by A. M. Riley
Jim shut the door carefully behind himself and then looked around the garage nervously. “Tell me something. How many times have you been called sir today?”
“I don’t know.” Paul slid out from where he’d been working and sat up.
“I’ve been feeling excessively sirred today,” said Jim.
Paul’s mouth spread in a disbelieving grin. “Excessively sirred? Are you joking?”
Okay, it did sound paranoid when he said it out loud. Jim muttered and played with his beard. “Maybe not,” he said. “Never mind.”
Paul shook his head, smiling, and looking for a wrench. “Okay.”
“We having a pizza and movie night?”
“Thought it might be nice. You want the break from cooking?”
“Yes, it’s a good idea. Thank you.”
* * * *
“Daddy, can I have soda?” asked Brian from his seat on the floor cushion.
Brian had problems with cavities, and the dentist had cautioned him about sweets and soda.
“No, I don’t think so, Brian,” said Paul, adjusting the volume on the remote.
“Okay,” said Brian easily.
Scott sat down next to him and said, “I won’t drink any either, so you don’t have to feel bad.”
“Thank you, Scott,” said Brian.
Jim had heard all the jokes about the crazy, paranoid old pot-smoking hermits living in the woods. He figured he was just a hop, skip, and jump away from that. Because every time Brian or Scott looked up at him, wide-eyed and smiling sweetly, goose bumps went up his back.
Now Scott laid his arm across Brian’s shoulder, leaned over, and nuzzled Brian’s ear, and Jim shook his head at himself. His brain was addled; that was all.
Just before dinner, he’d found Scott in the bedroom, in those obscenely short pajama bottoms he sometimes wore. The ones that were so tight across the crotch, they may as well have been transparent. And too short in the back too. Scott only wore them when Jim begged, and now he was walking around in them like it was nothing.
He was trying to fasten something to the ring in his nipple, the one that matched Jim’s. He looked up. “Can you help me with this?”
“Sure.” Jim fumbled with the clasp and realized his hands were shaking. It was a tiny weight.
Scott looked up at him with those golden eyes. “I heard it makes your nipples feel more…intense,” he said.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that too,” said Jim, his voice gruff. He managed to get the thing on without tearing the ring out of Scott’s nipple or dropping it. “There.”
“Thank you, Jim,” said Scott. And gave the weight a little push. “Ah,” he said. And then he walked out of the bedroom.
Now Scott was sitting on the floor, that damned weight still hanging from his nipple ring, his tongue painting swirls around the ear of Brian, who was still wearing nothing but those thin sweatpants, and Jim was losing his mind.
Jim had pizza, beer, and a wet dream sitting at his feet—and he was getting nervous? He had to cut back on the pot obviously. It was eating his brain.
“Can’t believe you chose this movie,” said Paul happily. “I thought you hated Die Hard.”
“I can see the attraction,” said Brian. “Though you’re a hell of a lot better looking than Bruce Willis, Daddy.” He gasped and covered his mouth. “I’m sorry.”
Paul was sitting back on the leather couch, one blue-jean-clad leg up on the seat, the other planted on the floor next to Brian. He toed Brian playfully. “It’s okay, hon.”
Brian smiled sweetly and batted his eyes at Paul. Goose bumps went up Jim’s back.
Scott leaned over to stick his tongue into Brian’s ear, but this time Brian turned his head, and they smooched.
After a while, their hands entered the action, and by the time the explosions and gunfire were really dominating the screen, Brian and Scott were lying on the Oriental rug, groping each other and making out in earnest.
Jim hadn’t been watching the movie for a while, and Paul seemed to have lost interest as well. With explosions echoing off the walls of the living room, both men watched, glassy-eyed, as their two brats rolled on the floor, pushing each other’s pants down and playing with each other’s cocks.
When Brian sat up, spun around and the two entered an enthusiastic sixty-nine position, the remote rattled to the ground from Paul’s fingers. Jim had to swallow the copious drool in his mouth and caught himself rubbing his crotch as he watched Brian’s open mouth take in Scott’s long cock, his tongue moving over the vein. Scott moaned and bobbed up and down on Brian’s saliva-slick cock.
Brian’s fingers found Scott’s butt and went exploring. As he found and stretched Scott’s hole, Jim slid off the couch like he was melted butter and heard the thud of Paul’s knees hitting the floor near him.
Half aware of Paul near him doing something or other to Brian, Jim couldn’t get the buttons on his jeans open fast enough as he bent to Scott’s exposed crack and licked and sucked, getting involved with Brian’s fingers in the process.
Somebody cried out, and Brian’s fingers dug into Scott’s butt, and Scott started clenching and moaning, and Jim was just able to release his own cock, a button flying off somewhere in the process, and get his hands around it when he heard Paul wailing and Brian yelling, “Fuck me, Daddy.” And then Scott was up on his knees and Jim had Scott’s hips in both of his hands, and he’d plunged his aching dick into Scott’s wet hole, and his heart was going to stop.
It was over in a flash. They lay, pants around their ankles, in a lazy crisscross of man flesh across the Oriental rug.
Paul moaned.
Jim could wholeheartedly second the emotion in that sound. His balls ached with all the sex he’d been having, and his quiescent and currently almost comatose-partner, curled up against him and cooing in an agreeable way, set off every alert Jim had.
Jim sat up. “What’s going on with you two?”
Scott rolled onto his side, looking up at Jim with sleepy eyes. “What?”
Jim struggled to his feet, holding his pants up by the waistband. He pointed an accusing finger at Scott and Brian, both of whom were looking up at him like heaven’s own innocent cherubs. “You two. Are up to something. I know, and I’m asking, what is it?”
Scott scowled and crossed his arms. Brian’s mouth flew open, eyes widening even more, and he looked at Paul.
“Oh come on, Jim,” said Paul. “We’re all just relaxing. Why can’t you enjoy it?” He laid an affectionate hand on Brian’s head, letting his fingers play there.
“Scott,” said Jim, his eyes serious. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Scott stood, looking pointedly away from Jim. “I’m sorry,” he said to Brian. He leaned over and pulled up those obscenely tight sleep pants and walked, all haughty and insulted innocence, toward his own bedroom.
Brian looked like he might cry. “Daddy?”
Paul’s face was grim. “Jim, can I talk to you in the kitchen?”
* * * *
“What the hell, Jim?”
“Listen, Paul. I know a thing or two. There is something going on there, and we’re being played.”
“Brian has been…” Paul stopped. “Perfect.”
“I’ve never had Scott so easy to please and agreeable,” said Jim. “Ever.”
Paul washed his face with one hand. “It’s been idyllic.”
“Bliss,” said Jim.
They looked at each other.
“Brian!” bellowed Paul.
A skitter of feet and a wide-eyed young man stood in the doorway, sweatpants pooling around his slightly pigeon-toed feet. “Yes, Sir?”
“They know.”
“Shhh. They’ll hear you,” Brian warned.
Brian and Scott stood in opposite corners of the living room. Hands clasped behind their backs. Eyes front.
“Jim is psychic,” fretted Scott. “It’s like he can see through my skull.”
“Shhh,” Brian whispered urgently. “They
don’t know. They’re guessing. Don’t break, Scott.”
“Quiet!” came the bellow from the other room.
* * * *
Sometime later, Scott and Brian were still standing in their corners, only now each had his nose resting in the middle of a small chalk circle that had been drawn on the wall. Scott made a weak, sighing noise, like the creak of an old house settling, and Brian felt a twinge of guilt.
This had all begun, supposedly, as a fun prank to get back at Paul and Jim a little bit. That was how Brian had presented it to Scott, and he’d almost had himself convinced as well.
But there was more to it than that and Brian wasn’t sure what to do, now that he had enmeshed his friend in the web of deceit and evasions.
He fidgeted, glancing toward the kitchen doorway, where Paul and Jim still sat talking.
“Eyes front!” he heard bellowed.
“It has to have been Brian’s idea,” said Paul. “It’s so devious.”
“Scott can be devious,” said Jim, surprised to find himself defending his brat’s bratly honor.
“That’s true,” Paul allowed. “But would he have been able to talk Brian into it?”
Jim shook his head.
“Well.” Paul stood and clapped Jim on the shoulder. “At least you caught it, bud. I’d be tied to a chair by now, clucking like a chicken. You should have seen Brian dusting today. Thought I’d have a stroke!”
Jim grinned. “I almost hate to see it end. Those short shorts of Scott’s would be illegal in some states.”
Paul looked bemused and then surprised. A single laugh escaped from him. “That monster! He dropped something on the floor in front of me. Twice. And bent to pick it up without bending his knees. And I felt guilty for ogling him.”
Jim chuckled. “God forbid you treat him as a sex object. The demon.”
“Both of ’em,” said Paul. “Well, time to get to the bottom of it.”
“So to speak,” said Jim, pushing back his chair and rising as well. “You have a plan?”
“Yeah. Follow my lead?”
Jim swung his arm toward the kitchen door. “After you.”
* * * *
Things had gone horribly wrong.
“Get the paddle for me, Brian,” said Paul in that cool voice.
Brian hesitated. Paul sat on their bed, Scott spread over his lap. Scott’s pants were down, and Paul had his hand just lying there. From his vantage point, Brian could see Scott’s face: bright red, eyes huge.
“Do either one of you want to tell me what’s going on?” said Paul, rubbing Scott’s butt.
“Stop with the Gestapo tactics,” growled Scott from upside down. “Crazy leather freak.”
“Why is Paul spanking you, Scott?” Jim snapped.
Scott opened his mouth with some retort but, Brian was relieved to see, seemed to think better of it in his current position.
“You think I’ve kept a secret,” he said.
“You’ve been keeping something from Paul and me,” said Jim. “That’s why this has to happen, Scott. And you know it.”
Paul looked at Brian and held out his hand. “Brian? The paddle?”
It wasn’t that they both didn’t deserve it. It was that Paul had never spanked Scott. Ever. Something was wrong with it, and Brian felt like the twist in his stomach was going to just tear him in half. Yet he couldn’t open his mouth and say whatever it was he had to say because, for some reason, he still didn’t know how exactly to say it.
“Yes, S-s-sir,” he said instead. And reached into the closet and brought out the paddle.
“Jim?” said Brian. Hoping, just maybe, Jim would relent and consent to punishing Scott himself. But Jim stood in the doorway looking like the grimmest genie from a Hans Christian Andersen tale: big arms folded and stoic face set down into his beard in a permanent frown.
Paul rested the paddle on Scott’s rump, and Brian could see his friend trying to control the shivers this evinced.
“We don’t keep secrets in this house,” Paul said to Scott. And then he looked up and straight at Brian and said, “Even if we’re asked to.”
Paul raised the paddle just as Scott was about to say something snide, and the smack of it seemed to ring in the room.
Scott yelped, his eyes wide.
Smack.
Brian could see Scott’s legs jump and the way Paul leaned on him to hold him down.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
Scott’s head was down now, face bright red, eyes tightly closed. In the horrible silence of the room, they could all hear Scott take in a long shaking breath.
Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.
Paul never spanked Brian unless Brian secretly wanted it. It had never been a punishment as much as a desired confirmation of their commitment and obligation to each other. As far as Brian knew, it was the same with Jim and Scott. But, he guessed, Scott did not enjoy the paddlings—or need them—as much as Brian did.
Smack.
Scott’s body jumped.
“Stop it,” whispered Brian.
Paul didn’t even look up.
Smack. Smack.
Paul stopped. Across his lap, Scott’s whole body was shaking. His ass was maraschino-cherry red, and his face was flushed. Paul let him up, and Scott flailed for a minute, looking for comfort, but when Jim remained in the corner, he flung his arms around Paul.
Paul held him, crooned comfort into his ears. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked Scott.
But Scott shook his head.
Still holding Scott, hand rubbing his back firmly, Paul looked up at Brian.
Brian walked the four steps over to him. It felt like a mile. “Scott,” he said, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He helped Scott to stand and walk over to Jim, who held him. Then he went back to Paul and dropped his pants, got into position.
Paul sighed. “Brian, why won’t you tell me?”
Brian shook his head. It was all so horribly familiar. The soothing hand on his back, the cool paddle just resting there for a minute, and then the fire. The endless, endless fire, until Brian was a shaking mass of grief and Scott was yelling, “Stop it! God, Paul, just stop it!” and still it didn’t stop until it did. And even then, Brian couldn’t stop crying, flinging himself into Paul’s arms, and sobbing as if his heart would break. Because it would. If he ever told Paul. It would all be over, and Brian would rather take his punishment every night for the rest of his life than tell Paul.
“Show him the fucking letter,” said Scott. “Or I will.”
From Paul’s arms, Brian stared over his shoulder at Scott and said, “I hate you.”
Scott had taken the paddling, stoically, but he flinched at Brian’s words. “I’m sorry, Brian,” he said.
Jim cradled Scott’s head against his chest. “Nobody hates anybody.”
Scott burrowed into the soft fur there and shook his head.
“So, where is this letter?” asked Paul calmly.
“In my backpack.” Brian felt a big fat tear roll down his cheek. “I’ll get it for you.”
Chapter Twelve
They all sat in the living room. Well, Paul and Jim sat, and Scott and Brian stood. Scott was gripping Jim’s shoulder so tightly that his knuckles stood out white. He was glaring at the floor. He’d tried, once, to say something to Brian as they’d left the bedroom, but Brian couldn’t look at or talk to anybody yet, so he’d just ignored Scott.
Paul finished reading the letter, folded it, and looked at the floor for several minutes. Then he handed it to Jim and waited for Jim to read it.
“Brian?” said Paul after he and Jim had exchanged one of those meaningful mind-meld top looks that always made Brian feel like there was A Plan that he shouldn’t be told about quite yet. “Why didn’t you show this to me?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
It had been one of those long exhausting weeks that took every ounce of Brian’s resolve to bear, and so he just said, “Because I knew what you’d say.”
“And you didn’t want that?”
Brian shook his head.
“I don’t understand,” said Paul. “You received a letter of merit and an offer for a prestigious internship with a major company, and you didn’t want me to say ‘I’m so proud of you, Brian’?”
Brian looked up at him. “Well, that part I like.”
Paul just stared at him, the letter in one hand and his empty open palm in the other lying on either knee in absolute astonishment. “What part do you not like?”
“The internship,” said Brian. “It’s in New York.”
“Oh,” said Jim. “I see.”
Paul looked at Jim, looked back at Brian. “It’s only six months.”
What was really horrible was that Paul even thought it was acceptable. Brian shook his head, fighting the stupid tears and the choky feeling in his throat, and spat, “Fine. I’ll go then.” And he spun on his heel and ran to the bedroom and slammed the door.
Paul stared at the door, turned, and stared at Jim. “I could go to New York.”
“I don’t think that’s the point,” said Jim.
“You could go too,” Paul pointed out. “We all could.”
“I couldn’t,” said Scott softly, glaring at the floor. “My routes are all western and nor-western. But then, who cares? He wouldn’t want me there anyway.”
“Honey, I’d want you there.”
“Oh, come on, given a choice between seeing me and seeing Goldilocks?” Scott was breathing hard, his face flushed. “This will break us all up. Brian knows that. And Paul doesn’t even care.” And then he, too, stomped out of the room, and another bedroom door slammed.
Paul’s eyes were big as saucers. “Jim. What am I doing wrong?”
“Oh, that’s nice. You ask me now?”
“I’m sorry. I…I’m so confused.”
“It’s partly my fault.” Jim sighed. “This has been brewing for a while. I knew there was something wrong, and I blamed it all on your being absent. Of course, that was only part of the problem. Brian knows that if you start your own dealership down here, you won’t have time to visit him. He won’t be able to help you either, and in case you haven’t noticed, that’s a big part of what makes him feel like an equal partner in your relationship.”
