by J. F. Smith
Table of Contents
License
Disclaimer
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – The Promise
Chapter 2 – Three Weeks Earlier
Chapter 3 – Two Dollar Balls
Chapter 4 – Text Message
Chapter 5 - Tishreen
Chapter 6 – Log In
Chapter 7 - Incursion
Chapter 8 – Haze Gray And Underway
Chapter 9 – Next Question
Chapter 10 – The Rider
Chapter 11 – Bait
Chapter 12 – Vulture’s Row
Chapter 13 – Any Of Us Would Have
Chapter 14 – The Bond
Chapter 15 – Creed
Chapter 16 – It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This
Chapter 17 – The Accidents
Chapter 18 – Café Lucien
Chapter 19 – Last Bullet Last Breath
Chapter 20 – Look Up
Chapter 21 – Twenty-Four Karat Gold-Plated Bullshit
Chapter 22 – Slut
Chapter 23 – A Million Miles Away
Chapter 24 – Off Balance
Chapter 25 – Sincerity Sucks
Chapter 26 – When You Come Crawling Back
Chapter 27 – Respect And Admiration
Chapter 28 – The Seven Word Statement
Chapter 29 – The Back Of Your Hand
Chapter 30 - Muster
Chapter 31 – Ironsides
Chapter 32 – Friendly Fire
Chapter 33 – Memorial Day
Chapter 34 – An Almost Imperceptible Distance
Chapter 35 – A Tiny Handful / Lost At Sea
Chapter 36 – Two Halves Collide
Chapter 37 – Sea, Air, Land, Fire
About The Author
License
Latakia by JF Smith is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.
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This novel is a work of fiction. All events and persons in this creative work are fictitious, and any similarities to actual events or persons, living or dead, are strictly and entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – The Promise
Chapter 2 – Three Weeks Earlier
Chapter 3 – Two Dollar Balls
Chapter 4 – Text Message
Chapter 5 - Tishreen
Chapter 6 – Log In
Chapter 7 - Incursion
Chapter 8 – Haze Gray And Underway
Chapter 9 – Next Question
Chapter 10 – The Rider
Chapter 11 – Bait
Chapter 12 – Vulture’s Row
Chapter 13 – Any Of Us Would Have
Chapter 14 – The Bond
Chapter 15 – Creed
Chapter 16 – It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This
Chapter 17 – The Accidents
Chapter 18 – Café Lucien
Chapter 19 – Last Bullet Last Breath
Chapter 20 – Look Up
Chapter 21 – Twenty-Four Karat Gold-Plated Bullshit
Chapter 22 – Slut
Chapter 23 – A Million Miles Away
Chapter 24 – Off Balance
Chapter 25 – Sincerity Sucks
Chapter 26 – When You Come Crawling Back
Chapter 27 – Respect And Admiration
Chapter 28 – The Seven Word Statement
Chapter 29 – The Back Of Your Hand
Chapter 30 - Muster
Chapter 31 – Ironsides
Chapter 32 – Friendly Fire
Chapter 33 – Memorial Day
Chapter 34 – An Almost Imperceptible Distance
Chapter 35 – A Tiny Handful / Lost At Sea
Chapter 36 – Two Halves Collide
Chapter 37 – Sea, Air, Land, Fire
About The Author
Latakia
JF Smith
Chapter 1 – The Promise
I’ll be a better boyfriend. I swear to God, I promise.
Matt’s thoughts had been playing this over and over for a while now. He was lying on his side and reviewing how he could be better. The petty doubts and itching suspicions he had allowed to seep in seemed silly and minor now. He wanted to deserve Brian. He certainly appreciated Brian, and had from day one, but maybe he could appreciate him even more. He should. He should appreciate him more. He was lucky to have a guy like Brian and should appreciate him much more. All he wanted was a chance. Dear God, just a chance.
Matt shifted on his side, trying to get comfortable, and thought back to the first time he ever laid eyes on Brian. He had gone out for drinks to the new upscale bar, Clover, with a few friends, the few really good friends he had managed to make after moving to Richmond. He had noticed Brian across the way, in a small group, drinking and laughing and chatting. Brian was so good looking. Masculine, with light brown hair, fair complexion, and absolutely killer eyes. Clearly well-built. Clearly out of his league. Matt couldn’t help it though; he kept getting distracted and looking over at Brian.
Brian eventually caught Matt looking at him, which embarrassed Matt terribly. But Brian had nodded and smiled, acknowledging Matt’s attention. Matt was certain that this handsome guy was just being polite.
As usual, he had been just a little too shy to actually go talk to him. Bret and Jim, the friends whose company he was supposed to be enjoying at Clover, finally noticed how distracted he was, and started to rag him mercilessly. In the end, they really did want him to go talk to the guy, and agreed he was extremely good looking. And, as Bret pointed out (in the way only Bret could), the worst, most disastrous thing that could happen would be that they would click and fuck. And Jim, as he had pointed out to Matt in the past, reminded him that anybody that didn’t fall for those green eyes of his was blind, or straight, or stupid, or some pathetic combination of the three. Neither Bret nor Jim was surprised, though, when Matt had no intention of doing something so reckless as saying hello to the guy.
Normally, after the missed opportunity, Matt would have regretted not trying something. But thinking back on it now, it worked out better that way.
What had made it ok was that the following weekend, Matt, Chiliburger
(as Bret Chilbergh hated to be called), and Jimmy Bob (as Jim Bobson similarly hated to be called) had decided to go back to Clover, and Brian was there again. Matt was infatuated and distracted by Brian’s presence, just as he had been the week before. But this time, as they were getting ready to leave (with Matt too unwilling to make a move yet again), Brian stopped him on his way out and said, “I think you left something over there on the bar.” Bret and Jim, hoping that Matt would finally get laid, said goodbye and walked on out without him.
Matt hadn’t brought anything with him that he could have left. “I did? I don’t see anything over there.”
“Yeah, the drink. Your drink,” said Brian, smiling and nodding his head back over towards the corner of the carefully illuminated bar. Matt felt like Brian’s smile could charm the stars from the sky so he could put them in his pocket.
Matt was confused. “There’s no drink there.”
“I haven’t bought it for you yet.”
And that broke the ice. Matt and Brian wound up talking, and an hour later Brian told Matt, “You know, you look like you could use a good date. Will you go out on a date with me?”
That was how they started dating. And maybe it hadn’t been perfect in the year since they had met, but Matt hated how he had been alone prior to meeting Brian, and Brian was really good looking, and he was lucky to have Brian. Matt just needed to resolve to appreciate what he had even more.
The angle of Matt’s head on the cold floor while lying on his side got uncomfortable, so he turned to lie on his back instead. He had started thinking about Brian to keep the panic and dread away. And this had worked since he hadn’t heard the voices outside the room in a while. But he knew if he heard anything outside the door, the naked, trembling fear would return.
And as soon as he even thought about that, he regretted it. The fear and panic did return. His eyes watered as the tears started to flow and he cried to himself silently. He hated that he was crying, if for no other reason than he couldn’t spare the water. He was already terribly thirsty and very hungry from being in the room for what felt like well over a day now.
He lay on the cold floor in the completely empty room, except for the bucket in the corner. He was stripped completely naked and bound with zip ties at the hands and feet. The tears slipped from his eyes for the fear and mortal dread of what was probably going to happen to him.
He looked up, but in the darkness of the room he couldn’t even see the ceiling. All he saw was the black emptiness. The only light that came in was the thin strip of light under the door that led out of the room. Were it not for that thin strip of light, Matt felt he could easily be buried alive, except in a coffin that was ten by ten, but a coffin no matter what the size.
Matt vowed as the tears dropped from his eyes, draining moisture from his body, Please God, let me get out of here. I’ll never doubt Brian again. I’ll deserve him, I promise. Please. Just let me get out of this room alive.
Chapter 2 – Three Weeks Earlier
Matt spotted a parking spot opening up, so he stopped for it and put his blinker on, the wipers beating rapidly to slough off the hard rain. He looked up through the sunroof at the heavy drops pouring down from the black night sky. He had already driven around the parking lot twice looking for an open spot, along with everyone else arriving at the movie theater, and this was the first one he had finally come across that was freeing up.
“Don’t grab this one, there’s got to be one a little closer up to the theater than this,” whined Brian.
Matt said, “C’mon Brian, this place is packed. We’ll drive around for another fifteen minutes before we find another spot any closer than this one! You can have the umbrella.”
Brian grumbled a little and Matt pulled into the spot after the car occupying it finally pulled out.
The two of them made their way up towards the movie theater, dodging cars and puddles along the way, and Matt finally just made a dash for it over the last thirty yards or so since Brian had the majority of the umbrella coverage anyway. It was easier to let Brian have it than to try and get him to share a little more. He had to make his way around the crowd waiting at the edge of the cover of the theater. They were exiting from a recently-ended film and were all trying to decide how to deal with the rain that had started while they had been inside.
Under the shelter of the overhang in front of the movie theater, Matt ran his hands through his hair and then across his chestnut brown goatee to help shake off some of the rainwater. While he waited a few seconds for Brian to catch up to him, he saw Tommy and Sal, a couple that were friends of his from the gay softball team he played on, walking out of the theater. He waved at them and they came over, giving him a quick hug.
Matt pulled at the wet clothes clinging to his skin and said through an embarrassed smile, “Sorry, I’m getting you guys wet, and I probably look about as good as a drowned cat!”
Sal thumbed the tip of Matt’s chin and said with a giggle, “You and your wet pussy jokes!” Matt had really missed seeing them over the last month or so. They always made him laugh when he was around them.
Tommy ran his hand along Matt’s arm and said, “Oh stop it, we’re about to get soaking wet on our own mad run out to our car, and you’d still be adorable even if you had fallen face first in a mud puddle out there!”
Matt asked about the movie they had just seen, which, it turned out, was the one he had been interested in seeing. That was, before Brian had convinced him to see a different one instead.
Brian finally made his way over to where they were, closed the umbrella and shook the rain off of it while nodding a quick hello to Tommy and Sal. But instead of joining the conversation, he started to pull on Matt’s elbow. “Let’s go, baby. I don’t want to get in there late and get a bad seat.”
Matt dug his heels in, though. One minute ago, Brian had been willing to spend probably another ten minutes driving around for a marginally better parking spot. Now, all of sudden, he didn’t have a minute or two to speak to Matt’s friends.
Matt said, trying to ignore Brian, who was still pulling on his arm, “Yeah, that’s the one that I’d really like to see. But Brian really wants to see Stark Starless Sky instead, so we’ll be seeing that one tonight.”
“Ooooh… yeah,” said Sal. “I’ve heard that one’s ok. Maybe next time, Matt!” He gave him a sympathetic look.
Brian put his arm around Matt’s shoulder, pulled him close, and gave him a quick peck on the nearest cheek. He said to Tommy and Sal, smiling that mischievous smile he was so very good at, “Oh, he’ll get his reward for seeing the movie I want to see tonight. I’ll get him home later and let him sit down on the ol’ smokestack for some quality time. That’ll make him forget all about any movies.”
Tommy and Sal laughed, and so did Matt even while rolling his eyes a little. This kind of talk didn’t embarrass any of them; on the contrary, he and most of his friends comfortably teased each other with talk like this all the time.
What it did do, however, was re-open a mildly irritating wound of Matt’s.
He ignored it for the moment because he wanted to make sure that both Tommy and Sal were going to be playing softball this year, especially since practice was starting up the following week. They chatted about the upcoming season until Matt couldn’t ignore Brian’s antsy behavior anymore. He bid Tommy and Sal farewell, and turned to Brian.
“Why didn’t you just go ahead and get the tickets while I was talking to them?” he asked. “You didn’t have to stand here waiting on me.”
“You said you’d put the movie tickets on your card tonight, remember?”
Matt frowned a little. Yes, he had promised that. But making that promise was the only way to get Brian to go out and do something. And Matt wanted to get out and do something with Brian since in a few weeks he’d be going away on the trip. It felt weird to Matt that Brian had made it clear earlier that evening that Matt was “getting what he wanted,” but they were going to see the movie that Brian wante
d to see and Matt was paying for it. How, exactly, was that “getting what he wanted?”
Matt nodded and acquiesced, “Yeah, I did. I know.” This path was easier than arguing with Brian about it.
They, or rather Matt, paid for the tickets, and the two of them made their way into the theater. Matt followed along behind Brian as he led the way to the theater where Stark Starless Sky was playing. He loved watching Brian’s ass in motion. He loved watching Brian in motion, actually. He still felt very lucky to have someone like Brian as his boyfriend. He was masculine and handsome all the time, but could also be very charming, when he wanted to. And, he could have a great sense of humor, when he wanted to.
Matt would miss Brian while gone on the trip for two weeks. He wasn’t the clingy type, but he had definitely gotten very used to having Brian around since they had started dating a year earlier. Brian had made a big point of how he would be sitting around lonely and miserable until Matt got back. Matt somewhat doubted it, but it was nice of Brian to say it.
As they walked into the theater, Matt dreaded seeing a large crowd, because he’d catch hell for making them late and getting bad seats. Fortunately, Brian’s concern about that was completely unfounded, as the theater was only about a quarter full. Brian found seats about midway back and they settled in to wait for the movie to start.
While Brian checked his phone for any text messages, Matt finally decided to address the issue that had come up while talking to Tommy and Sal. “So, seriously,” he said, putting his hand on Brian’s knee, “are you going to top me after the movie? You know I’d really like that. I even have witnesses that heard you promise!”
Brian immediately looked up from his phone and whipped his head around to make sure no one was within listening distance of their conversation. Satisfied that no one was, he said, “Oh, baby, you know I say that just because everyone pretty much expects it of me. What we do behind closed doors is our business.”
“But that’s just it…” started Matt. He thought better of continuing down this path, though, and stopped. Instead he said, “Well, you know I’d like to bottom some. I’d think that you’d like to switch it up sometimes, too.”
