Intemperance IX - The Inner Circle

INTEMPERANCE IX

 

The Inner Circle

 

Alan Steiner

This book, like those before, remains dedicated to all of my patrons over at

Patreon, who supported me at a dollar a chapter (and sometimes more) as I composed the third through now eighth book of this series. You were my beta

testers, and your encouragement, feedback, and error reporting were

invaluable to me.

Intemperance VIII, Copyright © 2025 by Alan G. Steiner. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means

including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only

exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Alan Steiner

 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination

or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Alan Steiner

Email me at alsteiner237@gmail.com

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: June 2025

Amazon self-publishing

ISBN-9781708958305

Chapter 1

 

Cinco de Mayo

 

The Campus, outside of Atascadero, California

May 5, 2004

 

It was Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican holiday commemorating the Mexican army's victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Although it is not widely celebrated in Mexico, it has become popular in the United States as an occasion for festivities—drinking and Mexican food in particular. Jake Kingsley, the band Intemperance, and Celia Valdez and her band participated in these celebrations. The event served as a welcome break during their busy recording schedules and preparation work.

For this particular Wednesday all band activity came to a halt at 12:30 PM, when the normal lunchbreak occurred. The catering company, operating under special Cinco de Mayo directives, brought in a full taco and burrito bar complete with acres of chips and gallons of assorted salsas. Jake had brought in his own supplies that morning. There were four bottles of Patron tequila, two gallons of traditional margarita mix that Westin had concocted for the occasion, two blenders, twenty pounds of ice, and two cases of red Solo cups. As the food was served, the blenders began to whir and the Solo cups were filled one by one. At the soundboard, Jake had shut down all inputs and had set the computer to play his tune-list of more than three thousand songs randomly, like a radio station that only played music that Jake liked.

The celebration of an obscure Mexican battle included more than just the two bands and the sound people. Family members and close friends of the band were encouraged to attend the festivities as well. Jim the paramedic had already been present at the Campus as Matt was paying him good money to be there and on standby, but Kim Kowalski, the former pornographic star and current internet pornography queenpin left the house she shared with Matt, Coop, and Jim to join them, driving her Mercedes convertible from the hills of San Luis Obispo city to the outer edges of the grape growing region. Also coming in from San Luis Obispo was Meghan Wu, the former Kingsley nanny and current wife of Massa Wu, Celia Valdez-Kingsley’s violin player for her latest effort. Meghan was a first semester nursing student and was supposed to be in her clinical rotation at Baptist Hospital of San Luis Obispo that afternoon but, much to Massa’s surprise, she had burned one of the two sick days she was allowed per semester to attend, claiming to her clinical instructor that she was suffering from gastrointestinal distress, which, depending on how one looked at things, was technically true.

Meghan arrived in her Toyota Camry just past one o’clock that afternoon, parking in the main rehearsal building lot amid the other vehicles. It was a beautiful day on the central coast of California, particularly inland, with the temperature in the mid-seventies and a pleasant breeze blowing from the southwest. As such, she was wearing a sleeveless white blouse, a beige skirt that fell to just above her pretty knees, and a pair of Nike tennis shoes with ankle socks. She was an attractive young woman, not glamorous or sultry in any way, not provocative in the least, just plain old girl-next-door cute with her brunette hair, brown eyes, and a respectable pair of medium breasts that pushed out her top quite alluringly. She was much more attractive than her fragile self-esteem gave her credit for, an aspect that added considerable charm to her personality, particularly with males.

The door to the rehearsal studio had been left open and the sound of music and laughter could plainly be heard emitting in from it. She walked through the unguarded doorway and into the cavernous building. Inside, a drum set sat on a wooden platform near the center of the large main room. The drums belonged to Coop, the drummer for the world famous Intemperance, who was using the studio for workups on a new CD. The drums were currently inactive, though several people—Jake Kingsley, Laura Kingsley, Celia Valdez-Kingsley, and her own husband, Massa Wu—were sitting on the edge of it, their legs dangling down, plates of Mexican food balanced on their laps. In chairs on the floor facing the platform were Matt Tisdale, Charlie Myers, and Kim Kowalski, Matt’s live-in whatever she was. Elsewhere in the room were two large tables that had been set up with the food and drinks. The smell was of Mexican food and marijuana smoke, with the former just edging out the latter for dominance.

No one had realized she was there yet so she looked around further. Her eyes locked onto Tiffany Moreland, the ditzy, slutty soprano singer who had been hired to sing backup for Celia’s latest solo CD. She had not laid eyes upon the woman since the end of Jake’s Millennial Tour back in 2000 but had no trouble recognizing her. Her hair was currently dyed blond with pink highlights, done up in pigtails that, instead of making her look innocent had quite the opposite effect. She had on a pleated blue miniskirt with a matching top that showed more bare skin of her torso than Meghan’s bra showed of hers. Knee-length white boots completed the outfit. She looked like she was ready to start dancing on a pole at any moment. She sat on one of the stools near the microphone stands, her food on her lap, her legs casually apart and displaying the entire crotch of her blue panties. She was eating and talking to Sharon Archer, who was sitting on a stool right next to her.

She cast her eyes away from Tif, fighting down a wave of jealousy and annoyance that wanted to wash over her. She trusted her husband and he had assured her that he would not lay one finger on the sexy singer even if she begged him to. And Tif had been told by Jake himself—the ultimate Godfather of both projects when you came right down to it—that Massa was on the “do not suck” list. Massa had assured her that Tif would not dare profane the list and, strangely enough, Meghan believed him. She knew Tif well enough from her exposure to her over the course of the Millennial Tour to know that Tif followed any directions given to her to the letter. She had to. She was so dumb that if she did not have a set of clear and concise directives to live by she would have died in some weird accident years before.

Her eyes took in the rest of the room. There was Coop the drummer and Nerdly himself sitting on another set of stools over by the soundboard. Coop was in blue jean shorts and a tank top that showed off his tattoos. He was munching on a taco and talking at the same time, obviously trying to emphasize a point. Nerdly was wearing jeans and a button up white dress shirt with a pocket protector. He was looking politely at Coop through the thick glasses on his face, paying close attention to what the man had to say.

Over by the electric piano, which was just in front of the left front of the drum platform, in chairs of their own, were Liz and Little Stevie, Celia’s keyboardist and lead guitarist, respectively, although Massa had told her that Jake and Laura were the two who actually came up with the riffs, fills, and melodies the two of them played in any given tune. Both were extremely talented musicians but not composers. They needed someone else to come up with what they played. The two of them were in a sexual relationship with each other, again, according to Massa. This despite the fact that Liz, at 48 years of age, was old enough to be Stevie’s mother. Meghan was unoffended and non-judgmental about the two of them. To each their own, right? She and Massa’s relationship was judged enough by others—most particularly her mother and two aunts. The fact that she was extremely judgmental about Tif and her sexual practices did not even occur to her.

The two National Records guys who played drums and bass guitar for Celia were sitting together on the other side of the drum platform, a little further away than anyone else at the gathering. She had been told their names but could not remember them. Massa had told her that the two of them were excellent musicians capable of picking up any rhythm introduced to them in mere minutes, but they were mistrusted by the other musicians, assumed to be spies sent by National to keep an eye on their progress. For this reason, no one socialized with them when they weren’t actually in the process of making music. The rest of the group assumed that they sat apart from everyone else because they felt guilty about being spies and/or were afraid of breaking their cover in casual conversation. Meghan, who had majored in Psychology at Cal Poly before dropping out after her junior year, suspected the truth was quite the opposite. The two of them could sense the mistrust the other musicians felt for them and stayed separate for that reason.

“Hey, Meghan,” said a voice to her right that belonged to a man she had not noticed in her scan of the room. It was Jim Ramos, the paramedic that was paid by Matt to hang out with him (and he even got to fuck Kim Kowalski whenever he wanted, Massa had revealed to her). She had only met him a few times but she recognized him. Long, curly black hair that was rapidly graying, some age wrinkles on his face, a graying bushy mustache (Meghan figured he was around 55 years old or so—he was really only 45 but hanging with Matt Tisdale had taken a toll on him), and cynical brown eyes that looked even older. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that proclaimed “I Ukraine” on it. Jim was sitting away from the crowd as well, in an

office chair he had brought in from somewhere else, his eyes able to instantly see anyone coming in the door.

“Hi… Jim,” she said, hiding that she had been startled by his close presence without her noticing. “Nice to see you again.”

“You as well,” he said with a brief smile. “You’d better get some chow before it’s all gone.”

“I think I will,” she told him.

He was polite enough to only check out her legs and butt after she walked away from him. She did not see him doing it, but she felt it. She ignored the sensation and focused on her husband, heading directly for him. He spotted her when she was about halfway there and he smiled. She felt her heart burn with love for him when she saw this. He was the perfect man for her. He was gentle and mostly meek and would do anything she asked him to. And he looked at her with such adoration and love whenever she walked into a room after an absence.

“Hey, bug,” she greeted Massa, using the wifely term of endearment she had come up with for him shortly after they got married. It was based on her need to have her man cuddle with her and her man’s proficient efforts to provide for that need. She called him her cuddle-bug, which eventually morphed into “bug”. Of course, they did not share the origin for the term of endearment with others. The story was that Massa had once killed a fearsome, ugly bug for her and she had called him that ever since. Everyone seemed to accept that explanation, not knowing that Massa was deathly phobic of any bug larger than an ant and always called on her to make the kills or provide the wildlife removal service when such a creature invaded their home.

“Hey, honey-bunny,” he returned, standing up to give her a hug and a kiss.

“Fuckin’ honey-bunny?” Matt Tisdale remarked, contempt and disgust in his voice. “Fuckin’ bug? You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me.”

Massa and Meghan both blushed and kept their mouths shut. Both were somewhat afraid of the scrungy musician even if he was the best guitarist currently playing.

“Don’t you and Kim have terms of endearment for each other?” asked Laura. She had a little bit of taco sauce running down her chin, unnoticed.

“Fuck no,” Matt said. “That’s fuckin’ faggot shit.”

“What a strictly heterosexual couple calls each other is faggot shit?” Jake asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m not talking about slurping some dude’s fuckin’ schlong or taking one up the fuckin’ passage to Bangkok. I’m talking about a fuckin’ state of mind.”

“The faggot state of mind?” Celia asked.

“That’s fuckin’ right,” Matt said.

“Kim calls you ‘Mattie’ all the time,” Laura said. “I heard her do it earlier today. That’s a term of endearment.”

“She’s a chick,” Matt said, dismissively. “Chicks don’t have the same faggot boundaries as a dude does.”

“Faggot boundaries?” Jake asked.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about,” Matt said, shaking his head in disgust.

“Okay,” Jake said with a shrug. “I won’t act like that.”

“Sometimes he calls me his ‘primary gash’,” Kim said. “That’s kind of endearing, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Celia said blankly. “That is exquisitely romantic.”

“I like to think so,” Kim said with a smile.

Celia, Laura, Jake, and Kim all gave her hugs. When it was Jake’s turn she thanked him for inviting her.

“You’re part of the family,” Jake said. “A large, mostly dysfunctional family, but family all the same.”

“Massa said you wouldn’t come,” said Laura. “He said you would never take a day off from nursing school unless you were literally dying.”

She shrugged this off. “Sometimes you just have to take a break from the grind, right?”

Everyone in this bunch could certainly relate to that and did not question her further. In truth, however, she had a very important reason for wanting to burn one of her two sick days for this gathering. That reason was sitting on one of the stools wearing a pair of tight denim shorts and a sleeveless top that showed off her large, natural breasts quite well. She was a woman who knew everything there was to know about the pornographic film industry, including one key piece of knowledge that Meghan wanted to ask her about. But not here, not in front of everyone. She would need to get the former porn star alone to ask her the question she wanted to ask. And she would have to trust that the porn star could be discreet.

Massa led her around the room so she could greet everyone else. Everyone expressed happiness at seeing her. Tif, in particular, was quite rambunctious in her greeting, as if she had just met up with a long-lost sister.

“I was, like, soooo happy to hear you and Massa got married,” she told her after giving her a huge, affectionate hug that had made their breasts squish together. “I totally knew you two had a thing for each other.”

That didn’t keep you from sucking his dick once a week and letting him fuck you afterward, did it? she thought but did not say. “I guess you were totally right,” she did say, putting a passable fake smile on her face as she did so.

They left Tif behind and went to the food tables. There, she heaped up a plate with one burrito and two tacos. She was famished and everything smelled really good—even the marijuana, but she would not indulge in that until after she had finished with school and had a job. Massa got her a margarita from the self-serve bar and they found seats next to Coop and Nerdly. Greetings were made, hugs were given, and then the two bandmates went back to the intellectual conversation they had been engaged in.

“I’m telling you,” said Coop, “there’s no way in hell that I would take teleportation over a fuckin’ flying car. Flying cars are cool. Teleportation is fuckin’ boring.”

“But with teleportation,” Nerdly retorted, “you could travel anywhere on the planet instantaneously. Who cares if it’s boring. It’s instantaneous. You step into a booth in Los Angeles and in a second or two you’re in London. That is far superior to having a mere flying car.”

“You wouldn’t see any of the planet that way,” Coop countered. “With a flying car it’ll take you longer to get to London—you’d have to cross the fuckin’ ocean and shit like that—but you’d see everything on the way. The fuckin’ Grand Canyon and that weird ass arch thing in St. Louis. You could fly right the fuck by them! Even park on them if you wanted.”

“I seriously doubt that flying car parking would be allowed on the St. Louis Archway,” Nerdly said. “And I even more seriously doubt that any flying car would be able to carry you across the Atlantic ocean to make it to Europe. It could not carry enough fuel or fly fast enough. You would still have to take a commercial airliner across the ocean and rent a flying car at your destination.”

“What’s wrong with that shit?”

While Nerdly began to explain about mere adjuncts to the transportation of goods and people versus a complete overhaul, Meghan tore into her meal. She was famished, having eaten nothing but a few bites of leftover chicken cutlets since breakfast. She enjoyed her margarita as well, feeling the tequila go immediately to work on her brain, given her a little bit of courage for the mission she needed to run during the gathering.

It took almost an hour before the circumstances aligned. She had a conversation with Laura and Celia, updating them on her life and marriage to Massa. She and Massa had another conversation with Sharon, who told them endless anecdotes about the interaction between Kelvin and his baby sister Aurora. Finally, however, she saw Kim Kowalski break apart from a small group that had included Tif and Matt Tisdale and head for the corner of the warehouse where the office and the restrooms were located. Tif did not join her, but also did not stay with Matt. She wandered off and joined another group that consisted of Laura and Celia as the core members. Matt himself went over to join Nerdly and Coop, who were now talking about what super power they would want if they could be granted such a thing. Coop was going with invisibility so he could spy on all the bitches in the locker room. Nerdly was going with mind control because he could spy on all the bitches and manipulate them. Coop had to agree that this was an improvement but insisted that it lacked the panache of simply being invisible.

Meghan went over to the bar and poured herself another margarita. It was her second one and she knew she could have no more if she wanted to be capable of driving home. The frozen concoction packed quite a punch. She lingered there until Kim reemerged from the bathroom area and stood there, looking around, trying to decide which group to join.

Meghan made her move. She hurried across the large room until she was standing in front of the former porn star and reigning Queen of internet Porn. Kim had assumed that Meghan was on her way to use the restroom and paid her scant attention until she stopped in front of her instead of continuing by. She then looked at her, an inviting, enquiring smile on her face.

“Uh… hi, Kim,” she said, her voice soft, meek, embarrassed. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Hi,” Kim returned brightly. “What’s up?”

“Uh… well… you know, the usual,” Meghan said, feeling her face blush.

“The usual, huh?” Kim said. “Why are you blushing then?”

“Am I?” she asked, feeling herself losing control of the conversation.

“You are,” she said with a nod. “It would seem that you have something of importance that you wish to discuss with me.”

“Uh… well… yeah, actually there is,” she admitted.

“Something to do with the unique position that I occupy in this life and this universe?”

What a strange way to put it, Meghan thought, but… well… “Yes,” she said. “That is true.”

Kim’s smile got a little bigger. “All right then,” she said. “Let me go score one of those margaritas and we’ll find ourselves a quiet little corner and talk.”

“Sounds good,” Meghan said, still blushing.

Meghan walked with her as she went to the bar and quickly poured herself a fresh one from one of the three blenders. She took a long sip and then nodded over in the direction of the back wall of the rehearsal space, the wall where most of the electric equipment was plugged in or hard wired in. There were some spare chairs and a few large wire spools there and the area was out of view of most of the primary gathering area.

“How about over there?” Kim asked.

“Okay,” Meghan returned.

They made their way over to the secluded location. Meghan sat down on one of the wire spools. Kim sat in one of the folding chairs. The two of them looked at each other for a moment and then Kim prompted her to speak. “You were the one who wanted to talk, were you not?”

“I was,” Meghan said, “it’s just that… well… this is kind of a delicate situation.”

“Just think of me as a doctor,” she said. “There is literally nothing you could say to me that would take me by surprise.”

“Can you be discreet like a doctor?” Meghan asked.

“I can,” Kim said, “but you don’t know me very well, do you? You know of me, of course, and you know what you’ve heard Jake and Laura and Celia discuss among themselves when you worked for them, but you have no way of knowing if I am actually trustworthy or not. You’ll just have to decide for yourself if I can be trusted, or if, should I betray your confidence, the information you would give me access to is dangerous enough that it can be used to destroy you.”

Wow, Meghan thought numbly. She’s pretty straightforward. Is that why Matt likes her so much? She doesn’t put up with any of his shit? The psychology major inside of her liked this theory. “Uh… well… I don’t know that the information would actually destroy me,” she said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t. It would be embarrassing if everyone knew about it though.”

“Then the worst you risk if I betray your confidence is embarrassment.”

“That’s right.”

“You have my curiosity piqued,” Kim said. “If you feel comfortable, please ask away.”

Meghan took a deep breath, still unsure of herself. But… she did burn a sick day for this and she did now have Kim Kowalski, Mary Ann Cummings herself, alone in front of her. Might as well throw the dice, she thought. “Uh… well… it has to do with… uh… certain sex scenes that you film.”

“Certain sex scenes? I film a lot of sex scenes. Which ones are you talking about?”

“Uh… well… the anal sex scenes.”

“Okayyy,” Kim said. “What about them?”

“Uh… well… I’ve watched a few of them here and there,” she said. “You know… out of curiosity.”

“Out of curiosity,” Kim said with a knowing smile. “Of course. What can I tell you about them?”

“Well… I can’t help but notice that in all of those shots of… you know… people doing anal, they’re always… uh… clean.”

“That’s correct,” Kim said. “Most dudes who watch porn like the anal scenes a lot. What they do not like, however, is seeing the shot befouled with visible fecal matter from the anus.”

“Wow,” Meghan said. “You sounded like Nerdly there.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.

“Uh… yeah,” Meghan said, blushing furiously now. “Anyway, from what I’ve experienced in real life… uh, you know, what I’ve heard anyway, is that real anal sex is not quite as clean as that.”

Kim looked at her knowingly. “What you’ve heard?” she asked pointedly.

She blushed even more, was unable to meet Kim’s eyes, but she forced herself to say, “Okay. Massa and I like to do that particular act. Well… Massa does anyway. And I’m willing to do what makes my husband happy.”

The knowing smile did not go away. “Massa’s the fan of tapping the ass, huh?”

“Well… uh… I do kind of like it… you know… a little bit.”

“Just a little bit?”

Her look turned to exasperation. “Okay,” she hissed. “I like it a lot. And now we can’t do it anymore.”

“You can’t do it anymore? Why not?”

“He got a urinary tract infection from… uh…” She couldn’t say it.

Things suddenly became clear for Kim. “Ahhh,” she said with a smile. “From the fecal matter in your anal tract.”

“Uh… yeah, right,” Meghan said.

“And you want to know how to clean things up down there like we do when we film an anal scene.”

Meghan nodded, blushing furiously once again, about as embarrassed as she had ever been—even more embarrassed than when she had confessed to Danielle, her sister, about how she had come by her yeast infection.

“Okay then,” Kim said. “This is something I can work with.”

“How do you get them so clean for those shots?” Meghan asked. “There has to be a trick, right?”

“Oh, there’s a trick all right,” she said. “For twenty-four hours before filming an anal fuck, the actress stops eating and only drinks water. The night before the scene, she undergoes a soap suds enema to get everything out of there. Sometimes we even use the colon blow like we were prepping for a colonoscopy.”

Meghan’s face turned pale as she heard this. “Enemas? Colon blow?” That did not sound like a lot of fun.

“That’s for filming an anal scene,” Kim said. “It would seem that filming such action is not what you’re interested in, correct?”

“Uh… correct,” she said. “We don’t want to film it. We just want to… you know… do it and not have him get an infection because of it.”

“In that case, I think you could get away with a simple quick prep.”

“Quick prep?”

“Just what it sounds like,” Kim said. “A quick prep of the anal region to clean things up in there. We use that if we’re just filming an analingus scene instead of a full-on ass fuck.”

“How does the quick prep work?” she asked.

Kim smiled at her. “It’s simple. All you need is an old toothbrush, a little bit of baking soda, and some baby oil.”

 

*****

 

Tif Moreland had a mission of her own she wanted to accomplish on this festive 5th of May afternoon. It had been seven days now since she had last acquired a dose of her singing ointment and she feared her voice would start cracking soon if she did not rectify the situation. That deposit had been given to her by Huynh, one of the sound techs at the studio she worked at when she was not working for Celia Valdez Kingsley. She pronounced his name “Hoo-ee-inn-huh” and he had never once corrected her on her pronunciation (so she totally had it right, right?) but he did offer to help her out with her singing ointment issue whenever she asked. He had even been known to proactively check up on her at mid-week, concerned that she might be getting low on supply.

Alas, Huynh was still in Los Angeles and she was here in San Luis Obispo, which was like hundreds of miles away and she had totally not established a reliable source of ointment yet, or even an unreliable one. As she had told Jake Kingsley, the big boss of the production she was involved in, it was not always easy finding someone who would allow her to suck his dick on a regular basis. That was totally a counterintuitive thought (she had learned that word from Jake Kingsley—it meant the opposite of intuitive) but it was totally true.

Her prospect for the evening was Coop, the drummer for Intemperance. She had only met him for the first time a few days ago but she was intrigued. She did not know a whole lot about him other than he was the drummer for Intemperance, one of the most notorious bands in existence, and he did not have a wife. He was good looking in an older, bad-boy kind of way, and, since he was a rock musician, he had to like having his dick sucked, right? It was totally a requirement of his job.

She was able to make her move when Coop left a little group that included Matt Tisdale, Laura Kingsley, Nerdly, and Liz the keyboardist. The five of them had just smoked a joint, had even offered for Tif to join their group, but she had declined. She had a hard enough time finding her way home after two margaritas. Throwing marijuana on top of that would likely leave her lost and wandering around for hours, which was a great fear, almost a phobia of hers. She watched Coop go over to the bar to pour another margarita into his solo cup and then she made a beeline for him.

Tif was not bright enough to be subtle and she attempted no cleverness here. She was just smart enough to know that being smart was not her strength in the world. “How you doin’, Coop?” she asked him.

He looked her up and down for a moment, plainly liking what he saw. “Tif, right?” he said. “Celia’s soprano singer.”

“That’s right,” she said, flattered that he remembered her from the introduction two days before. “Listen, Coop. I have a little bit of a problem and I thought maybe you might be able to help me out with it.”

“I will if I can,” Coop said, casting eyes on her immense cleavage and bare midriff.

“You’re a professional musician so you know about female singers and their singing ointment, right?”

“Singing ointment?” he asked, but before she could answer, she could see that something had just clicked for him. “Ohhh, fuckin’ singing ointment. So that shit’s true then.”

“It’s very true,” she said with a nod. “We need it every seven days to keep our voices healthy and strong. All the hormones and things in it.”

“Wow,” Coop said, shaking his head in awe. He had heard from Matt (who had heard it from Kim, who had heard it from Mrs. Nerdly, who had heard about it from Nerdly, who had heard about it from Jake) that this hot bitch was so fuckin’ dumb she thought she had to swallow semen once a week to keep her voice healthy. She had sucked off Massa, the violinist who was now boning Jake’s old nanny, the entire Millennial Tour. Had fucked him too. He hadn’t really believed it though. After all, no one was that dumb, were they? But apparently they were and she was standing right here in front of him talking to him about… about… “Uh… we are talking about sucking dick here, right?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “That’s how I get the singing ointment. I’m not really sure how else I would get it.”

“You could let a dude shoot it into another chick’s snatch and then lick it out of there,” Coop suggested, completely unaware that he had just hit upon Laura Kingsley’s favorite kink that involved bisexuality.

Tif though this over for a few moments and then shook her head. “That does sound kind of fun,” she said. “I do like doing chicks every now and then. They’re so soft! But I’m not sure the ointment would still be fresh after going into a pussy first.”

“A good thought,” Coop said wisely. “Anyway, why are you bringing this up to me? You want to suck my dick?”

“If you don’t mind,” she said. “It would really help me out. You’re not on the ‘do not suck’ list that Jake gave me.”

“Interesting,” Coop said. “It’s nice to know that Jake still knows how to help a brother out, but I’m afraid you’re gonna have to put me on that list too.”

“I am?” she said, disappointed. “What’s the matter? You don’t like having your dick sucked? I’m pretty good at it.”

“I’m sure you are,” Coop said. “And believe me, I’m tempted. You are a totally hot piece of ass.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “But you won’t let me suck your dick?”

“I won’t let you suck my dick,” he said with regret.

“Because you’re gay?” she asked.

Coop’s face turned red. “I ain’t no fuckin’ faggot,” he barked. “Don’t you be tellin’ anyone that shit, you hear?”

“I hear,” she said. “But what’s the reason if you’re not gay and you don’t have a wife?”

“I have a girlfriend,” he said. “She’ll be coming to stay with us in the house next week.”

“A… a girlfriend?” she asked, as if she had never heard of such a thing before.

“Yeah,” he said. “You know? A bitch you hang out with and talk to and only fuck her and shit?”

“Well… that’s bogus,” she said, shaking her head at the travesty of it.

“Sorry,” he said. “You should have caught me a few months ago.”

“That’s kind of how my life always goes,” she said with a pout. She then had a thought. “I don’t suppose your girlfriend would let you let me suck your dick for you. She could even watch if she wanted. And maybe… you know… it could turn into something.”

Coop had to chew on his lip a little. “Wow,” he said. “That’s really hot shit you’re talking there, Tif, but I’m not gonna ask my old lady something like that. She’s one of them prudes that only believes in fuckin’ one dude at a time. And I’m going along with that shit because I really like her.”

“Well… poop,” she said, using a phrase she had learned from Jake’s mother a few years before.

“That ain’t no shit,” Coop agreed. “You thought about Matt?”

“Matt Tisdale? The guitarist?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know he’s got his old lady with him but they’re not exclusive or no shit like that. He’ll let you suck him off and she’ll probably watch you do it. Maybe even help.”

She shook her head sternly. “Not Matt,” she said firmly. “He’s way too old. Gross!”

Coop, who was actually a few months older than Matt and knew it, said nothing. He simply wished her luck in her royal quest.

 

*****

At Kingsley Manor Yami was running a little late. It was 1:55 PM, time to get into the Kingsley minivan and go pick up Caydee Kingsley from school, but things weren’t going as they should. First, there had been a missing button on Yami’s blouse, which necessitated her changing to a new blouse. Next there had been a broken shoelace on Yami’s shoe, which necessitated her unstringing it and re-stringing it before making her way out to the entertainment room where the next delay met her.

“Kira!” she groaned/yelled. “Where in the world are your pants?” Her daughter was playing with Cap Kingsley on the floor and both of them were missing their pants, shoes, and socks. Cap had on a diaper. Kira had on a pair of pink big girl underwear.

“I took them off,” Kira said simply.

“Why would you do that?” Yami asked, exasperated.

“Cap took his pants off in his bedroom!” she said. “I wanted to take mine off too!”

“Cap is a baby,” she told her daughter. “And he is not going to school to pick up Caydee.”

“Why do I hafta wear pants for that?” she wanted to know.

Fuck a duck, she thought, her mind using a Caydee-ism. If she didn’t leave right now she was going to be late, one of the last ones in the pickup line. Every minute she was late leaving the house would equal three or four more minutes in the line. Damn it!

She leaned down and picked up Cap from the floor. He came without protest. He liked being picked up, held, and carried about. She took him into the laundry room, were Sean was folding and assorting clothes into a basket. Sean and Westin always watched Cap while she dropped off and picked up Caydee from school. So far, she had never asked them to watch Kira as well and they had never offered. She knew that the hangup was hers alone. She had gotten to know the gay couple very well in the months she had lived in the Kingsley house and she trusted them completely. Was that trust enough to override her cultural upbringing, however? The upbringing that insisted leaving a child alone with a couple of homosexual men was a recipe for molestation? Yes, actually it was enough to override it, she decided.

“Sean,” she said. “It’s that time.”

“Okay,” Sean said with a smile. He held out his hands to accept the little passenger. “Hello there, Mr. Capriccio,” he told him, giving him an exaggerated smile. “You’re looking very handsome today, my friend! The no-pants look suits you.”

Cap blathered at him and offered a smile of his own. He knew Sean’s name but could only pronounce it as “Saw” at this point.

“Do you mind watching Kira too?” Yami asked. “I don’t have time to hunt down her pants and socks.”

Sean looked a little surprised at the offer but quickly agreed. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll stay in the living room with her until you get back.”

“Thanks,” Yami said, turning back toward the kitchen

“Do you want me to have her put her pants back on?” Sean asked.

“If you don’t mind,” Yami said.

She walked through the kitchen and out into the garage. The north end of the garage was currently closed off as the contractors worked on putting in the addition that would create five more parking spaces. Rodney Cerner, the project foreman (and son of Manuel Cerner, the owner of the business) was standing near the partition talking to one of his workers in Spanish. The sound of saws and pneumatic hammers could be heard coming from the other side of the partition.

Rodney noticed Yami heading to the minivan and gave her a wolf-whistle and a smile. “Hey, sexy Mamacita!” he greeted, causing her dark skin to blush even darker. He was a hopeless flirt and had set his sights upon Yami from the first day he had seen her. While she appreciated the attention, she had no intention of initiating a relationship with a married foreman.

“Hey,” she returned with a little wave of her fingers. She could feel Rodney’s eyes taking in her large breasts and her dark legs that showed beneath the shorts she was wearing. “How goes the project?”

“Ahead of schedule and under budget,” he told her. “Going to pick up the little Kingsley?”

“It’s that time,” she said.

“Where’s Señorita Kira?” Rodney asked, rolling his R’s quite impressively.

“She’s staying here for this one,” Yami replied. “Sean and Westin will watch her. Now stop bothering me! I’m already running late.”

Rodney feigned being stabbed in the heart. “How you treat me, Mamacita,” he told her. “Would submitting to my never ending love be so bad?”

“Yes,” she said simply, shooting him a scowl. She climbed into the minivan and fired it up without another word. In truth, however, she quite enjoyed the flirty attention the project foreman gave her. He was married, an obvious lecher, and completely untrustworthy in all human regards, but it was nice to be flirted with. It was something that had not happened to her in a very long time.

As she drove through the gate and headed for town, she pondered the little life she had managed to stumble her way into. All in all, it was a good life. She adored both Cap and Caydee and it was nice for her Kira to have friends to play with, to interact with, to socialize with— even if they did convince her to do things like take off her pants in the middle of the day so she could play in her underwear. Her every need was taken care of. She had a beautiful room that looked out over the ocean and was both large and luxurious. There was a live-in housekeeper and a live-in chef that kept the house clean and prepared her meals and did her and Kira’s laundry. They paid her an incredible amount of money for her service, particularly when she needed to work outside of the traditional hours.

All was not peaches and cream, however, and she was reminded of that when she drove past the Johansen spot on her way to the school. There was the usual collection of paparazzi and media types camped out there. None of them peeled off and followed her, however. They had learned that they were not going to get anything out of her by stalking her at the elementary school and it also made them look bad in the eyes of the public. They did, however, gleefully stalk her and approach her whenever she went anywhere else—to the library, to the bookstore, to the beach. Thus, she did not take the Kingsley children anywhere that the pap could follow them, so no park visits, no walks on the beach, no trips to the aquarium (which Caydee absolutely loved).

All of this was stressful and a part of life she had been ill prepared for when she had accepted the job of Kingsley live-in nanny. But she was getting better at it. Pap mobs no longer sent her into a cataclysm of terror like that first one had. For the most part, she had learned how to deal with them. Say nothing, ignore them, and just go about your business, even if they’re sticking cameras and microphones in your face and flashbulbs are exploding everywhere.

Her parents were happy about her new job, or at least they became happy when she explained to them that the Kingsleys were not the predatory ogres the media (even in India) liked to portray them as. The parental Misras genuinely trusted their daughter and she assured them that the Kingsleys were an odd but functional bunch who loved their children with every fiber of their being and would never do anything to hurt her or to hurt Kira. Mummy and Daddy were practical people and if their wayward daughter was able to find acceptance of her half breed child in America while securing a job as a live-in servant for a very rich man, so be it. She was living a better life with the Kingsleys than she would be if she came home to eastern India with its judgments and its ridiculous caste system. And Mummy thought Caydee and Cap were cute. She had seen them on video chat.

She pulled into the rear of the pickup line and began to wait. No pap showed up. Several of the mothers of the other children nodded at her in a friendly way. They all knew who she was by this point and all would have loved to get her to sit down with them in a Starbucks somewhere so they could pump her for information about her notorious employers. So far, Yami had not put herself in a position where they could even ask. She never got out of the minivan at drop-off and pickup and, so far, no one had been so brazen as to approach her in the vehicle.

She made her way to the front of the line and soon saw Caydee standing near Ms. Kenerson, her teacher. The little girl was particularly cute today, wearing her hair in pigtails and sporting a green and white summer dress. She smiled when she saw the minivan pull into a pickup slot, said something to Ms. Kenerson, and then headed for the big sliding door on the side of the van. She wrestled it open, threw her backpack in, and then followed in right behind it. “Hi, Yami!” she said brightly as she wrestled the door back closed.

“Hi, Caydee,” Yami greeted in return.

“Where’s Kira?” Caydee asked as she climbed into her seat and began to buckle herself in.

“She decided to join Cap in taking her pants off and dancing in her underwear,” Yami replied. “She was not in a state of readiness to join me in the pickup line.”

Caydee nodded wisely. “Sometimes you just gotta take off your pants and dance,” she said as if passing on a bit of hard-learned life wisdom.

Yami smiled. The little redhead clone of her mother was very smart and articulate. That was one of the things she particularly loved about her. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “All ready?”

“All ready,” she replied, giving a thumbs up.

Yami dropped the gearshift back into Drive and pulled away.

“Are Mommy and Daddy and See-Ya still coming home from the Campus early?” Caydee asked.

“That’s what they said,” Yami replied. “They’re going to have their Fifth of May celebration for a few hours and then come home.”

“Cinco de Mayo is not a real holiday in Mexico,” she said. “Carlos told me they don’t do shit for it at his house.”

Yami opened her mouth to chastise her charge about using the word ‘shit’ in front of her, as that was on the list of words normal people did not appreciate her using in front of them. But then she remembered Kira was not in the car and only Kira was considered a normal person for this particular purpose. She did not approve of Caydee’s loose vocabulary but Caydee was not her child. “That’s what Carlos says, huh?” she replied instead.

“Carlos’ daddy told him that Americans jacked that holiday from his people so they have an excuse to drink,” Caydee explained. “Real Mexicans don’t really care too much about it.”

“Interesting,” she said, having no reason to disbelieve the little girl. Her best friend at school was a classmate named Carlos whose parents had been born in Mexico and who had come to California illegally before having their children. Carlos himself, as well as his sibling, were American citizens by birthright. It was a very odd relationship, Yami thought, not for the first time. A dirt poor landscaper’s kid being best friends with the daughter of one of the richest men in the county.

“Carlos is really smart,” Caydee said. “He’s knows all kinds of cool shit. I want to go visit him and his brothers and sisters after school one of these days.”

“Do you now?” she asked, hiding a little chuckle. She knew something like that would never happen. Imagine, Jake Kingsley allowing his precious daughter to go visit some central coast slum to play with a poor little immigrant boy whose father mowed the lawns at a golf course. True, America did not have a rigid caste system like India, but it had one, nonetheless. Every country did to some degree.

“Yep,” Caydee said. “He talked to his daddy and mommy about it. They said it’s okay with them. They just want to talk to my mom and daddy first to make sure it’s okay. Maybe I’ll be able to do it tomorrow.”

“I guess you’ll have to talk to your daddy about it when he gets home then,” Yami said, pulling herself out of the chain of command for this one. Let her daddy be the one to have to tell her no. She was just the nanny.

“That’s why I asked if he was coming home early,” Caydee said. “Did he say what time?”

“He did not,” she said. “Just earlier than normal.”

“What a rip,” the little girl said.

They arrived back at Kingsley Manor at the usual time. This time Cedric and his workers were behind the partition in the garage, sawing and hammering away, and were not able to interact with her. She saw that none of the Kingsleys were home yet, nor were the older pianist and the younger guitarist who liked to pretend they weren’t a couple though they clearly were (Yami had been instructed by Laura and Celia to just go with it). They went inside where she found her precious daughter unmolested in any way and now wearing her pants once again. Cap was wearing his pants as well.

“Caydeeeee!” Kira shrieked, seeing her mentor and best friend.

“Kiraaaa!” Caydee returned, just as enthusiastically.

The two girls hugged each other and then Caydee gave her little brother a big hug and a kiss as well. “He doesn’t smell like poop,” she reported to Yami. Reporting on poop smell from Cap was her self-appointed duty to the household.

“Not anymore,” Sean said. “He did have a blowout the second you left, however.”

“Oh, thank you for changing him,” she said, sincerely grateful. Cap was a boy and boys pooped bigger than girls. Or at least that’s how it seemed to her.

“No problem,” Sean said. “And Kira was no problem either. She put her pants right back on as soon as I told her to.”

“You said we can have cupcakes for snack if I put them back on!” Kira told him.

“Did I say that?” Sean asked, feigning innocence.

“Yes!” Kira insisted, giving him some serious stink eye.

“That doesn’t sound like something I would say,” he said, pondering.

“You did!” Kira barked, getting ready to kill now.

Sean sighed. “I don’t remember saying that, but I suppose it’s possible. I guess I’d better get some cupcakes on the table then, right?”

“Are they the chocolate cupcakes with the peanut butter chips that Westin makes?” Caydee asked.

“And the white cream cheese frosting,” Sean confirmed.

“Yay!” Kira said. “We eat now?”

“No time like the present,” Sean said.

The children all followed him into the kitchen, even Cap, who had now mastered the art of crawling and easily kept up with them. She didn’t blame them. Westin’s homemade cupcakes were the bomb.

 

*****

 

Jake, Laura, and Celia pulled into the garage at 3:35 PM, all of them a little bit tipsy from the margaritas. Jake was driving as he was the only one of the group who had not smoked any pot at the Cinco de Mayo festivities. Little Stevie and Liz, who had carpooled today (they usually did not) pulled in right behind them with Stevie behind the wheel for the same reason as Jake. The sound of hammering, drilling, and sawing could be heard from the other side of the garage partition and the smell of fresh sawdust was in the air.

“I’ll be in in a minute,” Jake told everyone. “I’m just gonna give the guys the stuff.”

“Sounds good, sweetie,” Laura replied, giving him a smile.

While everyone headed into the house, Jake popped the trunk on his BMW and headed for the partition. He squeezed himself to the other side of the plastic sheet and was now standing in the work area. The concrete had already been laid and they were now putting up the frame of the garage extension using sturdy 6x6 redwood beams. Cedric, the foreman of the job, was measuring one of the beams for cutting with the help of one of the workers while the other two were prepping the area where the beam would go. They all looked up as he squeezed through.

“Amigos!” he greeted. “Happy Cinco de Mayo!”

They returned the greeting enthusiastically. All of them liked working for the Kingsleys. They paid well, the setting was beautiful, and everyone was friendly to them. Laura Kingsley and Celia Valdez Kingsley were not too shabby to catch glimpses of either, particularly in their shorts.

“I know Cinco de Mayo is not all that big a deal in actual Mexico, but we gringos thank you for giving us something else to drink about.”

The four men laughed. Cedric asked Jake if he could borrow their nanny for a few days.

“I thought your kids were all grown up,” Jake said.

“That’s not what I want her for,” Cedric returned, causing more laughter.

“Cedric wants a taste of the east,” said one of the workers.

“But the east don’t want a taste of the southwest,” said one of the others, causing another round of laughter.

“Maybe the chipotle is too small?” suggested yet another.

“Or not spicy enough,” suggested Jake.

“She is so exotic,” Cedric said, pondering the thought of her. “Where did you find such a beautiful woman, Jake?”

“Quite literally at the gynecologist’s office,” Jake replied. “True story.”

“You have an interesting life, Mr. Jake,” one of the workers told him.

“I try,” Jake said. “Listen, amigos, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, how about you knock off a little early today? I got a shitload of leftover taco and burrito makings from the catering service, an assload of chips and spicy salsa, and a case of Budweiser on ice. Just go grab it out of the trunk of my car and tear into it.”

Cedric was all too happy to grant his crew permission for such a thing. They quite literally dropped what they were doing and went to the BMW to grab their booty.

“You are very kind, Mr. Jake,” Cedric told him.

“You guys do good work and you’re ahead of schedule,” he told him. “You deserve it. Chow down, friends!”

They all raised a can of Budweiser to him as he headed into the house. Caydee was the first to greet him when he went inside.

“Daddy!” she shouted happily, holding out her arms to him.

“Caydee girl!” he returned, sweeping her into a big bear hug that ended with him kissing her soundly on her forehead.

“Brother doesn’t smell like poop,” she reported.

“That’s good to know.”

“And Carlos wants me to come visit him after school. You need to call his daddy so you can talk about it.”

“I do?” he asked.

“You do,” she said, her face mimicking the expression Laura used when she wanted her husband to do something that needed to be done.

“Well, okay then,” Jake said. “Let me get things settled a bit and then I’ll give Carlos’ daddy a call. I trust you have his number for me?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not a spaz, Daddy,” she said firmly.

He chuckled. “I didn’t think you were, Caydee girl,” he assured her. He gave her own more kiss, this time on the cheek, and then released her.

Westin was working on his own Cinco de Mayo presentation at the stove. It was his chicken fajitas and homemade rice. Everything smelled incredible and Jake told the chef so. He was thanked in that absent-minded way that chefs had when they knew their food smelled incredible and why would you expect anything else.

In the entertainment room Cap was now in Celia’s arms getting his love and kisses from her. Jake went and gave his son a hug and a kiss and they worked on their high fives for a few moments. Cap was getting pretty good at it, especially the low five and the on the side.

“Daddy said he would call Carlos’ daddy,” Caydee told Laura.

“And I will, Caydee girl,” he promised. “Just let me get settled in.”

“Don’t you have homework you should be doing?” Laura asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll go do it right now. Westin made cupcakes for our snack!”

“I’m going to have to score me one of those,” Jake said with utmost sincerity.

She went to the dining room to work on her homework. Yami, who was now off duty for the day, was still sitting on the couch. She had a look of embarrassment on her face. “Sorry I deferred the whole Carlos’ daddy thing to you, Jake,” she told him. “I didn’t know what to say when she brought it up.”

He simply shrugged. “I’ll give him a call,” he told her.

“Really?” Yami asked.

“Yeah, really,” he said. “Is there some reason I should not?”

“Uh… well… I just assumed you would not want… you know… her doing what she wants to do.”

“To go over to visit her friend after school at some point? What’s wrong with that?”

“Uh… well… her friend’s father is a… a Mexican landscaper who works at a golf course.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Laura asked.

“Uh… nothing,” she said, now exasperated a bit. “I guess.”

“They walk home from school with Carlos’ mom,” Laura said. “Caydee really likes him.”

“Her Spanish has gotten a lot better since she started hanging out with him,” Celia said. “Especially the profanity.”

“As long as she’s using it correctly,” Jake said with a chuckle.

Yami, seemingly confused, left the room a moment later. Kira stayed behind to keep playing with Cap, who was now back on the floor after getting his Laura and Mommy love. Jake looked at his two women. “Any reason not to give the man a call?” he asked them.

“Well… we don’t know the family at all,” Laura said.

“True,” Jake said, “but Caydee really does like Carlos and really seems to want to do this.”

“And she says Carlos’ daddy said for her daddy to give him a call,” Celia said.

“I’ll leave it up to you, sweetie,” Laura said. “It’d be nice if Caydee could have a playdate with her friend.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with,” Jake said.

With that, he went and scored himself one of Westin’s cupcakes (the second to last one, no less). He then got the phone number from Caydee, who had it written on a piece of paper. “Does her daddy speak English?” he asked.

“I think so,” Caydee said doubtfully. “I never really asked him though.”

“I guess I’ll find out then.”

He took the paper to his office and sat down at his desk. He pushed the button to boot up the computer and then picked up the desk extension. Caydee’s handwriting was neat and legible and included the area code. He dialed it and then listened as the phone rang on the other end. After three rings it was picked up and a male voice said “Hola?”

“Is this Señor Ramirez?” Jake asked. “Carlos’ father?”

“It is,” said a heavily accented but discernable reply.

“How do you do, Señor?” Jake said. “This is Jake Kingsley, Caydee’s dad. I was told you would be expecting a call from me.”

“Señor Kingsley,” the man said, his voice strong and assured. “It is nice to talk to you. Please call me Jose.”

“Thank you,” Jake said. “And I’m Jake.”

“As you wish, Jake,” Jose said. “Carlos tells us about Caydee all the time. It seems they are very good friends.”

“That’s what it seems like,” Jake agreed. “Caydee was telling me that Carlos invited her over after school to visit at some point.”

“She did,” Jose said. “It is okay with my wife and myself but we figured we should talk to you first. If it’s okay with you, perhaps Caydee can walk home with Carlos and Emilia after school one of these days. My wife will accompany them, of course.”

“That sounds good to me,” Jake said. “You do know who I am, right?”

“You are the famous musician, Jake Kingsley,” he said.

“Some people are kind of put off by that,” Jake said.

“It would be very hard for anyone to live up to the reputation you have, Jake,” Jose told him. “We will be happy to have your daughter as a guest in our home. You would have to pick her up when it was time for her to go home though. We only have one car and I use it for work most days.”

“That would be no problem,” Jake said. “We could just pick Caydee up on the way home from the studio at the end of the day.”

“Very good,” Jose said. “What would be a good day to do this? Tomorrow, perhaps?”

“Tomorrow won’t work,” Jake said. “Me and Caydee’s mom have to fly to Providence in the morning to take care of some business. Anytime next week is good though.”

“How about Monday then?”

“Monday it is,” Jake said. “I’ll just have Caydee go home with Carlos at the end of the day and that’ll give Yami the nanny a break too. Is this number your cell phone?”

“Yes,” Jose said.

“I’ll text you my name and number from my cell phone,” he said. “It’s my personal number so please don’t give it to anyone else. Text me back your address once you get it.”

“I will do so, Jake,” he said. “Thank you for calling. It was a pleasure talking to you.”

“You as well,” Jake said.

They hung up. Jake did not get up from the desk right away though. Instead, he took out his cell phone and paged through his contacts until he found Pauline. He punched up the number and waited three rings for her to answer.

“What up, bro?” she asked.

“I got a short little job for your unethical sources,” he told her.

“Oh yeah? What are we talking?”

“A down and dirty background check on the Ramirez family of San Luis Obispo. Father’s name is Jose, son’s name is Carlos and is Caydee’s age.”

“Caydee’s little friend from school?” Pauline asked. “Why do you need a rundown on them?”

“Play date,” he said. “Caydee’s gonna visit them after school on Monday.”

“Ahhh, makes sense,” she said. “That’s all you got on them? Father Jose and son Carlos, last name Ramirez?”

“I know there are other children but not how many,” Jake said. “I know there’s a wife but I don’t know her name. I should have their address shortly.”

“Text it to me when you get it,” she said. “I’ll get Steve working on it. Should be enough info there to get it started.”

“Thanks, sis,” he told her.

Chapter 2

 

The Murder at Kingsley Manor

 

Oceano, California

May 6, 2004

 

He was exactly one year old on this day, though he did not know that as he had no concept of birth anniversaries. He weighed 484 grams, just a little bit more than a pound. He was small for his age, undersized and scrawny, and a bit of an outcast in the murder he was a part of. His body and head were covered in jet black feathers as dark as midnight but with a slight iridescence of green with a hint of violet when the sun struck them at just the right angle. His beak, which had a few chips and scratches of wear and tear on it, was black too, as were his feet and toes. He was a Corvus brachyrhynchos, better known as a common American crow.

He was pretty close to the bottom of the complex hierarchy within the murder of two hundred and forty-four adult and juvenile crows he was a part of. His parents were still alive but had kicked him out of the nest three weeks before when his mother laid a clutch of six eggs and needed the room to sit on them and care for them. That had left him on his own for the first time in his life, forcing him to learn quickly, to adjust to his new life or die.

This particular murder of common American crows had been present on the Home Hill, as they thought of it among themselves, for more than sixty generations, more than three hundred years in human timekeeping, existing there on the isolated hillside and cliff since long before a structure had been built upon it, since long before the dangerous but bountiful roadway was built, since even before the Spanish missionaries led by Father Junipero Serra had built a mission to convert the Chumas native Americans who had once lived and thrived in the area (and who were all dead now, killed by enslavement, persecution, and diseases they were not immune to). Their behaviors and food sources had changed over the years, but the same basic lineage still existed on the land, defending it and living on it in relative prosperity.

These days, a human nest stood at the very top of Home Hill, a large, imposing nest with a secondary nest next to it. These were the only human structures in the murder’s territory. Ever since it had been constructed two generations before (some of the older crows in the murder still recalled the noise and the machines and the horde of humans that had shown up every day to build the nests) the members of the murder had avoided it as a matter of course. The murder had lived without humans regularly in their territory since the beginning, and now that a human nest was there and humans had been spotted in and around it, they kept their distance. Crows instinctively feared humans, feared them more than the foxes or the hawks or the dreaded night owls that would kill a crow without hesitation if they were caught in the open after the light darkened at the end of the day. They did not know why they feared humans so much—not a single one of them in the history of the murder had ever seen a human harm a crow in any way, or even interact with one—but the fear was primal and undeniable. Humans were dangerous and unpredictable. Every crow knew that almost from the moment they emerged from the egg.

He was different from the other crows, however. He feared humans like any other crow, but he was also a little more adventurous than his peers. He enjoyed flying to the very edge of the murder’s territory, enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny of Home Hill and the surrounding environment. He had flown out over the border between the west edge of the hill and the big water, the very territory the white gulls called their own. He had gone to the top of the sand hill to the south, beyond which there were countless humans riding in noisy wheeled vehicles on the smaller sand hills. He had even gone beyond the highway on the east side of Home Hill, past where the higher members of the murder often gorged themselves on tasty roadkill. He had never tasted roadkill himself (at least not that he remembered—his mother and father used to occasionally feed it to him when he was a hatchling) as he was a mere nest-less juvenile. His usual meals consisted of insects he found near rocks or under trees, worms that came out on the damp mornings when the ocean fog rolled in, and the discarded scraps that the upper echelon of the murder left lying around after eating their own meals. His young life was a constant effort to hold starvation at bay and most of each day was spent in a constant search for something to eat.

That would all change on this day. Unable to find any significant forage on a warm afternoon, he ranged further than he ever had before, flying to the east of Home Hill, across the highway, and out of the murder’s recognized territory. There, perhaps a half mile inland, he found a long stretch of thorny bushes along the bank of a small stream that led into a metal pipe on the east side of the highway and passed under it, reemerging and dumping into a steep channel that led to the big water to the west. Upon these thorny bushes were berries of some sort, the vast majority of them varying shades of green but a few—perhaps one in every one hundred—a reddish purple. He landed on one of the bushes, poking his left front toe on a thorn and drawing a tiny amount of blood. He made a rule in his head to land more carefully if these berries turned out to be something he could eat. He, like most crows, was smart enough to learn from his mistakes.

He tried one of the green berries since they were the most numerous. One bite told him to spit it out. The taste was very sour, the texture dense and difficult to smash with his beak. His instinct told him the green berry was not poisonous, but also that he would likely regurgitate it involuntarily if he swallowed it. That would not curb his hunger. It would only make it worse. He made his way a little deeper into the bush, heading toward one of the reddish purple berries. They were larger and certainly looked more appetizing. Though his sense of smell was only rudimentary, he still possessed such a sense. The reddish purple berries smelled appetizing, unlike the green ones which had no smell at all.

He made a quick scan of the sky, his sharp eyes—they were about 20-6 by human standards, and with the ability to see in the ultraviolet spectrum—searching for the silhouette of a hawk who might try to catch him in the open. The sky was empty. He then scanned the ground nearby, searching for foxes, cats, or raccoons, all of whom would love to make a snack out of even a scrawny crow like himself. Nothing was visible and his finely homed instincts reported no danger. His mind at ease, he leaned forward and took a tentative bite out of the berry.

Immediately his mouth was filled with a wonderful sweetness unlike anything he had ever tasted before. Juices flooded his mouth and stained his beak but he did not care, so amazed was he by the flavor. The reddish purple berries were incredible! And they were big! And they were satisfying to his palate and in his stomach! He quickly ate the entire berry and then hopped over a few branches (carefully keeping his feet and toes away from the thorns) and ate another one. He felt the sucrose in the fruit immediately going to work, giving him energy, felt the complex carbohydrates in the fruit satisfying his persistent hunger—for the moment anyway.

Crows are among the most intelligent animals in the world and he was no exception. He was smart enough to plan for the future. He could not eat all of the sweet berries available on the bushes at one time and he knew that it was possible, even likely, that some other bird or ground creature might happen across these bushes and eat the bounty before he could return for more. He decided to take some of the sweet berries and store them someplace where only he would have access to them. The problem was, he had no such place. He had no nest. On most nights he slept in the top branches of a pine tree on the outskirts of the nesting area the rest of the murder used.

He would just have to find a place, a secret place where other crows did not go, where ground animals or the several varieties of smallbirds who shared Home Hill with them would not be able to sniff them out and steal them. He was able to carry two of the sweet berries at a time—one in his beak and one in his crop—so he picked two of the largest ones and took to the sky, quickly orienting himself by the position of the sun and the direction of the onshore wind. He climbed to three hundred feet above the ground and was able to see the highway and, in the distance, Home Hill itself, including the human nest that sat atop it.

He maintained his altitude as he approached the hill, gliding serenely when he could but often having to flap his powerful wings to fight his way forward in the twelve knot wind that was blowing. He approached from the east-northeast, initially heading for the large grove of trees outside the boundary of the nest structure, a grove that the humans had built a narrow roadway through and had covered in gray asphalt when the nest was built. He did not wish to pass close to the human nest where he might be captured and consumed if he got too close. No one knew for sure that humans would kill and eat crows, but it was best to assume that they would not hesitate to do so if the opportunity presented itself.

But then… his brain began to think things over a little bit and, though he did not know or understand the concept of thinking outside the box, that is exactly what he did. Other crows avoided the human nest in a manner that was more superstitious than anything else. The humans themselves were only seen infrequently, fleetingly, from far away, just visible enough for the murder to know they were really there. The humans had never come into the grove where the murder nested. They only went outside of and back into their marked territory in the moving nests. Were they really that dangerous? Could he perhaps go into their territory unseen and find a hiding spot for his berries within? It was certainly something worth looking into.

And so, he circled above the human nest, making a left turning lap, staying careful to keep outside of the perimeter fence at first. He saw a large nest that sprawled across the top of the plateau atop the hill. It was not tall but it was broad. There was a minimally slanted roof to the nest, a roof that overhung the main body on all sides. There was natural landscape surrounding the house but it had been altered in multiple places. There was a narrow strip of roadway that led to a small platform on the edge of the cliff. A round cylinder stood upon the platform, its top covered with some kind of brown material broken up with three straight lines that stretched across the middle and at both mid-latitudes. There were several strange objects arranged around the cylinder, their purpose unknown and unknowable without further information. The small roadway led back to the main nesting area. The structure had many things that looked like openings and were covered in the same sort of transparent material that allowed visual inspection of the inside of the moving nests. He had never been close to the material but he had seen it on the highway. It was reflective in certain light and it would kill any crow that came into contact with it. It would allow light through but not crow bodies. He had an instinctive fear of the material.

Just outside the reflective barriers at the front of the nest was a flat platform made of wood or something like wood. There was a railing, also made of wood, that enclosed the perimeter of the platform. Several human made things were arranged on the floor of the platform. There were two shiny metal things on stands, four of the same sorts of small structures that were around the cylinder on the edge of the cliff, and three similar structures that were longer and angulated in the middle. It occurred to him that perhaps the humans perched on those structures. That seemed a logical conclusion but he would need to see some evidence to confirm the notion.

Off to the south of the flat wooden place was another such structure, attached to the first one and surrounded by a smaller version of the black, spiky barrier around the nest area. Enclosed in this space area was a rectangular body of water. He could not tell how deep it was but its presence here was both puzzling and frightening. Crows had great fear of bodies of water big enough to drown them as they were completely incapable of extricating themselves from it if they fell in. He decided to stay well clear of the strange body of water, the likes of which he had never encountered in his short, isolated life.

The sun was sinking in the sky off to the west so he could not see through the clear barriers and into the nest. All he saw was the reflection of the big water and the items on the wooden platform. He would have liked to catch a glimpse of the humans within so he could know how many there were, what they looked like, and what their activities were, but it was impossible currently. He flew on, continuing his left hand circle (Jake Kingsley would have been impressed by his flight pattern had he been watching) until he came around to the back side of the nest, the side away from the big water.

Here there was only a few squares and rectangles covered in the transparent barrier. The area immediately behind the nest featured an extension of the main nest that stretched out to the north. It was this part of the structure where the moving nests emerged with the humans inside. There were five large openings that were currently covered by a metallic barrier. He had once seen one of the barriers rattle open just before a moving nest—a large black one— emerged. Right now, they were all closed, the moving nests not visible.

At the end of the hidey-hole for the moving nests he could see that they were increasing the size. Part of the structure had been removed and the frame of the expansion had been erected. There were no humans present currently, but he realized that they were here at certain times. Lately there had been the sounds of banging and buzzing coming from the direction of the human nest, noises that made the murder uneasy when they heard them. Some days, always two in a row, the noises did not occur, followed by five days when they did. Could it be that the humans building the moving nest hidey-hole extension were responsible for the noises? This made sense in his mind but he would need to actually see the humans working on the nest to be sure.

He dropped down until he was only fifty feet above the top of Home Hill, making his descent on the upwind leg as he headed west back toward the ocean. With a closer vantage point, he examined the human nest again, both surveying the scene for a possible hiding place for his berries and evaluating (as long as he was in the neighborhood) the potential for food to forage. He saw no potential food sources, which he found odd. He had never been close to humans before but his understanding was that they frequently dropped food items anywhere they gathered. He was a little disappointed but still had his primary mission. His sharp eyes spotted a potential hiding spot just as he was about to make his left turn into the crosswind leg of his lap.

It was the back corner of the nest, the place where one side intersected with another at a ninety degree angle. Here, the nest covering created an enclosed area between the bottom of the cover and the side of the nest. It was a dark place, protected on three sides by solid wood, and with a flat area to perch where the wooden parts were attached together. He decided to give the area a closer look. And that meant crossing the boundary and landing within the nest area itself.

He completed his lap, his eyes searching everywhere for any sign of danger, his ears attuned to every sound, his brain mostly filtering out the sound of the wind rushing by. He saw nothing of concern. Yes, there were likely humans in the nest, but they had no idea he was there. Surely it would be safe to land as long as he kept a path of retreat open. Humans could not fly. At the first sign of one his body would automatically take to the air, launching and fleeing without conscious thought. Humans were dangerous, but only to crows within their grasping range (he and his flock had no concept of firearms or other projectile weapons as the murder had never witnessed them in action).

There was a large white cylinder sitting horizontally about thirty feet away from the corner of the nest that interested him. He steered that direction and came to a soft landing on it, his toes gripping onto a metal protrusion from the top. He looked in all directions, including upward for hawks, and then focused his attention on the side of the human nest he was facing. The berries were still in his crop and beak and he really wanted to either put them down or eat them (his flight had burned some of his energy). He watched for the better part of three minutes, observing for any possible danger. He saw nothing, heard nothing. The humans in the nest either had no idea he was there or they were indifferent to his presence.

He screwed up his courage and flew to the nest, landing neatly on one of the wooden beams beneath the overhang of the top nest cover. He took a quick look around to see if his flight had attracted any attention. It had not. He then walked along the beam until he was into the enclosed area where the nest walls intersected. It was cozy in there, he discovered, with no sign of other creatures having used it. There were no feathers, no scraps of food, no droppings. Even better, there was a recessed area where he could store his berries for later consumption. He did not think that anything besides the small crawly bugs would be able to find his stash (they found every food stash eventually) but he did not mind if the crawlies found it. That would actually be a good thing. The crawlies were quite tasty in their own right and a good source of protein. They gave a satisfying crunch when crushed with his beak. They could also be used to get rid of the itchy-scratchy problem that was caused by tiny little bugs too small to eat nesting in his feathers. Letting the crawlies crawl all over him would quickly ease the symptoms of itchy-scratchy—and provide a nice snack after.

He dropped the two berries into the recessed area and then walked back along the beam until he was looking out at the land surrounding the human nest again. Nothing seemed to be amiss so he launched into the air, swiftly flying over the human’s perimeter barrier and turning back to the east-southeast, climbing as he flew, quickly reaching three hundred feet above the terrain below. The trip back was easier as the wind gave him a considerable boost. He made the 958 meter flight in just under five minutes. He scanned for danger and landed, careful to avoid poking his toes this time. In less than a minute he had two berries in his crop and beak and was on his way back to the human nest.

He quickly established a routine and began to harvest and store. In a little more than an hour (though he had no concept of what an hour actually was since there was no name for such short units of daily time) he had two dozen berries stashed and had eaten four of them. He had worked hard and now had enough berries to last several days. But he would need to take some of his bounty back to his family nest. Though he was no longer welcome to sleep or stay there, he was still part of the family. His parents had six new hatchlings that were only days old. He was expected to help feed them if he wanted to avoid complete ostracization from the family group.

With this thought in mind, he decided to make one more flight outside the territory to the berry spot. He would gather another two ripe berries and deliver them to the family nest and feed them to his siblings. That would keep him in favor with his mother and father, allow him to continue to nest at night near them. His family was not high in the hierarchy of the murder and needed all the help it could get.

He made the flight, noting that this would really have to be the last one of the day because the sun was sinking rapidly toward the big water to the west. Soon it would disappear and darkness would conquer Home Hill and the night creatures would emerge, looking for a tasty meal of their own. Crows needed to be safe and secure in their nests when that happened. On the return flight, however, just as he got within calling range of the thick grove of pine, fir, and live oak trees (the latter of which produced ample acorns for the murder to feed upon in the late summer moons, but not now) he heard the danger shriek being carried on the wind. It was a single voice at first, quickly followed by dozens of others. A quick glance showed him the reason for the call. There was a red-tailed hawk circling above the grove, likely hoping to catch a straggler or a fledgling away from the others. And he was a straggler. All alone and unprotected.

He did not experience great fear from his predicament, just caution. He could easily outmaneuver a hawk in flight with his smaller, more aerodynamic and agile body. But there was no sense inviting attack. He was outside the safety of the murder and their mobbing defense which they would employ if simply hunkering down did not work. He had never heard the term ‘discretion is the better part of valor’ but he understood the concept quite well. All crows did. It was how they survived and thrived in a hostile world.

He quickly dropped his altitude to just above the ground level and then banked right, heading in the direction of his hidey-hole on the human nest. Even if the hawk spotted him and dove on him immediately, he would still make it to cover before it could catch him. He whizzed over the human nest’s perimeter barrier, passed over the horizontal white cylinder, and landed directly on the beam outside his hidey-hole. He turned to survey the scene. The hawk had either not seen him or had known that giving chase would have been futile. It was still circling two hundred meters away, directly over the nesting grove of his murder. The fact that it was still circling meant it had found nothing to engage. It knew the murder was there but they were obviously well under cover.

The sun was now touching the big water and the light was fading fast. The hawk showed no sign of leaving. Hawks could linger in the sky until the light from the sun was almost completely gone. There was nothing that preyed on them so their only limitation was eyesight. He began to suspect he might have to stay the night in his hidey-hole and fly back in the morning. He did not want to make the flight after the sun disappeared. That was when the night owls emerged. He had never actually seen a night owl before, had just been told about them by his parents and older siblings, and he did not wish to make one’s acquaintance on this warm night.

He dropped his berries with the rest after deciding not to eat another one just yet. He then watched the circling hawk and the sun sinking into the big water, his gaze going from one to the other. Yes, he was definitely stuck here for the night. But it was really not that big of a deal. It was safe here, there was food, and the bulk of the human nest blocked the wind from penetrating. It was actually much more comfortable than the pine tree he normally slept in. He decided to take one more lap around the nest just to be careful. Though the humans slept at night like the murder did (at least that was what his murder assumed, since the humans were only seen out during the day) it was always best to be sure. One did not become an old, withered, and wise crow by just assuming safety in a new situation.

He took to the air, staying relatively low, just a few dozen feet over the top of the human nest. He went counterclockwise around it, his eyes peering everywhere in the dimming light. It was not long until he discovered the humans.

They were at the very end of human nest’s area, at the spot where the wooden platform supported the vertical cylinder right on the edge of the cliff over the ocean. Now, however, the top of the cylinder was missing and it was revealed to be a container of steamy, roiling water. He could hear the sound of human machinery in action, could see an artificial light illuminating the water from within.

There were two humans in the roiling water. Both were missing their body feathers and their pink skin was completely naked. How had the humans removed their feathers? Could they put them back on when they wished? Was that possible? Both had their head feathers still in place, however. One of the humans had brown head feathers, the color of wet mud in the winter. The other, the smaller human, had head feathers of bright orange, the color of fire. And the humans were outside as the sun was sinking into the big water! There was only a few moments left before the lifegiving ball of energy and heat disappeared for good. Why were the humans still out here, more than thirty meters away from the entrance to their nest? Did they not fear the night owls and the racoons? Did they not need to sleep until the next sunrise?

He stayed in the air but altered his course to pass a little closer to the two humans. He had never been this close to any before and his curiosity overrode his instinctive fear. The humans did not realize he was nearby. They were, in fact, quite oblivious to anything around them. They were perching very close to each other in the roiling water, their short, useless wings around each other’s bodies, their heads pressed together right where their beaks were. Their wingtips were caressing each other and they were making noises, strange grunts and groans. As he watched, the fire-feathered one sat on the legs of the mud-feathered one and they pulled tighter against each other’s featherless bodies.

They were mating! But it was not mating season, it was hatchling season. Mating season had been the moon before, when the warmer weather began to first show signs of arrival, when the buds on the trees started to bear leaves, when the morning fog banks began to dissipate earlier in the sun cycle. He had never heard of or even imagined mating out of season before (he was a young crow and had yet to even mate in-season at this point in his life). Humans were very strange creatures.

Disconcerted by the humans’ presence and the fact that they were outside at sunset, he nevertheless had to stay at their nest on this night. The sun had now disappeared beneath the waves of the big water and it was still twilight, but the hawk was still circling over the murder’s nesting area. It was not safe to try to return. He finished his lap around the house, seeing that there was artificial light from within it, even seeing the brief silhouette of another human behind the clear barriers of the nest. On the side of the nest he had chosen, all was quiet and dark, however. He pulled himself into the hidey-hole and, after eating one of his berries, settled in for the night.

His sleep was restless. He was warm and the wind did not bite through him as it sometimes did at night when it was warm season, but it was unfamiliar, possibly dangerous territory. Nor did the human nest rock in the wind, imparting a primal and soothing rhythm to the night. When the eastern sky began to glow with the coming dawn he stretched and preened his feathers, making sure his body was ready for flight. As soon as the sun was actually visible he would take two of the berries and fly back to the family nest so he could feed his hatchling sibs. Maybe he would then try to convince his father to follow him to the berry spot. It would do a lot for his status in the family to have found a new source of food. Maybe they would even invite him back into the nest.

He ate two berries while he waited, feeling their energy surging through him. When the sun finally became visible behind Home Hill, he prepared to make his flight. But before he could even pick out the berries he would take to the family nest—obviously, he would take the oldest and squishiest ones, leaving himself the fresher, firmer ones—he heard a strange noise coming from the front of the nest. It was a sound he had never heard before, high pitched, squealing in a way. It was not like an alarm call or a call for food. It was not like a crow’s voice at all (they communicated among themselves mostly with clicks of their tongue and beak).

Once again, his curiosity got the better of him. Instead of picking out a couple of squishy berries and making a beeline to the family nest, he flew over to the white cylinder again. He looked around. The strange intermittent sound got a little louder but there were no clues regarding its origin. He flew on, in the direction of the big water this time, staying about ten meters away from the side of the human nest and about ten meters above the ground—high enough to be out of reach of virtually anything that could not fly. He passed beyond the front of the nest, flying all the way out to the cylinder of water—which he now knew to be a place of out of season mating for humans—on the edge of the cliff. The humans were no longer in it and the water was no longer visible. The brown cover with the straight lines was back in place. No steam or noise escaped the mating nest.