June 3rd- Definitions of Magic by DPPatricks

This story is the result of the Me_and_Thee 100’s Challenge #363 – Magic. I wrote five drabbles for the prompt but this one decided it needed to be considerably longer than 100 words.

“The Magic Castle! Can you believe it, Starsky?” I don’t normally get effusive about such things, but I was feeling pretty darned pleased about the evening we’d just spent. “We’ve finally been to the Magic Castle!” I led the way up the stairs at Venice Place, leaving his Torino parked behind my car on the street.

“Yeah. All it took was you nearly gettin’ killed!” His tone was sullen and it surprised me. “

I dug the key out of my pocket and opened the door. Ushering him inside, I bestowed my most innocent, ingratiating smile on him. “But I didn’t!” He shuffled past me and I closed the door before continuing. “You got the girl safely out to Dobey and the uniforms, and brought the cavalry back in time to round up all the kidnappers.”

“Barely in time.” Clearly, he was not going to give up his less-than-cheerful mood easily. “Don’t ever ask me to do that again, Hutch, ‘cause I won’t.” He turned away from me. “Next time, you take the kid and go for help!”

I put my hand on his finely clad shoulder and turned him to face me. His expression was one I couldn’t read and it brought me up short. He was suppressing some thought or feeling and I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“What’s goin’ on, Starsk?”

“Nothin’,” he mumbled, moving out from under my fingers.

“You seemed to be having a good time tonight,” I pointed out. “Was that all for Mr. Kellam’s benefit?”

“No.” He shed the jacket of his dark gray suit. “I enjoyed it. Every single one of them was a terrific magician. The best I’ve ever seen!”

“Then what’s the problem?” I took the coat from him and hung it in the closet before I shrugged out of mine and hung it up, too. We’d both dressed in our best clothes for the night at the Castle, gratis, thanks to the kidnap victim’s very appreciative father.

I knew my partner had something on his mind though, besides being seen in the company of important people, eating an excellent meal, and watching the impressive entertainment offered by one of the most exclusive clubs in Southern California. And I wanted to get to the bottom of it. “So? You had a good time. What’s happened between the last act and now? What made you so quiet on the way home?”

With uncharacteristic intensity, Starsky began pacing. “We were standing outside the castle, waitin’ for the valets to bring our cars around, and Kellam kept goin’ on about how he thought the way we rescued his daughter was damn near magic.”

“I know. It made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t realize it had gotten to you, too.”

“Tried not to let it show.”

“Kellam said it was the reason he wanted to take us there tonight.” I waited until he stopped and looked at me. “When he proposed it to Dobey, I heard him say something about us being spell casters.”

“Dobey must not have taken him seriously or he’d never have agreed to it.” Starsky shook his head and I thought he actually shuddered. “Our accepting an expensive evening as a thank you for saving his daughter was questionable enough. If magic had been bandied about, I’m sure I.A. would have stuck their noses in, somehow.”

“I think Dobey was afraid Kellam would make good on his threat to bring the Magic Castle’s entire kitchen staff and cast down to Metro, to feed and entertain everybody, unless we were allowed to accompany him as soon as he could get a reservation. The idea of being able to keep a day’s police work from disruption probably tipped the scales in our favor. At least as far as the Chief was concerned.” I laughed. “I can still see Dobey’s face when he said we should go, if only to avoid that kind of media frenzy.”

“It would’ve been a zoo.”

“Since, in Mr. Kellam’s mind, we’re magicians,” I mused, “I guess he thought we’d enjoy seeing how the professionals do it.”

“That’s just it, Hutch. We both know that what you and I did wasn’t magic.”

“Nope. It was good, solid police work.”

A fleeting gleam came into his eyes. “What we saw tonight wasn’t either.”

“Oh?” That statement brought me up short. “Didn’t you think the guy in the close-up theater was great? I’ve never seen card tricks like that!”

“Exactly! ‘Tricks’.” Starsky sat down and took his shiny black shoes off, then the black silk socks I’d given him for this occasion.

“Isn’t all magic only tricks?” I sat next to him and did the same.

“Real magic isn’t.”

“What’s the difference?”

“What we saw in each of those theaters was terrific. Don’t get me wrong. But it was sleight-of-hand, prestidigitation, illusion.”

He stood up, slipped his trousers off and folded them, neatly. Walking to the closet, he placed them over the rail of the hanger that already held his coat. He loosened his tie and slipped it off, looping it carefully over the hook. Then he hung the whole thing back on the rod. I was impressed because Starsky isn’t usually that careful with his clothes.

Not to be outdone, I duplicated his movements. I’d take both suits to the cleaners in the morning. If we were going to be associating with the likes of Ed Kellam and his ilk, we might have need for them again. I turned to face him. “At the risk of repeating myself, so?”

“It was all done with years of practice, nimble fingers, misdirection, plus some smoke ‘n’ mirrors.” Unbuttoning his deep blue shirt, he took it off and draped it over the back of the couch.

Mine followed. “What then, in your expert opinion, Mr. Houdini, is real magic?”

Starsky shrugged, spread his hands in a ‘who knows?’ gesture, smiled crookedly, and shook his head, all at the same time. I nearly applauded. Anything to get him out of his sour mood.

“Harry Houdini was a master illusionist. Certainly the best, up to that time.” He plopped down on the sofa, kicking our shoes and socks under the coffee table.

I moved to the end of the couch and looked at him. Slouching there in only his tight shorts, he was turning me on. I felt heat rising up my neck and squelched it because I really didn’t want sex to intrude at the moment. Starsky had things on his mind. “Next question then. Have you ever seen genuine magic?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Really?”

“Trust me, Hutch. Really.”

“Okay.” I sat down next to him, hunching over to try to hide the bulge in my shorts. “Can you show me?”

“Yep. No sleight of hand or illusions, either.” Starsky got up and moved around the coffee table. When he turned to face me, his own rod was plainly trying to rip through the seams of its cotton prison. The back vein was outlined perfectly. The slit must have been seeping because a wet spot was growing near the waistband.

After what seemed like an hour of my imagining covering that swelling, fabric-encased organ with my hungry mouth, I heard him chuckle.

“Look up here, Hutch.”

The smirk in his voice was all I needed to hear to know I’d been played like a Stradivarius. And I didn’t give a tinker’s dam. My best friend, my brother-in-blue, my lover and life partner had lured me into this scenario and, with only a slight shudder at how gullible I’d been, I was more than willing to play my part.

I took my sweet time raising my eyes, allowing my lustful gaze to travel from his groin, protected by lean hips and muscled thighs, up his flat, sculpted abs and elegantly scarred chest, across his sleek shoulders, up his corded neck, past his evening-beard-stubbled cheeks, to his soul-deep indigo eyes. They are still — yet always — the most expressive, alluring, inviting, exciting, captivating, mesmerizing eyes I have ever seen.

“Stand up.” Starsky’s soft, sexy voice washed over me like a caress.

No longer attempting to hide my growing erection, I did so.

“Lose the shorts.” His words were gentle, warm, and sweet in my ears, the way honey would taste on my tongue.

Not breaking the stream of photons moving back and forth between us, I shoved the material down, kicked it away, and straightened to my slightly taller height.

He mimicked my slow appraisal of his body, heating up every square inch of my skin with his blazing inspection. Gooseflesh erupted everywhere his visual examination touched. My breath caught in my throat. My cock, no longer restrained, lengthened and grew to what Starsky claims are mythic proportions. It had a life of its own now and only my lover would be able to satisfy its lust.

Still holding my soul with his stare, Starsky pushed his Jockeys down over his hips, shimmied them lower, and stepped out of them.

I couldn’t help it; my eyes snapped to his crotch.

His shaft sprang up fully engorged displaying his family jewels below. He may claim that my manly parts are prodigious but he’s never seen his from my perspective. Knowing he was hard, for me, fired all my receptors; he was absolutely god-like in my view. Every nerve in my body was ignited. Reluctantly, and almost expecting a reprimand, I dragged my eyes back up to his.

The smile on his face was positively effervescent. “When two people feel the way we do about each other, Hutch…” he enunciated every word, “and experience the effects we’re now going to explore together and thoroughly enjoy…” his smile grew even wider. “that is magic.”

Defining a word
with synonyms, likes, same as,
can obscure the truth
END