In Pieces

by Alexa Land

  “You haven’t been working much lately,” I observed as I walked him to the door.

  “Nope. I made a film a week for each of the last twenty-two weeks. You know what that is? That’s too damn much Hunter Storm. I’m taking a little break.” He called goodbye to Kieran, and waved over his shoulder before disappearing down the hall.

  I closed the door behind him and turned to Kieran, who was watching me with a wicked grin. “You know what you need?” he asked, his voice low and sexy.

  “Victory sex?”

  “Exactly.” He grabbed me in a fireman’s carry and jogged into the bedroom as I let out a startled laugh, and deposited me on the edge of the bed. We both stripped quickly, and then he fell to his knees and dove onto my cock.

  “Damn. Triumphing over evil gallery owners really makes you horny,” I joked as he took me down his throat.

  He sucked me for a few moments before pulling off me and saying, “You make me horny. You were amazing. I’ve never seen confidence like that.” He licked and kissed his way down my shaft.

  “I was mad, not confident.”

  “Either way, you were fucking awesome. When you pulled down those banners and trailed them in behind you, you looked like a rock star. I wanted to fall down on my knees and worship you.” He looked up at me with a grin and a gleam in his eyes. “And now I can.” He took my cock in his mouth again and sucked me until I was hard and throbbing between his lips.

  Kieran was shaking with anticipation when he finally slid his mouth off of me, his cock pressed up against his flat belly and leaking precum. He got on his knees on the edge of the mattress and spread his legs wide, his gorgeous ass completely exposed for me, and said, “Make me yours, Christopher.”

  “With pleasure,” I murmured as I quickly deployed a condom and worked lube into Kieran’s little opening.

  I stood behind him and grabbed his hips as I pushed my cock into his body. We fucked hard and fast, and I reached under him and jerked him off as I pounded him. His tight hole milked me perfectly, his big, powerful body glistening with sweat as he drove himself back onto me again and again. We both came within seconds of each other, yelling so loudly they probably heard us a block over.

  After I cleaned us both up a little I climbed on top of Kieran, who was now flat on his back on the mattress. I straddled him with my knees on either side of him, supporting my weight, my arms around his shoulders, and he wrapped his arms around me and held me for a while before saying quietly, “I hate to bring down our good mood, but we really should go see my uncle today. I want your case reopened as soon as possible.”

  “Ok, we can do that.” I didn’t move though, and neither did he. “Or we could just stay like this all day.”

  “We can come back to bed after we go to the station. I have the day off. We can go right back to this position.”

  “Just five more minutes. Please?”

  “Sure baby,” he said, nuzzling my hair.

  After a while I said quietly, “You realize that asking your uncle to reopen this case means he’s going to find out you’re dating a prostitute.”

  “I know.”

  “That doesn’t concern you?”

  “I can deal with it.”

  After another minute I said, “I’m going to have to go back to work, either today or tomorrow. I guess I’m going to have to start working the street again, since my escort service must be out of business now.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  I raised myself up on my elbows and looked at him. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Over my dead body are you going back to prostitution.” He said it calmly and levelly, holding my gaze.

  “It’s not really your call, Kieran.”

  “I’m making it my call. You’re no longer a sex worker. It’s that simple.” There was no challenge in his voice or his expression, he was merely stating a fact.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t actually respond well to being told what to do.”

  “I know.”

  “So what do you think you’re going to do, exactly? Are you going to tie me to the bed and prevent me from leaving the apartment?”

  He grinned a little at that. “If anyone was getting tied to the bed, it’d probably be me. Don’t you agree?”

  I sat up, still straddling his naked body, and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m serious. You can’t decide this for me.”

  “Stop being so stubborn, Christopher.”

  “I’m not being stubborn, I’m being realistic. If I stop working, I’m homeless within a month. Again. Because yeah, been there, done that, and let me tell you, it sucked. And then in two months when my tuition comes due, I’m out of school. And there goes my future, every dream I ever had, all my plans and every promise I made myself.”

  “Or,” Kieran said, relaxing under me and tucking a hand behind his head, “you and I draw up a formal document outlining the terms of the interest-free loan I’m going to give you, you keep paying your rent and tuition, and you stop working a job that’s endangering your life.”

  “We talked about that.”

  “We didn’t really. You just told me you didn’t want to be dependent on anyone. But taking out a loan doesn’t make you dependent. It doesn’t give me control over you. It doesn’t even mean you have to stay with me. It’s just a loan.”

  “I’m not comfortable with borrowing money from you.”

  He shrugged and said, “Do it anyway.”

  “Or what?”

  Kieran grinned at me. “What do you want, an ultimatum? Borrow money from me, or else I’m going to put on my police uniform and follow you everywhere and scare away all your potential customers so you can’t work? Would you respond to that?”

  “No.”

  “Let me be your solution.”

  I sighed and swung off him, and followed my trail of clothes across the bedroom, putting on my good outfit again. He was still naked on the bed, and when I was dressed I went and stood beside him. “I thought you were in a hurry to get to the police station.”

  “This is more pressing.”

  I looked down at him and traced the perfect V in the center of his upper lip as I said, “I’ll consider it.”

  “You’re lying to appease me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just give it some thought. This offer isn’t going to expire.” He got out of bed and kissed me, then began gathering up his clothes. It was the same outfit from the night before, and he said, “We should probably swing by my house before going to see my uncle, so I can shower and change. I want to look decent when I out myself to my family.”

  “When you – oh God, that’s right.”

  Kieran pulled on his boxers and jeans as he said, “Once I tell my uncle I’m dating you, every one of my relatives is going to find out I’m gay within the hour – that’s how news travels in my family.”

  “How do you think he’ll take it?”

  “Uncle Ray didn’t flip out when his own son, my cousin Jamie, came out. The only person who really reacted badly to Jamie’s announcement was my brother, Brian.” A little crease of concern appeared between his eyebrows. “I guess I’ll actually be outing myself to him first, since you’ll meet my brother when we go to the house.”

  Kieran lived in Noe Valley, and he drove us there after we’d both gotten dressed. We’d let the subject of my job drop for now, so we could go take care of this. “You’re going to have a lot of questions when you see my house, and when you meet Brian,” he said. He seemed a bit uneasy. “Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what you need to know. The house looks like shit because when my mom died twelve years ago, my dad let the place go to hell. I’ve managed to do some work on it in the few months my brother and I have owned it, but I still have a long way to go. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get it all done.

  “And then there’s my brother.” Kieran shifted gears as the Ford climbed a hill, then said, “Brian’s a war veteran. He was in Afghanistan
, and got injured over there. The war changed him, far more than just his injury. He’s…well, just don’t take anything he says personally, ok?”

  I saw what he meant about the house as soon as we pulled into the driveway. But if you looked past the boarded over front window, the dead tree in the raised planter that comprised the front yard, and the faded, peeling paint, the place was a cute, compact two story Victorian with great details. The roof was new, and recently built stairs led up to the front door, sharing space with a wide wheelchair ramp.

  “I finally got the porch and stairs done a couple days ago. I need to prime and paint them next weekend,” Kieran said as we reached the little landing before the front door. I glanced to our left, where the big bay window was boarded over with a new-looking sheet of plywood. Shards of glass sparkled in the raised planter bed below it. Kieran saw me looking at that and sighed. “Next time, I’m putting in Plexiglas. It’s the second time Brian’s done that.” He offered no further explanation as he turned the key in the lock.

  The interior of the house was dark, all the curtains drawn. The living room was musty and cluttered, everything shoved against the walls, a big TV broadcasting a sports channel the most prominent thing in the room.

  I didn’t see Brian until he suddenly rolled forward into the entryway in a manual wheelchair. He was a double amputee, both legs of his sweat pants tacked up, one at the knee, one above the ankle. Brian looked a lot like Kieran…if Kieran ever decided to completely let himself go. His brown hair was long and disheveled, he had a full, scraggly beard, and his clothes were stained and worn.

  “Where the fuck you been, Kier?” Brian asked by way of greeting. “And who the fuck is this?”

  Kieran took a deep breath and said, “This is Christopher. We’ve been going out since New Year’s.”

  Brian’s eyes narrowed, and he stared at me for a moment. Then he turned back to Kieran and said menacingly, “You want to explain that shit?”

  “There’s nothing to explain. I’m dating Christopher. End of story.”

  Brian growled, “Are you seriously standing there telling me you’re a fucking faggot?” My mouth fell open. I couldn’t believe he’d just called his own brother that.

  “Yeah. I’m gay. Deal with it,” Kieran said. He was trying to act tough, but I could sense real apprehension in him. Brian started to roll forward in his wheelchair, and Kieran got between me and his brother, squaring his shoulders.

  Brian looked startled, as if he’d expected Kieran to back down, and hissed, “My own brother, a goddamn homo. If Dad wasn’t already dead, this would have fucking killed him!” he yelled, then spun in his chair and disappeared into the dark interior.

  Kieran exhaled slowly, then took my hand. “Sorry about that,” he said quietly as he led me upstairs.

  The top floor was vastly different from the downstairs. Kieran led me past a little home gym to a bedroom at the end of the hall, which was bright, cheerful and tidy. The walls were freshly painted in a nice shade of light blue, and crisp white curtains hung at the row of big windows overlooking an overgrown backyard. A little twin bed was pushed up against one wall, a writing desk beside it. A mini fridge, shelves and a microwave made up a little makeshift kitchen.

  “I’m going to take a quick shower. Make yourself comfortable,” Kieran said. There was sadness in his eyes, but he was trying not to let it show. He kissed my forehead and ducked through a doorway to our right.

  I wandered over to the one solid wall in the room, the only one without doors and windows. It was covered nearly floor to ceiling in framed art prints and unframed postcards, many from the Art Institute in Chicago. The collection was heavy on modernists with a dash of impressionism thrown in, Wyeth and Hopper side by side with Seurat, Duchamp, Chagall, Matisse, Caillebotte and a few others.

  I was still studying the art wall when Kieran came out of the bathroom several minutes later, a towel around his hips. He crossed the room to me and slipped his hands around my waist. When I glanced up at him, I saw that his blue eyes were tranquil again, the incident with this brother compartmentalized away somewhere.

  “Most of those were my mom’s, she had them hung up all over the house,” he said, indicating the collection. “She loved art. In fact, she was an art history major in college, but dropped out when she married my dad.”

  I leaned back against him. “Did you go with her to the Art Institute?”

  He nodded. “That trip to Chicago was the highlight of my childhood. I was ten, and just the two of us went. My dad and brother certainly had no interest in going to a museum, but she’d instilled her love of art in me and I was thrilled to go with her.” Kieran continued softly, “My mom had all these plans to save up and take me to the world’s great art museums. New York was next on our wish list. Only, she died of cancer a few months after our trip to Chicago.”

  “I’m so sorry, Kieran.”

  “She was already sick while we were there, but she’d been putting off going to a doctor. My mom always put everyone’s needs ahead of her own, she never made herself a priority.”

  After a pause he said, “She would have loved you, Christopher. And she would have been in awe of your talent, just like I am.”

  “I actually inherited my ability from my mom,” I said quietly. “She was a wonderful artist. I wish I had some of her paintings. I remember a couple of them that used to hang in my nursery.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I don’t know, actually. She killed herself when I was five, and my father purged the house of all of her things right after that. The paintings disappeared, along with every photo of her, all her clothes, everything. When I asked him about them later, he refused to talk about it.”

  “Oh God, Christopher.” Kieran tightened his grip on me and I leaned my head back against his shoulder.

  “I managed to keep a couple photos of her. Even at that age, I somehow had the foresight to hide them from my father. I took them with me when I ran away from home ten years later. But then, I was mugged within six hours of arriving in San Francisco. The person that stole my suitcase…he had no idea just how much he was taking from me, how precious those photos were. Not that it would have made a difference to him.”

  I cleared my throat and carefully extracted myself from Kieran’s arms as I said, “God, way to make everything about me. I’m sorry. You were telling me about your mom, and then I just had to launch into my own story. I—”

  Kieran cut me off with a gentle kiss, then said, “Thank you for telling me about your mom. I’m willing to bet that’s not something you talk about a lot, and I’m grateful that you opened up to me.”

  “We should probably get going,” I told him, looking at the floor. “I want to get to the police station and get this over with.”

  He of course saw right through my clumsy attempt to close the subject, and touched my cheek as he said, “Ok, baby. It’ll just take me a minute to get dressed.” He left me with the art wall while he crossed the room to his closet and put on khakis and a button-down shirt.

  Thankfully, Brian wasn’t around as we went back downstairs and out the front door. We drove across town and parked in the visitor lot at a police station that Kieran referred to as Central. I pulled up all the false bravado I could muster, feeling incredibly self-conscious as we wound our way through the busy station. I so clearly didn’t belong here…at least, not on this side of the holding cells.

  Kieran, on the other hand, was of course perfectly at home in this atmosphere, relaxed and confident, greeting half the people by name. It really drove home the fact that he and I lived in vastly different worlds.

  Ray Nolan was a heavyset man of around fifty with thick salt and pepper hair and sharp sky blue eyes. He had company. His son Jamie sat in one of the chairs before his desk, chatting with his father, ankle crossed over his knee. Jamie stopped talking abruptly when he spotted us, looking from Kieran to me with a raised eyebrow. He paid particular attention to Kieran’s hand on my lower back
. “Hi guys. I didn’t realize you two knew each other,” Jamie said. He smiled at us, but his expression was guarded. He knew what I did for a living and I could only imagine what he thought of me, though he always made an effort to treat me cordially.

  “We’ve been going out since New Year’s,” Kieran said levelly.

  “Oh!” Jamie’s eyes went wide, while his father looked like he’d just been hit in the face with a frying pan. “So, you’re—”

  “Gay,” Kieran finished for him. “You’re the first family members I’ve told, apart from Brian, who found out less than an hour ago.”

  “How did Brian take it?” Jamie asked.

  “Better than I expected him to,” Kieran said. “But that’s probably just because I caught him off guard. I’m sure he’ll go ballistic next time he sees me.”

  “That wasn’t him going ballistic?” I asked.

  “No, not even close. Brian has a violent temper. He didn’t even break anything, so I’m expecting him to make up for it later.”

  “Oh.” I wondered how on Earth Kieran lived with such a volatile person.

  He turned to the man behind the desk and said, “Uncle Ray, this is Christopher Andrews. Christopher, Raymond Nolan.” I leaned over the desk and shook hands awkwardly. His uncle still looked stunned. “I actually brought Christopher here to discuss a cold case with you,” Kieran added.

  Jamie took that as his cue, and got up as he told his cousin, “Come by the bar sometime this week Kier, let’s have lunch and catch up.” To me he said, “Nice to see you again, Christopher.” Yeah, I’ll bet. He studied me carefully as he said that.

  “Same here.”

  Once he departed, Kieran and I sat in the two wooden chairs positioned in front of the desk, and Ray said, “I didn’t see it coming when my own son came out to me. And I sure as hell didn’t expect this from you, Kieran. My brother, God rest his soul, woulda fuckin’ lost it if you’d ever told him you were gay.” There were a lot of photos on the credenza behind him. In one of them, he and Kieran’s father, both in police uniform, grinned at the camera with their arms around each other’s shoulders. I recognized him from the pictures at the cabin.