“Not you too,” Carl sighed.
“Is there the slightest possibility, even the tiniest sliver of a chance, that you might have feelings for men?” Mikala reached out and squeezed his hand. “Because if there’s the remotest chance, you need to stop lying to yourself, fuck everyone else, who cares what they think? But stop lying to yourself.”
“Mikala, I don’t wish to get into this with you,” Carl said, rising from his seat. “My sexual orientation is nobody’s business but my own, is that clear enough for you?”
“I’m not trying to be nosy, Carl.” Mikala stood at his side. “I’m concerned. I think Landon needs you more than he’s saying and you need him too.”
“In all the years I’ve known you, have we ever discussed my personal life?”
“No, not really.”
“That’s right,” Carl straightened the knot of his tie, tucking the length into his pinstripe vest. “You know why?”
Mikala shrugged her shoulders and swallowed uncomfortably.
“Because it’s none of your fucking business, that’s why,” Carl opened the office door, turning as if he were about to apologize. “If there’s nothing else, I have a job to do.”
Mikala stood with her jaw gaped open as Carl walked out, pulling the door closed behind him.
Carl couldn’t help noticing Landon at the end of the bar with a newspaper and a coffee. He was propped on his elbows engrossed in something he was reading. Normally, as if Landon’s radar kicked in when Carl entered a room, he would turn in Carl’s direction and give him a wink or smile even, but his head stayed down as Carl moved closer.
Carl was feeling a pang of something he couldn’t identify, a stirring in his belly he hadn’t noticed before now. It felt almost like butterflies, he shook the thought from his head and busied himself with work.
It seemed that every move Landon made, Carl was well aware of it. There was a magnetic energy, an alluring pull exuding from Landon that kept Carl gazing in his direction. This fixation was almost hypnotic. The next thing Carl knew, he was standing before Landon, just standing there staring. Landon looked up through his lashes and waited.
Landon folded his newspaper and moved it to the side, “Carl?”
Carl blinked a few times stirring from his thoughts, “Yes?”
His brow knotted, tipping his head Landon asked, “Are you okay? You’re acting strange.”
Jumping back to reality Carl scowled, taking a step closer. “I have no idea what it is with you fucking people but if you don’t butt out of my private life I’m going to…well I don’t know exactly what I’ll do…this is so fucked.”
“Take it easy, Babes.” Landon said, smiling.
Carl shook his head, an exasperating glare in his eyes. “Quit screwing with my head, Ace. I can’t take much more. This sudden interest from everyone is pissing me off, I don’t know where it came from or why I’m the center of everybody’s attention, but you all need to fuck off and leave me alone.”
“Don’t know who pissed in your cornflakes this morning, but Carl my man, you need to get a grip.” Landon stood, placing his hands on the bars edge and leaning forward. “I’m not fucking with you. Man up and quit denying who you really are, then maybe your friends will stop asking.”
“I’m not.” Carl started to spew out the same tired old words Landon was sick of hearing, he grasped his tie, yanking him forward. Carl stopped, his eyes widened.
“Holy shit Carl, even you have to be getting tired of hearing the same old shit coming out of your mouth. What are you so afraid of? What is it that scares you so much?”
“I’m not scared,” Carl huffed.
“You, Babes, are scared shitless.” Landon released his hold, smoothing Carl’s tie back into place. “I’m not going to push but I’m here when you want to talk, there’s no one that will understand what you’re going through better than me. I’m a floor away when you need me.”
The anger that had Carl wound up like a three day alarm clock started to subside, the color was leaving his face and calm seemed to settle into his chest. He took a deep breath and stepped back. He didn’t say another word, maintaining eye contact until Landon turned and walked away.
This thing, this feeling of need and want, whatever it was, had to be dealt with. He was in denial, had been for more years than he could remember and it all seemed to be caving in around him.
Best friends since grade one, Tyler and Carl were inseparable. The last year of high school was when Carl noticed Tyler in an entirely new light. He noticed the way Tyler’s body was changing, the muscles that formed his rippled abs, the defined V of his oblique’s and the light dusting of hair that trailed into the waist of his jeans. Like any other seventeen year old, Carl walked around in a constant state of arousal, only it wasn’t the girls causing it, it was Tyler.
He kept his secret to himself as long as he could, using Sandy, their mutual friend, as the excuse for the boner Tyler would catch him sporting. Tyler nicknamed him Horn Dawg, he’d laugh but only because Tyler had no clue.
One drunken night, the way it seemed to always play out in the movies, Carl found himself alone with Tyler laying under the stars in the middle of a wheat field. The conversation turned to sex, as it usually did with the pair, but this conversation turned serious fast, as Carl rolled on top of Tyler and pressed his lips gently against Tyler’s.
He waited for Tyler to punch him out, but instead Tyler wrapped his arms around Carl’s neck and pressed his tongue into his mouth. To Carl’s amazement Tyler’s hands roved over his body, the feel of his hand against his erection had Carl gasping for air. Rolling around in the carpet of wheat, they undressed each other, clumsy and awkward. A new experience for them both, they groped and pulled, rubbing against each other causing delicious friction until they were sweaty and breathless. Hands clamped onto each other’s cocks they stared not knowing what to do next.
“Go down on me,” Tyler begged. “I’ll go down on you.”
Carl nodded and they moved into sixty nine positon on their sides. Tyler’s dick sat in his face, the musky male scent of him causing Carl’s heart to race faster than it already was, threatening to explode in his chest. He licked a circle of saliva over his lips and touched them to the tip of Tyler’s cock. A sudden rush tingled up Carl’s spine as he opened wide and slid down Tyler’s shaft. The taste was like nothing he imagined, strong and salty, but not as repellent as girls had told him. In fact it wasn’t half bad.
Carl let out a moan that would have wakened the dead, when Tyler’s hot wet tongue glided up his length and then Tyler sucked him in deep. Heaven couldn’t describe the way it felt to be buried to the hilt inside Tyler’s mouth. All Carl could think of as his mind fell into a euphoric haze, was if he died now he’d die happy.
The familiar sensation of his impending orgasm growing closer, caused Carl to jerk back but Tyler had other ideas as he clamped his hand to Carl’s ass and held him in place, sucking harder and faster until Carl shot his load into the back of Tyler’s throat and he felt him swallow. Tit for tat as it was, Carl felt Tyler’s dick thicken, a sure sign he was about to follow suit, a strike of panic in Carl’s gut and Tyler let go, filling Carl’s mouth with his hot seed. At first he didn’t know what to do, he took a deep breath and swallowed as a second load squirted from Tyler.
When Carl woke just as the sun was rising, he found himself alone and naked. He quickly dressed, got on his bike and road home, all the while thinking of excuses for his parents, for not coming home last night.
A police car was parked in the driveway. Carl couldn’t believe his mom had called the cops. He skidded to a stop, abandoning his bike on the pathway and ran in the door.
Just as he opened his mouth to explain himself, he saw his mother’s face, it was tear stained and she wiped away more as they seeped from her sad eyes.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” he asked, panic grasping hold, he knew it was far more serious than being late.
His father put his arm over hi
s shoulder. “There’s been a terrible accident son.”
“Okay,” Carl said, looking from his parents to two police officers sitting on the sofa. Confused but not wanting to know anything more, with a sickening feeling like a lead weight sitting in his belly, he shook free from his father and started for the stairs to his room.
“Tyler Cooke was found dead at the side of Sunnyvale road.”
He heard the words but refused to believe his best friend was dead. When the police questioned the events of the night, he chose not to lie it wouldn’t do any good. His mom had always told him never to lie then he’d not have to remember what he said.
Carl would never forget the look on his father’s face when he awkwardly told the police what they had been doing in a field after midnight. Drinking under age was bad enough, having oral sex with another guy was devastating. It was the moment he saw his father visibly cringe as he revealed the facts that hurt most.
Dealing with Tyler’s death and confessing the unthinkable, he sat shaking with sweaty palms and beads of sweat running down the back of his neck. What should have been a wonderful experience had turned into the worst day of Carl’s life.
“No son of mine is a queer!” his father roared, and one of the officers had to hold him back. “He’s lying, tell them it’s a lie, Carlton…tell them this is some kind of a joke. I don’t have a gay son.”
Those were the last words his father ever said to him, from that day on his mother played the go between. If it had to be said, his father’s words came from his mother’s mouth.
The decision to go away to school was the only right move. With his mother’s support, he packed up his belongings into his Datsun shit box and never darkened the doorstep again.
There were countless nights spent with strange women in a crusade to prove his inner demons wrong. A variety of women as expansive as the State of Texas, his demons raged on. Never fully satisfied sexually, his thirst never quenched while a storm of need clawed at him, he finally surrendered and gave up the quest, locking the beast away. He became that born again virgin he heard tell about.
With a brand new business degree under his belt, a list of rejection letters a mile long and a few meager dollars to his name, Carl came across Pulse and a bartender wanted sign on the door. Mikala had just taken sole proprietorship of Pulse and had big plans for the place when Carl asked for the job. They hit it off immediately and ten years later, business degree forgotten, Carl stood polishing glasses behind the bar.
His eyes locked on Landon as he came back into the bar with two cases of clean glasses from the kitchen. Senses on high alert, he watched Landon intently. The muscles in his back swelled through the material of his snug t-shirt as he carefully emptied glasses into the allotted slots out of the public eye.
“Fuck,” Landon called out, as a glass fell to the floor shattering into a million pieces. He got on his knees and started picking up pieces of glass and placing them onto a bar towel.
Carl grabbed the hand brush and dust pan, got down on his knees and helped Landon clean the mess.
“Thanks,” Landon said, without looking up.
“Don’t mention it, I like a clean area to work, you’ll never get it all cleaned up that way.”
Mikala glanced over the bar and cleared her throat, startling them both. “I need your help boys. I have an important job for you.”
“Sure thing, Mik,” Carl was quick to answer.
“A client needs two body guards to watch over a bachelorette party, he wants good looking escort types. I’m picking you two because there’s no risk of things getting out of hand and I have no one else.” She was quick to explain. “You’ll take them to the strip club, you escort them home at the end of the night.”
“I’m not playing escort again, I thought I told you no more.” Landon lashed out.
“Whoa cowboy, I remember. No men involved,” she assured. “My client’s daughter is getting married, it’s her bachelorette party, he’s out of town on business, wants someone to keep things under control. Easy-peasy. He’s paying over and above the regular fee, tips are your own.”
Landon and Carl glanced at each other.
Deep down Landon was all for having a night out with Carl, Carl on the other hand was deep into panic mode.
“I’m game,” Landon chirped up, a smile as wide as a football field spread across his face.
“What about the bar?” Carl asked.
“It’s covered.”
“Come on Carl, it’ll be a blast, nothing funnier than a room full of drunk chicks making asses out of themselves,” Landon joked, biting into his bottom lip feigning terror.
“Why the fuck not, what’s the dress code?” he asked.
“Suit and tie, the whole men in black look will be perfect, minus the glasses of course.” Mikala instructed. “This is the address, you pick them up at nine o’clock, an Escalade limo will be supplied.”
Carl drove, he liked acting as chauffeur, liked to show off his baby was more like it. He drove a classic canary yellow 1969 Chevy Camaro. Landon was more than happy to allow him the privilege of carting him around. As they drove into the more rural part of town, things started to look sickeningly familiar as the houses got grander in wealth and scale. As they pulled up to the iron gates and Carl sounded three sharp beeps of his horn as instructed and the gate clunked into gear and started to open. Landon’s heart started to race, his breathing hitched and perspiration soaked his brow. The stretch limo was waiting in the driveway. Carl pulled the car alongside a row of high-end vehicles and reached for his door handle.
“Wait,” Landon said abruptly, latching onto Carl’s jacket tail.
FIVE
“Ace?” Carl asked, turning to see Landon staring at the house front, a look of trepidation in his eyes. “What’s got you spooked?”
“I can’t go in there,” Landon said, shaking his head, “this is Briggs’ house.”
Carl looked at the front of the stone house, each window brightly lit and the sound of music playing behind the walls. It looked like any other house whose owner was dripping with money. Carl wondered how Landon knew this Briggs person.
“Who’s Briggs? That names not familiar to me.”
After a sufficient hesitation, Landon’s eyes dropped to his hands, he rubbed them together as he spoke, “He’s the guy Mikala had me escort…the night didn’t go well.”
Remembering Mikala saying Landon had had a bad experience that night Carl had to wonder if Mikala knew the entire story. She couldn’t have known, she’d never intentionally be so cruel. Or else Landon had played it off as no big deal, made it out to be less than it really was. Carl didn’t know him well enough to tell, but Landon was clearly not happy, he looked like he wanted to hit something…or someone. Uncharacteristic to say the least, he was normally the fun one, the joker with a smart mouth. The one everyone else went to when they were in need of someone to listen without the fear of being judged.
“Let me call Mik and then we’ll get out of here.”
“No,” Landon said, sucking in a deep breath and blowing it out through puckered lips. “I have a job to do, no fuckers going to stop me from performing my duties, I’m a professional.”
He climbed from the car, straightened his tie, buttoned his jacket and nodded to Carl.
“We good?” Carl asked.
“All’s good,” Landon answered, as they walked to the front door and rang the bell.
“P & P Security,” Carl announced to the well-dressed, tall blonde that greeted them.
“You’re late,” she said, with a French accent. “Right this way, gentlemen.”
As they followed her down a set of stairs, along a hall of closed doors, the music thundered louder in the air until they arrived at the one open door. A dozen or so, on their way to being wasted already, women all dressed to the nines stood waiting.
“They’re all yours, keep them safe and make sure they all come back.”
Carl laughed, “They couldn’t be
safer with us.”
Landon gave him a no-shit look and laughed. “You have no idea how safe.”
“Mr. Briggs was very clear with his instructions,” she said. “Your job is to keep them safe and happy and hands off.”
“Oh,” she said, remembering a forgotten point. “No one brings anyone home.”
“That’s a given. What about Mr. Briggs?” Landon had to ask.
“You don’t worry about him, he won’t be home tonight. He’s out of town on business. You worry about the girls only.”
She was gone in a flash, as if she couldn’t get away from the place fast enough. That left Carl, Landon and fifteen crazy half-drunk women.
“This should prove interesting, I best give Mik a call and let her know we’ve arrived,” Carl said, taking his phone from his pocket and creating a careful distance.
“Mik, we’re here,” he announced. “Why would you send us to Briggs’ house knowing it would upset Lando?”
“I was assured Briggs wasn’t going to be there, I figured if he faced his, whatever it was, he’d maybe get over it faster.”
“A shrink you’re not Mik, he’s not very pleased.”
“I’m sorry. I honestly thought he’d be fine. Tell him I’m sorry will you?” Mik asked, before the call ended.
“Mik says sorry, she wasn’t thinking.”
“Uh huh.” Landon snarled. “Let’s get on with it. I just want to get the fuck out of this house.”
All in all, the girls were behaving themselves sitting front row and center around a glittering stage, while Zorro rotated his hips suggestively and they tucked dollar bills into his g-string. Landon was entertained watching men get naked and watching Carl pretending not to notice the hot numbers dancing from all four corners of the room.
“Ladies!” Landon yelled. “Enjoying your evening?”
A unified hell-yeah roared from the group as a server came with another round of drinks.
Landon stepped back to join Carl against the side wall, as an ear piercing scream echoed in the room. He snickered and stood where he could get an unhindered view of the beautiful male stripper named Inferno, and remain safely out of the way.
Landon's Desire (Book Three of The Pulse Series 3) Page 5
