You couldn’t bear the expense in treasure and time to first go out a few times, the way some sluts made you jump through hoops before they let you fuck them.
Fags, at least the ones online and in the paper, were upfront. They didn’t waste time, they made their request, they made their offer, they used their line… and they would get a clean yes or no response.
Two guys walk into a bar, wanting the same thing.
Of course they were going to give it to each other, if the other one wasn’t repulsive, or even mildly attractive.
They seemed to have different kinds of fags, too.
There were twinks – pretty young men with lean and smooth bodies. Twinks seemed to enjoy near-universal appeal. There were also bears – big guys with lots of hair and significant bellies. Otters were young bears.
Trans was an interesting one.
It would be good as a crossover – get Brad to understand how to behave sexually. He could pretend it was a girl, for the most part. Every now and then he could let himself explore the idea that the person he was with was actually another guy.
They were few and far in between. And the ones advertising wanted stable, loving relationships – but they had more issues than they could hide.
Brad went back to considering the possibilities, and the simplicity, of Top, Bottom and Versatile as he turned the page. That was when he saw her ad.
“You drifted off, over there…” the old bat said.
“Sorry,” Brad replied.
“It’s got internet, warm water and electricity. $500, we don’t sweat the numbers unless there’s parties or silliness going on here, in which case I charge more for the ’lectric.”
“Ma’am,” Brad said, playing down the camp and putting on some Southern charm despite his unmistakable Yankee accent. “I really, really like the place, and I really want to take it.”
“Had two people look at it, they were also interested…”
And there was the need for the waterworks.
They came to Brad’s eyes, nice tears… ones that were supposed to stay small, no more than moisture on the eyes, really… but swelled and dammed up nicely.
“Sorry. I don’t want you to think I’m a wreck.”
The old bat’s face visibly softened. She reached out and touched his shoulder.
“It’s okay. Sit down.”
Brad did.
Now the game was quick.
Landlord. They wanted a sure thing, a thing that won’t be or make trouble. Someone who was young and innocent, someone you could take pity on, but didn’t have to, because they weren’t batshit crazy.
Someone living humbly. But someone who had some pool of cash available somewhere, a family in another city, perhaps, that could fork out cash if they ran into trouble.
“I’m here to do my Masters. I just came out to my parents. My dad didn’t take it really well, and but my mom’s fine. I think. Anyway, I have school starting up on Monday, I drove a long way here from Rhode Island… and the spot is perfect. I’d really love it right now if I could relax.”
The old bat actually fought back tears of her own.
He had her, the stupid bitch.
The tears worked.
She said yes. He offered to give her $300, all he had on him. And arrange the rest by nightfall.
“It’s cool. Give it to me Monday. Here’s the key, move in, get settled.”
Brad seemed happy and his happiness was genuine. She thought it was relief, but it was a kind of glee.
See? See what tears can get you?
Threats can’t do that.
That was the first time the tears worked.
The second time, the ritual was heavy going.
A call to the father.
“Hello?” The voice of a man under constant strain.
“Hi dad.”
A few moments pass. Heavy silence.
“Why did you call here?”
And in that moment Brad knew he had him. He could hear him straining to get the words out. Struggling to say it, like he was following advice he didn’t agree with.
“I missed you.”
And that was all Brad needed to get the rat running in his father’s head… rushing with thoughts and emotions ticking away like little rat feet.
They talked for half an hour.
Brad was sorry. But he knew he had to earn back trust. So, he moved to Fairbridge to go deal with “Mom’s people”. That shamed his father all over again, because of how Brad was conceived. She was some hillbilly waitress. He was on a business trip.
Brad told his father he’d enrolled in college, he got a job, and he just found an apartment. He was going to put some cash away and do some thinking.
He’d been thinking a lot at the Medical Facility. He did not treat those three girls correctly. He understands that now.
But he was never a monster.
Blah blah. That sort of shit.
“It all sounds good, Brad.”
“That’s it. I have to go now, I don’t want to waste minutes.”
“Let me call you back,” his father answered. Again, Brad smiled in triumph.
Three minutes later and the old man rang back.
“I’m glad you are finally getting things together, Brad. But your actions have consequences.”
And the cost of money was simple going to be letting the old man do his thing.
He was being very reasonable.
“The things you’ve done have cost this family. Dearly. And I know what… how your mother got pregnant is a difficult thing. But we did take you in. We gave you everything.”
His father droned on and on, making arguments, rationalizing, talking himself into it.
Then he announced, as if it had been his idea all along:
“I tell you what. Text me your number. I’ll wire you some money.”
And the tears did the job again.
A waver in Brad’s voice. It sounded so real. So deeply felt. So difficult, almost, to get out.
“Thanks, Dad.”
And while the line was completely quiet on the other side, but Brad could hear the emotion drop in the room there.
His father would stop at nothing to secure Brad saying those two words to him. Thanks – meaning he was recognized for how fucking capable and loving and shit he was. He liked to hear that because it allowed him to believe he was actually useful.
And Dad.
Oh, Dad was the magic word.
Being called daddy by any one of his kids made the fuck go all sensitive. Why, he became like clay.
And the master stroke?
Brad already had the money when he pulled the trick. It helps with buyer’s remorse. It also sets shit up for next time. And there would always be a next time, as long as the old fuck stayed alive.
And frankly, it was least they could do for Brad.
Hick moms and monied fathers. But neither of them deserved Brad.
You know when people find out they are adopted and they get all broken up about it?
Well, if Brad was told he wasn’t genetically related to either of these, he’d be absolutely fucking delighted.
“That’s okay Brad. Please, work with me here.”
And the old man hung up.
Time number three the tears helped: Brad checking into the local PD.
Now here is where things got tricky.
Walked into the station, spoke to the desk officer, who went to call someone to go call someone from the Sex Crimes Division.
“Next,” she said, unimpressed.
He waited.
A detective came to get him.
Lectured Brad about the kind of town Fairbridge was, and that if he was planning on any, and he meant any, funny business, it would be best for him to move along.
Stuff got real down here really quickly. It was still the South.
They sat down in a room with eight different desks, snowed under by files and stacks of paperwork. Detectives of different divisions, many of them just one- or two-man outfits, buzzed about like flies.
Fairbridge PD’s Sex Crimes Division wasn’t the biggest or most well-funded of the operations.
Now the cop stopped talking, and he asked Brad some questions.
Brad answered, with a serious look on his face. He had an apartment, money, and he was a student enrolled at the Varsity. He was young, but he wanted to stay on the straight and narrow.
All fine.
It was his connection to Alex Keegan that set of fire alarms.
Brad could see it in the detective’s eyes.
“Tell you what. Just wait a minute,” the cop said, and stalked down the hallway, knocking loudly on the captain’s office door.
They seemed to be having an argument. The cop disappeared behind the doorway when he spoke, popping back out now and then to stare at Brad.
The captain seemed to have lost the argument.
He came out, a short, rotund man with glasses that leaned backwards from the perch of his snout.
He walked down the hallway.
The detective walked back to him, swaggering with confidence.
A few minutes later, some New Yorker in a suit walked in.
“You. Why are you here?”
He sat directly opposite Brad, looking into his eyes.
The New Yorker was a much older man, but his eyes were piercing and full of energy.
Brad looked around the room.
“No, no… look at me. Focus,” the old man said.
Brad instantly hated the man.
“Why are you in Fairbridge, Mr. Jensen? Anything to do with your father?”
“Stepfather.”
The man’s eyes searched Brad’s, and he smiled.
“Let me make this very clear to you. I’m Chief of Police, George Hannah. Your file says you’ve been doing time on the taxpayer’s dime in upstate wherever. Your stepfather is currently in federal custody. Something involving snake smuggling. But probably more about his involvement in terrorist activity that damn near killed this town. Now you show up, and I have to ask: Why? Because since the massacre here I have the FBI on speed dial. But fuck them. Why stop there? Why not give you up to Homeland Security? Send you to Guantanamo. Romania. Some place like that.”
Brad understood now what this was all about.
McKay.
The cops were all over the McKay kid and his rampage.
But Brad had no interest in McKay.
The tears that worked with guys like this Chief were very different tears. You had to summon it from yourself, even as you tried very hard to keep them down.
He was a New Yorker; Brad could hear that. Yet he was the chief cop down here.
You hit guys like that with the truth. And let the crying take care of itself.
Just like this:
“Have you ever been to the Creek, Chief?”
“When I picked your stepfather up.”
“I lived there for the first ten years of my life.”
“Aware of that. I read your court transcripts.”
“I had a brother too, you know that.”
The Chief nodded.
“Alex and I stayed close. Even when I was taken to go live with my father. I lost him to this McKay freak. And my stepfather – who is a real son of bitch – is in jail, or something, I don’t even know. And all I can do is to help take care of my mom. She lost everything she had, and I couldn’t help because I was in prison.”
And they came and went.
The tears.
In the middle of his little speech. But he rapidly suppressed them. He kept the movements in his face absolutely perfect throughout. The Chief saw them come up, saw them be suppressed, and that seemed to do the trick.
Brad ended his expression on something that said: I’ll be damned if I let you see me cry.
The Chief looked at the detectives, now three strong, that sat around Brad.
The Chief got up, putting his coat back on.
“Listen to me, Brad Jensen.” Then he stabbed Brad’s chest with his index finger.
“Do not fuck around in this town.”
The Chief left. So did the other two detectives.
The uniform told him coldly: “Next week, I’d like documentary evidence of employment and residency from you. I expect you to stay sober, stay away from kids, stay out of trouble, and not to re-offend, or get arrested, on any charge of any kind. I will come by in the next month or so to check your place of living, and your place of employment.”
“Yessir,” Brad said glumly.
With three sets of tears in the bag, Brad figured he deserved some smiles.
He had a place, successfully negotiated for more money, successfully concluded his first report to the police station. What he needed was a job, to explain the source of his money.
But all he needed to do now was lie down in his new place and dream about what he was going to do to Draker.
The trick would be the opioids. Enough to put him down for a while. Long enough to tie up.
And then the possibilities opened up. Strangle him until he could hear his windpipe crack beneath his squeezing hands.
Take a knife, maybe stab him a few times. Or cut him.
How, Brad wasn’t sure yet.
It would reveal itself to him… the perfect way to do it. He would figure it out, watching Paul, getting to know him, slowly, over time.
Like he was in no rush at all.
A kind of prolonged foreplay.
And then, seeing Draker’s life seep out of his eyes. Seeing the sentience leave the eyes.
Brad had been in prison for three and a half years, not having anything resembling actual sex.
He’d spent many nights dreaming of nice, tight pussy. And now he’d been out for a week, and still no pussy.
But it would have to wait a while longer.
It would be boy pussy now.
Brad laughed, starting with his workout routine.
Jesus, it was going to be so fun getting to him. Fucking with him. Getting him ready to be taken, to be had, to be killed.
His erection stayed with him through every move, the pushups, the handstands, the splits.
With every push, every exertion, he looked at the printed face of Paul Draker, taped to his wall.
There, you fucking piece of shit.
You’re gonna like it too.
Chapter 17
Breathless
So the date went well – just two boys at the fair. They hung out, took some rides, ate some hotdogs and walked and talked all night.
And then, when the sex came… well, that was something else.
Ah, the way Brad moved.
Like a gazelle, but playful rather than anxious. Out at the fair or walking around in public with Paul, he swung his shoulders just enough to imply a hint of machismo. His chest was well defined, but not too large. It showed through the white vest that stretched across his body – as did his arms, which were powerful but not overbuilt.
And while in the act of making love… he moved forcefully, like a tempest or a hurricane. Overpowering. A force of nature.
The checked collar shirt he wore over it had the sleeves rolled up and was just a tad too big for him. It hung around him and swung as he moved, if he held it behind him and a gust of wind blew, the shirt might as well have been a cape.
He had slightly less stubble than the first night Paul met him. It made him look instantly younger and slightly more vulnerable, even innocent. There was a playful spirit in the man who walked like that. Someone who was enjoying himself and sought no need to explai
n or philosophize.
A comfort in his own skin that Paul could somehow never match himself.
He found the strangest things funny. There was a bit if a hard, dark edge behind his humor sometimes. And occasionally he went quiet and seemed to take a long journey in his mind… always looking at the horizon then. Those icy blue eyes. That short-cropped brunette hair.
Not to mention unbelievable skin. Smooth, slightly tanned. But not a blemish or an imperfection anywhere.
That skin of his looked creamy. Paul could imagine his lips on that skin. He could almost taste it, and could feel it softly in his mouth.
Around Brad hung a scent. Something subtle, some middle-of-the-range cologne. But his own smell was clean, familiar and unobtrusive.
His teeth were perfect, his lips always moist. Sometimes when he laughed a lot, they would look to Paul almost as a snarl.
As they walked around the woods closest to the Cro’s Post, he seemed to enjoy the outdoors. He was careful not to disturb or hurt the environment. They talked and laughed a lot, but made sure their voices didn’t carry. Not loud or bombastic.
Brad seemed at home in the woods. He wasn’t trained, but he took to it.
Paul listened to a story Brad was telling about life as a kid back in Connecticut. He was nodding away when it suddenly struck him.
Paul was a grown man, and he might have been lots of things, but naïve wasn’t one of them.
Nevertheless, there it was, he knew it. He was falling for him.
He grew up fast in a world determined to make itself felt. Landing under fire in a place that very seldom showed any mercy and took those who you loved away.
If you grew up in the eighties you knew homosexuals as a bad secret group of some kind. At least he did, in Teddie Stevens’ Salvation Country. You don’t grow up gay in the eighties and end up capable of “falling” for someone – and yet here he was.
And it felt just like falling – like one of the rides they took on the fair – a roller coaster suddenly descending, his stomach in his chest, his heart racing.
Mom died and Reuben died.
The fear was subconscious but Paul could articulate it to himself anyway.
Brimstone Page 17
