Bonds of Love

by Snyder, J. M.

  How many rolls of film would they go through today, recording each and every worker who showed up in the hopes of finding the guy from last night’s story? This was a large city…wasn’t there something else going on they could pursue? Another robbery, a terrorist threat, a car wreck, anything?

  Ahead of Vic, the garage’s front gate stretched across the road like a barricade, keeping the reporters at bay. As he rolled to a stop at the guard house, he flashed the employee ID he wore on a lanyard around his neck, but the guard recognized him and motioned him through. Vic waited for the yellow riser to lift, then inched the car forward as the chain link fence rattled open. Around him, the air prickled with sudden interest as the reporters and their crews watched him drive into work. Here’s a newsflash for you guys. He guided his car through the already full parking lot, his thoughts bitter. Man reports for work today five minutes early. How does he do it? Find out when we bring you the full story at eleven.

  He found a place to park at the far end of the lot. But as he yanked up the parking brake, he glanced at the car beside his and groaned. This was officially not his day.

  Parked next to him was Kyle Munley, a co-worker Vic tried to avoid. On his lunch break now, Kyle took vicious bites from an over-stuffed sub as he bobbed his head, listening to the radio. Even through the rolled up windows, Vic could hear the steady beat of that hip-hop shit Kyle called music. Vic wondered just how quiet he could be—sure, Kyle would hear the slamming of the car door, but if Vic got a good enough lead, he might be able to avoid him altogether. If he could just get a running start…

  But Kyle glanced over just as Vic opened the door, and for one brief second, their eyes locked. Then a wolfish smile crept across Kyle’s face. Vic sighed in disgust, partly at the food Kyle tried to swallow but mostly at himself for not being quick enough. When he climbed out of the car, he wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that Kyle did the same. “Vic, my man!” he cried out, slapping his open palm on the hood of Vic’s car. “Just the ugly fugly I wanted to see.”

  Leaning through the open door to snag his metal lunchbox off the passenger seat, Vic growled, “Don’t hit my car.”

  Kyle laughed. The guy was as thick as they came, and seemed oblivious to the fact that he annoyed the shit out of Vic. They weren’t buddies, no matter what Kyle thought. They were hired at the same time, years ago, and they worked out at the same gym, and yeah, they both liked dick, but that didn’t mean they had to pal around. The first time Kyle invited him out for a drink after work, Vic had thought nothing of it. Halfway through the evening, Kyle’s hand had found its way to Vic’s upper thigh. He didn’t clue in when Vic knocked it off, and a few minutes later, those damn fingers were pawing at Vic’s crotch. When Vic confronted him, Kyle squeezed the stiffening cock in his hand and laughed that same braying donkey-ass laugh of his. A well-aimed punch sent him staggering back off his barstool, bloodied his nose, and split his upper lip.

  In the parking lot, beneath a clear sky and bright summer sun, Vic thought he still saw a shadow of that scar on Kyle’s mouth. He stepped away from his car, hoping that was enough to make it clear he didn’t want to talk, but Kyle wasn’t one to be brushed off. “Yo Vic,” he called out. “Wait up, man! I’ll walk you inside.”

  “Don’t bother,” Vic grumbled.

  Two yards later, Kyle fell into step beside him, the rest of his lunch in his hands. Taking a huge bite from his sub, Kyle talked around a mouthful of food. “Saw you in the paper today. That was you, right? On the front page?”

  Shit. Just when Vic was sure things couldn’t get any worse. A dozen different responses flickered through his head, but hell, this was Kyle here. No need to waste energy being inventive; he’d settle for playing dumb. With a look of angry confusion on his face, Vic growled, “What are you talking about?”

  “This morning,” Kyle explained. “Front page, man. Some shootout at a 7-11 last night, guy gets all shot up and fucking stands like he wasn’t hit. Looked kind of like you. Ugly son of a bitch.”

  Vic didn’t take the bait. Instead, he picked up the pace, hoping to widen the distance between them, but Kyle hurried to keep up. “Had to be you,” he insisted. “Matt was mentioned. You two still going at it hot and heavy, right?”

  Oh no, you didn’t just go there.

  Kyle knew Matt, all too well. When Vic first met him at the gym, Matt had been dating Kyle for some reason Vic had not yet begun to fathom. Maybe he’d been lonely, or desperate, or was just killing time. Vic had no clue, and the relationship hadn’t lasted long. The moment Vic had seen Matt, the rest of the world ceased to exist. No super power could have kept them apart. Kyle hadn’t stood a chance.

  Part of Kyle’s current interest was Vic’s own fault. When he’d met Matt, Vic knew he wanted him, and no one could stand in his way. A few times he’d approached Kyle after work, hoping to use him to get to Matt. Yes, a desperate ploy, but for the first time in his life, he was desperately in love. Though he’d never managed to hook up with Matt that way, his persistence—and Matt’s lack of interest in sex with Kyle, to be honest—helped break the two apart. A few months later, when Vic met up with Matt again, they’d both been free men, each ready to fall for the other. Now Kyle insisted that he was the one who’d gotten them together, a fact he never wanted Vic to forget.

  “So that was you,” Kyle persisted, “right? Last night? Unless Matt’s with someone else now—”

  In mid-stride, Vic whirled on him, his face purple with suppressed rage. How hard would he have to concentrate to snap this fucker’s neck right here? He narrowed his eyes, his mind ablaze. ::Give me one reason,:: he threatened silently.

  Hearing that thought loud and clear, Kyle took a step back and raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Hey man, just kidding!”

  Vic uttered one word. “Don’t.”

  “I wasn’t…” Kyle started.

  Vic turned on his heel and stormed across the parking lot, dismissing his co-worker.

  * * * *

  Chapter 5

  Kyle caught up with Vic again at the time clock. The man was nothing if not persistent. “Hey, Vic,” he whined. “No harm done, you know?”

  If this was an attempt at trying to sound contrite, it didn’t work. Vic punched his time card and brushed by Kyle, heading for the locker room. He’d ignore the man, simple as that. If he didn’t, he’d kick his ass, and that wouldn’t look good on his next performance review.

  But Kyle trailed behind him like a nagging afterthought. “Dude, we’re pals, right? I was just kidding you. I know you guys are tight.”

  As he deposited his lunchbox in his locker, Vic gave Kyle a withering stare, but his co-worker was too busy running a greasy hand through his short blonde hair to notice. “All I’m saying is that was you in the paper, no?”

  Vic narrowed his eyes and tried to will Kyle to look at him, if only to see the pissed off expression on his face. But Vic’s telepathy didn’t work that way, or maybe Kyle was too dense to influence, who knew? Who cared? Vic sure as hell didn’t. Slamming his locker shut, he stepped over the bench behind him to get away from Kyle.

  Damned if the guy didn’t follow. “Wasn’t it?” he insisted. “Talk to me here. That was you.”

  With an exasperated groan, Vic shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. Somehow, Kyle took that to mean yes. He let out a whoop that echoed off the lockers and made Vic cringe. “Do you have to be so fucking loud?” he muttered.

  “You should hear me in the sack,” Kyle laughed.

  No, thank you.

  Kyle hurried after him as Vic headed outside to the graveled lot where the buses were parked. “So how’d you walk away from that hit?” Kyle wanted to know. “The guy miss like the paper said, or what?”

  “Something like that.” Vic struck up a fast pace that made his co-worker wheeze to stay beside him as they crossed the lot. A few feet from his bus, Vic stopped, causing Kyle to skid in the gravel. “Look, can we talk about this later? Because I have to get to
work, unlike some people.”

  “Sure,” Kyle replied, a bit too fast. Outside his face scrunched up as he squinted against the sunshine, making him look like a chubby Gilbert Gottfried. His constant, annoying presence, unending prattle, and God-awful laugh completed the picture. Not for the first time, Vic wished the guy would just leave him alone.

  He ramped up that thought, projected it into his co-worker’s mind, and was rewarded with an unsteady chuckle. “Let me just leave you alone,” Kyle suggested. When he turned away, Vic sighed in relief. Thank you.

  Half a step later, Kyle spun around to face him again. Making an aggravated noise in the back of his throat, Vic clenched one hand into an unconscious fist. “What?”

  “You said later.” Kyle grinned, his eyes disappearing behind his balled up, ruddy cheeks. “Like tonight? Because—hey! Like a date or something, how’s that sound?”

  “As if,” Vic snorted. Hello? Matt?

  Kyle’s grin widened, if that were possible. “I mean like a double date,” he explained. “You and me and our boys. I met this guy last week—did I tell you?”

  “No.” Vic didn’t think he had to add that he didn’t care to know. His back to his co-worker as he headed for his bus should’ve been enough to clue Kyle in.

  It wasn’t. Undeterred, Kyle called out to Vic. “Great guy, you’d love him. No stealing this one from me, you hear?” As Vic started to climb the steps up to the driver’s seat of his bus, Kyle added, “Unless you want to swing a bit.”

  Vic’s simmering anger threatened to boil over—he had to grab the handrail to steady himself. To even suggest sharing Matt with…with anyone at all, to be honest. But with Kyle? Oh, my ever-loving God.

  The steel handrail squeezed in Vic’s tightening fist as a flash of power surged through him. Metal squealed as it twisted like bunched cloth in his grip. With all the mental energy he could gather, Vic sent one thought across the distance to pound at Kyle’s thick skull. ::I’ll swing my fist in your fat face if you don’t shut the fuck up.::

  Over his shoulder, Vic saw Kyle stagger beneath the weight of that thought, a look of surprise on his squished features. When he spoke, his voice shook slightly. “You think about it,” he said with a nod. “Maybe Friday?”

  Releasing the handrail, Vic sank into the driver’s seat behind the bus’s oversized steering wheel. An imprint of his hand was left behind in the distorted metal. As he reached for the door release, Kyle called out, “Maybe over the weekend? Let me know.”

  Vic yanked the door shut in reply.

  * * * *

  No one on his route recognized him from the paper. Vic told himself no one would—Kyle knew Matt and, despite his dumb act, he’d put two and two together to realize the guy who got shot must’ve been Vic. None of the fares who rode his bus knew about Matt, or even bothered to see Vic as someone with a life outside of his job. None of them cared.

  But for the first hour or so into his shift, Vic wasted too much mental energy shuffling through the minds of his fares, looking for an inkling of recognition or some off thought. Nothing surfaced. As the day wore on, Vic relaxed, checking at random to see if he were in someone’s mind. Halfway through his first shift, there was a teenage girl who should’ve been in school—she kept a wary eye on him throughout the length of her ride, scared he’d call her out, but her tension disappeared when she exited at the bus stop in front of the mall.

  No reporters snuck on his route to hound him. No calls for comment; though his cell phone rested in a holster at his waist, it didn’t ring once all day. And when Vic finally headed back to the terminal to clock out a few minutes shy of midnight, the cars and vans that had lined the road earlier were gone.

  Thank you.

  Despite the late hour, the garage behind the terminal was well lit, each tiny stone on the gravel-strewn pavement thrown into stark relief by the banks of stadium lights illuminating the lot. The shadows between the buses were deep and impenetrable. Vic used his mind to probe into their dark depths to ensure no one hid there, waiting. I’m going crazy. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought that since the powers had manifested in him. But as he’d told Matt when he first learned of them, he would live with the super strength and telepathy and whatever else decided to crop up, as long as he had Matt by his side. He loved that man too much to let a little thing like superhuman powers come between them.

  He was alone in the lot. The night beyond the vapor lights made his bones ache with weariness, and thinking of Matt stirred in him a sudden desire to just crawl in bed to cuddle up to his lover in the darkness. A half hour more and he’d be home. What position gave him the ability to fly again? If he had that now, he could cut down the commute to fifteen minutes or so. Or, hey, teleportation…didn’t someone in the comics have that? To just think about going home and poof! He’d be there. He’d had it once before, but after a while all the positions ran together in his mind and he didn’t remember which gave him what power.

  If he weren’t so damn tired tonight, he’d suggest they try to find out.

  * * * *

  After clocking out, Vic crossed the now-empty parking lot to where his car sat alone in one far corner. As he approached, he saw a piece of paper stuck under his windshield wiper, and he glanced around as if to find the person responsible. The parking lot was secured at all times, so it couldn’t be a parking ticket or pamphlet of any kind—Vic got enough of those downtown, religious nuts posting flyers about finding salvation, or a new club advertising karaoke night, or a call center looking for students to work throughout the summer. But in the overhead light, Vic could read his name scrawled across the piece of paper, and a feeling of dread dropped into his stomach as he picked the note off his car.

  Saturday, it read, in a hand he didn’t recognize. My place, 4 PM, cookout. I checked the schedule, you’re free. See you there!

  Unsigned, but Vic groaned—it was from Kyle, it had to be. Not for the first time, Vic wished the weekly work schedules were kept private instead of being tacked to the corkboard above the time clock for the whole terminal to see. Now he’d have to come up with some other excuse why he couldn’t hang out with Kyle. Maybe Matt had a swim meet that day, or maybe one of them would get sick, or hell, maybe the world would end. Vic could only hope. The last thing he wanted was to see Kyle outside of work—bad enough they frequented the same gym. He didn’t need to meet this new guy in Kyle’s life, if one existed, and he didn’t need to watch Kyle fawn all over Matt for an evening.

  He balled the note up in one angry fist and dropped it on the ground. Then he stepped on it for good measure and ground it beneath the heel of his boot as he climbed behind the wheel of his car. Maybe he could avoid Kyle the rest of the week and then conveniently forget about the cookout.

  As he started the car, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Matt’s laughed inside his mind. You wimp. Just tell him no.

  But Vic shook that thought away. Despite his muscle-man appearance, he didn’t like direct confrontations. He’d rather let minor irritations blow over than bring them to a head. The only reason he took a stand yesterday was because he’d thought Matt was threatened by the gunman. If it’d just been himself there, Vic would’ve dropped to the ground with everyone else. He wasn’t a push-over by any means, but he didn’t need to show off to prove anything to anyone.

  Bring Matt into the picture, and things changed. Vic would move heaven and earth for that man, and he didn’t care who knew it.

  Besides, this was Kyle. The guy didn’t hear the word no. He’d laugh off any objection Vic might have; he was that oblivious. Better to just ignore him and hope he would lose interest and wander away.

  Because if he didn’t? The next time he so much as thought of Matt, it wouldn’t be the handrail Vic throttled.

  It’d be his fleshy neck.

  * * * *

  Vic’s car squealed to a stop in front of their brownstone apartment building, the sound disturbing the quiet night. As he put the car into park, he felt a fami
liar presence awaken in his mind. ::There you are,:: Matt mumbled sleepily inside Vic’s head.

  ::Did I wake you?:: Vic couldn’t stop the slow grin that spread across his face at Matt’s stifled yawn. ::Get back to bed. I’ll join you in two minutes.::

  ::I’m up now.::

  An image flashed through Vic’s mind—their bedroom draped in red satin, a mass of flickering candles holding back the shadows and Matt, naked, spread-eagle on the bed. The candlelight gave his flesh a burnished glow that made his olive tone golden. The dark curls on his head seemed to absorb the light, and the hairs that covered his arms and chest and legs all pointed to the black knot kinked at his crotch. When he spread his legs farther apart, giving Vic a glimpse of the thick length between them, the bed rustled, and Vic dropped his keys before he could get them in the door of his apartment building. ::Look what you make me do,:: he chided.

  Matt’s reply was a throaty laugh that vibrated behind Vic’s ears.

  Inside the building, Vic latched the door and started up the stairs to their apartment. He felt Matt’s anticipation rise as each step he took echoed off the stairwell. ::Since when did we get satin sheets?:: Vic mused.

  In an instant, the image was extinguished—the candles blew out as one, the red drapes fell to the floor in a satiny rush, and the bed with Matt on it disappeared into darkness. Slowly, the room came into focus as Vic’s mind adjusted. One sole lamp was lit, illuminating his bedside table and giving him enough light to see by when he came in. In its faint glow, Vic saw Matt curled up on his own side of the bed. Vic teased, ::Ah, so now the truth comes out. No candles tonight?::

  ::Sorry,:: Matt replied. There was an impish undertone to his voice that made Vic take the last few steps two at a time to reach the door to their apartment. As he fumbled with the lock, Matt stretched and yawned in his mind. ::You want me to get up and make you something to eat?::