Deputy Jock Neighborne awoke happy. He peeked past the curtain and saw little droplets of dew humming atop freshly mown grass. The smell of the earth teased him, lulled him from the bed. In the past few weeks he’d awoken despondently – the burden of unrequited love was seeping through his bones, slowing him down, filtering all parts of the world that he usually found beautiful with a burdensome sepia glow. That morning however, was different. He was delirious. An energy coursed through his body, and from every direction. It flowed powerfully to one spot – his heart.
What beauty, Jock thought to himself, as he reached over the pepper-spray on his bedside table and pressed play on the speakers. The dulcet piano chords of Daryl Braithwaite’s classic Horses emanated through the room. He stretched his neck and sensually massaged the base of his spine – it was painful that morning but the pain was worth it. As Daryl’s sultry voice whispered it away, Jock smiled with the wry smile of nostalgia. He remembered it like it was yesterday, that first night after being inducted into the police academy. He and his comrades were at the pub, wielding their big black batons and singing, baton-in-baton, the chorus of Horses at the tops of their lungs. They were forming transcendental bonds not only with the men in the room, but with policemen all over the world, united in their purpose to dick-swing, boot-lick and sublimate childhood trauma into unrestrained aggression towards Aboriginal kids and queers. But, as Deputy Jock Neighborne knew, nostalgia was just that, nostalgia – a relic of the past, a reminder of good times. But now happy Deputy Jock Neighborne had finally discovered something to smile about; who needed nostalgia when you had the love of a beautiful companion to walk through life with?
Jock had been admiring him for months. He was imposing. His skin seemed as if it were crafted by hands that were out of this world; his hair was dark and had the metallic sheen of a raven’s coat. He had chiselled muscles like a marble Achilles. Jock had seen him chase down and trample many a Docs-wearing, petit bourgeois, uni student, fast like a jaguar and with the power of a semi-trailer. Jock craved the day he might experience such power. Oh, Beefcake, be mine. Take me to the Hershey Highway.
But this was Jock’s dirty, guilty secret. See: Jock’s worst nightmare was his work colleagues finding out about this secret crush. He’d seen how they mocked the gays in Newtown. This was a game of furtive glances, blushes and joyous wanks – “just going for a cig” – in bathroom stalls at the Redfern cop shop.
The issue was that Jock was still a lowly Deputy. He paled in comparison to those other men who’d dedicated their lives to the force, loved the force and caressed the force, as if all the boys in blue were one big biological family. The other lads and girls had proven their credentials. They were battle-hardened and scarred from beating the shit out of 40 kilo queer activists and emaciated crackheads. Beefcake barely noticed him.
So accustomed to dominating civilians and writing out tickets, Jock’s sexual fantasy, his kink, was something different to his everyday experiences. He salivated for something new. He himself wanted to see what it was like to be penetrated and dominated. And so, when others left to go home, he stayed back. Beefcake didn’t talk much. He was staunch and all business. But he listened and that’s what Jock loved the most. Jock told him about his love for all the finer things in life – a Dare iced coffee in the morning, JPS Gold (only tailors) and Oakley sunglasses. He was silently in awe of Jock’s passion for Sudoku, which he’d spent hours on alongside his morning glass of whiskey. Jock told him about the beach that had been a formative part of his childhood – the rolling waves, the calming coalesce of kids frolicking on the beach, the birds chirping, the thrill he got making sandcastles.
He told him about his first wife, who didn’t like being second fiddle to his first love – the force – and how lonely he’d been since then. He even told him about all the kids who used to make fun of him at school, the steroid addiction he developed as a result and how he struggled to get his cock up for his wife.But Jock assured him he’d be able to do it for him. He imbibed it all, all his imperfections and all his eccentricities but at no point did he, like so many others before, say “you’re a fucking loser”.
Despite all the time they spent together, Jock knew someone like him couldn’t hold his attention for long. Beefcake needed a spectacle, a Hollywood-esque display of love, to be convinced that Jock was the one.
It was a balmy evening, and they were all returning after a long day of brutalising some uni student fuckheads. One of Jock’s comrades asked him if he would be joining them for beers, but one look into Beefcake’s dark, cosmic eyes forced him to reject the kind offer. He guided Beefcake into the stable and nestled his head within Beefcake’s rippling muscles. Jock caressed him softly. He grunted in pleasure. Jock looked him square in the eye and as they stared at each other, time slowed to a drawl, and the tick tock of the clock was replaced with the protracted beats of his heart, thumping and heavy, oozing out from his swelling body. He gave him a peck on the cheek and moved around toward his back. Jock’s fingers traced abstract across Beefcake’s body and they carefully, agonisingly, moved further down. He felt around and to his surprise, felt something not soft and wet, but firm, thick and pulsing. He looked down and a giant horse cock stared him in the face. Is this me? he asked himself. Trust your heart Jock, trust it. He got onto his knees and moved into his best downward dog. Jock reached behind him and put his hand around the horse’s penis, clenched his jaw and with one swift movement, he felt a rush, unlike nothing he’d ever felt before – all the stars on in the sky burst, all the birds in the world chirped and all the other compartments of the earth spiralled and self-immolated, channelling all their energy to the powerful fusion of Jock and his saviour, the police horse.