by Mary Calmes
I concentrated on taking small breaths as I listened to him.
“Ethan… he gave me away.” His bottom lip trembled. “He didn’t stay with me. He just left me with this guy, and he’s all hands, and I… God, Malic, I don’t know what would have happened, but then I’m naked and there are all these guys in the room and…. Now, in retrospect, I know Gordy wasn’t supposed to be where he was, and he was a pledge, and—it was such a mess.”
“What happened?”
“I still don’t know, but I guess those guys were all for hazing and making Gordy fuck me in front of them as an initiation or whatever, but they couldn’t find my wallet.”
I exhaled a deep breath. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I guess they don’t give a shit if you’re eighteen and they fuck with you and take pictures and blast them all over the Internet, but if you’re underage, they freak out.”
It was all becoming clear. Hazing, all the tests, “brothers” seeing how far they could push the pledges. Would they suck cock or take another guy up their ass to get into the fraternity? How far would everyone let it go? And no one cared as long as everyone in the room was a consenting adult and the word yes was audible. No one was getting raped because everyone got asked if it was okay first. When they had found Gordy in bed with Dylan in one of the rooms used for fucking, everyone had been excited to watch two pledges go at it on camera. It was a big deal, there were whole websites devoted to gay hazing and seeming violation. Everyone was all for it, and they all knew Gordy, but no one remembered Dylan. As pretty as he was, as much as the voyeurs wanted to see Gordy do him, first they had to see his driver’s license.
“So what happened?”
“I guess my wallet with my learner’s permit was in my jeans, and when they found out I was only seventeen, they carried me downstairs and threw me outside, naked, with all my clothes and my shoes.”
Jesus…
“So I didn’t get raped.” He gave me a trembling smile. “Ethan just gave me away. I got molested a little by Gordy and then thrown out onto the middle of the frat house front lawn.”
… Christ.
“I think I threw up, like, a billion times walking home. I finally passed out at the mailbox. Tina found me when she got home from choir practice, and my folks took me to the hospital to make sure I was okay.”
“And were you?”
“Except for the roofies, I was fine.”
I stroked his hair back from his face over and over, looking at the big chocolate-brown eyes, the long lashes, and the thick impish brows. Just looking at the man was a gift. How anyone could ever hurt him was beyond me.
“Did you press charges against Ethan?”
“I just wanted to forget it ever happened, and besides, it was his word against mine that he ever gave me the drink.”
I bet the truth would come out if both his arms were being broken.
“Malic?”
“What?”
“Do you know you’re growling?”
“Just––what did you tell your folks?”
“I told them that Ethan broke up with me to go out with Gordy.”
“Why?”
“Because I was so ashamed and embarrassed… I just wanted it to go away.”
“What happened after?” I asked, putting my hand on his thigh, bringing him closer to me until he got the hint and slid his leg up over my hip.
“Ethan told everyone at school that I was a whore so that whatever I said would have sounded like I was making shit up, you know? Not that I would have outed him. I remember him telling me that when he took me to the prom that everyone would see who he really loved. It turned out to be just a lot of shit.”
I had no idea what I was supposed to do.
“So you know, the rest of junior year was just crap, but then after he graduated and I came back for my senior year, everything was better. I mean, it was still kinda shitty, but not as horrible, and by the time I graduated, no one cared anymore.”
I nodded.
“I was lucky I had the guys.”
I squinted at him. “Those friends of yours, they stood by you?”
He nodded. “They did, even though it was hard on them to be friends with a cockwhore.” His confession made me think so much better of Jason, Lance, and Cole. “They didn’t treat me like a leper, and for awhile, they were the only ones.”
I had to process everything. “So have you ever seen Ethan again? Gordy?”
He took a breath. “Gordy and I didn’t travel in the same circles; he wasn’t my friend, so I never saw him again, and Ethan went off to college and never came back, as far as I know.”
“Good.”
“And I never think about it anymore, you know, but like I said, it just bugged me this morning because my folks and my sister, they didn’t know the real Ethan. All they saw was the guy who came over and was nice to me in front of them. He told them that he was going to take me to prom and everything, and because he was a big deal and he came from one of the richest families in town, they were really impressed. When he was suddenly gone, I had to tell them something, so that’s why I made up the whole ‘he left me for Gordy’ thing.”
“So your folks never knew what you were going through in school.”
“No, only the guys,” he sighed.
Which explained why the guys—his friends Jason, Lance, and Cole—were so important.
“But this morning before you came down, we were talking about you, and I was trying to explain to all of them why I love you, and—”
“I know, I heard.”
“You did?” he asked, sitting up, moving, climbing over me, onto me, and straddling my thighs. “When?”
“I was eavesdropping. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He smiled wide, and seeing it, the joy that washed over his face, made it suddenly hard to breathe. “I just got sick to my stomach with them thinking that Ethan could ever be in the same league with you. I mean, I love you, Malic, and this is the first real time for me, and now I’m the partner of a superhero, and I matter.”
“You always mattered,” I told him, hands on his thighs, lifting him up, pressing, moving him so his perfectly round little ass was wedged over my groin. “There’s only one difference.”
“What’s that?” he whispered, his eyes fluttering as he began to squirm, trying to improve his angle.
“Now you’re mine, and we both know I don’t share.”
“I know,” he said, stilling completely, his eyes instantly brimming with tears. “You would never let anyone touch me—ever.”
I smiled up at him, and I watched him swallow hard.
“Jesus, Malic, that smile is just… evil,” he said breathlessly, which led me to believe that he was more than just a little turned on by how I was looking at him. “Seems like maybe you wanna eat me.”
“Even your name is precious to me, you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“And you know if I ever see that guy on the street, he’s a dead man, right?”
“Just leave him alone.” He chuckled, then sighed deeply. “God, I feel so good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He seemed almost surprised. “I feel like now that I told you, there are no secrets at all with us.”
“You were afraid to tell me?”
“I just didn’t want you to think of me as a victim. I need to be strong for you, and that’s how I want you to see me. I never want you to question your choice like you did yesterday.”
“I didn’t question you. I just worry because—”
“I’m young.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re over it now, right?” he asked, shifting at the same time, pressing against me, his eyes narrowing as he licked his lips.
“Yes, baby,” I said, reaching up and sliding a hand around the side of his neck, leaning him over, drawing him down to me until his lips were hovering over mine. “Now kiss me like you mean it.”
“Jesus, Malic.” His breath stutte
red. “I always mean it.”
“Do you?” I teased, my hand moving fast, the belt buckle, snap, and zipper surrendering easily.
He whimpered as he lifted up, getting the idea of what I wanted, what I would have, as he shucked out of his jeans.
“You wanna kiss me?”
“I do, but I need… oh… I… oh.”
He moaned incoherently because I had taken hold of the hard cock pressed to my hip and was slowly, gently, tantalizingly milking it.
“Could you please put—fuck!”
“Should I put that in my mouth?” I asked.
He was shivering with his need.
I flipped him, rose over him, and took him down the back of my throat as he whined and begged. He lifted up, one hand on my head, fingers buried in my hair, watching like he loved to more than anything. Having me swallow his cock, he had told me on numerous occasions, was the absolute hottest thing he had ever seen in his life. He never felt more wanted than when I had a mouthful of him, and because I loved his taste, his sleek skin, the way he whimpered and came apart, I sucked him off often.
“Oh Malic, please,” he cried as I increased my suction, used my teeth, and slid a finger into my mouth to get it wet.
He twitched and jolted, and I could tell how much he needed me like this, wanting him, craving him, unable to keep myself from tasting him. When I slid my arm around and under him, letting my slick finger slide seductively between his cheeks, his back arched up off the bed.
“I can’t… I want… gonna come.”
I increased the friction as he buried his cock in the back of my throat.
“Oh fuck, yeah, take it all.” His breath caught as his hand fisted in my hair, tugging, making sure I couldn’t move. “You love my cock in your mouth just like you love putting your cock in my ass, huh?”
I swirled my tongue under his shaft, tugged, and he came hard without a second warning, filling my throat so I had to swallow fast, drink him down just like he wanted. When he was flaccid in my mouth, I let his spent cock slip from between my lips.
His eyes were wet and dark as he stared at me.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded, beyond words, just gesturing me close.
“What do you want?”
The aftershocks of his orgasm were still rolling through his lean frame, so speech wasn’t possible. Lifting up over him, I bent to kiss him breathless, ravish his mouth, letting him taste himself on my mouth. I knew he craved that, the only thing he needed more was to mark me, show everyone to whom I belonged.
“Maybe.” I chuckled, lifting so he could take in great gulps of air, and said, “I should tattoo your name on my ass, huh?”
“Across your chest,” he replied haltingly. “My name.” He slid his hand up over my left pectoral. “Right over your heart for everyone to fuckin’ see. You’re mine, Malic Sunden. Don’t ever fuckin’ forget it.”
I wouldn’t.
IV
CHRISTMAS IS a time for forgiveness, or so everyone always told me. As I stood outside on the back deck that evening, leaning against the wall, Lance and Jason with me, I was certain that Christmas was also a time for people to get what they had coming to them. Even Santa gave out coal.
“Me and Lance,” Jason was telling me, “we made Ethan Burke’s life hell.”
“How?” I asked.
“God, we had his car towed like, what, ten times?” He cackled, looking over at his partner in crime.
“Oh God, at least.” Lance chuckled. “I carried a can of yellow spray paint wherever I went, and every time we saw the car out—wham, instant tow-away zone.”
“What’d he drive?” I asked.
“A tricked-out Camaro.” Jason snorted out a laugh. “God, I loved seeing that car up on the back of a tow truck.”
“Me too,” Lance sighed, pretending to wipe tears from his eyes. “Ah, good times.”
“You guys really hated Ethan, huh?”
“He could’ve gotten Dylan raped,” Jason told me. “Or worse. Fucker deserved every second of shit we gave him.”
I agreed and was surprised that I would. I had no idea that Dylan’s friends were guys that I could so easily see eye to eye with, but since they were his friends, I should have given them the benefit of the doubt to begin with. His friends at home were nice people too. All his art school pals were flamboyant and quirky. I did not understand their fashion sense at all, especially the girls’, but they all cared deeply for Dylan. I should have known that his oldest friends would have been the same. They had lived with him through a rough patch in all their lives, when the peer pressure had to have been staggering, and they had stood up instead of caving.
“Ethan knew it was us,” Jason laughed, “but there wasn’t shit he could do about it.”
“Remember that time the police came to question us and your mom said we were with her all night?” Lance asked him.
Jason cackled, smiling. “Yeah, so the police are like, ‘Which night was that, Mrs. Flynn?’ And she’s all, ‘Whatever night it was, officer.’”
I was impressed and I told him so.
“Like they’re gonna screw with a single mother, like she’s not tough, right?” Jason scoffed. “Come on.”
I nodded.
“And then they went to my house another time and questioned my folks,” Lance said, “and they said the same thing, that ‘Of course the boys were with us.’ I love that they never even thought about it, just instinctively protecting us.”
“That’s what you do for your kids, right?” I said.
“Absolutely,” they chimed.
“You guys both have great parents.”
“Yep,” Lance agreed. “My dad asked them if the police department would like to start having garbage dropped off instead of picked up.”
“Your dad works for the city?”
“Union.” Lance’s grin turned sly. “They don’t wanna mess with him.”
“They gave up after that. There wasn’t enough to go on, and so when the car got egged or towed or, you know, when all four tires disappeared at once….”
“That was inspired.” Jason sighed deeply, looking over at Lance. “Truly.”
“Thank you.” Lance smiled. “The time you parked it in Principal Ferriday’s parking spot was also a very nice touch.”
“One tries.”
Yeah, I liked them both. “So you guys both went out of state for school?”
“Yeah,” Jason told me. “All three of us, D, too, as you know, and we only get home for Thanksgiving and Christmas now. We all have jobs to help with school that don’t end when classes do in the summer anymore. It’s nice for all of us to see each other, but we’re sorry we’ve been hoggin’ up all of his time. The four of us just don’t get to hang out like we used to.”
“That’s okay,” I told them. I stopped when I heard someone walking up along the side of the house, gravel crunching under shoes.
“Hey, there he is!” Jason greeted Cole loudly. “Get the fuck up here.”
As I watched them, I realized that the warmth I now felt toward them was making me see them with fresh eyes. Cole, who had just joined us, was the tallest, long and lean with sandy-blond hair and blue eyes. Jason was built heavier, stocky, like maybe he had wrestled in high school, and because his brown hair was buzzed short, it accentuated how big his green eyes were. Lance was built more like me, like a defensive lineman, and he was all muscle. When he noticed my regard, I got the dazzling smile and the crinkling blue eyes. They were all bigger than Dylan but not enough so that they would have looked like his bodyguards. I could see how they would have fit walking around together.
“We’re just talking to Malic about Ethan’s car.”
“Figured it would come out sooner or later.” Cole yawned, flopping down into the chair. “Where’s D?”
“He’s taking a shower,” I told him, unwilling to say why he was taking one at six in the evening. Looking debauched with swollen red lips and flushed skin was not the wa
y to meet your family or your friends. “You know, it took a lot of balls for all you guys to stick up for Dylan like you did. You were all headed for college, right?”
“Yep, all of us on scholarship.”
“And what if you had been caught? None of you would have been going away to school. Your futures would have been fucked.”
“Yeah, but, Malic….” Jason leaned forward in his chair. “There was no way to let that shit go. Dylan needed us. What are friends for if they don’t ride to your rescue?”
Absolutely. “Do you guys ever see Ethan?”
“He went away to college and stayed wherever that was,” Cole chimed in.
“If he was rich, how come he went to public school?” I asked.
“Ethan told me once that he had been kicked out of every prep school Mr. Burke could think of. Public school was Ethan’s last chance or it was military school next,” Lance said.
And now I knew the whole story.
“You know what the bitch of the whole thing was?” Jason sighed deeply. “I used to watch Ethan look at Dylan, and you could see it. Anybody could see it.”
Lance shrugged. “Yeah, I never understood why Ethan would let that dick Gordy talk him into hurting D when it was so obvious that Ethan was crazy about him.”
“Yeah, but not enough.” Cole yawned again, stretching. “If you love someone, you never let them get hurt—no matter who tells you to.”
“Agreed.” Jason stretched too. “Fuck, I’m hungry. When are we gonna eat?”
As if on cue, Lily Shaw poked her head out the back door and told everyone that dinner was set up in the kitchen and everyone should come in and serve themselves. She had a buffet line going already.
I told them to go ahead when they lingered, waiting for me, and then pulled my phone from the pocket of my jeans and called Marcus.
“Hey,” he said with a yawn on the other end. “What’s going on?”
“The exciting life of a litigator, huh?”
“Are you kidding? All I did was eat today.” He chuckled. “All Joe’s mother does is feed us and try and make us fat.”
I smiled into my phone. “She adores you.”
“It goes both ways.” He sighed. “But I’m glad you called, because I was going to come see you in a little bit.”
