by K. L. Hiers
Upon closer inspection, Tom realized not everything had been replaced in the kitchen judging by the mint green tile backsplash above the stovetop. It gave the kitchen a fun sense of warmth despite all the modern appliances and besides, it matched all the plants.
As promised, there was a bottle of wine and two glasses waiting on the bar.
Tom poured while Mister Doodles sniffed around his feet, looking back over his shoulder to see Cypress coming down the hall. He offered him a glass, saying, “Thank you for cooking. I have no idea what you’re making, but it smells amazing.”
“Spinach stuffed chicken breast and toasted herb rice,” Cypress replied. “Rice is going on the stove, chicken is in the oven, and everything should be ready in about ten minutes.”
“I can’t wait,” Tom said, sipping his wine. He was already feeling fuzzy, leaning into Cypress’s hand at his hip. “You know, there actually used to be a kitchen upstairs at the funeral home. A bathroom with a shower, too.”
“Oh, yeah? What happened?”
“It’s all been converted into offices or storage space now. They built a shelf right over the damn tub because Mr. Ayers was too cheap to pay someone to gut it out.”
“People used to live there, right?”
“Yup. They’re called funeral homes because they really used to be people’s homes. They worked right out of the place they lived.”
“Nobody lives there now?”
“No,” Tom replied. “Not for a long time. Some other funeral homes might still do it, maybe? Kinda dying out, no pun intended. I’ve heard of a few places who let their apprentices or whoever stay rent free in exchange for working there, but the actual family that owns it? Not usually.”
“That’s what we did here,” Cypress said proudly. “My grandmother started out selling her flowers from her garden out front, then the backyard, and boom, it just took off. Next thing you know, she’s taken over the entire downstairs for the business.”
“And here you are, carrying on the family legacy.” Tom smiled. “That’s really nice you’ve kept it all going.” He paused to stretch, tilting his head back and forth to pop his neck. “Mm, sorry.”
“Long day?” Cypress asked, reaching over to gently rub Tom’s shoulder.
“Long and boring.” Tom reconsidered. “Other than the whole burglary mess. That’s a fuckin’ nightmare.” He curiously traced the rim of his glass. “Gonna tell me how you know Fox now?”
“There are… parties.” Cypress seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “People who enjoy a certain kind of lifestyle get together every once in a while. Some like to show off, some like to watch, and some honestly just come out to chat and hang out.”
“Like a sex party?” Tom asked dumbly.
“Something like that,” Cypress replied. “It’s all very casual, no pressure to participate, everyone is very friendly. Anyone acts up, they’re out.”
“And you know Fox from these parties?” Tom didn’t know if he was excited or jealous, but he could feel his face getting hot.
“We knew each other from when we were kids but got reintroduced at one, yes. I am trusting you with that information. Privacy is important to this community. Trust is essential because there aren’t any places for people like us around here. We have to make our own, and they are guarded pretty fiercely.”
“I won’t say anything,” Tom swore. “I promise.”
“Good.” Cypress winked playfully. “I’d hate to have a reason to spank you.”
“Is that supposed to discourage me from saying anything?” Tom laughed, tipping his wine glass back. “Because it’s not working quite the way you think.”
“No? Hmm.” Cypress glanced over Tom’s body. “I’m sure I can come up with something.”
“What if I call you Shirley again?”
“Oh, God. Yeah, that’ll probably do it.” Cypress let out a quick snort of laughter.
“So, spill. Why do they call you Shirley?”
“My grandpa started that,” Cypress replied with a wry smile. “When I was a little kid living in this giant ass house with no brothers or sisters to play with, trust that I was getting into everything. I went all through the upstairs and the attic, got into stuff downstairs in the flower shop.
“Grandpa asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was looking for clues. Guess I was getting my Scooby-Doo on or something. So, he started calling me ‘Sherlock.’ You know, ‘cause our last name is Holmes, and over the years it morphed into ‘Shirley.’
“When I first met Fox, his mother had come to the shop to pick up some flowers. His mother talks to my mother, and they want us to meet since we’re about the same age. I was ten, I think. He was twelve or thirteen. So, anyway, Grandpa hollers out for Shirley, and here I come, and Fox was so damn confused.”
“Oh, my God.” Tom laughed. “Did he think you were gonna be a girl?”
“Sure did.” Cypress grinned. “I can still see the damn look on his face. He told me later he thought I was the ugliest girl he’d ever seen.”
“That’s awful.” Tom shook his head, reaching for his wine. “So, you and Fox…?” He let the question hang, hoping his intent was obvious.
“He’s straight,” Cypress replied with a smirk. “We’ve never done a scene together, and no, we’ve definitely never had sex.”
“Isn’t it the same thing?”
“Not always. Scenes have safe words and a plan.”
“Ah.”
“Have you had sex with anyone you work with?”
Tom balked at the question, but he deserved it for being nosy about how well Cypress knew Fox. “Yes, and it was the worst mistake of my entire life.”
Cypress reached over to refill Tom’s glass. “That bad?”
“It was Junior.” Tom groaned and hid his face in his hand. “Gerald’s son.”
“Oh, no.” Cypress cackled.
“Oh, yeah.” Tom shifted his palm over so he could drink his wine and still hide. “It was awful, and he makes my life a living hell, so, yup.”
“Hey, hey,” Cypress soothed, gently prying Tom’s hand away. “There’s no shame in sex even if you regret your choice in partner. You’re allowed to make mistakes because that’s how we learn.”
“Like never ever fuckin’ sleep with anyone you work with?”
“Bet you won’t do it again.”
“Ha! No. Ugh.”
“Does he bother you at work?” Cypress asked casually, but there was a tightness in his jaw Tom hadn’t seen before.
“I think he’s done,” Tom was proud to say. “I finally stood up to him and told him to leave me alone.”
“Good.” Cypress relaxed, refilling his glass and nearly emptying the bottle. He poured the last bit into Tom’s cup to top him off.
“It was pretty awesome,” Tom said. “Once I finally did it, it was so easy. I’m gonna add it to my daily affirmations. I am worthy, I am beautiful, and I will always tell Junior to fuck off.”
“I’m glad.” Cypress looked thoughtful. “And you said all of them this morning?”
“I told you I did. Even the dirty one.”
“All three times?” Cypress pressed.
Tom paused to soak the next terrible lie that was about to come out of his mouth in wine. “Well. Yes. Maybe. Almost like three.”
“Almost?”
“Okay, fine. I only did two of them all three times.”
“Why, Tom,” Cypress teased, “looks like you’re getting spanked after all.”
“Oh?” Tom breathed, the warmth in his face now spreading to his chest. The rush from being teased earlier today was rapidly pushing everything into high gear, and his cock flexed in his jeans.
“Well, you did just try to lie to me, terribly by the way.” Cypress walked around the bar to check on the rice, lifting the lid and fluffing it with a big wooden spoon. “I’m also disappointed you only did two full recitations of your affirmations.”
Tom’s heart began to thud.
“No
, actually, you know what? I’m glad you didn’t because this is giving me the opportunity to teach you a new method for learning self-love.”
“Does that mean we’re going to, you know, do stuff right now?”
“Your eagerness is very flattering, but not yet.” Cypress pointed the spoon at him. “First, we’re going to eat this dinner and dessert. And then, and only then, will we have sexy dessert.”
“Yes, sir,” Tom chirped obediently.
Cypress gave him a heated look at the formal title, pointing the spoon again. “Watch it.”
“I’ll behave.” Tom resisted the urge to add ‘sir.’
“Good.”
Summoned by the scent of food, Mister Doodles wandered around the bar and posted herself by Cypress’s foot.
He pointed the spoon down at her, warning, “Don’t even think about it, pooch.”
Trying to get his body to switch off from sex, Tom decided to change the conversation up. “So, uh, did you and your family always live here?”
“My grandparents bought the house in 1954.” Cypress turned off the heat on the stove, grabbing another bottle of wine and opening it up. “My grandfather was the first black lawyer here in Mayfield, and he opened up the first black law firm, too. Mom and Dad got married in 1977. I came along in 1979, and we moved in… let’s see. Yeah, 1979.”
Tom laughed. “Wow, were you that bad of a baby?”
“Only in that I needed to eat and be cared for, and my parents were both working two jobs to put themselves through school. My grandparents offered for them to move in. And by offered, I mean my grandma told them to.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Cypress reassured him, walking back with the wine over to the bar and hopping up on one of the stools. “I’m not. I got to grow up in this big house full of people that loved me. I came out when I was thirteen. Thirteen. Because I knew no matter what, my family only had love for me.”
“That’s amazing.” Tom tried not to let his envy show as he sat down next to him, letting their legs brush together.
“They all came with me to my first Pride parade. I was… God, I think twenty-two? Twenty-three? It was definitely in the early 2000s.”
“You waited that long after coming out so early?”
“Coming out to my family was one thing. The world? That big, ugly place out there?” Cypress shook his head. “That’s another thing entirely.” He rested his hand on Tom’s knee, squeezing gently. “What about you? You out with your family?”
“Yeah, I am now, but I hid it for a long time.” Tom chuckled mirthlessly. “Well, I tried to anyway. I know they love me, but they are definitely on the conservative side, and I was terrified. I didn’t officially come out until I was in mortuary school.”
“And when was that?”
“2008.”
“Wait, what year did you graduate high school?”
“2003,” Tom replied. “I fucked off for a few years trying to figure out what I wanted to do. You?”
“I graduated in 1997. I’m forty-one.”
“I’m thirty-five.”
“Ah, just a young little thing.” Cypress grinned, pouring them both more wine.
“Pffft, you are not that much older than me,” Tom protested.
“Mmm, I feel old sometimes.” Cypress sipped his wine. “When you were starting at mortuary school, I’d already been working here for thirteen years.”
“Holy shit.”
“I started when I was sixteen, fell in love with it, never gave it up.” Cypress smiled fondly. “Took over when my parents retired.”
“They still with us?”
“Oh, yeah. Grandma and Grandpa, too.” Cypress laughed. “That day I was on the phone? Fussing about cake? That was about my Grandpa trying to get into this cake my mother had baked for me.”
“Stubborn, huh?”
“Very.”
“They live close?”
“They all live next door. The blue house.”
“No way!”
“My mother had wanted that damn house for as long as I can remember because it has that big wraparound porch. It finally came up for sale a few years ago, and well, there they all went and gave this place to me.”
“That’s so sweet,” Tom chuckled. “And a little weird that they’re so close.”
“Nah, they’re family. I like having them there.” Cypress rubbed Tom’s thigh. “Your family still around?”
“Um.” Tom paused to take a big drink of wine. “No siblings, Dad is around, but my mother died in a car accident when I was fifteen.”
“Christ, I’m so sorry,” Cypress said, reaching for Tom’s hand, his eyes full of sympathy.
“Dad got remarried pretty fast. It was hard. It was… not easy for me to adjust.” Tom squeezed Cypress’s hand. “They live like an hour away. We don’t talk much. My mom dying, well, it’s kinda how I got into the funeral business.”
“Really?”
“So, she was hit by a drunk driver, and my dad had insisted on an open casket.” Tom paused for another drink to help him get through the story. “She looked awful. She didn’t look like herself at all. Knowing now what I do about embalming and restorative arts, I know the people who took care of her were lazy.
“You could still see this big bruise on her hand they didn’t bother trying to hide, and there was this blob on her forehead that looked like a lump where they were covering up a cut but didn’t finish the wax. It’s been twenty years since she died, and I can’t remember what her voice sounded like, but I will never forget what she looked like in her casket.
“It’s hard enough to say goodbye to someone you love, but it’s a hundred times worse when you don’t even recognize them. That last picture, that final viewing, stays with you. It’s why I work so hard, why I spend so much time with every case that I have, why I spend ten minutes just trying to get a collar straight or whatever.
“If I can make that final moment a little easier for someone else so they don’t have to go through what I did, then I’m happy. I’ve done some good.” Tom was suddenly self-conscious of how long he’d been talking and promptly killed the rest of his wine. “Right, so. There you have it.”
Cypress was quiet for a long moment before finally reaching out to cup Tom’s flushed cheek, drawing him into a soft kiss.
The sweet affection was a balm to Tom’s nerves, washing over him as quickly as the wine he had chugged. “I’m sorry. That was a lot.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me, and don’t you dare apologize,” Cypress soothed. “You, Tom Hill, are so beautiful.”
“I’m…” Tom resisted the instinct to reject the compliment. “Thank you.”
“What you do is priceless, and I’m sure you don’t receive a fraction of the praise or gratitude you deserve,” Cypress went on. “I knew you really put yourself into your work, but I had no idea just how much.”
“I put everything,” Tom whispered, smiling sadly.
“And get nothing back,” Cypress pointed out, raising Tom’s hand to his lips and kissing his wrist. “Can’t go on like that forever, you know. Not without burning out.”
“I know. I don’t… I don’t know what else to do.”
“You have to find somewhere else to invest your time and emotions where you’ll get an even return.”
“Like being blackmailed by this hot guy into having kinky sex?” Tom said, trying to lighten the mood.
Cypress let out a small snort. “Well, I think you’re definitely getting a big return with me.”
“Mm. Very big.” Tom grinned, and when Cypress grinned back, he started laughing. He couldn’t help it. The rush of emotions over the last few minutes had been so intense and laughing felt incredible.
Cypress tried to kiss all the laughter from Tom’s lips, but all too soon he was laughing right along with him. “Okay, for the record, I did not mean anything sexual when I said that.”
“Bullshit.” Tom snickered. “Oh, you’re de
finitely getting a big return.”
“God.” Cypress groaned, having to wipe tears from his eyes from laughing so hard. “You are ridiculous.”
“Thought I was beautiful?”
“You’re both.” Cypress kissed his cheek as he got up. “Whew! Hang on. Dinner should be about ready.”
Tom turned to prop his elbows on the bar, watching Cypress putting on a pair of oven mitts. “Do you mind if I ask how you got into the kinky stuff?”
“Not at all,” Cypress said, opening the oven and taking out a big casserole dish to set on the stove to cool. “Saw it in movies, porn, some magazines at a gay bookstore. Thought it looked sexy. Not too hard to find guys who like leather at a gay bar, and I started experimenting, figuring out what I liked.”
“That’s it?”
“Were you expecting that I just walked into an orgy one day and fell in love with spanking?” Cypress teased, pulling off the oven mitts with a little flourish.
“I don’t know.” Tom chuckled, running his fingers through his hair. “Something exciting, I guess.”
“Sometimes you only need one person to show you the way.”
“Did you have someone like that?”
“I had someone who taught what not to do, and after that, I met more responsible people who taught me better.”
“And you’re gonna teach me?”
“For as long as you want me to keep quiet about your little side business.” Cypress winked and began to plate the food, nodding for Tom to head over to the dining table. “Dinner is ready, Monsieur.”
“God, it smells so amazing.” Wine in hand, Tom eagerly followed Cypress to the table. He nearly orgasmed on the spot when he tasted the creamy spinach filling inside the chicken, and he couldn’t stop complimenting Cypress’s cooking.
Cypress humbly accepted the praise, paid tribute to his grandmother and mother for teaching him, and they continued talking with more lighthearted conversation.
Their previous dates hadn’t left much room for chatting, and Tom was delighted they had so much in common beyond their intense physical attraction. They loved the same comics and superheroes, watched most of the same TV shows growing up, and even had similar celeb crushes.
