Horny (A Haunted Blender Tale)

Caution: The following details may be considered spoilerish. Click on a label to reveal its content.

Length: Novella (15k to 45K words)

Heat Wave: 5 - Very explicit love scenes

Erotic Frequency: 4 - Fairly frequent

Genre: comedy, romance, urban fantasy / paranormal

Gender: cisgender

Orientation: gay

Pairing: male/male

Age: 20s, centuries old / immortal

Ending: happily ever after

Tone: humorous

Themes: commitment, interspecies, self-discovery / self-reflection

Kinks: barebacking, biting, bondage, power exchange, rimming / anilingus, sex in shifted form

Era: contemporary

Settings: alternate dimension, bar / club

Careers: bartender, blue collar, business owner, law enforcement

Species: god / deity, shifter

Chapter 1

The reinvention of Caulfield’s Roadhouse was working.

So far.

I deserve a beer.

Ryan left his office off the kitchen, not in a hurry like he usually was when the place was full of customers, but at a wander. Shadowed and sleeping right now, with a single light on behind the antique bar top, the roadhouse was peaceful. Cozy, in spite of being large enough for a few hundred customers. Fifteen years ago when Grandpa had modernized, Ryan had insisted he keep the exposed timber beams. The wood dance floor he now stood on was original too, but no one did the two-step on it with their best gal anymore. There was some serious bump and grind on weekends though, and Caulfield’s was the “it” bachelorette party destination for hundreds of miles.

Ryan wasn’t naturally inclined to taking risks, so when he’d begun to rebrand the family tavern, he’d had to firmly (and metaphorically) take his balls in hand. He’d done so—the remaking of the bar, not the testicle holding—with his grandfather’s blessing, which seemed only polite, since Grandpa had founded the place. After decades of profitability, the livers of their loyal but aging customers weren’t up to the task of keeping the place afloat anymore. When Grandpa had retired to Florida seven months ago, the last of their original customers had left the bar also.

If he wanted to continue the family business, he had to find new customers, and the way he saw it, Caulfield’s could fill a formerly unrecognized niche. There wasn’t a town with a population over seven thousand within a sixty-mile radius, but there were plenty of people. It was rich farmland, some of the best. Some of those farmers had to be gay, right? Or at least not homophobic. And those people had to be looking for a place to congregate. Not exactly a gay bar, but a gayesque bar. Ryan worked tirelessly to make sure that place was Caulfield’s.

He wasn’t ready to swear he’d never have cash-flow issues again, but he’d made enough the past few months to make his payments to his grandfather. He even had enough left over to feed himself.

I rebuilt the family business.

He wound his way through the tables and the forest of upended chairs on top of them, intent on getting his celebratory beer. The view of the dance floor from behind the tap was nearly as pleasing as seeing the rest of the place from the center of it. He smiled at it, but the smile slipped off his lips when he noticed he’d forgotten to turn off some of the new special-effects lighting. Except . . . It was looking misty out there. Thick mist. Smoky.

I didn’t install a fog machine.

Fire. He stopped the flow of beer into his glass automatically, staring out at the swirling smoke. Thank God he’d retrofitted a sprinkler system.

Don’t get ahead of yourself.

Walking a few steps left, still holding his pint, he tried to see from a different angle. The haze was increasing, and he knew for damn sure he didn’t have lights that deep shade of red. Strobe lights, black light, pink, purple, green, and blue. That was it. He quick-timed around the bar toward the . . . whatever it was, watching the scarlet smoke get thicker and brighter, boiling out of, well, somewhere.

I should get the phone. Call nine-one-one.

He froze before he could turn to find it, brought up short when he saw a silhouette in the middle of the blood red cloud. Then another, and another. Four altogether.

More alarming, the silhouettes didn’t look quite . . . right. The one in front looked human, but hugely, beefily so, like a caricature of a circus strongman, with bulging biceps and shoulders that made Ryan think of toting barges and lifting bales, all resting on top of cartoonishly slim hips.

What the . . .?

The circus strongman moved, stepping toward him. Ryan lost his breath when he saw a shadow of something swinging beside the man-creature, but within seconds, as the figure came closer to the light, he figured out it wasn’t a forked tail or whatever but . . . a swordhilt?

Definitely need to call nine-one-one.

His body wasn’t responding. It wasn’t getting as alarmed as his brain was trying to convince it to be. Even after blinking a half dozen times, he hadn’t moved, simply continued to stare at the guy. Probably a guy. A guy with leather strips for a skirt and a shiny breastplate and armor strapped to his shins and—

A warrior? On my dance floor?

Planting his feet wide, the strongman halted and placed his hand on his sword hilt. “Ryan Caulfield?” The booming, amplified quality of the voice was punctuated by shattering glass. Then cool liquid seeped through the canvas of Ryan’s shoes and he realized he’d dropped his pint on the floor.

Apparently that was enough of a response for the guy to continue, still in that projected voice. “I’m Achilles, son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, and of Thetis, nymph of Olympus,” he intoned formally. “I’ve descended on your drinking establishment with my team of satyroi from the Immortal Moral Authority in order to beg for your assistance in completing our mission.” Then he grinned, shifting from a rigid stance to a relaxed, hip-out one. “You can call me Axe,” he said in a normal, non-echoing voice so at odds with his anatomy that it sounded like he’d inhaled helium. “Easier not to get overwhelmed by my greatness that way. We need your help, barkeep.” He beamed at Ryan like he’d just delivered a giant Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes check.

“I don’t . . .” Ryan shook his head. “Help?” He glanced down at the beer pooling at his feet. If only he’d had even a sip, he could blame this whole hallucination on that. But he hadn’t. And he somehow knew this was really happening, in spite of also being certain it was impossible.

“Maybe we could help you, first. Do you have a mop?” Another figure stepped up behind the warrior. Tripped up, actually, on goat’s hooves. And goat legs. And fucking ram’s horns curling back and around his head until they touched his ears. “I can get that for you.” He pointed at Ryan’s feet, smiling a very human—and attractively boyish—smile. In spite of himself, Ryan noticed the . . . goat-type creature was bare-chested and it was worth looking at.

But still. “Uh . . .” These things had broken in here to clean? He couldn’t get enough air to ask, was breathing too fast and too shallowly.

“Probably in back, huh?” the goat-boy asked. But he wasn’t speaking to Ryan, he was looking over his shoulder at a guy coming up behind him. A twink so mind-blowingly beautiful his pores radiated the promise of an incomparable sexual experience. So much so that even under the circumstances Ryan might be tempted, if he still did casual hookups. And, you know, wasn’t freaking out. Quietly, on the inside. Well, and the wheezing.

“I’m sure,” the twink replied to goat-boy, then smiled and batted his lashes in Ryan’s direction. “Well, hellooo there.”

“Ignore him,” Achilles—Achilles? Really?—said to Ryan, pushing the twink toward the kitchen. “He’s descended from an infamous whore. He’ll proposition anything with breath and a reasonable facsimile of a phallus.”

The twink snorted but didn’t object, just walked in the direction he’d been propelled, while goat-boy started toward Ryan.

Wait, they were in his bar, and they were acting like they owned the place, mopping and shit, and— “What in the hell is going on?” burst out of Ryan. “What are you?”

They all froze. The fourth figure was visible only as a shadow, even standing in the light as it appeared to be now, staring at Ryan with inhumanly large and softly glowing eyes. They were his only clue that the dark blob on top of the figure was a face. “That didn’t take as long as usual, Supreme Commander,” she said. Well, it sounded like a she.

“Stop calling me that,” the warrior barked.

She smirked, the shadows that seemed to caress her skin parting to show pointy teeth glowing from the middle of the blackness. “Since you asked, human, I’m a nymph. Specifically one of a class called lampadé, from the Underworld. My name’s Idra.” She held out her arm, and Ryan thought she wanted to shake until a small ball of light appeared on her palm—one that the writhing shadows enshrouding her simply swallowed up.

“Neat trick, huh?”

How does that not burn? She dropped her hand, and it all fell away, the shadows and the spooky eyes. She suddenly became a tough but pretty soldier, with short dark hair and armor similar to Achilles’s but more modern-looking. She looked like a million women he’d served in the bar. Human women.

When Ryan’s ass hit the floor, he realized he’d fallen. Next thing he knew, hands and arms were pulling him up. Human hands and arms, even if bulging with a bit more muscle than he was used to. Then, as someone slid a chair under his butt, Ryan caught a glimpse of a hairy, flickering goat’s tail, and he squeezed his eyes shut, doubled over his thighs, and concentrated on breathing.

***

Eventually Ryan calmed down enough to begin taking in information about his . . . visitors. They were talking. About him. Standing around him in a circle, judging by where the voices came from, while he hid his head between his legs.

“—could check out the other bar in town,” the twink, or possibly goat-boy, was saying.

“No,” Axe barked. “Our informant said he got whatever it is that breaks the curse at this one. Plus there’s the oracular—”

“Hellooo?” Ryan would put money on that being the twink’s voice. “We all read the mission briefing. We know.”

What had to be this place? What had they said? That they needed his help?

“We can still check out the other bar,” Idra’s voice said soothingly. “Apollo said he got it here, but how reliable is he anyway?”

Apollo?

“He does drink a bit much,” a voice said, definitely goat-boy’s. “Even for an elder god.”

“I’m the freaking supreme commander,” Axe snapped. “And I say we investigate everywhere, but we use this place as our headquarters for surveilling Zeus. That’s final.”

Zeus? Ryan popped up, making the goat-boy flinch back from where he stood in front of him. “Zeus? The god? He’s real?”

“Oh, he’s very real,” the twink said with relish, winking. Then he added in a stage whisper, “And he’s got a really small dick.”

“Shut it, catamite,” Axe barked. “No one cares.”

“Um, I care,” goat-boy said, raising his hand. “Penis size is always important.”

Axe grumbled something that sounded like “fucking faun,” then hooked another chair with his ankle and pulled it toward Ryan, settling into it with grunting sigh. He sat at an angle, not facing him, which was considerate, since the warrior was intimidating.

I’m not scared. Very, very disoriented. And startled. Possibly awed. Just not scared. His gut was telling him he didn’t need to fear these beings, and his gut was always right about things like this. Besides, so far they’d mostly just offered to mop. “What—” He had to pause for more breath. “What are you again?”

“Well,” Axe said. “It’s a wee bit complicated.” Stroking his chin, he nodded thoughtfully. “I’m what they call a hero in Olympus—half-mortal and half-god—and they’re other types of demigods.” He waved a negligent hand around them at the other figures. “Though we aren’t deities, for fuck’s sake. Just a different species. The elder Olympians used to get off on people worshiping them, and the legends grew. It’s all bullshit. We didn’t create humans, and while we live a long time, we aren’t immortal, we just get called that. And the whole god thing stuck, leading us to where we are today. Specifically, we’re a unit of satyroi.”

Goat-boy crossed his arms over his chest and raised his brows at Ryan. “In spite of the name,” he said. “We aren’t satyrs. It’s just the term the Olympians use for officers of pantheonic law.”

“Keep it to yourself,” Axe said in a bored tone.

“Officers?” Ryan parroted. “Like, police officers?”

“Eh,” Axe grunted. “Close enough.”

“For, like, gods?” Wait, did he really believe this? He caught one more glimpse of the ram’s horns and the belief was shaking through him, like a minor earthquake.

“Yes,” Idra said. “But despite satyroi being a masculine word, we’re not all male.” Narrowing her eyes, she looked at Axe like she was contemplating cutting the bitch.

“It’s the language.” Axe threw up his hand. “You can’t just arbitrarily make it a feminine noun. Greek is thousands of years old and I’m supposed to fuck with that?” He fell back into his chair. “Anything else, or can I get on with this?”

She rolled her eyes. Axe zeroed in on Ryan again, compelling him to lean forward in order to hear what the warrior had to say next. “We’re from Mount Olympus,” he said, gesturing into midair. “Totally different plane of existence. The Greek myths you read in school? They’re real. Some of ’em, at least.” He pointed at some imaginary foe with a frown. “But that fucking Homer really screwed me with his Iliad. Don’t believe anything he wrote. Oh, and we don’t actually have a mountain. Flat as a pita, Olympus is.”

“Myths?” Ryan blinked a few times. “But most of them were about, uh—”

“Zeus not being able to keep it in his pants?” Idra asked. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened.”

“Isn’t Zeus, like, your leader?”

“Oh honey, no,” the twink said. “He used to be, but now he’s one of those deposed and disgraced has-beens, moaning about what he lost. He reminds me a lot of Donald Trump, except he doesn’t even have a reality show.”

“So, you’ve heard of him?” goat-boy asked.

“Donald Trump?” Ryan’s hand crept down to where his apron pocket should be, fingers eager for something to fidget with, but he’d taken it off. It upped his anxiety more than he liked, especially with all these . . . beings staring at him. “I’ve seen his hair.”

“Zeus,” Axe corrected. “He’s under morality sanctions for past misconduct, as most of the older Olympians are, and we earn our keep by chasing them down when they find a way around them.”

“Morality sanctions?” Ryan repeated.

The twink stepped forward. “What he’s saying is that the Immortal Moral Authority cursed the old codgers so they can’t get it up.” He gave Ryan the slow up and down from under his lashes. “I bet you don’t have a problem with your hydraulics, do you?”

Starting to feel a little more copacetic with his new reality—if delirious—Ryan answered the way he would any guy. Bluntly. Because he’d figured out it was easier on everyone that way. “I don’t do casual hookups, so unless you’re looking for more . . .” He did the trailing off thing to be polite, but he was pretty damn sure this kid wasn’t interested in ever getting serious.

“That’s a shame,” the twink said, crossing his arms over his chest and smiling, visually assessing him all over again. “I might have to see what I can do about changing your mind.”

Ryan laughed, because this guy was cute and he took rejection well, but mostly because he was suddenly positive he wasn’t in any danger. Not from this catamite or whatever he was—his flirting was more play than real—and not from these immortals or whatever they were. They’d burst in on him like this, rocked his world (not like that) and made his anxiety flare up, then confused the shit out of his reality, but something about them felt nonthreatening. He got feelings of safety and trustworthiness from them, like they were all drenched in eau de la sûreté.

It could all be some kind of supernatural smoke screen, Ryan’s alarmist self piped up, and it had a point. “Are you guys, like, casting a glamour on me to make me believe you?”

“We can’t do that,” goat-boy said quickly. “Not only is it illegal under our laws, but we all take binding oaths when we join the satyroi, and if we use any powers from our godhead to deceive a being from another plane for our own pleasure or gain, we’re put in lockdown. Instantly.” He snapped his fingers. “Paralyzed until another satyroi can take us into custody. Because, since the post-Christian pantheonic revolt in Olympus—”

“He doesn’t need a fucking history lesson,” Axe said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Just so you know,” the twink added, elbowing in front of his horned friend and leaning toward Ryan. “We can totally have relations with mortals, just not coerce them in any way with our powers.” He grinned as Axe rolled his eyes and shoved him back.

“Change and introduce yourselves.” Axe flicked his wrist at the others before leaning toward Ryan to say out of the side of his mouth, “We’ve figured out if we appear in our numinous forms right away, our hosts get over their disbelief faster.”

Numinous forms? Ryan swallowed, dug his fingernails into his denim-covered legs, and braced himself for whatever was about to happen.

What happened was they all became human, except for Idra, who already had. Goat-boy now looked like an early-twenty-something cute guy, and the twink became only hotter than average. He came forward to stand in front of Ryan’s chair. “I’m Ganymede the two hundred fifty-seventh, of the Catamites. Most people call me Gany, but you,” he purred, batting his lashes, “can call me whatever you want.”

“Give it up,” Axe said, hiking a thumb toward Ryan. “He’s not the type.”

“He’s not even bi?” Gany pouted. “I’m sick to Hades of the straight ones, Axe.”

“I’m totally gay,” Ryan blurted, because it suddenly mattered that they knew.

“He’s not a slut,” Axe explained.

Gany smirked, then stepped aside.

Apparently it was goat-boy’s turn to introduce himself, since he stepped up next. “I’m Kallisto of the Paniskoi, but everyone calls me Kal.”

Ryan bobbled his head in something he hoped passed for a greeting.

“We met earlier,” Idra smiled at him from the other side of Kal the former goat.

“I remember.” Ryan caught sight of Axe next to him, now in jeans and possessing biceps somewhat smaller than watermelons. More like cantaloupes.

Still huge. He should be terrified.

“Okay, that’s the show,” the warrior said, shoving himself out of his seat. “You got your reality all squared away, now? We need to get on with this. Are you going to help us?”

“Uh . . .” Ryan’s heart squeezed up tight for a split second, but he fought against his usual caution. “With what again, exactly?” Some piece of information in his head raised its hand, wanting to say something else, but he couldn’t pay attention right then, not over the excited rhythm of his pulse in his ears, as if it had decided to add a third contraction to each beat. Lub-dub-dub.

Axe sighed and folded his arms over his chest. “After Zeus fell from power, the pantheon outlawed taking advantage of humans through the use of our powers.” Axe’s teeth flashed quickly. “Anyone found to be in violation of the laws was cursed to make it impossible for them to have sexual relations. Capisce?”

“Uh, yeah.” Immortals spoke Hollywood mafia. Who knew? “So, Zeus, he’s taking advantage of humans?”

“Eh.” Axe seesawed his hand in the air. “More like providing something for himself and the other sanctioned Olympians to get it up. We keep finding them—”

“With boners!” Gany the twink said in delight, clapping once.

“I can explain this myself,” Axe announced loudly.

No one interrupted to tell him otherwise.

“Uh, that’s pretty much the gist of it,” the warrior finished after a second of silence.

“Is it drugs?”

Everyone stared at him, as if he’d set off a confoundment-bomb.

“Drugs?” Axe asked, face wrinkled up.

“Well, I mean, humans have drugs for men—and women, I guess—who can’t, um, sexually perform otherwise.”

His statement was met with blinking and knitted brows.

Which he supposed made sense—why would a society that could have anything it wanted by wishing for it need to develop drugs? Ryan held up his hands, as if they could help him frame an explanation. “Okay, for example, there’s a local drug company, Mammoth Pharma, and their main—actually, as far as I know, their only product is this erectile dysfunction medication, Priapa.”

“Priapa?” burst out of Kallisto, echoed quickly by the others, along with various physical reactions. Idra shoved her head forward toward Ryan, eyes and mouth going wide, and Axe hit himself in the forehead with his palm.

“So fucking obvious,” Gany said, rolling his eyes.

Ryan waited for someone to explain, but they kept muttering to themselves until he asked, “That means something to you?”

“Uh, yeah,” Axe said, sounding more like a teenaged human than an immortal “hero.” “Priapus? The god who sported permanent wood? Only one to violate more morality sanctions than the big Z? Ring a bell?”

“Um, you’re going to have to help me out here . . .”

Idra tilted her head toward Axe. “I don’t think they teach those myths in human schools, Supreme Commander.”

“Would you stop with that supreme commander shit?” Axe glared at her, but softened his expression when he turned to Ryan. “I s’pose they don’t. Kinda X-rated, a lot of them.”

“You think Zeus is getting drugs from Mammoth?”

Kal interrupted whatever answer Axe was about to give Ryan. “How will we know if it’s drugs? A curse breaker is easy to figure out, but drugs?”

“We’re gonna have to take this one back to the Moral Authority,” Axe said, shaking his head. “First we have to be sure that’s what’s going on, but they’ll have to figure that part out. So,” he addressed Ryan again. “You’ll help us, then.”

“Uhhh, how, exactly? I mean, I can’t tell you how to do a drug test or anything—”

“There are tests for these things?” Gany asked. “Is it multiple choice?”

“How would you score a test like that? Is there a hardness scale?” Kal said nearly on top of the catamite, continuing to gaze questioningly at Ryan even while Gany snickered.

“It’s beside the point right now,” Axe interrupted. “Are you going to help us or not?”

Ryan stared up at him, lacing his fingers together and chewing his lip. Deciding whether to go with his instinct or listen to his alarms. He might generally be risk-averse, but something in his blood surged at the thought of doing something like this. Being part of an investigation into an immoral immortal. That small, syncopated third beat urged him to step outside his usual box. The same feeling had pushed him into reinventing the bar, and look how that had turned out.

I’ll do it. He opened his mouth to say so, but “Why me again?” came out instead.

Axe tilted his head. “Whatever Zeus is using to break the curse, his customers are getting it from your bar.”

“What?” Ryan shot up. “Your obsolete cult leader is peddling erectile dysfunction cures here? Of course I’ll help you.” If someone was doing something illegal—even if it was only illegal in some alternate dimension, although clearly one with a justice system—in his bar, that trumped all his cautions about personal perils. I’d already decided they aren’t a threat to me. Not even the horny twink. And check it out: Ryan was barely breathing hard. Mostly exhilarated about what he’d just agreed to, the excitement twisting in his stomach was for once stronger than his internal caution sirens. Eager to tackle this problem.

“Are we late?” a whole new voice asked from behind him, a raspy one that sent a dark thrill down his spine and made the hairs on his arms stand up straight.

Alarm suddenly reared its head, drowning out Ryan’s triumph over taking a chance.

Axe beamed, moving toward the new visitors. “Ryan Caulfield, meet my husband, Patroclus, son of Menoetius.”

His heart clutched itself. It would be tragic if that voice belonged to Axe’s partner. Except not, the cautious part of himself piped up.

But, “Don’t worry, I’ll introduce myself,” the raspy one in question said, and relief flooded Ryan.

Then fear washed it down.

Five beats of his pulse to pull himself together before turning around was all he could afford to give himself. Amidst the telltale red smoke stood two more beings. One was a man—taller than Axe, but not cartoonish as Axe had seemed at first in his “numinous” form. Patroclus. The way Axe was entwined around him gave it away. Apparently that myth about Achilles having a male lover was true. Ryan might have spent a few minutes marveling over having a couple of famous, hot, built gay legends making out in his bar, except for two things: the warriors were totally wrapped up in each other, and Ryan couldn’t fight off the urge to turn his attention to the other newcomer. The one his gut was sending out all kinds of feels about, both good and bad.

Ryan was surprised to find out the being wasn’t watching him in turn, but why would this immortal care about a boring human? He stood smiling at Gany and Kal while they both spoke at the same time. Since the guy was preoccupied, Ryan took his time, studying him, trying to figure out what about him was so alluring.

Not only was the newcomer totally hot—bare-chested and tawny-haired, wearing perfectly fitting jeans—but the white wings just visible over his shoulder made it clear he wasn’t human. He had horns, too. Different than Kal’s, they curved forward from just behind the being’s hair, dipping down toward his forehead. Ryan wanted to stroke those bone-colored spikes to feel how smooth they were. This immortal wasn’t too brawny like Axe or even Patroclus, just larger than Ryan himself, with an air of confident command. Exactly what made Ryan melt inside.

Be very, very careful. He could easily let his attraction to this man—or whatever—get out of hand.

Then the new visitor looked up and caught Ryan’s eye with his golden gaze, and the cautions in Ryan’s system turned to warnings. Full-on alarms that buzzed through him, making him feel a little too alive, thank you very much. Too sensitized and aware of this one being, with the beautifully structured face. His cheeks and jaw were as strong and graceful as the architecture of a Renaissance cathedral. And, like Gany had in his “numinous” form, he exuded sexual appeal.

When the newcomer stepped between Kal and Gany, coming straight toward him, Ryan’s heart had a little fit of panic, trying to race away, except it had nowhere to go. It was held in place as firmly as the rest of him by the immortal who came his way, then stopped not two feet in front of him.

“Hi.” The satyroi smiled.

Ryan cleared his throat, but couldn’t think of a response.

The guy dipped his chin a second. “You must be Ryan?”

“Yeah.” It came out a bit high, but he got it said.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Leander, of the Eroté.” Then his warm fingers were curling around Ryan’s hand, still hanging slack next to Ryan’s hip, and pulling him forward another foot, not gripping him as if they were shaking, but just holding him there, smiling into his eyes.

“Nice to meet you, too. Um, what’s an eroté?” Ryan asked, fully aware he didn’t care, but simply wanted to be close to this ma—immortal a little longer. He forced himself to tug his hand out of the other’s grasp.

“A son of Eros.” Leander smiled lazily, not stepping back but keeping them within intimate distance of each other. Then he lowered his lashes, gaze flickering down Ryan’s body, but Ryan wasn’t amused by it as he had been with Gany. Instead it had the presumably intended effect of tuning him into this being’s sexual frequency. “In other words, I’m a love demigod, and all my skills are completely at your service.”

I’m in so much danger.

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