by Nicki Rowe
I look at the photo again, the training collar is wrapped around my neck, black and thick. The words ‘IN TRAINING’ visible. My hands fly up to my bare neck. I hate the feeling of my bare neck now; I always mourn the loss of the collar after a scene.
“What’s got you all hot and bothered over there?” Alex asks.
I just smile, not caring when he snatches my phone, looking at the picture. There were no secrets between the tree of us, and we have all seen each other naked once or twice. He laughs, turning the picture towards Anthony, who whistles between his teeth.
“So, this is what you and Wally get up to in your spare time?”
Alex hands me back my phone. “If I didn’t think you were hot already, I would certainly think so now.”
I flip him off and Anthony just shakes his head.
The door to the apartment bursts open and Amber strolls in with her hair swinging in its ponytail and her heels clicking against the floor. She beams over at us and waves. “Dear brother and pseudo brothers, I have found an apartment!”
“What?” I say at the same time as Anthony and Alex say, “Congrats!”
“Yeah!” She sets her bag down and sits between Anthony and Alex on the couch. “I’m meeting the woman to sign the lease in like thirty minutes.”
I frown. “I’m going with you to make sure they don’t take advantage of you.”
She rolls her eyes at me.
Anthony chimes in, “I’m going to make sure that lease doesn’t have anything that can destroy you.”
“And I’m going just to go,” Alex says.
Amber rolls her eyes again, but smiles. “Jesus! Fine, but you guys can’t scare her with some weird big brother act.” She hops up and disappears down the hall.
I sit back against the chair, feeling like all the air has left my lungs. I should be elated to get my apartment back, but having Amber around for the last month and a half had been a dream. We had binged crappy reality TV, made cookies, traded gossip. We had always been close, but we had grown closer the last six weeks, and I hated to see her go.
“You’re not going to cry, are you, dude?” Alex asks with a chuckle.
I kick his knee with my foot.
It’s then that I notice the corner of a photo album sticking out from under the couch, I grab it and open it, recognizing it as the album my nanny had made for me when I was fifteen. It has pictures of the Marshall family over the years, dating back to my great-grandfather. I flip through it, smiling at the picture of Amber when she had lost her first tooth, the first trophy I had won for my junior rugby league, and staged family portraits that Mother would force us to take every year. I stop when I come to the picture of me, Mother and Benjamin at the zoo. She isn’t smiling in the picture, but her hands are on our shoulders, almost….lovingly.
“Um, can you guys give me a minute?”
I stand and enter the hall, dialing the number for the our house in Baltimore.
“Hello, Marshall residence.”
“You answering your own phone now, Mother?” I ask. Usually one of the maids answers.
“I gave the staff the rest of the day off. They’ve all come down with some terrible cold.” She lets out a breath, like the illness of her two maids was a huge inconvenience to her. “What do you want, Gideon?”
God, I knew calling her was such a mistake, but it was too late now. “Remember when you took Benjamin and me to the zoo?” There was no answer. “Why did you? Why did we never do anything like that again?”
My questions are met with a silence so long I didn’t think I was going to get an answer. Just as I decide I am going to hang up she says, “I was planning on leaving.” She’s whispering, as if the thought of it still shamed her. “I was going to leave you kids with your father and go back to Nebraska.”
“What was in Nebraska?”
“Vince Flanagan.” I can tell by the soft way she says his name that she had loved the unknown man.
“Another rich man?”
She chuckles softly. “A school teacher, and my high school sweetheart. Vince had always been brilliant, but came from a very poor family.”
I can’t picture my mom being in love with someone who isn’t part of the white collar society, but I know she wasn’t in love with my father. I don’t think they have been in love for a long time. “Why didn’t you leave?”
“For you and Benjamin, I couldn’t leave you.”
I suck in a breath. I wish that this could be one of those heart-to-hearts that are in movies where the call ends with her saying ‘I love you’, but my Mother has never told me those words, and I don’t think she ever will.
“Amber tells me that you are seeing someone?”
“I am. His name is Walter Pyke. I told you about him.”
She makes a ‘hmm’ sound in my ear. “Does he treat you well?”
“He does.”
“That’s good, Gideon.” and then there’s a click and the line disconnects.
I sigh and put my phone back in my pocket, wanting to feel hopeful that this is a turning point in my relationship with my mother, but I’m not willing to bet on it.
The door to the apartment opens and everyone exits. Each of them giving me a knowing look, and I can see the photo album sitting open on the coffee table. Amber pulls me into a hug.
“Let’s go find you an apartment,” I say, kissing the top of her head.
~*~
“I think you’ll be fine here,” Anthony says, turning the spacious one bedroom apartment.
I admit the apartment is great--at least there is no weird cheese and feet smell. The walls are cream colored with royal blue trim, there is a lot of natural light coming in through the many windows, and there is a great view of the Space Needle.
The manager of the apartment, an Asian women in her late thirties with a bubbly personality, smiles, gesturing around with her arms while she tells Amber about all the amenities. “You have wonderful neighbors! Just married with a toy poodle!” Mae’s following Amber around the apartment with Anthony dogging her tail, asking all the legal questions the rest of us wouldn’t think to ask.
“And you only need a deposit and first month’s rent?” Amber asks, interrupting whatever Anthony was going to ask.
“Yes, and if you have pets it will be an additional three hundred.”
“No pets.” Amber looks at Anthony with a questioning look, and he nods. “I’ll take it.”
Mae claps her hands together. “Wonderful! Follow me to the kitchen. I have the lease all ready for you.”
“I’ll be looking over that before you sign it,” Anthony says, following them.
“Anthony, it’ll be fine,” Amber protests.
“You have such great brothers, Amber,” Mae says, her voice carrying from the kitchen. “My brothers would never do this for me.”
Alex stands next to me in the middle of the empty living room, slinging his arm over my shoulders. “Your girl’s all grown up, Marshall.”
I smile sadly. When had my baby sister become an adult?
August
Chapter 18: Wally
I’m sitting on the couch waiting for Gideon with the TV playing….something (I haven’t been paying attention to it for the last hour), and a photo of Doris is sitting on the coffee table, her beautiful face lit up by the sun. It’s always hard around this time of year.
Over the last few months Gideon and I have grown closer, bonding over our new found love for Poisonous Winter, and our love for action movies. It’s routine that we cuddle and watch a movie after our dates or a scene. Almost every morning I wake up to find my boy wrapped around me like a vice, and then we eat breakfast together before heading off to work. I’m falling hard for Gideon, it feels like the easiest thing I have ever done. Gideon’s a big ball of energy that always brings a smile to my face, and I love that he’s so strong, but isn’t afraid to ask me for help when he needs it. Yes, falling in love with Gideon Marshall has been easy, but it’s also scaring the shit out of me. T
he only other person I have ever loved was Doris, and I had thought she would be the only person I would love until the day I died.
The door knob jiggles, pulling me from my thoughts, and Gideon steps into the house. I jump up to greet him, only then noticing that his eyes are rimmed with red, his face is sullen, and his shoulders are rolled forward. He isn’t standing tall and confident like he usually does, and I hate seeing him so down.
“What’s happened?” I ask, drawing him into my arms.
“Had to put a dog down today. Mrs. Dover had been seeing Curtis for years; she had started coming into Paws and Whiskers when I was an intern there.”
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”
He looks up at me, looking like he’s going to cry again, but a sad smile curves on his face. His lips press against mine. “Can you take my mind off today, Daddy?”
I cup his cheeks with my hands, pulling his lips to mine. “Yes,” I say against his lips, and then pull him in the direction of my bedroom.
He’s wound so tight, I’m afraid a powerful wind could shatter him. I soothe a hand over his hair, and then take his balled fist and unravel it with my fingers.
“Relax, my boy, I’ve got you.”
But even then, he doesn’t relax. I pull the training collar from the drawer in my room and it’s then I see his shoulders pull down from around his ears. He leans against me as I fix it around his neck. I unbutton his pink shirt with light blue stripes and let it fall to the floor. He looks down at it with wide eyes.
“You’re not going to fold it?”
“No.”
I work my fingers over his belt, undoing the clasp and pulling it free from the loops, and then unbutton his jeans, working them over his hips, along with his underwear.
When he’s standing before me, gloriously naked, I lead him into the bathroom. I sit him on the toilet and begin the shower, stripping while Gideon looks up at me with wide blue eyes.
“I never tire of your body.”
I bend over and claim his mouth. “And I never tire of yours. You’re my beautiful boy.”
I pull him up and step into the shower with him, directing him under the spray, running my fingers through the wet yellow strands. I squeeze shampoo into my hands, and then work it into his hair, the smell of pine and sandalwood fills the small space.
He moans. “That feels sooo good.”
“I haven’t even got to the good part yet.”
I wash his body and then my own before I get to ‘the good part’. I let the water cascade down on us as I claim his mouth over and over again, devouring him until he sags against me like a rag doll that’s made out of cloth and all the stuffing has come out of him. I lightly push Gideon to sit on the bench in the shower with his knees apart, his erection bobbing in the air, begging for my attention.
I go to my knees. I haven’t been on my knees for anyone in a very, very long time. I lick the head of Gideon’s cock, making it jerk and grow harder, then I swallow him whole, until the head hits the back of my throat and tears are burning my eyes. Gideon’s hands go to my hair, pulling slightly on the strands.
I growl around my boy’s cock, the vibrations sending a bit of cum down my throat, and causing Gideon to moan. His hips jerk up when I start to remove him from my mouth, seeking more of my attention.
“Please.”
“Shh, my boy.”
I slide my finger under the training collar, stroking my fingers along Gideon’s neck and over his adam’s apple, smiling when I feel him swallow. I descend on his cock again, hand still wrapped around his throat, and I squeeze it slightly when I reach the hilt. He jerks up again, and his hands come down on my forearm, holding my hand in place around his neck.
“Thighter, Daddy.”
I squeeze tighter, making him moan.
I work his cock with my mouth, swallowing around him and lapping up every bit that leaks out.
“Daddy, I going to cum.”
I don’t let up. I double time, taking him deeper and faster into my mouth. Gideon jerks once more, shouting to the bathroom ceiling and cumming down my throat. I swallow every bit, licking up everything he has to offer me.
In one move, I’m on my feet and bend Gideon over the bench, ass in the air. I circle his pretty, tight hole with a finger as I search for the lube I keep in the shower and squirt some over my finger and his hole. I work my finger in and out of him in feverous pace, my mind only set on two things: make sure my boy forgets his shitty day, and to cum inside of him.
“Fuck me, Daddy. I’m ready.”
I sheath my cock with the condom I had gotten out of the drawer earlier and slide slowly into my boy. His back bows, seeking more of my cock. When I’m all the way in, I still, marveling in the way Gideon is stretched over my cock, marveling in the way he’s panting for me to fuck him. Marveling in this thirty-year-old man that has completely won my heart.
I pump in and out of him slowly, my hand going back around his throat, just the way my boy likes to be fucked….well, minus the ropes, but there’s always next time.
The only sounds are the streaming of the shower, the snap of my balls hitting Gideon’s bare ass, and my boy’s lovely begging. I fuck him slowly, bringing him to that place where he can soar higher and higher until he flies.
I wrap a hand around his cock, finding it semi-hard, and then I remove it and put it back on his hip.
“Don’t cum,” I growl in his ear. “You’re not allowed to cum again while we’re in the shower.”
He goans, grinding his ass on my dick. “Y-yes, Daddy.”
I snap my hips forward once….twice….three times, and then I unload in him, shouting out his name like it’s a prayer.
I pull free from him, and we both sink to the shower floor, breathless and sated. Gideon smiles up at me with a satisfied, sleepy expression. “Thank you, Daddy.”
I love you, my boy. The words are on the tip of my tongue, and it scares me how close I come to saying them out loud. Guilt wracks through me. What would Doris think if she knew I was falling in love with someone else?
Chapter 19: Gideon
I’m strolling through the aisles of the grocery store, worrying my lip with my teeth. It’s the nineteenth, the day before the anniversary of Doris’s death. I’m not sure what I am supposed to do in this situation. Do I give Wally his space? Do I try to be with him during this time? What do I do?
Ten minutes earlier I had texted Sam and Cason for advice, but they both haven’t replied.
“Gid?” someone’s voice forces me to look up from my phone. At the end of the aisle is Oscar with his arm around the shoulder of a shorter man with red hair. Oscar looks good, still tall and handsome with his dark hair and dark eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, slipping my phone back into my pocket. “I thought you were in Hawaii.” I turn to the red haired man at Oscar’s side. “Hi, you must be Brody.”
He takes my hand with a smile. “Heya.”
“We got back a few days ago. I heard you took over Curtis’s clinic.”
“I did.”
“Good for you!” He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “You seeing anyone?”
The question brings a beaming smile to my face. “I am actually. His name is Wally.”
Oscar smiles. “I’m happy for you, Gid. You look really happy.”
“Thank you, Oz. I am.”
“Good for you,” Oscar says, and looks down at his watch. “Sorry, we have to go, we have tickets for a movie. It was really good seeing you.”
“You too, Oz.” I look at Brody. “Nice to meet you.”
He smiles. “You as well.”
I watch as they walk away, Oscar pulling Brody tighter to his body and kissing the top of his head. They disappear out into the crowded street just as my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see two messages from Cason and Sam, both telling me to be with Wally during this time.
I reply to both of them, and then go to stand in line to pay for my bag of chips.
~*~
It’s a little after two when I arrive at Wally’s house, and the first thing I notice is AC/DC blasting from the speakers inside the house, the next is that the garage door is open and Doris’s bike is uncovered, and parts and tools are laying around it in a jumbled mess.
I enter the house, finding Wally on the couch, a picture of Doris in one hand and a shot in the other. There’s a half empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the table, and Sam and Cason are with him; Sam on the floor and Cason in the chair. I cross the room and turn the music down to a manageable level, which makes Wally’s head whip to the side, as if he finally realized I was there.
“What are you doing here?” he slurs.
“Helping Sam and Cason make sure you don’t drink your weight in alcohol.” I sit on the end of the couch, pulling Wally’s feet into my lap. “How long have you been laying in this spot?”
“Are--are you judging me, Gideon?” He sits up, pulling his feet from my lap, and pinning me with a look.
I lean forward, taking his face in my hands. “I would never judge you, Wally.” I turn to Sam and Cason. “How long as he been like this?”
“A few hours,” Sam admits. “He’s not that drunk; Case and I drank most of the bottle.”
Wally falls back against the couch as I reach for the bottle and upend it into my mouth. “What’s going on?” I ask, looking from Sam, to Cason, to Wally. They all look glum and angry.
“My grandparents decided to finally scatter Mom’s ashes in the mountains like she had wanted,” Sam explained. “Pops isn’t invited.”
“That’s bullshit!”
Wally smiles at my outburst. “Calm down, my boy. I’m used to Janice and Steven’s hatred.”
“They invited Lacey and Sam to go,” Cason says. “Fucking Newports.”
“Wait, you don’t have any of Doris’s ashes?”
Wally gestures to Sam, who stands and leaves the room. “They gave me a small vial of her ashes. It’s no bigger than a small trinket box.”
