He held Hutch’s skin between his teeth and licked him to taste its salty flavor. “Hmm,” he moaned to express his enjoyment. “You taste good here, too.”

“You showered before dinner,” Hutch reminded him. “I didn’t. I can’t taste all that good at end of day.”

“And yet you do,” Starsky debated him, nibbling along Hutch’s arm to his elbow and then back again, licking him along the way, savoring the taste of his warmed skin. “Your cum tasted good,” he said in between tender bites, “and your arm tastes good.”

Hutch laughed at him. “Silly boy.”

“Your lips taste good,” Starsky continued, leaning in for another one of their lengthy and deeply tongued kisses. He sucked on Hutch’s fleshy mouth—his tongue and lips, feeling helplessly aroused by the primal contact, and needing larger gulps of air as they filled the room with sounds of their more passionate exchange. “And your dick tasted good,” Starsky said when he broke their lip engagement. “Your big, fat, hard dick tasted really good.”

“Now you’re talking my language,” Hutch said with a laugh. He felt Starsky’s groin in search of evidence, found Starsky’s hardening bulge, and added, “I’m happy to know you enjoyed the meat.”

“There isn’t anything I enjoy more.”

He pushed Hutch’s shoulder to put him onto his back again, and then trailed kisses and small harmless bites over Hutch’s belly. “Your tummy tastes good,” he said, pausing only long enough to speak the words before he sucked on Hutch’s nipples, first the one and then the other. “Your teats taste good,” he told him between the attention he gave them both.

Hutch laughed. “Teats, huh?”

Starsky ignored him to continue sucking on the tiny erections, knowing his tongue had given them their arousal. He didn’t want to get sidetracked by a discussion about grammar or words. His penis had begun its swell and he’d rather appease it instead. “Your balls tasted good,” he said, pretending to recall the dining, and leaning over Hutch to lick his testicles for a minute, to gently suck their sac, to inhale the delicate skin into his mouth for a more thorough bathing, and then he licked Hutch’s still-flaccid and sheathed shaft, from its base to its tip. “Yep,” he said, as if to himself when he let it go, “they still taste good.” A blend of almond oil and musk, of Starsky’s previous saliva and Hutch’s sweat, characterized the aroma of Hutch’s groin and the patch of blond hair between his legs.

“Let me taste you,” Hutch suggested, tugging momentarily at Starsky’s sleeve.

Starsky kissed Hutch’s muscled thighs, along his calves to his feet. “I’ll bet your toes taste good,” he decided. “Will you be ticklish?” Rising to his hands and knees, he first lowered the zipper on his jeans to ease the discomfort that had begun to invade his penis and to allow it more room to grow. He felt warmer still. “This little piggy,” he said in a singsong voice. He sucked Hutch’s big toe, then each one thereafter until he got to the little one, and noticed that Hutch hadn’t flinched. So he sucked and licked Hutch’s other foot and toes. “Yeah, for sure,” he said when he finished. “Even those taste good.”

“Starsky.”

He looked back at Hutch. “Do you want something?”

“I want to taste you.”

“But I’m not done eating.”

“What else is there?” Hutch said with genuine innocence. He looked almost bewildered.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Starsky chided him.

He gripped Hutch’s elbow and pulled. It would have been impossible to move Hutch without Hutch’s cooperation, even despite how strong Starsky was himself, so he was relieved and then excited when Hutch obliged him to roll over on his belly. But it was only at that moment, he believed, that Hutch became aware of his intentions, because Hutch said in a complaining voice, “Oh, c’mon, Starsk. I haven’t had a shower.”

Starsky straddled Hutch’s calves. Sure, Hutch could have wrestled him—and won such a tussle. But where Hutch was weaker is exactly where Starsky preyed on him. As much as Starsky would do anything for Hutch, he knew Hutch would do even more for him, even if Hutch professed to hate it.

“How’m I going to know if you taste good all over,” Starsky teased him, “if I don’t taste you all over, hm?” He nibbled on Hutch’s butt cheek, his right one first, then his other, around their perimeters and everywhere in between. They were meaty enough that he could bite Hutch harder and still not hurt the man. When he heard Hutch sigh, Starsky sat back to his heels, closely watched Hutch’s face for genuine signs of discomfort, noticed his naturally closed eyes and lashes, his tousled hair and broad shoulders, the smoothness of his back and his rounded buttocks, and even his relaxation on the mattress beneath him. “You look good, too,” he said in a whisper. How they had grown to love the appearance of the other was as much a mystery to him as was that first destined meeting on that fateful classroom morning.

He rolled his hips and pleasingly pressed his sac and hardened penis through his jeans into the crevice between Hutch’s legs to enjoy that exquisite ache it gave him. Then he rose to his knees so he could grab an unused pillow at the headboard, sat back, and told Hutch to “lift your hips for me.” He gave Hutch the room to raise himself off the mattress high enough to let Starsky shove the pillow under him. Hutch may have thought Starsky would enter him—and he himself imagined he would at some time during the night—but that wasn’t his end goal then. He resumed nibbling on Hutch’s butt cheeks and along his spine, licking and sucking as he delivered wet kisses, too, all over his lover’s backside. “I like the taste of your unwashed skin,” he said. And then he did what he’d set out to do from the beginning, from the moment he’d asked Hutch to get out of the chair and onto the bed.

He spread Hutch’s cheeks to expose his anus.

“Starsky.”

“It looks good enough to eat,” Starsky said, admiring the small diameter of darker skin and its texture in the candlelight. It would never cease to amaze him how something so seemingly small, especially for a man of Hutch’s height and build, could yield to Starsky’s above-average and thick-in-circumference hard-on, and to receive it as brutally as Starsky sometimes punished it. But there it was again before him after a long absence, a darker pink than the rest of Hutch’s skin, oiled still from Starsky’s earlier digital penetrations, appearing relaxed—despite Hutch’s verbal objections—and raised up for the offering.

So Starsky lowered to his elbows and began what had become his sometimes lengthy attention to Hutch’s anus. Perhaps it was a fetish of his, one he’d never known existed in him until that first time his tongue touched Hutch’s opening. Perhaps it was just the passive look of Hutch on his stomach beneath him, or his obvious willingness, or his tolerant enjoyment of it, too, or that Starsky entertained a certain dominance in the behavior, or that he was simply spurred into that desire because it would eventually satisfy another, stronger, and more urgent desire, or that he was aroused by its taboo decadence. Or maybe it was all those things. In the end, it didn’t matter. He licked Hutch because he enjoyed licking him, for whatever reason or combination of reasons, and this time he planned to indulge himself for even longer, this time to make a point beyond the pleasure, this time to win a battle in a war he’d already won.

He heard Hutch breathing; his heavy pants had drowned the soft music in the room. And he felt Hutch’s heat come up through his skin, as he himself was bathed in warmth, growing his erection to its own formidable size. But there was no way to oblige it, no means to handle it, nothing to rub up against. He was on his knees, bent over on his front end, exposing Hutch with both his hands, a muscled cheek in each of his unrelenting grips, spurred by that instinctive drive to penetrate, but only having tongue to do the job. He licked and sucked, kissed and purposefully drooled, licked and sucked again, sometimes lapping up his own saliva in the mix of oil, and pushing his tongue into the wet opening, as deeply as he could. He panted in his zeal, felt the cool air surround his stiffened and heated penis as it hung helplessly without merciful touch. What he would give to have Hutch’s mouth suck his crown, devour his shaft, take him into and out of that strong and well-timed hand in tandem while he himself continued to lick and to kiss and to suck and to thrust his tongue into and out of that tight and slippery anus, one that would eventually be his in which he’d deposit his semen.

When those urges and those subconscious thoughts got the better of him, when they threatened to overwhelm him, Starsky could endure no more. He released Hutch from his hands, sat back to his feet, swiped lubricant and saliva from Hutch’s crevice with his fingers, and then gave himself satisfyingly lubricious strokes, moaning with the heightened pleasure of his own touch. He had broken an obvious sweat.

“You can fuck me, darling,” Hutch said. “Let yourself go.” He rose to his elbows, pushed back toward Starsky, exposing his anus by his posture alone, not taunting the man, but definitely giving him permission and motive.

Starsky straightened, lowered his jeans to his knees, then finally kicked them free completely, frustrated throughout the endeavor, quickly scooted between Hutch’s calves, and gripped Hutch’s hip in one hand to tug him into closing the distance for him. After he generously spit into the division of Hutch’s buttocks, he thoroughly lubricated his already slick anus, determined as he was to cause Hutch no pain. Then he guided his swollen penis to that wet shaft of pleasure-giving tightness and finally pushed into it. The immediate sensation of moisture at his cap about knocked the breath out of Starsky and forced his eyes closed to isolate the pleasure. He moaned a lengthy growl of realized surrender as he slid deeply into his man. When he hit his end, when he was physically unable to penetrate further, he opened his eyes, leaned forward, over Hutch, and assertively entangled his fingers in his blond hair. “Oh, Hutch,” he said as he withdrew to his tip, enjoying every fraction of the inches he’d been given to experience that magnificent journey, “I don’t think I can … last long.” He thrust into the snugness again, as far as he could go. “I’m gonna … need to … fuck you … hard.” He felt himself already slipping away into the helplessness of his blood-filled flesh.

“Let me have it,” Hutch replied in a buttery voice. He pressed against Starsky’s thighs and tightened his grip around Starsky’s shaft.

The sensation sent a wave of excitement through Starsky’s swelled penis. He lifted Hutch’s head with a pull of his hair, held him in that aggressive posture, and then followed through on his earlier promise to punish the man with his rigidness for as long as it would take to finish himself. “I’m fucking you, Hutch,” he said, repeatedly plunging into the man, withdrawing as determinedly, and plowing into him again. “Do you feel me?”

“It feels so good,” Hutch said.

“Will you fuck me next, Hutch, will ya, huh, baby?”

“I’ll fuck you hard, too, buddy.”

The words, as well as the idea of them, drove Starsky into a more frenzied round of thrusts. The shaft he’d entered was snug, slick, wet, warm. The visual was more than he could bear to lay eyes on and delay his orgasm at the same time. But the wave caught up with him and eventually overtook him, nearly by surprise. It forced him into his crest, relieving the ache and the yearning and the desire, stalling his action and his words and his aggression, and shoved him into the pure sexual ecstasy of his ejaculation. He slammed his hips one final time into Hutch’s buttocks, his thighs into his lover’s thighs, his entire phallus deep inside Hutch, and completely emptied. Each pulse of semen he deposited sent another unexpected shudder of joy throughout him. He cried with a howl of a whimper. He fought to catch his breath. He tightly gripped Hutch during that final joining—hand in his hair, fingers digging into his side. He would never let go. Not if he could help it. The roll of his orgasm had lasted longer than usual. Seemed deeper than usual. Felt stronger than usual. When he finally let go and dropped his hands to the mattress, piggybacking Hutch, breathing heavily in his ear, aware, only faintly, of the sweat where their skin met, his haired chest through his opened shirt to Hutch’s bared back, did he realize that he still rolled his hips and continued, for almost a minute, for as long as his penis would remain hard, to penetrate and withdraw from Hutch in a steady rhythm of extra enjoyment, presumably for them both.

That unexpected drive made him greedy for more. So he used Hutch’s back to lift himself from the mattress, careful not to exit the gratifying tightness in which he was engaged, and get to his feet. He heard Hutch lightly laugh, as if amused by whatever it was Starsky planned next, a feel-good sound that only encouraged him. He mounted Hutch, as it were, having never left the joining, and was able to give them a longer slide out and a deeper shove in. “I’m still fucking you, Hutch,” he said proudly, though he knew the absolute end was in sight. “My dick is still hard and I’m still fucking you.”

“It feels good, Starsk,” Hutch said—and he sounded sincere. “I love how you take me. Every which way.” He hummed while he received.

Starsky lost the intensity of his erection at long last and, weakened by the exertion itself, reluctantly, slowly, and carefully withdrew. He laughed with delight when he did, affectionately slapped Hutch’s butt, and then succumbed to his back on the mattress beside him while his head spun and his heartbeat slowed and his breath found itself again.

Hutch slumped beside him, scratched Starsky’s hairy chest, told him he loved how he’d been taken. “You keep outdoing yourself.”

Starsky eventually opened his eyes. “Next time I fuck you,” he said, “I want to mount you like that. I’ve never done that before. I think I could go deeper, you know?”

“It sure felt that way.”

He noticed the blue in Hutch’s eyes and their affectionate look at him.

“I wanted to last longer,” he said. “I wanted to lick you longer.”

“It’ll always be there,” Hutch replied with a smile.

“Do you think I’m being nasty?”

“No. I think you’re being … liberated.”

“And I can do that to you anytime?”

“Anytime.”

Starsky closed his eyes to focus on his recovery. He thought about what he’d just said and how Hutch had answered him. “You’re my pal, Hutch,” he whispered. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

“I won’t, buddy boy.”

“I know you won’t,” Starsky claimed, allowing himself to go off on a peaceful dream. “Because I’ve made it so you won’t.”

* * *

Starsky dangled the thicker end of his tie over Hutch’s cheek, gently brushing Hutch’s skin with it, and giggling while he did so, sounding pleased with himself, too.

“What’s this?” Hutch asked. He lay facing Starsky, eyes closed, and clasped the tie in his fingers to stop the tickling—and the annoyance. Starsky was sometimes worse than a woman after sex. All Hutch ever needed was just one more minute of blissful basking.

“What does it look like?” Starsky countered him, tugging at the tie to loosen it from Hutch’s grip, but not succeeding. “Hm?”

“It looks like you—again—making a fool of yourself.” Hutch spoke without actually seeing.

“It’s a tie,” Starsky told him.

“What are you suggesting we do with it?”

“Make a knot.”

“A hangman’s knot? Around your neck?”

“Aren’t you ready to go again?” Starsky asked with frustration in his voice.

“I just finished.”

It seemed like he’d just finished, anyway. But, making the effort to think back, he wasn’t certain how long it had been since his indulgence in an orgasm. Maybe it had been longer than he remembered. He’d had two that night already to Starsky’s one; the first into Starsky’s mouth while Hutch sat dutifully in the chair, and the second ejaculation on the bed, rather overwhelming and intense, when Starsky spooned into him and insisted that he be topped. It had been months since Hutch had ejaculated deep inside his lover’s body, and the freedom to do so again had been as emotional as it was sexual. No matter, though. Hutch didn’t have to be fired up to appease Starsky’s desire one more time before morning. “What do you propose to tie me to?” he wondered. Their farm bed wasn’t made of posts or slats.

“It’s not for you, Narky.”

“Narky?”

“That’s short for narcissist—you know, thinking everything’s about you.”

Hutch grunted, opened his eyes, and looked into Starsky’s. “I’m really happy to learn that you’re broadening your vocabulary with bigger words, but you should know their definitions before you use them.” He tossed the end of Starsky’s tie back at him, and couldn’t help but notice how beautifully blue Starsky’s eyes appeared in the still-burning candlelight.

“I used it correctly,” Starsky debated him. He bundled the tie in his fist and tucked it under his chin while he lay on his side, cheek in his pillow, and gazed longingly at Hutch. “You’re being a narcissist thinking tying one of us up is about you.”

“But you used the word incorrectly,” Hutch argued, admiring Starsky’s face and his natural comfort beside him, “because you neglected to appreciate its finer qualities.”

“Which are?”

“Narcissism is characterized by low self-esteem. Do I strike you as someone who loathes himself?”

“You strike me as someone I’m beginning to loathe,” Starsky said with a laugh. He tried tickling Hutch’s cheek again with the end of his tie, but Hutch swatted it away. “Remember when you used to be fun?” Starsky berated him.

“I recall that I was fun within the last hour,” Hutch said sleepily, “and I’m apparently about to be again, so watch your mouth.”

Starsky outlined Hutch’s lips with his finger. “I’ll watch your mouth,” he said seductively. “Now, c’mon, let’s play with this thing.” He dangled the tie in front of Hutch. “You tie me up this time.”

Starsky’s intention came into sharper focus for Hutch. He realized he’d been talking about that very thing, about tying one of them up—and Starsky, in particular—for the past couple of minutes, but he didn’t appreciate its true objective until Starsky put it into words. “No,” he said to Starsky’s suggestion. “We’re not going to tie you up.”

“Just my hands behind my back,” Starsky explained. He gave Hutch his little-boy “please?” look, but it didn’t get any traction.

“No,” Hutch said again, that time with his full voice.

“And then put me on my knees—”

“No.” More firmly.

“—with my front end down on my pillow.”

“No.” With frustration.

“Just for a minute,” Starsky whined.

“No,” Hutch answered him, emphatically and with a tinge of indignation, too. He felt angry then, pushed into a place he didn’t want to be, into several places, actually: into having to reject Starsky, for one, but also into having to repeat himself, and into having to then explain himself. “I can’t do that to you. I’ll never be able to—”

“It’s just for a minute—to see if we like it,” Starsky added, sounding excited by the prospect, despite Hutch’s refusals.

Hurt washed over Hutch, warming his skin, accelerating his heartbeat. How many times in their past had Starsky asked him for a forward step into their sexual relationship, dismissed Hutch’s reluctance or rejection, pursued him despite it, only to have Hutch succumb in the end? Granted, Hutch wouldn’t trade where they were sexually with each other for anything in the world, but none of those past solicitations had gone against the core of his soul. Not really. Having sex with Starsky was something he could be talked into—and was—but acting out a certain sort of violence and degradation with him was beyond the essence of himself. He hated that Starsky couldn’t understand the distinction or at least hear the objection in his voice.

“To see if we like it,” Starsky had said.

What could Starsky possibly ‘like’ about feeling subordinate, helpless, and controlled—and then anally sexed? Was Hutch the only one between them who could remember the terrible things three men had done to Starsky in the spring of the previous year?

Starsky rose to his elbow, scooted closer to Hutch, pressed along his length, whispered, “Hey,” and stroked Hutch’s cheek, tenderly, and with an obvious effort to comfort him. “Hey,” he whispered again, gently scratching Hutch’s whiskering face, straightening, combing his fingers through Hutch’s hair. “I’m sorry.”

Hutch felt the burn of his tears and closed his eyes. There was more hurt in his heart than just what he remembered had happened to Starsky; he was also personally wounded because Starsky didn’t seem to recall it—or to be sensitive to his sensibilities.

“I’m sorry,” Starsky repeated, sincerely, and with an urgency to be absolved.

Hutch felt Starsky’s warm breath on his skin.

“I don’t really have a want to do that,” Starsky finally admitted. “I was just feeling you out, for the fun of it or the experiment of it, to see if it was something you might want to do, to let you know I’ll do anything you want to do. But you don’t want to be doing that kind of thing—and I understand why you don’t want to, so I’m sorry I made it an issue.” He continued to comb Hutch’s hair with his fingers. The touch felt as soothing as much as it reflected Starsky’s apprehension, too. “Forgive me for bringing it up, will you?” Starsky implored him. “I don’t want to fuck this night up, okay?”

Hutch was relieved and grateful and always forgiving. He clutched Starsky’s hand in his own and stopped him from stroking his hair to kiss Starsky’s palm instead—to say, without words, that he was all right, that he’d simply been momentarily derailed, that Starsky was absolutely forgiven, and that he didn’t want to ‘fuck up’ that night, either.

“Okay,” Starsky whispered, answering Hutch’s silent communication with a palpable relief in his breath. “But you’ll let me eat crackers in bed still, right?”

Hutch laughed, despite his wish not to. He wiped his eyes. “If those are my choices…”

Starsky jumped up then and excitedly said, “I’ll bring back peanut butter, too. You can lick it off me. That sounds like more fun, anyway, doesn’t it?”

“We’ll see. But, in the meantime, do me another favor while you’re at it?”

“You betcha,” Starsky said, leaving the bed.

“Wash your face?”

* * *

Hutch laughed. Right in the middle of fellating his partner, or, rather, closer to its beginning, he let the man’s penis slip from his mouth, and then broke up laughing.

Starsky was insulted; he, at least, pretended to be. “What’s so damn funny?”

Hutch couldn’t stop laughing. “You,” he said, licking his lips and chewing, enjoying the taste of the peanut butter and its mix with Starsky’s skin and his warmth. Hutch hadn’t been the alert detective he was known to be: he had seen Starsky scoop the peanut butter out of the jar with his fingers, watched him spread it over his own stiffening penis, marveled at how thoroughly he had coated it, so much that it changed the color of Starsky’s skin into a deep tan, and then he willingly went down on the man with a little help from his lover’s sticky peanut butter hands at the back of his head. No doubt there was a gooey spread in his blond hair, but Hutch hadn’t cared; the sudden feel of Starsky’s hardened genital in his sucking mouth and in his light, stroking fist, distracted him from all else—well, that, and the overall sweet taste of the peanut paste. But Hutch hadn’t expected the end result: “You know you grabbed the jar of crunchy, right?” he asked, chewing more peanuts and continuing to laugh.

“Well, yeah,” Starsky said, trying not to laugh with him; he apparently wanted to be taken seriously, “because I thought the texture would give me a crazier experience.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Hutch chided him. He licked peanut butter off his own fingers and shook his head. “Give me fair warning next time, will you?”

“C’mon,” Starsky whined, wagging his penis in Hutch’s direction, “don’t leave me hanging here. It’ll be a lot harder to wash off than to have you clean me up.”

“I don’t see how,” Hutch replied with a chuckle. “I can’t stop laughing.” He couldn’t. “And, by the time I get my wits back, it’ll have dried on you. We’ll have to chisel it off.”

Starsky ran his finger along the length of his upright penis, swiping a tip-ful of peanut butter from it, and then slowly licked it into his mouth. “Don’t make me do it,” he complained.

Hutch did likewise. He used a finger to remove some of the peanut butter from Starsky’s penis, and ate it from there.

“With your mouth,” Starsky instructed him. “Take it off with your mouth.”

Hutch laughed again. He couldn’t escape the humor of it, but when he realized Starsky glared at him, losing his patience and probably his erection, too, Hutch fell to his back beside him and covered his face in his hands. He continued to chew the tiny crunchy pieces of peanuts, but every bite down triggered another giggle or a chuckle or a huff of a laugh. “I’m sorry,” he was finally able to say, doing his best to sound apologetic. “It’s just that you’re so goddamn hilarious sometimes.”

“This isn’t one of those times,” Starsky argued with him. “We were having fun, weren’t we? We had a nice dinner, didn’t we? We had some delicious desert, too, remember? We came back here and jacked you off a couple of times. There’s nice music playing and candles burning. Hm? Weren’t we having fun? And now you’ve let us get sidetracked by crunchy peanut butter.”

“Oh, I see,” Hutch mused. “This is my fault.” He lowered his hands and looked over at Starsky. His partner still sat against the headboard and pillows, naked, somewhat aroused, his penis snug against his haired skin. The boy was one thing if he was anything: sexy to behold. That notation, alone, sobered Hutch. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll take you seriously.” He rolled over, back to his partner, cupped Starsky’s fading erection in his hand, looked into those sultry blue eyes, and tried, really tried, to be an adult about the encounter. But when he felt the textured peanut butter in his fingers again, he fought his hardest to repress his smile, let alone another laugh. “If I do this,” he pretended to wonder, impulsively, “how fat do you think it’ll make me?”

Starsky appeared to be on the verge of ending the game. He gave Hutch his ‘fuck you’ look, pursed his lips, and crossed his arms over his chest in defiance. His silence, coupled with his rigid posture and his softening erection, conveyed his impatience and his dissatisfaction. A fire, and not a sexy one, burned in his eyes. “You’re making fun of me,” he finally said.

“Oh, no,” Hutch whispered. That was the last thing he wanted. He rose to his hands and knees and straddled Starsky so he could kiss him and break his evolving melancholy. They each tasted of peanut butter, which made Hutch giggle, so he licked Starsky’s lips to convey what had tickled him. “I love your adventurous enterprises,” he promised between small, wet, warm kisses, pleased to learn that Starsky was still with him in tender reply.

“Whatever that means,” Starsky eventually said.

“It means I love your peanut butter effort.”

Hutch also noticed that they’d both begun to feel aroused again; the kissing had brought them back to center. He slowly abandoned his amusement over Starsky’s endeavor, and even forgot about the peanut taste after a while, though it was ever-present, and instead focused on the feel of Starsky’s responsive mouth, the sounds of his accelerating breath and his quiet moans, the caresses of his gentle hands, and his heat. Both their erections reemerged. The intimacy, more than the actual sex, enabled them to surrender to the purity of their love—and to all the ways they’d liberated themselves to express it.

* * *

The slide was as snug on the withdrawal as it had been on the entry. Hutch’s knees felt weak and his legs trembled; he was barely able to hold himself up, and almost collapsed on top of Starsky when he sat back to disengage. As he carefully slid out, they both laughed, lightly and with the knowledge that they’d nearly annihilated the other, but that the ecstasy had been worth the risk.

Hutch then lay on his back beside Starsky and panted off the exertion of his prolonged effort and ultimate orgasm. “I felt like a means to an end on that one, partner,” he said, panting, and feeling shaky and frail in those minutes. “I can’t believe you squeezed one more out of me.”

“You squeezed it out of me,” Starsky informed him, laughing. “That was your hand on my dick a minute ago, wasn’t it?” He lay on his belly, almost face down in his pillow, sucking deep breaths. “I thought you were going to rip it off.”

“I needed something to hold me upright,” Hutch explained. He found it funny, too. “You realize we’ve got plenty of time to play like this, right? I mean, let’s not kill ourselves trying to get it all done in one night.”

“I didn’t put a gun to your head.”

“You know better than to flash that ass at me.”

Starsky giggled. He’d caught his breath and instead stared at Hutch as if Hutch could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to make the effort to use verbal words.

“I could have waited until morning,” Hutch said, “but you insisted I take you again.”

“I wanted to savor this one.”

“Yeah, but I could barely etch it out.”

“As you would say: and, yet, you did.”

Hutch tapped Starsky’s buttock and then looked to the ceiling when he spoke. “I can never say no to your incessant begging.”

“‘Fuck me, baby,’? That’s what you call incestral begging?”

“I call it incessant begging. And it wasn’t just ‘fuck me, baby.’ It was ‘fuck me, baby, huh, woncha, willya, pretty please with crunchy peanut butter on top?’ I mean, how could I resist that?”

Starsky was apparently too physically drained and mentally dulled to outsmart Hutch’s sarcasm because he strove for the facts instead. “We didn’t fuck just then with peanut butter. You know that, right? That was almond oil, same as always.”

“Yeah, dimwit, but never mind.”

Hutch truly wasn’t complaining. He’d enjoyed the orgasm, the unplanned ejaculation again inside his lover, but it had been so soon after his previous one and he barely made the grade. Those last couple of minutes felt like eternities that would never crest, threatening to deprive them both, and gave Hutch momentary twinges of embarrassed failure. “I still can’t help but feel you were out to milk me dry.”

When no denial answered him, Hutch looked back at Starsky. He noticed, again, the blue in those eyes, the relaxation in Starsky’s face, his contentment and cheerful quiet. “Am I right?” he had to ask.

“Well, I do have a gallon of your cum in me,” Starsky said, mocking a calculating tone of voice. “How much could be left? Enough for my coffee in the morning?”

“If you want any more,” Hutch warned him, “I’m going to need to hydrate. Get me some water?”

“Coming up!” Starsky said, rising to his hands and knees first before he could manage the strength to leave the bed. “We’re going to break our record before sunrise,” he insisted, excitedly. “You’ll see.”

“As I said,” Hutch ruefully trailed after him, “you’re purposefully out to drain me. Payback will be a bitch.”

Starsky scoffed at him, getting off the bed. “I can handle whatever you dish out.”

* * *

Starsky looked so drained and contented as he lay on the bed beside Hutch, head nestled on his pillow, gazing into his lover’s eyes, a sort of happy smile in the hint of his otherwise exhausted expression. His hair was somewhat matted from his earlier sweat and he’d been relatively quiet for a while, sleepy eyes open, seeming to just enjoy the drifting with his partner, maybe even reminiscing over the past couple of hours, days, months, years.

Hutch stroked his hair, marveling at its texture and how different it was from his own. “Well,” he eventually said, “you held to your promise to make up for lost time.”

Starsky parted with a smug grin. “Now you know my word is as good as gold.”

“I’ve always known that.”

“No, you haven’t.”

If Starsky had contradicted him with a reprimanding voice, Hutch could have been offended by the reply. But he heard the forgiveness in Starsky’s correction, so he didn’t argue it. Instead, he drew a line from the middle of Starsky’s forehead to the tip of his nose. “I promise to be more trusting,” he said.

“Yeah, you do that.”

A dozen candles still burned in the room. The soft music still played. They’d emptied the almond oil bottle—and themselves with it. Made a mess on the bed comforter with their sweat, lubricant, and various positions. But neither of them cared. Not then, anyway. Hutch might complain later about having to wash the oil out of his expensive duvet, but for then he was oblivious. All that mattered was that their lives with each other had resumed.

“Do you think I’ve had sex with other people the way I’ve had it with you?” Starsky asked. He had a lazy way of opening that dialogue, as if nothing Hutch told him—including the truth—would faze him. “Do you think I’ve licked anybody else’s ass?”

Hutch’s usual reaction to a question like that would be to complain about Starsky’s crassness, but he was beyond that. Why should words offend him when the act itself didn’t? “I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “Have you?”

“I haven’t. Ever. You’re the first—and the only one—who’s had my tongue on … his … on anybody’s …”

“Why do you suppose?”

“Because I can be myself with you.”

That made sense. Hutch accepted it. “Well, you’re the only one I’ve ever let lick my ass, if that means anything to you.”

“Funny, but it does.”

They both knew Starsky couldn’t say likewise; after all, he’d had explicit anal pleasures during his one-night-rendezvous with Adam. Hutch wasn’t about to beat him up over it, especially after knowing Starsky had ended—or tried to end—his friendship with Adam in order to spare Hutch’s feelings in the long run. All had been forgiven.

“Do you think I’ve ever topped anyone anally?” was Starsky’s next question.

“I don’t know about that, either,” Hutch said. “But I think you haven’t, if I’ve understood our conversations over the years.” And particularly over the past 10 months after the gang rapes.

“I haven’t.”

Hutch appreciated Starsky’s late night confessions. He lay beside him as contentedly, as drained, as exhausted, but feeling oh so good emotionally.

“Do you think I’ve talked dirty to other lovers—the way I talk to you, I mean?” Starsky wondered.

Hutch gave that question more thought. Starsky could definitely be crass, but it was usually to rattle Hutch’s cage. Could he picture Starsky telling Grace something like, “My dick is still hard and I’m still fucking your ass”? Not likely. Not if he knew Grace. Not if Hutch knew the relationship Starsky had with her. “No,” he decided, “I don’t imagine you’ve talked that way to other lovers.” Especially since all—but two men—of Starsky’s lovers had been women and women weren’t necessarily as receptive to that kind of language. Besides, at the heart of him, Starsky was a romantic. “I think you love getting raunchy with me because you can,” Hutch determined.

The corners of Starsky’s mouth turned into a pleased smile, as if proud of himself, but also appreciative of Hutch’s perceptions. “Do you think there’s anybody I’ve played around with on a bed more than I have with you? Or in a chair? Or a hot tub? Or a sofa? Or the floor?”

Hutch instinctively knew the answer to that one. “I doubt it. I don’t know any woman who would be willing to fuck two and three and four times in a day—every day—and mess up her furniture and bed linens, certainly not as much as we do.”

“Right,” Starsky said. “And you can add to that that I’ve never sucked some guy’s peenie or his balls—other than yours, I mean. Which begs the question: have I eaten anybody else’s cum, do you think?”

“No,” Hutch said. “I get where you’re going with this. You made your point.”

“Have I?”

“That when it comes to a lover, you haven’t had one as involved or as—”

“—excited by, or as free to be me with. Or as horny for—at all hours of the day and night.”

Hutch lightly laughed. “No, I don’t suppose you have.” He gazed into Starsky’s candlelit blue eyes, noticing the sheen over his face and his haired skin. Starsky was still dressed in just his shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, unbuttoned in front, but the rest of him nude.

“Do you think there’s anybody out there—man or woman,” Starsky continued, “that could give me anything more or anything better in sex than you have and do?”

“Maybe you haven’t discovered all your … desires yet.”

“Do you think I wouldn’t have by now?”

“Maybe not.”

“Do you think, if I found a new one, that I couldn’t tell you about it?”

“I think you’d tell me.”

“Do you think I’d go to somebody else—or some other guy—if you didn’t give that particular thing to me?”

“No.” And Hutch knew that because he’d given Starsky permission to have a sex surrogate while they waited for Hutch’s blood tests, and even tried to get him laid with a pretty young woman the day of their picnic, and neither had worked. Couple that with the fact that Starsky was sex-starved during those times, too, and yet he didn’t take the bait when it was offered to him. “No,” Hutch said, “I don’t think you’d go someplace else.”

He stroked Starsky’s cheek then to let him know how much he appreciated the resolutions. “I’ll stop being afraid you’ll find a better lover.”

“You’ll try anyway,” Starsky said. It was his effort to forgive Hutch for any mistakes he might make in the future, or ambitions he might yet fail. “If I was hurting, or I was lost or stranded on a desert island, or even a tropical one,” Starsky added with a snicker, “or if I was being held for ransom somewhere, you know, if I was in some kind of desperate strait, who do you think would be the person I’d most trust to save the day?”

Some questions were rhetorical.

“And if I needed somebody, really needed somebody, to help me work through a problem, a personal one, a family dilemma, a financial crisis, whatever, who do you think I’d go to first?”

Hutch expelled a sigh. Some questions didn’t need answers.

“And if I said to anybody, to anybody anywhere at any time, that there was this one person who I trusted and loved more than anybody else, who I loved more than life, more than my own life, who do you think I’d name in a situation like that, hm?”

“Yeah,” Hutch whispered. He knew. They both knew.

“I want you to think real hard now,” Starsky compelled him, squeezing Hutch’s fingers in his when Hutch’s gaze looked away, and brought it right back, “and tell me what you think might happen in this life of ours that would make me feel different about you, or that would give somebody else the Number One position in my life, or that could have the kind of qualities or the personality to make me rather spend my life with him or her, if I’m stacking that him or her up against you? And factor it all in, okay? The history we have. The sex we have. The trust and the love and the respect we have for each other.”

“Okay, Starsk,” Hutch said in a hushed voice. “Okay.”

“You know what we‘ve got here.”

“I do.”

“You know it doesn’t get better than this—unless it gets better with us.”

“I do.”

“Then work on living that way with me, not just knowing it, all right? When you start to doubt it, I want you to remember this night we had tonight, including the argument we had earlier about you saying I was eating linguini when you know it was spaghetti.”

Hutch lifted Starsky’s hand to his mouth and kissed his warm fingers. “I’ll remember the little things, not just the big ones,” he promised. He licked Starsky’s salty skin, sucked for a moment on Starsky’s still-oiled palm, and then hummed his own tune in that velvety voice of his. Then, for the sport of it, though mostly to exemplify the bond that cemented their lives, he said, “But I still say it was linguini.”

* * *

Starsky left the bed again that night and to where Hutch couldn’t guess. He heard Starsky go, felt him leave, waited for his return, but he dozed off before Starsky joined him again. Hutch never heard a sound, except the quiet, soothing notes of the radio’s music. He woke minutes later to Starsky accidentally bumping the mattress, and was awakened further when Starsky snugged up against him, his nude body to the length of his own—and still more awake when he felt Starsky’s warm hand on his belly, resting there as it did, without touching his genital or caressing his skin.

“I have a question for you,” Starsky said. His voice was softer than usual, maybe even timid in its delivery.

“Ask me anything,” Hutch encouraged him. He felt Starsky’s hand leave his belly, but the presence of something light and small remained against him. He opened his eyes, tucked his chin, and discovered the tiny black box resting on his navel, opened—and showcasing what appeared to be two white stone-studded gold bands. “What’s this?” he asked, picking up the box to examine it closer.

“I want to ask you something,” Starsky said.

The rings did shine and they were obviously gold and they were rimmed in small diamond-like stones. If they were real, they’d be outrageously expensive, costing more than either of them could afford to buy. So, when Hutch finally concluded he knew what he laid eyes on, particularly the sentimental symbolism of them, he shifted his attention to Starsky. “You want to marry me?”

“I would if I could,” Starsky said. The blue in his eyes was deeper then, or so they appeared to Hutch. “But we can’t,” Starsky added regretfully, as if Hutch wasn’t aware of that rule. “It’ll probably never be legal,” he further lamented, “at least not in our lifetime, but that’s not the question I want to ask you.”

Hutch reexamined the rings and the way they gleamed in candlelight. “What do you want to ask me?” he eventually said when he sensed Starsky’s stall. Even then, he had to look back into Starsky’s eyes to get Starsky to answer him.

“Will you wear those with me?” Starsky asked. “You wear one and I wear the other, I mean. And we decide how they matter to us.”

“Okay.”

“So, for me,” Starsky began, a liquid shimmer emerging in his eyes as he rested his temple in his palm, and his voice quivered with emotion, “these mean we’re … we’re more than married. Married is something people have to put on paper before a judge, but these speak to you and me from you and me, and that don’t need no paper or no judge.”

“Okay,” Hutch said again, touched and suddenly emotional himself. That their word to each other superseded any court’s in the nation was enough to move him. He didn’t leave the exchange with Starsky’s eyes, nor his kind face, his soft words, his intentions. It’s what Starsky needed while he explained the meaningfulness of their figurative marital rings.

“When we put these on, we’re telling each other that no one else comes between us—ever. No woman, no man, no real estate, no criminal case, no nothing. Know what I mean? These say what no words can say: that we belong to each other. Forever. In full circle. Just like the ring is: a full circle.”

“Okay,” Hutch replied, acceptingly. He could tell Starsky struggled with the right words, the poetic ones that would express his deep and abiding love, his willing sacrifices and his still-unlived dreams, his forever wants and all-consuming desires. “Okay,” he repeated, tousling Starsky’s already mussed hair. “I’m with you, darling, for every step of every mile we walk together into the rest of our lives.”

“People can think we’re married,” Starsky decided, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Maybe that’ll keep us from having to lie or explain anything to anyone. If someone asks, we say we’re married; we just don’t have to say to who.”

“We could give each other a woman’s code name,” Hutch playfully suggested.

Starsky laughed, seemingly despite himself. “Kendra for you,” he said, “but what for me?”

Hutch hadn’t been serious, so he didn’t answer. He admired the rings again, then lifted the slightly larger one from its anchoring nick in the box. “I assume this one is mine.”

“I got the measurement off one of the rings in your drawer,” Starsky admitted, “the one I thought was your old wedding ring, so I hope it fits.” He sat up, took the ring from Hutch, and slid it partway onto Hutch’s ring finger for him. “With this ring,” he sang, “I thee…”

“Amalgamate.”

“Sounds kinky,” Starsky said with a laugh. “Didn’t we already do that?”

“In some way, yes, we did. A couple of times.”

“Well, anyway, with this ring, I thee … unite us.”

“As I said.”

Starsky pushed the ring as far onto Hutch’s finger as it could physically go—which was all the way to its end. He gave Hutch the other ring and asked him to put it on his own finger for him. “That way you’re claiming me,” he explained, “the way I just claimed you.”

“With this ring,” Hutch said, sliding it onto Starsky’s, and thinking he just might cry, “I thee … forever adore. Defend. Protect. Serve. Let no man put asunder.”

“Put us under what?”

“Put asunder,” Hutch said, enunciating the words and leaving behind his emotionalism to laugh at Starsky’s purity of heart. “It means … let no man tear us apart.”

“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place? Still trying to impress me with your big vocabulary, hm?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” He ruffled Starsky’s hair again. “Look at you go,” he said, returning to his emotional comfort as he reflected over their day and night, “surpassing me in the romantic department.”

“I needed to prove to you how much I love you and that no man can … put us … asunder.”

Hutch smiled at him. “You didn’t have to prove anything. I said that before.”

“I wanted to. It’s important to me that I did—because, in the end, I think it’s important to you, even more than you’ll admit to yourself.”

Starsky may have been right about that.

“So this proves it?” Hutch asked, hoping to settle the matter. “We’re ‘united’ now in a non-married married kind of way?”

“Well, the unification doesn’t prove it,” Starsky explained. “Those are just words.” He lightly caressed Hutch’s skin, over his chest and belly, while he spoke, sounding almost mischievous.

“The unification? Is that your way of trying to keep up with my impressive vocabulary?”

“Maybe.”

“I think I’m missing a piece of the puzzle then,” Hutch said. Something felt off, anyway. Or half-finished. “You said you proved to me what I’m telling you you don’t have to prove, but the ‘unification’ isn’t the proof?”

“Well, I mean, these rings are made out of pure gold. 24 karat, in fact. And those are real diamonds, too. I had to make them special.”

“Right,” Hutch said, dryly, but not unkindly, “you bought two pure gold, diamond-studded rings.”

“Yeah.”

“With whose money?”

Hutch naturally didn’t believe him. He’d quite recently told Starsky that they were running low on Uncle Ted’s money; even so, Starsky didn’t have access to Hutch’s bank account. He gave Starsky a firm look, to force him into telling the truth and to stop playing around.

“Whose money?” Starsky asked. “My money, numb nuts. I have money. How do you figure I paid for that dinner?”

“How did you pay for that dinner?”

“You saw how. Cash.”

“And you paid cash for these, too?”

“Every dollar. I told you I was going to prove to you that you mean more to me than anything.”

“Starsky … you don’t have this kind of money.” It wasn’t that Hutch didn’t appreciate the beauty of the rings—or especially Starsky’s well-planned effort and ultimate intention—but neither of them made good money in the scheme of things, certainly not enough for these kinds of indulgences. Granted, they owned two houses on a ten-acre piece of real estate, rooted as they were into the ground, but other than those, and…

“What have you done, Starsk?”

“Whatever I’ve done, it’s done.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

Starsky flashed him an abashed smile, but didn’t answer otherwise.

Starsky had few possessions; of those, none were worth their weight in gold and diamonds. Well, there was that one thing.

“Starsky.”

“I didn’t get a chance to trade Grace for you,” Starsky explained. A wetness suddenly rimmed his eyes. Whether it was because he missed Grace, or felt guilty for ever having decided he’d have made such a trade, or just because the moment between himself and Hutch right then brought on his deeper feelings of love and loyalty, Hutch couldn’t know. He was preoccupied by what his suspicions told him and even more afraid to see them come to fruition. A second later, he realized he was wrong about that, too: they’d driven Starsky’s car to and from the restaurant. It was still in Starsky’s possession. So what on earth had he sold or traded for these beautiful diamond rings?

“Did you sell Grace’s wedding ring?” Hutch asked him. He felt flushed to think Starsky would have done such a thing.

“No,” Starsky said. “Besides, what would that prove anyway? The rings—her wedding one and her engagement one—were her prized possessions, not mine.”

“Where did you get the money?” Hutch demanded to know.

“Davis lent me it to me,” Starsky explained, wiping tears from his eyes and laughing at his silly sentimentality, until he found the words to clarify. “That’s what he and I were in cahoots over. He lent me the money so I could order the rings and get them before our window of celebratition or celebritizing—our window of no touch, no sex—”

“You mean, our celibacy.”

“—closed. Then I had to meet up with him after I got the money to pay him back.”

“Which puts me at Square One again: what did you sell to get the money to pay him what you owed him?”

“My car.”

Hutch was stunned at the same time he didn’t know what to believe. No dream, this. He could feel the warmth of his partner’s body alongside his, snug and pressed to him as if they’d never part. He could see the shimmer in Starsky’s eyes and the apparent emotionalism on his face. There were obviously gold diamond rings on their fingers. But he also knew they’d driven the car home that night. “What are you telling me?”

“I sold my car, that’s what I’m telling you. The guy picks it up this weekend.”

“Starsky.”

Starsky rolled over to his nightstand, opened its drawer, returned to lie at Hutch’s side with a couple of small papers in his hand. He held them up for Hutch to see—one was apparently a receipt and the other was obviously the pink slip to an automobile. But Hutch couldn’t take Starsky’s word for it, not in that instance, not over something as profound as what his gut told him must be true, especially given Starsky’s emotional demeanor and the seriousness of his voice.

Hutch grabbed the slip from Starsky’s fingers and tilted it toward a nearby candle. Sure enough, in neat handwriting, that Ford Gran Torino had been legally relinquished to someone named Anthony Klass, along with his address—and signed off by one David Michael Starsky, a signature Hutch knew as well as his own.

“I told the guy I had this date planned and wanted to use the car until then,” Starsky said, squeezing Hutch close to him, “and that he could buy it now and pick it up after. He was cool with that because he was dealing with a homicide detective carrying a badge—that’d be me—and a Special Agent for Internal Affairs—that’d be Davis. So the guy trusted us. And I talked you into driving your truck to the cabin so Davis could show the car for me while we were gone. Had to get him the keys and all that, so we did more sneaking around.” He said what he did proudly, smugly, to explain the terms of the sale agreement and why the buyer had accepted them, as well as how Davis had played a role. “Anyway,” Starsky said, “I had a little money left over after I got the rings, so I bought us a really nice dinner. You liked it. I know you did.”

Starsky was a blur behind Hutch’s wet eyes. ‘Like’ was such an understatement. The entire evening had been nothing but magical, and sexual, and romantic. Starsky didn’t owe him anything. He didn’t have to prove anything. Yes, Hutch had been insecure and stupid and jealous, but it never warranted Starsky’s parting with his most highly prized possession.

“You’re my most highly prized possession,” Starsky said, reading Hutch’s mind. It wasn’t the first time he’d said that to Hutch, but it seemed more fitting then. He gripped Hutch’s chin in his fingers and turned Hutch’s face toward his so they looked into each other’s eyes again. “I had no other way to tell you what you mean to me except to trade something you’ve known for years means a lot to me.”

“Starsky.”

“Do you believe how serious I am now about you and me?”

How could Hutch not believe him? “Yes,” he whispered. “I believe you’re serious.”

Starsky kissed Hutch on the mouth, a warm, affectionate, sweet kiss. “And yet you don’t know the half of it,” he promised.

Hutch stroked Starsky’s hair, his cheek, his lips, looked into his blue eyes. “No?”

“Trust me, pal,” Starsky said with conviction. “Not the half of it.”

* * *

EPILOGUE: THE ACQUITTAL

“The verb ‘collaborate’ means to cooperate or work jointly with others. The verb ‘corroborate’ means to strengthen, support, or confirm with evidence.”

Hutch woke that next morning to another unexpected gift: Starsky’s warm, wet, luscious lips kissing his face, his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his nipples, his belly, his penis—eventually ending in an orally induced ejaculation for him, previous sweat and all. It forced Hutch back into a lazy doze and he didn’t come to his senses until he smelled the aroma of a late breakfast—and what he thought must have been pancakes.

He still couldn’t believe Starsky had sold the Striped Tomato. If there was a way to back out of the deal, Hutch would make him take it. At the same time, it would probably break Starsky’s heart to undo what he’d done. He’d put so much time and effort into secretly selling the car, and he needed to make that statement for himself, not just for Hutch. To ask Starsky to forfeit his gesture would only deepen the loss in another way for them both. Or would it?

Hutch fondled the ring on his finger, admired it again, that time in the morning light. 24 karat gold. Small white diamonds around its circumference. That Starsky had snuck Hutch’s original wedding ring out of his drawer to make certain he got the right size. That he’d borrowed the money from Davis to purchase the jewelry so it would be ready should their lives resume in earnest, which they had. All that secrecy, sometimes having to fib about his whereabouts or his actions, something Hutch knew Starsky hated to do, right down to planning the dinner date. Clever boy, David Starsky.

Hutch allowed his mind to wander, too: piecing the puzzle together now that he had its end in hand. It explained why Starsky’s car had been moved in the parking lot when Starsky forced Hutch to spend an hour in the mall looking for a ‘meaningful’ present for his birthday—and why Starsky hadn’t entered a single word on that notepad for his book idea. Either Starsky had gone to see Davis during the time Hutch spent in the mall, or a prospective buyer had come to see the car and taken it for a test drive in the rain—or both those things happened. Where else could Starsky go without Hutch if he didn’t sneak around him or force him into a shopping center for a while?

Starsky had been on a mission those past two months to prove to Hutch how much he loved him, wanted only him, would sacrifice anything for him—and sometimes in ways that Starsky never planned to make known, such as ending his friendship with Adam.

Starsky spent those long, torturous days and nights while Hutch was in jail primarily at the jail with him. He had paid Matteo to make certain no one touched his partner while he was in lockup. And Starsky was in the courtroom during Hutch’s arraignment. He was there to pick him up after his release, too, and to take him home when Hutch was eventually let loose without bail. He then brought Hutch food that morning before their drive home—despite how angry at Hutch he’d been and still was at the time.

Starsky forgave Hutch for his embarrassing mistake, his unforgivable indiscretion, his permanent damage to their reputations and the inexcusable interruption of their lives. He also repeatedly apologized for his affection for Adam, something he never needed to do, but did—and he further swore he’d make up for his thoughtless caring for another human being, as if Hutch didn’t love Starsky for his big heart.

He made Hutch a ‘five-course meal’ afterward.

He confessed to trying to pay off Gillian to protect Hutch from the inevitable pain. Years before that, he was the reason Captain Dobey partnered them, and Starsky wanted that story told, too.

Starsky even suspended himself from the police force when Hutch was suspended.

He refused to entertain a sex surrogate in Hutch’s absence.

And he passively and submissively endured the brunt of Hutch’s jealousy and accusatory questions about his relationship with Adam—on the very day Starsky had ended his friendship with Adam, as well as suffered the heat over his secrecy with Davis.

Starsky talked Hutch into counseling sessions with Jade so Hutch could learn to control his fears.

He retook his own blood test to prove himself clean for their intimate relationship.

“Beautiful” and “gorgeous” were words Starsky used to describe his partner. He flattered Hutch in other ways, too—trusting Hutch to keep him safe from bears and lightning. And he continued to sleep in the same bed with Hutch night after night, despite that he was sexually frustrated and Hutch was untouchable.

Starsky had since come out to two women during a romantic picnic, subsequently to the local hardware store owner—and then to his very own brother—about his sexually private relationship with a man.

Starsky had even taken full responsibility before a court of law for Hutch’s actions in the bar that night.

And he did all those things—the big things and the smaller ones—while professing his undying love for Hutch, his implicit trust in Hutch, and his committed devotion to Hutch.

Starsky never wavered.

In fact, he rose above the call of duty.

The date itself: from its planning to its execution—the dinner with its live music, wine, candles, and flowers, to the set up in the bedroom, with its music, candles, and flowers. And the passionate, uninhibited sex: as if Starsky would never get enough of Hutch’s body, every inch of it. Nor could Starsky ever give more, try as he might, and try, he did.

But to sell his car? His car?

And that couldn’t possibly be pancakes Hutch could smell from the other room, could it?

There was only one way to find out. Without showering or brushing his teeth or even combing his hair, not even dressing, he got off the bed and wandered out of the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen entryway, where he stopped to behold the sight in front of him. Sure enough, Starsky was standing at the stove, flipping flapjacks.

“What the hell?” Hutch muttered. He saw that Starsky was dressed only in a cook’s apron, tied around his waist at his back, with his absolutely gorgeous and naked butt in full view.

Starsky looked over his shoulder at Hutch. “Hey, sleepy head,” he affectionately cooed. “Look what I’m doing.”

“Risking your dick’s life in front of a flame?”

Starsky turned to show the other side of him, covered as it was by the apron. “I’d never be that careless with the family jewels.”

The word reminded Hutch of the band of gold on his hand. “You’re making pancakes,” he said, giving Starsky the answer he sought while he twirled the ring on his finger. “I thought that was my job.”

“Your job,” Starsky insisted, resuming his cooking task, “is to let this thing finish playing out.”

“What thing?”

“This thing. The me and thee thing.”

“You’re making zero sense.”

“Just hold your damn horses,” Starsky said with frustration, trying again. “You can make pancakes for us after this, but I watched you enough times and wanted to try it, so I can give you special treats sometimes, too.”

“If you want to do me special sometimes,” Hutch replied, yawning, “well, just remember how you woke me up this morning, do that every morning, and consider it done.”

Starsky giggled. “Your dick was already hard when I opened my eyes. Musta been my presence.”

“No doubt.”

In fact, there was no doubt in Hutch’s mind that his arousal, conscious or otherwise, was due to Starsky. “What do we have planned today?” he asked, scratching himself. “I’m guessing I don’t have time for a shower right now.”

“We can do one together after we eat,” Starsky suggested. He flipped a couple of pancakes. “But breakfast’s almost ready, so quit chomping at the bit. And, to answer your question, we should start writing that book we’re thinking of; we could begin today.”

“We’ve already started it,” Hutch reminded him. “We’ve been making notes or have you forgotten already?”

“I’m talking about actually writing it now.”

“I see.”

Hutch was about to sit at a stool to wait for breakfast, but imagined its cold hard surface on his naked buttocks, and quickly decided against it. Maybe he’d wait on the soft sofa cushions instead.

“And we might be able to solve that Newton House murder,” Starsky said. He turned another pancake on the stove, and clarified. “I was thinking … we should check into whether anyone complained about an abandoned car on the streets, you know?”

That notion piqued Hutch’s interest and completely woke him out of his sleepiness. It was a grand idea. “Or one that may have been towed from a time-out parking zone,” he chimed in.

“Or that got ticketed by a street sweeper.”

All good ideas. Maybe they would solve that case, after all.

Hutch stretched and caught sight of Starsky’s sports car model on the coffee table. Upon reflection, maybe Starsky had chosen a car to build because he had been in the middle of selling one. No sex surrogate for him, but possibly a car proxy. “Are you done with this thing yet?” He wandered into the living room to have a closer look at Starsky’s progress, but couldn’t tell from the mishmash where it was—except to notice all the parts scattered on the table that yet needed to be glued.

“Almost,” Starsky said behind him from the kitchen. “Did you want me to move it so we can eat in there?”

“No,” Hutch replied, mumbling, half-interested in the conversation when he spied the large, manila envelope, the one containing his blood test results, lying where he’d left it the day before. “But maybe you could finish it sooner than later, huh?” His voice trailed off when he picked up the envelope—because his mind had gone from thoughts of tidying a house to his health records. To hear about the negative results was one thing; to see them in black-and-white print would be another.

When he turned the envelope over to open it, he had to feel along the edge of the flap for that slight unglued lip he was certain was there, only to find none. So he angled the envelope in the light for a much closer look at the seal.

The envelope had never been opened.

His blood immediately drained to his feet and dread washed over him. Confused, stunned, concerned, he abruptly looked up and over into the kitchen—to find Starsky facing and staring back at him, appearing chagrined and apologetic at once.

Hutch’s heart pounded. He broke a sweat. “You never opened this,” he said, knowing that fact in his veins before the words left his mouth.

“I never said I did.”

“But you said …”

“That we had a clean slate, that we were starting over.”

“Without knowing these results …?” Hutch felt weak in the knees. Tears blurred his vision.

“I didn’t need to know them to start over,” Starsky explained. He never moved from his position at the stove, either. “I decided—and I told you this a few times—that whatever happens to you happens to me.”

“Starsk.”

Hutch realized in that instance that even the fight between them the previous afternoon, the one that forced Hutch out of the house and into that hour-long walk on the county road, had been part of Starsky’s plan. Starsky had bought the car model so he could be busy every afternoon when the mail was delivered. Hutch had unknowingly become the one to fetch it. And Starsky had pretended to be disinterested in the results of the blood tests when they arrived so he could put into play a highly charged sexual, saliva-exchanging, semen-eating experience later that night with his partner before those results could be known—to prove what Starsky felt needed proving, which was that Hutch and Hutch alone mattered most to him. He mattered the world to him. He mattered more than his own life.

But why not plan it differently? Why put them both through the angst of the past two months?

“Why didn’t you just …?”

“Go ahead and have sex with you,” Starsky said, finishing Hutch’s sentence, “and bypassed that whole testing thing?”

It was probably a rhetorical question, but Hutch couldn’t think all that clearly at that minute, so he waited for the answer.

“Because you already knew how dangerous that virus is,” Starsky explained, “and you’d have given me grief over you not being tested. Am I right about that?”

Of course he was.

Starsky had given Hutch the ultimate gift and Hutch was never more stunned in his life. Their past sacrifices had been performed in heats of unpredictable and thought-preventing moments. But what had Starsky knowingly done to himself in his pursuit to prove his loyalty and love for Hutch? His was an apparent sacrifice that he’d meticulously and determinedly planned, a private mission so elaborate and sincere that Hutch could never question him again.

“What do they call that?” Starsky asked. “When you’re presented with all the exhibits in a courtroom? Cooperating evidence?”

“Corroborating evidence,” Hutch replied, his voice breaking on every syllable as he tried to hold his shock at bay and his reeling mind intact. The envelope slipped from his fingers to the floor. What a fool he’d been to think, even for a split second, that Starsky ever wanted anyone more than he wanted Hutch.

“Right. Corroborating evidence,” Starsky pretended to remember. “So, do you think you have enough of that now to believe—beyond a reasonable doubt—how I feel about this little matter of me and thee? Or do you need more proof?”

“Starsky.”

“What I’ve done is done. Get over it.”

Maybe the deadly virus wasn’t as deadly as Starsky had made him believe. Or that he’d read in the newspapers.

“When did you hatch this plan?” he asked, barely finding his ability to speak.

“That night after I got my test results back,” Starsky confessed. “I knew I was clean and that I didn’t need to know if you were. I thought letting Adam go would do the trick, but that got undone. So I decided to sell the car, but it just wasn’t enough of a statement, you know? You could argue that it was getting old and I just wanted a new one. But when I got my test results back, well, that’s when I knew what I’d do; and that’s when I knew how much I love you. All that was left was for me to prove it to you.”

His plan had been set in motion long after the warnings Hutch had gotten about the possibility of his infecting Starsky—and that’s why Starsky didn’t let Hutch shake Matteo’s hand; Starsky didn’t know if Hutch was contagious.

“I almost blew it once,” Starsky admitted, laughing at himself. “I only packed one wine glass for our picnic, remember? I wasn’t thinking then because, for me, I was over it and ready to party with you, even though the deadline wasn’t up. Thank god them girls distracted us so I didn’t have to explain to you why I’d been so absent-minded.”

He came around the kitchen counter to the living room with a plate in his hand, walked up to Hutch, and hugged him by the neck in the bend of his elbow. “So, I’ll say it again,” he swore, masculine, sexy, male voice, “and I do believe I just proved it: what happens to you happens to me.” He kissed Hutch on the mouth, too quickly for Hutch to shake his bewilderment and return the affection, and then shoved the plate of pancakes against Hutch’s naked chest.

“Eat these,” Starsky said, “and let’s decide yours are better, so I don’t ever have to make them again, because I’m no cook.”

The pancakes themselves had been a ploy: to give Starsky something to do in the kitchen that morning while Hutch was forced into his own vices—to discover the unopened envelope by himself.

He’d unwittingly fallen into Starsky’s traps—and there had been a number of them set over the past month.

Starsky picked the envelope up off the floor on his return to the kitchen. “C’mon,” he said cheerfully as he left, “let’s have breakfast in here together. Everything’s hot and ready to eat.”

When Hutch found his legs and followed, he saw Starsky toss the envelope onto the counter where he had earlier set syrup and margarine, forks and knives, napkins and juice glasses. He then lay a dish towel over the seat on one of the stools.

“Sit your fine ass down on this one,” Starsky said, positioning the stool closer to Hutch. He afterward brought coffee and an orange juice pitcher to the counter, and went back to the stove for his own plate of pancakes, whistling while he got them.

Paralysis gave way to Hutch’s angry curiosity. He was no longer patient. Nor helpless. He slid his plate onto the counter to free his hands, and then picked up the envelope, determinedly tore open the seal, and removed the papers from inside. He quickly scanned them, once and then again more thoroughly.

Starsky came around the counter, set his own plate on its surface, and leaned into Hutch’s shoulder to peer with him at the documents in Hutch’s hands. “What’s it say?” he asked.

“As if you ever cared to know,” Hutch mockingly scolded him, seeing nothing, together with Starsky, except the ‘negative/non-detectable’ readings in the appropriate columns on each of the three pages. The item that most drew their attention, the one in question all along, was Lymphadenopathy-Associated Virus, or LAV, for short (what would later become known as HIV), and its result was clearly: ‘negative/non-detectable.’

Starsky slapped Hutch’s naked butt. “Well, there you go,” he said, sitting at the counter and pulling the syrup bottle over to himself, no more or less carefree than he’d been a minute before learning the result. “Imagine. All that angst for nothing.”

Hutch set the envelope aside, sat on the towel-covered stool, and stared blankly at the pancakes in front of him. His mind still reeled.

“So is this blood test result exculpatory or inculpatory evidence, do you think?” Starsky asked him, nudging Hutch’s knee with his own.

“On whose behalf?”

“Mine,” Starsky replied. “I’ve been the defendant all along, haven’t I? the one accused of all-talk, no-action when it comes to you?”

These actions spoke volumes.

“Exculpatory,” Hutch told him, still overwhelmed by what Starsky had put into play over the last thirty days; he couldn’t eat his pancakes, let alone think straight. “But it’s not the blood test that exonerates you. It’s that you did what you did with me last night not knowing the results.”

“Right,” Starsky said smugly, his mouth filled with food, “but I mean … I’m acquitted of all wrongdoing now, right?”

“Right,” Hutch submissively mumbled. He was reluctant to agree because it implied he thought Starsky had been guilty of any crime, which he hadn’t been. “You’re a free man.” Hutch’s eyes filled with tears as the realization of Starsky’s successful mission to prove his love and devotion to Hutch flooded him again.

“Hey,” Starsky said to get Hutch’s attention on him.

Hutch shifted his eyes into Starsky’s; such loyalty and respect shone in them. How had Hutch ever come to doubt his partner’s silent words or misread his actions?

“You’re a free man, too,” Starsky said. “For the rest of your life, you don’t have to carry around all that worry and jealousy anymore.”

“That I don’t,” Hutch gratefully said. He stood off his stool, took Starsky in his arms right there at the breakfast counter, he in the nude, and Starsky likewise and in a stupid apron. “That I don’t, buddy boy,” Hutch tenderly repeated. “No more worry. No more jealousy. I regret with all my heart that I ever gave those things the time of day and caused you even a twinge of concern. Forgive me.”

He hugged Starsky with all his muscle might and felt the strength returned to him.

“Forgive me,” Starsky pleaded with him.

“I would if there was reason to. You were innocent.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So … you want me?” Starsky coyly asked, using his sultry voice in Hutch’s ear, and obviously quoting Hutch from weeks earlier. “You want, need, respect, trust, love the hell out of me, do ya, hm, do ya?”

“Like a motherfucker,” Hutch replied, laughing, and squeezing Starsky tighter still. “Oh, boy, like a motherfucker.”

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Next: Book Six From Dandelion Series 1: Two Pigs