Work Text:
“We should shoot the sonofabitch.” Nixon hadn’t caught anything unusual in the sentiment, or so Clyde had insisted to the Director in a hushed exchange back in their grandstand box: after all, who hadn’t wanted to shoot Bobby Kennedy at one time or another? Well, Edgar wasn’t having it. It was just that Clyde was used to talking to either the boys at the Bureau, with whom you could be frank, or the press, with whom you couldn’t. For all the drinks Clyde had poured for him over the years, Nixon remained a gray area, crass and prudish together—shockingly naïve one minute and shockingly cynical the next. And Clyde had been out of sorts, between the fix in the Olly’s Boy race beforehand and the strain of being gracious to the Rosellis and man-stealing kitchen boys of the world.
So Clyde licked his wounds. He kept on best behavior for the rest of the talk with Nixon, and took care of bundling Nixon off to his police chiefs with all the requisite niceties and San Diego restaurant recommendations. He didn’t try to be clever for the rest of the day, letting the roar of the crowd fill the silences between Edgar and himself. He caught a ride back to the Del Charro with Sid to give Edgar time alone, skipped dinner, and spent some more time with the new Updike novel which was supposed to libel the Bureau but so far had mostly just advertised the martini lunch. It was no good to apologize right away, with Edgar: you had to wait, and then make a gesture of it. Back in his first decade of service, Clyde could just take the belt and be done with it, if he made an error with tour groups, or filing, or the margins on a memo; now, on the national stage, Edgar expected him to show a little more initiative.
Clyde was stepping out of the shower by the time he heard a key at the bungalow door. He had gotten the fine dust of the track out of his hair, and prepared, with the help of a little rubber bulb, to make up with Edgar. But how exactly he would broach the subject didn’t occur until, dry and clad in a robe, he had peeped back into the suite to find a shirtless Edgar reclining in bed with a copy of The Thoroughbred Record, trying to get a bead on the next day’s offerings. After he got at least one win in, on the first day, Edgar liked to do his own research rather than relying on the safe picks from his hosts at Del Mar.
And here was Clyde’s way in.
He padded over, slipped into the California King bed beside Edgar, and read over his shoulder for a bit. A grunt was all Edgar gave him in the way of a greeting, but he did adjust the angle of the magazine.
“That reminds me,” Clyde started out before he could second-guess himself, “we did get some requests in the mail.”
“What’s that?” Edgar asked distractedly.
“Well, Ms. Gandy and I figured it was getting to be your season—pacing around, sniffing after the new recruits. So we placed an ad in the Law Enforcement Bulletin.”
“The hell are you talking about, Clyde,” Edgar said, looking over at him now with eyes narrowed.
There was some risk that he would reject the whole admittedly silly premise, once it was laid out for him—and Clyde wasn’t so fond of risk as Edgar. Still, he pushed on, keeping down a blush. “Think of it as another supplement to your salary, just like editorials and speaking engagements: Director, Quantico Stables, stud fee $2,000.”
And, to Clyde’s relief, Edgar cracked a sly smile. He was going to play along, now that he knew the rules: “Bit low, Clyde, don’t you think?”
“We wanted as many prospects for you as possible. After all, it’s the easiest way to get more suitable agents. Perfect agents.”
“I don’t want any faulty mares with my issue in ’em, Clyde. That’d be a disgrace. The hell did you and Ms. Gandy put in this advertisement?”
Clyde looked for inspiration in the page of stallion ads open over Edgar’s lap. The two of them had been following the races for decades now; they were both fluent in the euphemistic language of animal husbandry, which used the driest vocabulary imaginable to solicit the very basest of biological functions. It was like encryption, Clyde thought. And it wasn’t hard for him to apply the syntax of equestriana to his and Edgar’s mundane world of public service.
“Director, standing at stud, 1968 season. Proven record of decades, never caught in a pileup. Sire to thousands of agents—”
“Tens of thousands,” Edgar corrected.
“Hundreds, soon,” Clyde assured him. “Registered thoroughbred, available by private contract to approved federal employees only.”
“CIA need not apply.”
Clyde pretended to take this down, unable to keep a smile off his face. “For the prospect, I assumed the Bureau’s physical standards would apply.”
“Mm. Preference to Kappa Alpha or Masons, but I suppose we don’t have to put that in the ad.”
“FBI laboratory preservation methods ensure freshest possible…product. Discreet inquiries welcome by post or phone.”
“I hope that’s double-e discreet,” Edgar growled, always on guard against the typographical error. “That all? Well, I guess it’ll do.”
It seemed to be doing nicely: the magazine was listing to the right as the linens beneath it shifted. Clyde shifted, too, onto his side, prepared to help the Director along if he so desired. Just the fact of Edgar’s arousal was enough to get Clyde hot, though these days it was his nipples that tended to demand attention first. “Good,” Clyde said. “I’ll tell Ms. Gandy to send a brief on any calls we’ve gotten so far.”
“And yet, Clyde,” Edgar mused, “I can’t help but wonder how you’ll feel about all these young prospects getting samples of my seed, joining my bloodline. Hm?”
It wasn’t new, this game of making Clyde jealous and making him admit it. The kitchen boy from the prior day had been part of it. Edgar simply needed to remind himself that Clyde still wanted him, wanted his attention, couldn’t bear to see it lavished on a stranger. Or on hundreds of strangers, in this hypothetical equine-themed scenario.
“Hardly the place for any personal bias,” Clyde said. “I’m thinking only of getting you the highest-quality issue.”
“You’re no nag, Clyde,” Edgar said. “I think you’re up to the task.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Clyde started to reach for Edgar’s crotch, but Edgar waved him off.
“Sit up, let me see you.”
Clyde raised himself to kneeling, and shrugged off the shoulders of his silk robe such that the arms slipped down to hang at his belt. Edgar, leaning forward, brought a hand to Clyde’s mouth and parted his lips—to inspect his teeth, Clyde realized. He smelled chlorine on Edgar’s fingers, and ash, from his habit of pinching candles out. The hand withdrew and trailed down the middle of Clyde’s sternum, to check his heartbeat—then it landed on his waist, feeling for reflexive movement in the abdominals, just the way Edgar would when appraising a sophomore colt in the paddock.
“Solid through the flank, still.” Clyde knew it was a good sign when Edgar’s voice dropped this low, crackling and popping like embers. “Good conformation. Good shoulder.”
“Out of condition, of course,” Clyde said, before Edgar could observe that he wasn’t the hardbodied crimestopper of the Thirties anymore.
“Not important, in breeding stock,” Edgar said charitably. “Impressive career, anyway. And refinement. You came to me with a pedigree, from the War Department. Let’s see the gait.”
So Clyde slid off the bed and trotted around it. “Tack off,” Edgar said. The Venetian blinds were closed; Clyde pulled at his robe’s sash and let it fall to the floor. He was blushing, now. Never was he more aware of how far outside of the Bureau’s age and weight requirements he fell than when he was naked in front of Edgar.
“Moves with ease,” Edgar noted. “No fear, no hesitation—lift the knees for me, now. Better.”
Clyde looked back at the bed, where Edgar had folded the covers down to sprawl out, legs apart and bare except for his socks. Clyde watched him pull the band of his briefs out to let his thick, red cock rear up against his hairy belly. Clyde had always loved the sounds of satisfaction he made, whether rubbing one out, or collecting his winnings, or finally receiving a piece of admissible evidence. He started to bring a hand up to one of his nipples, but Edgar stopped him. “Regulation stance, please. Well. Obedience isn’t in question, but what I’m looking for is intelligence. Judgment. Just enough independence for good judgment.”
He patted the bed beside him, and Clyde felt he knew just what to do. He got on all fours. Now it was Edgar’s turn to stand, and circle behind him.
“Good. Flying colors. However—nothing else matters, if you aren’t fit to carry. If the pipes aren’t still sound,” he said, with just a hint of nastiness.
It had been a while since they’d last fucked. On vacations, lately, Edgar was all pent up from his work, and he wanted muscled asses to spank; hard, bobbing cocks like punching bags to flick and tease; men on the clock, in a color wheel of uniforms that seemed exotic after months of Bureau grays. If he couldn’t fuck them, he could prod at their psyches, at least, these doormen and drivers and blackjack dealers. He would proposition them just to watch their reactions, secure in the knowledge that they couldn’t say a damn thing about it. Edgar believed all men were liable to turn queer if the opportunity presented itself, and he liked to watch their shocked minds work: Is that Mr. Hoover? Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Would I lose my job if I didn’t? Would the Director’s power protect me if I did?
As for Clyde, on vacations he was looking for—well, he did miss the days when Edgar would move heaven and earth to get him transferred, promoted, and invited to White House suppers. On vacations, out of his element, Clyde didn’t get the chance to demonstrate his ability to reflect Edgar’s brilliance back at him, polish his ideas, make his work easier. Yes, on vacations, Clyde was looking for reassurance that Edgar thought of him as more than the perfect sounding board. And, though he didn’t necessarily mind Edgar screwing around, it was not reassuring when Edgar found the waitstaff just as appealing as he found his Associate Director.
This was all to say that they hadn’t fucked yet, on this trip.
Edgar was completely out of sight now. Clyde felt the mattress sink under one of Edgar’s knees, felt Edgar’s erection hovering at the back of his own thigh, and turned to look back at him. This earned him a swat on the haunches. “Maintain position,” the Director said. One of Edgar’s thumbs parting his buttocks, the other swiping over his anus—and finding it oiled. If they were horses, Clyde thought to himself, he would be flicking his tail and pissing in spurts to signify his readiness. Well, coconut lotion smelled a lot better.
“Now look who happens to be in season, too,” Edgar said, and Clyde could hear him smiling through his feigned surprise, amused by the simulated drama of this revelation. “Neglected to tell me that. I don’t want to believe that this business with the advertisement was all just a pretense to get my cock into you. Do you think you need to coax me into it, Clyde? Have I not been showing enough eagerness?”
“Not a pretense,” Clyde said. “I just thought…in case you wanted to try me out, get an accurate comparison with others, on…all points.”
“You can be clever,” Edgar said appreciatively.
He sunk in easily, to the hilt. A drunken Senator McCarthy had once asked what the Director’s cock was like, and although Clyde had been in no mood to answer then, he would describe it objectively as uncut, girthy, on the short side. To Clyde, it was simply the cock that all others were measured against; sex with Edgar was the most constant, reliable thing in his life. It was like the Washington Monument.
Edgar rocked his hips lazily, holding Clyde’s ass square between his palms. As familiar as this arrangement was, with just one of Edgar’s knees up on the bed there was a foreignness to the angle, and Clyde gasped at the first thrust. Edgar barely had to move at all: it felt like the sway and rebound of the spring mattress was doing the work of pulling Clyde up and down Edgar’s shaft.
“Did Sid and Clint get new beds in here, since last time?” Clyde wondered.
“Prospect is attentive to surroundings,” Edgar said.
Maybe he and Edgar had worn the old bed out. Of course this was the thought that got him hard, finally, when he had no way to address his erection except the way that horses did, bouncing it against his own stomach as he was rocked back and forth. He should have been imagining a stable, but it was difficult, with the bed and the plush carpet and so on: Clyde was used to these accommodations, but he never took them for granted. This was luxury. This was the kind of thing that made you want to send a postcard home. To little Deke, maybe, make him jealous. Or Miss Cohn. Ha! Roy-boy, you’ll never find a man worth a goddamn compared to mine.
Edgar was still occupied by the logic of their invented scenario. “Now, if we go ahead with your plan to give away my services to all comers, you’ll have to be ready to assume this position any time I agree to an offer. No reason to do it myself, when you’ll be near at hand; and I’ll go this far, but no further. You’ll get me ready, warm me up, and then you’ll make yourself presentable while I collect the product for the lab, hm? Should I get a start on that now?”
Here he pulled out suddenly. All of Clyde’s weight had been on one elbow, which gave out, leaving him slumped on the bed with his ass in the air. “Edgar,” he said, letting his hips drop to the mattress, too. “No, you shouldn’t—what?”
“What to put it into, that’s the question,” Edgar said, pretending to look around for a vessel while stroking his cock.
“Edgar, put it in me,” Clyde almost whined. “Of course I don’t want you to save it. Of course I want it to myself.”
“It makes a difference to you, hm? The other boys at the Bureau will hate you for hoarding it.”
“That’s right. That’s right. Deke will hate me. I don’t care, Edgar,” Clyde said, almost babbling, and started to push himself up.
“No, stay down,” Edgar said, grinning triumphantly. “On your belly, there.”
So Clyde stayed down, his face in the pillow and his full and leaking cock crushed under him. Edgar pinned him like a wrestler, leaving no inch of space between them when he slid in again. “In that case, consider yourself contracted to me,” Edgar said, whiskey on his breath, his sunburnt cheek hot, and it was just a few final jerks of the hips before he emptied himself into Clyde. “If you’re dead set on it,” he panted.
“Thank you, Director,” Clyde said.
This time Edgar didn’t pull out. He pulled Clyde to the right, cradling his stomach as if weighing his contribution. They lay there on their sides, sweaty, locked together. “Have to stay in, make sure it takes,” he said: it took Clyde a moment to understand what he meant, but that meaning was enough to finish things off for him, too. He heard Edgar inhale as he clenched around him.
“The poor cleaning staff,” Clyde said, shuddering at the state of the bedsheets.
“I know you’ll get a kick out of handing the laundry off to them,” Edgar said. “You do have your antisocial tendencies, Clyde. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if young Joaquin happened to take a shift at the in-house laundry.”
This was probably as close to an apology as Edgar was going to give, and it was more than enough. “It’d be educational for him,” he decided. “I’m happy, Edgar.”
“I hope so. You’ve made things difficult for yourself,” Edgar sighed. “How are you going to handle your duties in the office, now, Clyde? Hard to hide your condition from the other agents, in close quarters. And they’ll all know it’s mine.”
“I wish I could,” Clyde found himself saying. “I wish I could give you a dynasty.”
Edgar gave an affectionate snort. “It’d be convenient, wouldn’t it. Counterbalance the CIA. Counterbalance the damn Kennedies that keep popping out faster than we can…learn their names.”
“They’d be young enough to infiltrate the campus communist organizations,” Clyde added. It had been difficult to find agents able to blend in with the longhairs at the left-wing universities. “Our bloodline. I mean, our kids.”
“Mm. If we raised them ourselves, they wouldn’t have anything to hide. No deviates. Never leave us for Congress, or the Birchers, or for a radio show.”
“Or for Pepsi-Co.” DeLoach had threatened as much a few times now.
“Never go to the other side,” Edgar said, no doubt thinking of Philby, or Judith Coplon.
“Never make up moral objections.” It would be the solution to a problem that Clyde would wager they’d both given a lot of thought, but rarely discussed: to whom would Edgar leave the Bureau? He had never found the right man to inherit it.
“Never turn on us. Never betray us.”
“We could put one in the White House someday,” Clyde said, ignoring the absurdity of this statement in light of his and Edgar’s ages, so long as they were already ignoring practical considerations in service of this fantasy.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Edgar murmured, petting Clyde’s arm.
We’ll fight again tomorrow, Clyde thought. I’ll do something wrong, and have to apologize again. But, my god, a man like Richard Nixon has no right to give me those pitying sidelong glances. In what world is a sexless all-forgiven handshake from Buddy better than an evening like this?