No use trying to force sleep to come. I rolled out of bed and stumbled into the shower. The hot water was a relief. I always followed it with cold water just to wake up. It infused me with extra energy. Washed, shampooed, and exfoliated, I stepped out and reached for a towel.
Jack’s towel.
I felt my chest squeeze at the thought as I was drying myself off. Yep, still sore from climbing. A look in the mirror made my stomach tighten; the bruised grip-marks on my shoulders had darkened overnight. The Mark of Jack. I shuddered at the memory of having felt so helpless and weak, and I wondered if that’s what women felt like most of the time. As I patted my tender bits dry, a strange sensation brushed the back of my hand.
Stubble?
I bent over to have a look. Sure enough—what had been shaven so smooth on Friday had started growing back. I had a scratchy, two-day beard on my most sensitive parts. I clenched my legs together experimentally; tiny little pricks impaled my tender flesh. Turning toward the full-length mirror on the wall, I tilted my hips to take a better look.
My triangle looked like a dark-blonde hedgehog, the little African kind some people like to keep as pets. I touched the area. The tender skin of my thighs was waiting to tangle with my hedgehog, except the hedgehog was hoping to score first blood.
That asshole.
Pain shot through my back as I straightened from the awkward position, letting me know I overdid my climbing after my enforced rest. Even worse, thanks to Azz-hole, my whole groin now itched with regrowth. I considered my options: I could wait a few days. There had to be some kind of an anti-itch cream for these things. Like a men’s aftershave—except just the thought of aftershave down there had me wincing with pain.
How about shaving it again? That option was out, definitely.
I could ask Jack to shave me, but if I did that, he’d see it as a party invitation, and I didn’t feel hospitable.
Having decided to just suffer for a day and think about it, I reached for the door to retrieve my clothing from my room. I turned the doorknob—it wouldn’t open. Slight panic seized me until I realized I must have automatically locked the bathroom door upon entry.
I never lock the bathroom door.
Absorbed by trying to figure out why I turned the lock without even thinking about it, I wandered out of the bathroom and put on my own underwear. Unlike Jack’s silk boxer shorts, the elastic edges of my briefs dug into my groin lines, irritating the growing stubble. I chose to tune it out.
A locked bathroom door. Really?
I unlocked the bathroom door and, still pondering the
implications of having locked myself in, I dressed for the day.
When Jack emerged from his lair, with his hair wild and a bathrobe loosely tied around his waist, I had already accomplished much.
“Mmm. Coffee?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Want some?”
“After my shower. You’re up early, Wyatt.”
I nodded. “Yeah… couldn’t sleep.”
“You okay?”
I shrugged. “Go take your shower.” I didn’t want to bellyache about my stiff, sore back, my tender parts, and my jumbled thoughts. Having received his official apology over dinner last night, his behavior in the shower was officially forgiven. An apology didn’t mean I felt comfortable cozying up to him, though. I felt like I was walking on eggshells, waiting for the volcano to erupt again, spurred by a hitherto unknown transgression on my part.
Jack gave me a long look. “Okay, then.”
B
Y
THE
time he emerged from his room, refreshed and dressed for the day, my online purchases were finalized and paid for, and our toast and eggs were ready. We ate in tense silence.
“What are your plans for the day?” My question was phrased with care.
“The office.” He sighed. “I was supposed to go yesterday, meet with Rick Blanchard, and go over those presentations for next week. We postponed for today. I should be done sometime after lunch. And you?”
“I have some stuff to do at my place. Also, don’t forget we’re meeting Reyna and Auguste for dinner tonight. Tamari, over in Lawrenceville on Butler Street. Seven o’clock.”
Jack groaned. “God. Auguste can be so tiresome. Reyna and I do nothing but argue. Is this really necessary?”
“Reyna’s my best friend. Auguste’s a valuable business contact, not to mention a mentor of sorts. Yeah. It would be nice if you could join me… but I can go by myself, if it’s too much to stomach.”
“No. No! I’ll join you.” He spoke fast, his voice slightly alarmed. “You’re buying the drinks, though. You owe me that much.”
M
Y
OLD
black duffle bag was slung over my shoulder as I entered my one-bedroom apartment. It held my laptop and my grandfather’s cuckoo clock and a change of clothes for more than just tonight. I didn’t need much. Most of all, I needed some quiet time and space to myself. I needed to think.
The kitchen had been cleaned last time I was here; this time, I vacuumed the empty bedroom, doing my level best to erase the spots in the carpet where my almost-new Ikea furniture used to be. Presently, my furniture sat in Jack’s spare bedroom, moved there during my brief stay at the hospital.
Without my consent.
The thought riled me all over again. My mind wandered back, enumerating all the slights Jack had ever committed against my free will. Against my person.
I’ve been punched.
Pistol-whipped.
Tied up.
Blackmailed.
I lost my job—but he bore only fractional responsibility for that one.
I’ve been made drunk and got really sick on his… product.
I had his papers thrown in my face.
I was convinced, against my better judgment, to return some rich guy his drug money.
I got shot in the ass—and for that, he bore some fractional responsibility as well.
I was moved to his place without my knowledge.
I had my privates shaved without being given a chance to have a say in the matter.
My well-deserved time out with my lifelong buddies was invaded, by his nagging as well as by his person.
I’ve been accosted while trying to take a shower alone.
I got punished for hanging out with my friends by harsh words and bruised shoulders, not to mention his looming physical presence.
Of all those things, the last one was the straw that broke the camel’s back. As I hunched over my old vacuum, overcoming my nagging back pain to clean the dust bunnies and various crud, a feeling of panic kept invading my mind.
Stuck. Helpless. Wet. Cold. Dominated.
I had accepted his apology, but the alarming, dizzying feeling just wouldn’t leave me. I felt like shit, and I didn’t know why.
Right before lunch, delivery guys brought several large boxes and a plastic-covered mattress up to my floor. They used the service elevator and moved them through the door with care, making sure they fit.
“Are we takin’ yer old stuff?” the foreman asked, his voice gruff.
“I have no old stuff,” I replied. My old stuff was at Jack’s. Once they left, I began opening the corrugated cardboard, mindful of nasty paper cuts. It was all there, black and shiny and beautiful.
Reyna arrived at noon. “Hey, Wyatt. So… what’s the emergency?” She met me with her warm gaze, and I only sighed and looked away.
“Thanks for bringing lunch. What is it?”
“Peruvian chicken, bean salad, and brownies. Oh, and drinks. Diet Coke for me, milk for you. Right?”
“Right.” I smiled. “The lunch of champions.” We high-fived and took the food to the dining area to eat.
We were halfway done with the juicy, delicately spiced chicken when Reyna leveled a serious look in my direction. “So… spill it.”
And I did.
“He
bruised
you?” Furious lines marred Reyna’s forehead and her jaw was tight with anger.
“It’s not as simple as that. I did tell him to stop, and I did say no, and he did stop… eventually.”
“Bullshit,” Reyna spat. “Are you dumping him?”
I paused, gathering my thoughts. “No… but I should have kicked him out of the bathroom right away.”
“Why haven’t you, Wyatt? Had that been Paul, you’d have broken his nose.”
A fierce blush rose to my cheeks; it got only worse when Reyna noticed and raised her groomed eyebrows. “Why the fuck do you think, Reyna?”
“I dunno. You have a mouth on you most of the time. You tell me!”
I stabbed a bean with my fork, the violence of my action making it jump out of the take-out plastic container. This was just so hard to verbalize. I felt such shame all of a sudden. It hit me like a hammer. Had I been a kid, I would have cried, but since I was a tough guy, I only took my plate and threw it with all my force against the wall. It fell onto the kitchen’s tile floor and shattered with a satisfying, explosive crack. The gnawed bones left a slick of chicken fat on the wall.
Reyna sucked in some air.
I struggled to formulate my thoughts. “It’s different for you, I guess. There are rules against treating girls in a certain way. But I’m no girl, and being gay doesn’t make me one either. Had it been Paul, I’d have kicked him out because I could, but… if we were boxing, Jack and I would be, what, like six or seven weight classes apart?” I looked her in the eyes, feeling no emotion. “It was fucking humiliating, Reyna. I thought, maybe… maybe I was tempted to just go along with it, y’know? Just go along with it. It’s not really okay for a guy to ask for help. Sometimes the best you can do is save face.”
She thought for a while, her eyes flat and unyielding. Then she nodded. “Did he apologize?”
I stood and picked up her plate and hurled it, sending it after the first one. It broke in half and slid partway, stuck to the wall by the remaining food; then it detached from the wall like a clumsy stinkbug and fell to the hard floor, shattering into sharp, jagged fragments. I relished the sound. “Yeah….” I sighed, my voice barely audible. “The next day. I did accept his apology—but I still feel angry about it. Being manhandled like that, and his advances, the time and place, intruding on my buddy time like that—I… I just felt so helpless to prevent it or stop it—that’s probably the most humiliating thing of all.”
Reyna put the remaining food inside the refrigerator, safe out of my reach.
I finished cleaning up the mess I made. The process of restoring order helped me straighten my thoughts. As I stood up, I looked at Reyna, noting the length of her strong, sculpted arms and her height, her air of fierce determination, and I wondered how she would have fared in my situation. “I just… the control factor. It’s just too much. Had he tried to do it in the shower just for kink, like with the shaving, it would have been different.”
“Shaving?” Reyna’s eyebrows rose.
“Ask me later… but it was good. This time, though… he was just so, so, so—”
“He was angry.” Reyna stated a fact as though she’d been there.
“Yeah! Furious! I’ve never seen him like that before.”
“I have.” Reyna sighed. “Azz-hole has a bit of an anger problem. He usually doesn’t lose his cool, but he does blow up at times. Being around him when he’s like that definitely requires special fortitude. No secretary lasts past the two months mark. I was the exception because I worked for him while he was taking a lot of personal leave. I’m told he used to be a lot worse, but that’s not saying much.”
I drank my milk, my mind devoid of thought. The whole affair was bloody depressing. My perfect partner had a Persian flaw the size of Tehran.
Reyna changed the subject. “So what’s all this stuff you need help with, Wyatt?”
I surveyed the scene. Over half of the emergency cash from my secret hiding hole in the closet wall was gone, invested in new bedroom furniture. “I’m remodeling, and my back hurts too damn much to be toughing it out and assembling and moving all this stuff by myself. Plus, there’s the benefit of your scintillating company.”
Ignoring my sarcasm, she walked over and inspected some of the pieces. “Looks like you’re finally treating yourself to the good stuff.”
“Yeah. I decided I’m worth it.”
A place of my own.
“Y’know, I’ve come to realize I’m probably destined to be by myself in this lifetime,” I commented, fingering my new blue, black, and gray area rug rolled up by the wall with its ends poking out of its plastic wrap.
“How do you figure?”
“Well… people leave me. Sometimes, they drive me away. Mom died, Dad kicked me out when he found out about me and Paul, Paul and Susan started a family….” I sighed. A feeling of loss suffused me. Not regret, never that. Just, a small piece of my heart was empty as I allowed myself to feel their absence every so often. “I’ve done well, not attaching myself. Then Jack shows up. He looks perfect, but… I just don’t know. He has that bad-boy aura, and that’s very sexy, but only in moderation.”
There was that feeling again—the feeling of impending chaos and destruction. My crazy father used to trigger it with his random, unpredictable behavior that occasionally transgressed into the physical. He thought being hypercritical of my every move on a regular basis was a way of showing he cared.
“You still have your sister and your brother.” Reyna’s voice tried for upbeat and hopeful.
“I can’t burden them. They need to grow up, be free. I should be taking care of them, not the other way around.”
“You have friends.”
I flashed her a small grin. “Yeah. Amen, sister. My friends make my world go ’round.”
At five, we hopped into Reyna’s car and ran out to a local big-box store that had just about everything. I bought new turquoise and gray bedding with a comforter, and new pillows and towels to match. It all went really well with my white walls and the blue, gray, and black rug by the side of my new queen-size bed. There was a large mirror on the wall that reflected the pristine, white curtains and blue and black valance. It looked about as personal as an airport hotel.
Just as we were next to check out and pay, my eyes fell upon the wall behind the registers. It was covered with affordable, ready-to-hang art. “And I’ll have that one,” I said, not thinking twice.