by Liz Crowe
Jack stared at the ring that held a large car key with a Ford emblem and two nondescript regular keys he had never seen before. He looked up. His father’s gaze was blank but that was an improvement over the raw hatred residing there most days.
“Got ya a truck; a used one but it runs fine.”
Jack kept looking at him, uncomprehending. He had a car already. An old Mustang and he loved it. He opened his mouth but his father cut him off.
“You’ll be starting work. With me. Saturday. I found someone to take that rattle trap piece of shit ‘Stang.” The man popped the cap off a beer. “Now that basketball is done you have too much time on your hands. You need to learn how to make a living like a man. Learn the value of the dollars I fling at you. Stop flopping around here like a little kid. You only have a few more months in my house. I want you to use ‘em better.”
Jack blinked. Then glanced down at the keys resting in his palm. “Work.” A thrill of something like dread lit his brain. “You sold my car?” He tried to process it all.
“Yeah. You will make your own damn money. I’ll pay you a fair wage, same as everyone else. And a truck will be more useful and cost me less for insurance.”
“What about….”
His father raised his hand. “She’ll be fine. Your grandma said she’d stay here on the weekends you were on a job site.”
“Job site,” Jack repeated, like a dork, he realized. His father rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, since when are you a dimwit, Jackie, huh? A ‘job site’ as in you will be hammering nails, hanging drywall, mudding, sanding, and learning a real trade. Make it through four weeks with the framers, then spend some time on the paint crew, and I’ll put you with the electricians. You can get your journeyman’s license then.” He sipped his beer, kept his gaze pinned on Jack. “Make yourself useful maybe.”
“Okay,” Jack said, still wrapping his head around it. “I, um, need to finish a group project this Saturday, for my physics class.”
“When you’re done, drive to this address.” He shoved a piece of paper across the table, stood, stretched his long, lean body toward the ceiling then sighed. “I’m not that bad a guy, ya know.” He looked down at his son.
Jack bit his tongue, nodded. “I’ll be there.” He left the room lest he plant his fist in the man’s nose again as he really wanted to do. Jack would work, sure, make his own money. The prospect of that was the best idea he’d heard in a while.
But he would never admit that his father was “not a bad guy” because he was—a very bad guy. A guy who’d berated his own wife for years until she’d killed herself with booze. Who’d made his daughter feel like a bastard even though the fact that she had her father’s hair and eyes, just as Jack did, had put an end to his theory about the man next door.
“You’re a prick,” he muttered as he made his way down the hall to his room. “I hate you,” he said to the closed door as he flopped on the bed and tried to calm his pounding heart.
He was a twitchy mess, truth be told, now that basketball season had ended. Cruising through classwork, gliding through days staring at girls, imagining what he wanted to do with them, to them, there was not a day that he was not a walking, talking hard-on. He was actually going to hit college a virgin. Lame.
He shut his eyes and saw it again, the secretary’s bare, firm ass, his father’s fingers dug deep into her flesh, her breathy sighs of satisfaction as she rolled her hips, straddling him. Jack clenched his fists, could feel her skin, using the few times he’d actually gotten his hands on real girl flesh as inspiration.
“Jack,” she would caress his name with her full, red lips. He would kiss her, kiss her hard, make her whimper and want more as they….
“Shit!” he muttered, unzipping his jeans and grabbing his erection for the third time that day. He laid back, stroked himself slow then faster. His skin heated and his breathing quickened. He grunted, nearly sitting up with the force of the climax, covering his shirt with a sticky mess. Again. Sleep descended fast.
After a brief nap he changed his shirt, pulled on shorts and running shoes, and grabbed his basketball. Mo was shopping with their grandma, getting a haircut, and going out to dinner, just the girls. He needed a serious physical outlet if he wasn’t going to spend his entire day jacking off.
He climbed behind the wheel of the old Ford F150 and gunned the engine, not even sure where he was headed, but knowing it had to be the fuck away from there.
“Dude, you have got to close the deal with Laura.”
Jack ignored his friend in favor of blowing past him and placing a beautiful layup into the net. He threw the ball at the other boy’s face. “C’mon, dude, you aren’t even trying. Play like you give a shit.”
Brandis caught it, faked left, ran right, and dunked, just like the showoff he was. “Whatever.” Jack said, dribbling around his friend and feinting left before doing his long lob into the nylon.
“Nice one. Now let me show you how a man does it.” Brandis tossed the ball up from half court, getting nothing but net.
“Fuck you.” Jack muttered, grabbing the ball and heaving to the other end, making his own string music.
Brandis whistled, and the next few minutes they gave up actually playing and instead just had a one-upmanship session, seeing how far they could hurl the ball and still hit the basket. Jack won, which was fair since Brandis had schooled him last time.
After about an hour they sat on the grass, breathing heavily, gulping water, the silence between them comfortable until Brandis opened his fool mouth about the girl again.
“So… you get in those panties yet?” He shot Jack a sidelong glance.
“None of your business.” Jack lay back on the grass, trying hard not to think about her and her skin, hair, lips, the heft of her breast in his hand, the sensation of the hard peak of her nipple in his mouth. “Fuck.” He rolled onto his side, embarrassed at the way his body kept reacting.
“I didn’t think so. You still harboring a cherry, aren’t you, big talker?”
Jack ignored him, focused on willing his cock softer so he could stand up again.
“We gotta fix that,” Brandis said, slapping his hip.
“Gonna start working for my old man.” Jack hoped to take the conversation off its current track. “Saturday. At a job site.” He got to his feet, nervous energy increasing his need to move around.
“Huh,” Brandis said. “Sounds…interesting.”
“It will be fine. I won’t work with him exactly. Just for the company. Make my own damn money for a change. That’s good. I guess.”
“So…that means you get to see the secretary?” Brandis raised an eyebrow at him.
Jack felt his face flush. He’d told Brandis about catching his father fucking the girl in the office that day. Now he sort of regretted it—wished he’d kept it for himself, to remember and masturbate to as much as he wanted. “No, I mean. She isn’t on the job sites, I guess.”
But he didn’t really know. The thought of being in her space made his stupid, rookie dick hard all over again.
That night, after eating a meal his grandma had brought for them, he looked at his father. The man sat, beer in hand, staring at the tube.
“Dad,” he said, hating how weak his voice sounded. Absolutely, completely despising how much he needed someone to guide him, to advise him. But needing it enough he was forced to reach out to this asshole for it.
“Huh,” the man grunted without looking at him.
“Will I need to, um, come in to the office first Saturday? I mean, fill out paperwork or something before going to the, uh, job site?”
His old man shot him a look full of understanding. A smile spread over his face, startling Jack and making him uncomfortable. Then he looked away, sipping beer and glaring at the TV again. “I know you were there. I know what you saw, you pervert.”
Jack blinked, his heart thudding his chest. His knees shook. His mouth was instantly bone dry. “Um, what?” But he knew, and he hated
the old bastard even more for being such a shithead about it. Calling him the pervert for watching? Jesus, he wasn’t the one who’d been married for god’s sake, making the secretary fuck him on a Sunday in the dark office.
“Oh Jackie boy. You have a lot to learn. A lot. To. Learn. But it’s okay. She is a sweet piece of tail. You’d have to be blind or a homo not to want to see her again.”
Jack stood, unwilling to hear any more bullshit fall from his father’s lips. “No, no, sit, listen. I’ll tell you what you want to hear. I know you’re whacking off five or six times a day. I’ve been there, I get it.”
Jack’s cheeks flushed. His fingers curled into fists as fury made his vision dim. God, he wanted to pound the fucker’s face again.
“Women,” he said, still keeping his gaze trained on the television, “are good for three things.” A silence descended. Jack ground his jaw, determined not to be the good pupil and ask the obvious question in the room. The man turned slowly and stared at him.
Jack kept his face neutral, raised an eyebrow as if to ask “Oh? And what is that, wise father?”
The man pointed the beer bottle at him. “Cleaning. Cooking. Fucking. In that order. Don’t try and make them any more than that, my boy. That…” he gulped back the last of the bottle and pondered it as if it held the secrets of the universe. “That is where I went wrong.”
Jack’s rage forced him forward. “Don’t talk about my mother,” he ground out, wishing he had killed his father when given the chance.
John Gordon seemed to startle out of a daze, looked at Jack who stood looming over him. “Oh back off, boy. Don’t be so dramatic. Emotion is something you have to keep under control. All the time, especially when it comes to women. Let them be emotional, but keep yours,” he put a finger on Jack’s chest, “in here.”
Jack stepped away out of his reach, unwilling to feel the man’s touch anywhere on his body. His father shrugged, held up three fingers. “Cleaning. Cooking. Fucking. Save the conversation for your friends at the titty bar. Now go make yourself useful and get me another beer.”
Jack blinked, unsure if the bizarre conversation was ending. His father narrowed his eyes at him and belched, then spoke again. “Don’t you have homework or something?”
In a daze, still trying to absorb how utterly fucked up his life was, Jack got the beer, opened it, and hawked a huge wad of spit into it before walking back into the TV room and handing it over. “Thanks, Dad. Great advice. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Keep your dirty boy paws off Mindy.”
Jack stopped, turned, and stared at his father.
“I mean it, you little shit. She’s mine. Mindy, the office girl—don’t go near her.”
Jack shook his head, walked out, and thought for the millionth time that he would be lucky to escape his teen years either not a virgin or not in jail for patricide.
Chapter Three
Every single muscle and molecule of Jack’s body ached when he moved even the slightest bit. Both of his thumbs were black and bruised and one was sans a fingernail. His chapped hands were raw and full of splinters. No matter how many times he washed his hair it still felt full of drywall dust, and his eyes were gritty from it.
For the last six weeks, he had spent entire weekends and three afternoons a week learning just how much he didn’t know about the basics of building a house. The crew reveled in his ignorance. Went out of their way to encourage his fuck-ups. Threatened every day to “tell Daddy.”
Until two days ago when he’d snapped, put his fist through a perfectly good piece of freshly hung, mudded, and sanded drywall right before flattening the worst of the assholes on the job site with the same dust-covered knuckles. They’d backed off after that, giving him a small measure of grudging respect.
True to his word, John Gordon paid him the going hourly wage and Jack’s bank account was swollen with cash. But he didn’t spend it. He resisted the urge to take Laura or any other girl out on a real date as he got his feet under him and established himself as not the pussy kid whose father was their shithead boss.
He felt good about going to the job site for the first time since he started, but goddamn, he was sore. He rolled onto his back, noting he’d managed to nap for an hour. He still needed to get to the office and grab his latest paycheck before heading out to a party.
He half stumbled, half crawled to the bathroom for a shower, emerged, dressed, and stopped in the doorway of his sister’s room. She was engrossed in a book as usual, twirling a strand of her long, black hair around her finger, focused and ignoring the world around her.
“Hey Mo-ster.”
She looked up, smiled, and ran into his arms. Taking a deep breath of her, he smiled, then tossed her back on her bed. “Going out tonight. You okay?”
She nodded, rolling her eyes, an affectation that bugged him but one he figured he was stuck with. “Daddy said he would be home by five.” Jack took a breath, nearly ready to stay home. “I’m fine. Go on. I’m just going to read all night.”
He hesitated, glanced at his watch. “Go on, Jack. Seriously. I’ll call Grandma if Daddy’s late again.”
“All right. But we’ll pick up the Monopoly game tomorrow morning. I’m still winning, I think.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, rolled to her side, and reopened the book. Jack smiled, grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter, and headed out, his mind only half on the stop before the party. The party where he had every intention of moving the lovely Laura beyond her half-hearted protests and getting right into her panties, leaving his annoying virginity behind. He had several condoms already tucked into his wallet in preparation.
He shifted in his seat as his eager body rose to the occasion a little early, but the pleasant pain of the zipper’s bite ramped up his libido in a perverse way. He drove downtown to the Keystone Construction building, parked, and used his key at the back entry.
He whistled as he climbed the steps up to the top floor of the five-story structure and entered the main complex of offices where his father presided, along with the financial manager. They had a nicely outfitted conference room with a large window overlooking downtown Ann Arbor, used to impress high-end clients.
A small kitchenette was at the back next to the copy room. There was a beat-up table, four butt-sprung chairs, a sink, coffeemaker that rarely got a break, and a full-size fridge.
Jack stopped, catching a whiff of something out of place. He shook his head and kept walking toward the cubbyhole of mail slots, each with an employee name taped to it. Just as he was reaching for the one thing in his, an envelope with his latest paycheck, he stopped, picking up the distinct sound of female unhappiness. A sniffle, soft sob, a sigh, coming from the reception area to the left of the mail cubbies.
Keystone employed three women. There was the lovely Mindy, his father’s personal secretary and who Jack assumed was angling for stepmotherhood. Karen was the accountant—a large, scary lady with a booming laugh who dressed as if she was headed to a job site most days. And then there was Yvonne, a dread-locked black woman who did the bulk of the administrative work including serving as a sort of command-and-control for all the job sites, never without her walkie-talkie at her hip.
Yvonne was forty-something, divorced, bossy, and probably the hardest worker in the damn place. Jack supposed it must be her crying. He had heard her ex-husband had lost his job and couldn’t pay child support anymore so she and her three kids were strapped for cash.
He considered sneaking back out, figuring she hadn’t heard anyone come in or she wouldn’t still be blubbering away in there. Then he shook his head at himself. He had a soft spot for female tears, having experienced so many of them from his mother whom he’d adored for so long.
He crept around the corner, determined to just give a quick reassurance and bolt, unwilling to derail his plans for the night. The vision he saw there made his heart stop then kick-start itself with a brisk rhythm.
Mindy was sitting at her typewriter, hands in
her lap, shoulders shaking. Jack tried like a trooper not to notice that she appeared dressed to go out dancing or something equally fancy. The small black slip of silk stopped higher than mid-thigh, one thin strap had slid off her shoulder, and her feet were encased in mile-high, shiny black leather.
He groaned and willed his body not to react like a teenager’s with little success. The closer he got the more he saw of her—the high swell of her breasts, the firm line of her neck, the bare perfection of her arms. Giving himself a mental shake, he reached out a hand and lightly touched one shoulder, shivering at the pure heat that shot up his arm from the contact.
Her long, blonde hair was gathered up in a sexy tumble on her head, with tendrils falling from the ’do, begging for his fingers to touch.
“Hey,” he croaked out.
“Oh my God!” the woman shrieked and leaped to her feet, stumbling when the wheeled chair slid out from under her, and nearly going flat on her ass. Jack grabbed her arm to steady her and got a full nose of her then—the perfume he’d smelled earlier and a hint of something deeper, spicier, that brought to mind sweaty skin-to-skin contact and the sweet grip of a woman’s body around his.
Not that he knew how that felt exactly, but all of a sudden he had a hint and it hit him right in the balls, making him bite back a groan. He grimaced, tried to focus, recalling his father’s firm words about “dirty boy hands off Mindy.”
“Jackie,” she gasped, righting herself with a hiccup.
Jack stared at her a minute, dumbfounded and completely paralyzed with gut-churning lust. “You’re drunk,” he said.
“No, no, I’m…I just, oh shit.” She pulled out of his grip and flopped back in the rolling chair, turning so she faced him and crossing her legs so he got the perfect view of her long, lean, tanned upper thighs, disappearing up under that slinky black fabric. He sucked in a breath and tried to remain calm.
