“Baby?” Rob’s voice got high, alarmed. “Baby boy, what’s wrong? Honey?” He was suddenly at Bastian’s elbow. Bastian wiped his eyes and wished for a pillow to hide under.
“Nothing.”
“No, honey, why are you crying?”
“It’s nothing, Rob, forget about it.”
“Bastian baby, it’s not nothing if you’re crying.” He leaned over Ziggy and wrapped Bastian up.
Bastian sighed. Rob wouldn’t let him out of this. “You. It was you.”
“What about me?”
“How lonely you were.”
Rob made a sort of choking sound, stood up, said he’d be right back without looking at Bastian, and didn’t return for a long time.
They took Ziggy for walks in the woods. Rob loved the woods. But he always laughed and laughed at the idea of walking a possum. The dogs usually came along.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed it,” Daddy said one day.
“What?” They were walking down a path with Ziggy in tow.
“Having my own person. I didn’t know how lonely I felt. I used to go home and grade and read and watch bad TV until I fell asleep.”
“I just read and played with the zoo.”
Rob had shaken his head. “You and your zoo.”
“You love my zoo. Except my bastard cats.”
“Don’t call them that.” Rob loved the cats. The cats loved Rob. He had taken over brushing Thing. Miss Priss sat in his lap. Cap’n Crunch didn’t hide from him.
“They’re bastard cats.”
Someone cared. And after all that, Daddy took him upstairs and cuddled him. Bastian was careful that Daddy never saw how bad it was.
It was ending. It would be over soon. Bastian told himself over and over: almost done. Bastian counted days, hours, assignments due, class periods: how much time had to pass until the rest of his life finally, finally began. He held onto Daddy, to his time with Daddy. He held it together for Daddy but hid everything from him. Bastian didn’t want to worry him. Worst of all, he didn’t want Daddy to figure out how bad it was and run screaming.
Bastian faked it so well. Daddy didn’t notice. Bastian pretended. He smiled. He teased and went to Confession to fuck with Daddy and got spanked like a bad boy, then apologized and fucked like a good one. They played games and ate pizza and went for possum walks; they talked and kept up the Bastian McCarthy Improvement Program. It made everything go away for a while, but it always seeped back: that lost loneliness, missing Brendan, missing everything. Bastian pinned it down once: hiraeth, that good Welsh word: a homesickness for a time or place that could never return, or possibly that never existed in the first place.
But more than the board games, more than laughing at the kitchen table, more than talking or reading, being tied helped the most. Then everything went away, everything. The first time, they’d just had sex, and Daddy had gotten off, but not Bastian. “Poor little sprite.” Daddy held him tightly. “I went too soon for you.” He paused and kissed Bastian’s forehead. “I was thinking. I know you like being held down. Have you — have you ever been tied up?”
Bastian had been waiting forever for him to offer. He hadn’t wanted to ask.
“Can I tie your hands, sprite?” Daddy sounded tentative. “Just so I have an extra hand to use?”
Bastian blinked up at him. “Will you do it tight, Daddy?”
Daddy smiled a little. “I’ll do it as tight as you want, sprite. Where do you keep your ties and which one do you hate the most?”
“Rolled up in the clear box on top of the closet, and an extra school tie, please, Daddy.”
Daddy rolled his eyes but did what Bastian told him. He held Bastian’s wrists above his head and quickly tied an expert, tight knot with a long tail. “This is quick-release. If I yank the end, it’ll come right off. So if you panic, I can get you right out of it. Okay, baby?”
The tie felt so good. Bastian closed his eyes. “Do my ankles.”
“You’ve never done this.” He heard worry in Daddy’s voice. “Are you —”
“Daddy, please do my ankles too.”
“Which tie, baby?”
“The other extra school tie.”
This time he huffed. Bastian didn’t open his eyes to see if Daddy used the right one. It felt too good. He didn’t want to move, ever. His cock stood straight up; he felt so relaxed but desperately, hopelessly turned on. Daddy stroked his cheek. “Are you okay, sprite?”
“Uh-huh.” Bastian didn’t want to talk.
Daddy laughed a little. “You’re just in another plane of existence, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
Daddy laid down next to him and ran his hand over his body, from his neck to his hip. Bastian shivered. “Do you know how patently ridiculous it is for you to feel at all insecure about the way you look? My god. You’re beautiful.”
Bastian opened his eyes a little and blinked. He felt almost sleepy. “Daddy, you should kiss me now.”
Daddy laid partly on top of Bastian and found his lips. He had given Bastian a pillow and Bastian was glad for it; he turned lazily and kissed Daddy. Daddy’s gentle lips, his easy kisses that played with Bastian, that nipped gently then sucked the bitten places, these made Bastian squirm and harden. He wanted to use his hands a bit, but the calm had dropped down, relaxing him, so peaceful and quiet, that it didn’t matter really. Daddy’s hands skated all over Bastian’s body. He touched Bastian in ways he never did; Bastian was usually curled under him or held tightly against him. He pinched Bastian’s nipples; Bastian made a soft sound, so he sucked on them.
“Did you like that, sprite? Tell me.”
“Uh-huh, Daddy. That felt so good. It feels so good to be tied up like this and my cock’s so hard but it’s nice.”
“Is it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you want me to play with that hard cock?”
“Please, Daddy?”
Gentle, gentle slicked fingers teased over his head. Bastian almost jumped at the intensity of it. “It’s just so tempting, sprite. I know it’s so sensitive but it’s such a gorgeous pink, I want to touch it so much.” He paused. “Can I do something I think you might like? I’ll stop if you don’t.”
“Uh-huh.”
Daddy blindfolded him with another tie. He jerked Bastian off a bit, enough to keep him interested, and Bastian heard him groaning with pleasure. What was Daddy doing? It didn’t much matter because he was somewhere else, drifting. Suddenly Daddy straddled him.
“I wanna use your cock to make myself feel good. You tell me if you don’t like it.” And ohmygod Daddy lowered himself slowly onto Bastian, into his tight, warm ass, so slick, past his tight ring. “Is that good? You want me to stop?”
“No Daddy no don’t stop.”
Daddy twisted on him, swiveling his hips until he gasped. Bastian was fucking him but really Daddy was fucking Bastian, moving up and down on his stiff cock, his breath hitching while he moaned. He planted one hand on Bastian’s shoulder; Bastian was pretty sure he was jerking his cock with the other.
“You’re so tight, Daddy. You feel so good. I’m gonna come so hard. Can I come in you, Daddy? Is that okay?” Daddy rode him hard and fast, Bastian slipping in him, the friction so perfect between the lube and his foreskin. “I can’t hold it, Daddy.” Bastian sucked in a breath. “I’m gonna come.”
“Lemme feel it, sprite. I wanna feel all that hot come in my ass. Come on, baby. Make it run down Daddy’s thighs for once. I want my boy to let it all out.” Daddy did something, some twist, and let go all over Bastian’s stomach in sticky spurts, grinding down and riding Bastian’s cock hard. Bastian thrust up and spilled, enveloped by all that heat, the slicked walls, that tight ring. When he had subsided into dribbling, Daddy climbed off him.
“You ever done that before?” Daddy kissed his forehead.
“No. Did it hurt you?”
“No. I have toys at home. I wouldn’t want my sweet boy on top. But it’s nice to tie yo
u down and use that big cock.”
Bastian begged for Daddy to tie him after that; the rope kept him safe and comforted and gone. Sometimes Daddy jerked him, catching the last few drops on his tongue as Bastian shivered. He even sucked Bastian a time or two, and he rode Bastian’s cock. Daddy held him, tied and helpless, and played with him for a long, long time. It was the most fun of all, to give everything up to Daddy. Daddy always kissed on him and cuddled him so much afterwards. “You give up everything, Bastian baby,” he’d say. “Why me?”
“Because you’re Daddy.” Bastian never understood the question.
Chapter 6
And it finally ended. His mother came to the ceremony, she had to. Bastian sat on the stage with everyone else. People made speeches about The Rest of Your Life and The Lessons We Learned and Jesus Is The Most Important Thing Of All. Rob had to offer prayers for graduates and futures and parents and thankfulness in a general sense. Bastian watched him. He’d never see Rob offer public prayers again, and Bastian watched his daddy trace the Sign of the Cross over him with a kind of wonder. Never again, never again. The principal handed him a goddamn diploma. She shook his hand. When the ceremony ended, he walked right to Rob, his cap askew. Rob wore his Mass garb, the white alb and the green vestments. He would take them off, hang them up, and never put them on again. Bastian could see an end to everything, bright and shining and new.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, Daddy-O.” A giant grin split his face.
“Bastian.” Rob used his warning voice.
“Fuck all. Let’s go. I’m done. You said you put the letter in this morning. So are you.”
“Later.”
“No, now, Rob.”
“Bastian.”
It hit Bastian, slammed him like a gut punch that knocked out all his wind, that stole his breath: Rob was keeping up the game. This grand game, the parents and teachers and everyone milling around saying congratulations and where are you going and keep in touch and oh parting is such sweet fucking sorrow, Rob wasn’t stopping. He was staying all in.
“You didn’t put in the letter.”
“Bastian —”
“You said you were going to. You said.”
“You’re going to make a scene.”
“Fuck all about a scene. I will scream from the motherfucking rafters what you’ve been up to if you don’t explain this to me right now.”
Rob grabbed his arm and drug him outside. “I need another few hours, you fucking brat. You think I can just waltz out of here? I have to deal with the kind of shit adults deal with, Bastian. So go to some goddamn parties and I’ll see you afterwards.”
Bastian’s throat tightened. He couldn’t swallow; his eyes filled, and they’d spill if he turned his head too quickly. He’d lived for this day, lived for it: he’d get that piece of paper and walk out into a whole new life.
Bastian rode home with his mother. They didn’t talk. He took Ziggy for a long, long walk and cried in the woods.
When Rob called, he didn’t pick up.
He didn’t pick up that night, either.
Rob knew his mother would be gone Monday, so Bastian wasn’t surprised to see him pull in the driveway first thing in the morning.
“What the hell? It’s finally over, and you won’t take my calls all of a sudden?”
Bastian shrugged.
“I brought you donuts.” He held up a Krispie Kreme bag.
Bastian shrugged again.
“C’mon then, sprite. In the house.”
Rob sat at the kitchen table. “It’s done. I turned in the letter that morning like I said I would. I’m finished. I’m not a priest. At least I say I’m not, so I’m not.”
“Okay.” Bastian petted Angel with one hand and held Ziggy with the other.
Rob touched his face. “You’re not alright. You haven’t been alright since April.”
“You noticed.” Bastian pulled away from him.
“I kept thinking you’d get better and you never did.” Rob stood up. “Fuck this.” He didn’t say it in a loud voice, or an angry one. Just a soft one, a resolved one, a voice that pronounced something rather than yelled at it.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, fuck this. You’re hurting and miserable. Pack up your menagerie. They’ll mean we have to take two cars, we can’t fit all your dogs in one.”
Bastian knit his brows. “Where are we going?” But his stomach swooped. Daddy was taking him away.
“I’m not leaving you in this house alone all summer, and I’m not staying in this goddamn town with nothing to do but get stared at as the priest who isn’t a priest anymore. I’m taking you home, and I’ll bring you back to UGA with me in the fall. You’ll get better up there. There’s nothing to remind you of anything.”
“Where’s — what are you talking about?” But that same soaring began in his chest, the one he’d had just after graduation: the future spreading out, a long long road away from here.
“I never sold my parents’ old house on the Chesapeake. I’m taking you and your zoo up there. Is your mother going to cut you off if you go? Not that it matters much, I have enough, but it helps —”
“No. She doesn’t care. As long as I take the dogs. Are we really —”
“Yes, sprite. We’re really.”
Bastian wrapped around Rob. He started to cry suddenly. Just things had been horrible, and now they wouldn’t be, they wouldn’t be horrible, he’d be somewhere else, somewhere with Daddy, somewhere that they could be together, somewhere without hiding all the time, somewhere that he wasn’t alone by default —
Daddy held him tight, tight until the tears stopped.
“Upstairs, sprite.” Daddy’s voice was gentle. Bastian nodded and let himself be led.
Daddy carefully pulled Bastian’s T-shirt over his head and pushed his pajama pants down with his thumbs. “You never do sleep in underwear, do you?” Daddy laughed as he yanked his own button-down over his head and kicked off everything else. Bastian hadn’t bothered to make his bed. Daddy guided him down into it. “Your frogs are singing.”
Bastian cuddled close to Daddy and buried his head in his chest. Daddy stroked his hair. “Are you going to take me someplace else, Daddy?” Bastian wanted it so much, want it at graduation, when he walked off that stage, when he saw Rob and the words rose up: Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
“Yeah, sprite. Then somewhere for both of us to start over after that, okay?” He kissed Bastian. “No burying your head. Come up here on the pillow.”
Daddy pulled the covers up. Bastian ran; Daddy lifted: there weren’t many inches in height between them, but Daddy was so much thicker, bigger than Bastian. Daddy cuddled him close and held him tightly, the way he liked. One arm wrapped around his back; the other held the back of his head, and Daddy kissed him, so gently and carefully. He petted Bastian’s back, and played with his hair, and sucked on one of his lips at a time. When he used his tongue, he only ran it over Bastian’s lips, and he never even nipped. Their cocks touched. Bastian hadn’t wanted it at all and then oh God he wanted it so much. Daddy cupped his ass and petted down, down until he teased Bastian’s entrance. Bastian lifted his leg over Daddy’s so he could reach better.
“You want me right there, sprite? You want me to play right there?”
“Please Daddy?”
“Lay on your stomach the way you like and I will.”
Daddy got the lube from the drawer and slicked his fingers. He took a long time about it. He circled Bastian, then barely slid a finger inside and pressed while he circled, stretching Bastian very, very gently and getting his ass so wet. By the time he slipped two fingers inside Bastian was begging. He spread his legs wide for Daddy. “Please? Daddy please touch the good spot. Are you going to make me come that way, Daddy? Will you make me come without touching my cock?”
“Uh-huh, sprite. If you want me to.”
“Please fuck me with your fingers, Daddy. You know how I like it. I want it so bad. I’
ll be such a good boy for you if you fuck me hard, I promise Daddy. I’ll do whatever you want, I swear. I’ll be such a good boy with such a tight ass.”
Daddy slid another finger into him. Bastian tensed for a second and Daddy shushed him, then stroked his back. It still burned in his tight circle, but Daddy stroked and stroked the good spot; he knew what Bastian wanted. Soon Bastian was tilting his ass up to Daddy’s fingers, moving on him and whining.
“Use words, sprite. I want to hear words. It makes me so hard.”
“Please fuck my ass, Daddy. Pin me and hold me down and fuck me like you know I want. I wanna feel full of your big cock. Will you come in me, Daddy? Will you make me come with your cock?”
Daddy slicked himself and knelt behind Bastian, who arched his back up, head buried in the bed and arms bent at the elbows. Daddy stretched him: the good, familiar burn, the usual pleasure-pain of it, Daddy’s silky, slick head entering him. Bastian whimpered on him. “Shhh, sprite, I know. I know, it’ll be over in a bit.” Then Daddy rested against just the right spot; his cock nuzzled right there, and he lay down on top of Bastian. Daddy’s fingers knit in between Bastian’s; strong arms pinned his; big legs held his down. Bastian wiggled on Daddy’s cock. Daddy rested his lips against Bastian’s ear.
“You want it, sprite? Tell me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You need it baby, don’t you? Tell me what you need.”
“I need cuddled, Daddy.” Bastian’s voice almost broke, as hard as he was. “I need you to fuck me really hard while you cuddle me.”
“No baby. You need held and you need it slowly. I know better than you do. I’m your Daddy. And you’re hurting and you need gentle, not hard.” He began moving slowly on Bastian, little tiny thrusts that stroked the perfect spot inside him again and again. Bastian moaned and arched up to him again. “That’s it, baby. Take it just like that, little one. Take the whole thing for me. You know I give it to you because I love you and you need loved on right now.”
Daddy had never said that.
Bastian had no idea how to answer, so he arched up to Daddy and whimpered for it. “Harder, Daddy. Please harder.”
For I Have Sinned: Bastian and Rob 1 (Southern Sin) Page 10
