Gatekeeper's Secret
Copyright© 2026 by Fick Suck
Chapter 36
“When are we going to do the ole’ penis and vagina thing?”
Grady almost dropped the saddle in his hand. “The moment you request it is the best answer I have. However, if I may suggest, you should time your request for access to a bed with a good mattress. I have more than one to volunteer, just in case.”
“You always make it sound so straightforward and reasonable,” Linh said. “I’m trying to shock you, and you roll with it like I’m asking where the drinking glasses are.”
Instead of answering, Grady took the gear and stowed it properly. He came back with brushes and showed Linh how to groom a horse and feed it afterward. With a good afternoon ahead of them, he led the horses to the corral and let them enjoy the sunshine too.
Linh had her nose deep in his refrigerator when he joined her in the kitchen. Claire was sitting at the table with a small plate of peanut butter in a mound. She had a bag of crunchy bread sticks that Jessica had bought but no one had eaten. Grady thought they tasted like sawdust. Claire would draw precise squiggles in the peanut butter, then bring a glob of the paste on the stick to her mouth. The crunch of the bread stick put Grady on edge, and he did not know why. “Claire, do you want some sandwich bread for your peanut butter?”
“Is not this stick sufficient for peanut butter?”
“Yeah, but the sound of it crunching is weird,” Grady said, slightly cringing.
“The number of chemicals unrelated to making bread is probably the source of your misophonia, sir,” Claire said. “The amount of grain in these sticks is appallingly low.”
“Grady,” Linh said, coming to stand beside him. “If we are going to be a couple, your eating habits are going to change. I recognize some of those jars, bottles, and packages from the grocery store, but no human being who respects their body consumes that crap.”
“Most of it generates foul gas in his gut,” Claire said. “I already told him.”
“Sir Farts-A-Lot, I presume,” Linh said, not backing down from Grady’s raised eyebrow. “You’re grown up, and now it’s time for your diet to grow up too. Olive loaf? Bologna? Sure, have it on a picnic once in a while if you enjoy it, but not as part of your daily diet. You’re going to quickly go to fat. I expect my lovers to be trim and in shape.”
“If you’re offering to take up the cooking duties, I’m all for it,” Grady said.
“I, too,” Claire said. “If we could eat at your mother’s restaurant every day, I would be quite content.”
“Tourist fare. Cooking in my house is far and away better,” Linh said to Claire before turning back to Grady. “I want you strong and virile.”
“Virile: manly, macho, sexually potent, fecund, substantial,” Claire said. “Perhaps, sir, she wishes to elevate you to breeding stock. Ms. Jessica makes a good income when she has a producing stud. You could be a new revenue stream.”
Linh looked horrified. Grady held it in for a few beats before he burst out laughing. “You’re telling jokes. You’ve been here, how long, and you’re mastering humor.”
“All part of the service for which you pay handsomely, sir,” Claire said with her typical deadpan. “An upgrade in the quality and diversity of local foodstuffs would be greatly appreciated. Ms. Trang has offered, and my advice is that you would be a fool to ignore her offer.”
“I’m not eating rabbit food like the Witts do,” Grady said.
“They wouldn’t know a chili pepper if it bit them in the ass,” Linh said. “They think cilantro is little green flecks you throw on top to make the food look pretty. This is part of who I am, can you deal with it, Grady?”
“My grandma was a strong woman, strong of will and strong with a backhand,” Grady said. “Grandpa wasn’t always pleased to be on the receiving end of her tongue lashing, but he loved her fiercely. I always thought you had the same sort of backbone; you didn’t take shit from anybody.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes, I will worship you like the Valkyrie you are,” Linh said. “I’ll deal with whatever you have for lunch for today, but we’re going grocery shopping. If that Laia Alvarez is at the cashier’s stand, I’m going to give her a little piece of my mind. Twit.”
“Oh,” was all that Grady managed to squeak out.
“Sir, both your attorney and your accountant’s employee, Maddy, called while you were out. They request a call back. The project continues apace, but you have decisions looming if we are to continue at this speed.”
Linh stepped in front of Grady. “Projects? I like projects. What are you two doing?”
Claire looked at Grady who stared right back. Grady held his neck with his left hand, massaging the muscles on either side as he tried to remember what Claire had highlighted. “Well, Linh, The Twin Sisters Ranch has been collecting and storing unique items since my great-great-grandparents, Jeremiah and Olivia. The collection has grown so large that it’s become a problem. Some of the items are also a little dangerous to handle. Safety and caution are two big issues right now.”
“Can I help?”
“Yes,” Grady said, “but.”
“But?”
Grady took her by both shoulders and looked her in the eyes, “This is a matter of absolute secrecy. No one, not your family, your friends, or your therapist, can know about the collection. No one alive but the three of us know of its existence and it needs to remain that way. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” she said with wide eyes. “Is this collection creepy or cool? Shrunken heads or Billy the Kid’s Bowie knife?”
Grady dropped his arms from her shoulders and kissed her on the lips. “Beyond your imagination Cool. I think. Claire is better at identifying the objects.”
“Cool,” she said. “I don’t have a therapist, and we haven’t gone all the way yet. Should I get one and should we, you know, go do the deed while the bed’s available?”
Grady grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him. “What do you want to tell your mother?”
“I’ll tell her I don’t want a therapist,” Linh said with a blank face. “Then I’ll tell her you’re an asshole. That’s the one she’ll believe.”
Grady stepped back from their clinch. “We made a mistake by returning to the ranch. We should have stayed out and returned with the sunset.”
“My first time is not going to be peeling rocks and pebbles out of my back and behind, Cowboy,” Linh said. “You were a good boy scout, and we went as far as I wanted. You treated me the way I wanted to be treated. Now, the schedule?”
“Schedule: we eat something. Then you can go with Claire, and I will go to the office and return calls. We only have two respirators anyways.” Grady turned to Claire, “Do we have a need for a burn barrel today?”