Vigil

by V. J. Chambers

  “Wow,” I said. “Why would she have an affair with Frank Barclay?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “No one knows. She didn’t survive long enough for me to ask her. Nolan always says nice things about my mother. I don’t know if that’s because they’re true, or because he wants me to think that she was a good woman. Anyway, he says that he doesn’t think that she knew he was involved in organized crime. It wasn’t something that he advertised, after all. Maybe that’s the truth, maybe not.” He paused. “There aren’t very many people that I can talk to who actually knew my mother. My father’s dead too, you know.”

  I did know. I wrapped my arms around him in the darkness. “They were killed at the same time, I thought. But how is that possible if she wasn’t even living with your father anymore?”

  “She called him. That’s what Nolan says. They were in the middle of this big custody battle over me, and she’d just given birth to Hayden, and she called my father in a panic. According to Nolan, she’d just realized that Frank was part of the mob and that he was a murderer. She was trying to leave, but she feared for her life.”

  His voice was rough and quiet. “My father called the police and rushed out to meet her. But by the time the police got there, both of my parents were dead.”

  Right. I knew this story. I’d read about it. “All the news stories say that the killer was a thief and that he got spooked and killed them. Do you agree with that? Do you think that’s what happened? Or do you think it was Frank?”

  “I don’t know,” said Callum. “Nolan doesn’t suspect Frank. It seems like the obvious answer, doesn’t it? But they had a lot of evidence on the other guy. They found him not too far from the scene, still carting along the weapon he used to shoot them.”

  “Maybe he was hired by Frank,” I said.

  “I’ve wondered it too,” said Callum. “But I don’t think Frank wanted my mother dead. Or—at least—I don’t think that’s the way he would have killed her if he was going to do it.”

  I had a hard time wrapping my head around all of it. Why had I never questioned who Hayden Barclay’s mother was? I supposed it had never seemed important to me.

  “Nolan thought Frank was okay,” Callum continued. “But he was wrong. Frank was not okay, not in the slightest.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took a long, slow breath. “At first, Nolan only let Hayden come visit me here at the mansion. He knew that we were brothers, and he wanted me to have a relationship with a member of my family. Hayden was the only person related to me that was still alive. I think he would have liked to bring Hayden to live with us there, but Frank wasn’t having any of that.

  “After a while,” he continued, “Hayden wanted me to come to his house. I begged Nolan to let me go. Hayden told me all about the cool toys he had and about the stuff we could do. It was only natural for me to want that and for or Hayden to want me to come over. We were kids after all.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “You and Hayden played together when you were little boys?”

  “All the time. We spent time together all the way into our adolescence, but then we drifted apart. He’s my brother, and we may not have grown up under the same roof, but we grew up close.”

  I shook my head. It was hard for me to wrap my head around that. “But you’re nothing like him.”

  He laughed bitterly in the darkness. “We’re more alike than you think.”

  A shiver went through me. I didn’t want to believe that.

  “Should I go on?” he said.

  I hesitated. But I needed to know this. “Yes.”

  “Uh…” His grip tightened on me, as if he was trying to reassure himself that I was really there with him. “Well, eventually, Nolan let me go to play at Hayden’s house. I suppose that he figured that even if I were visiting the house of a criminal kingpin, it was safe enough for his own children, and it would be safe enough for me. At first, it was. Nothing bad happened. Hayden’s stepmother fed us lots of food. She doted on Hayden, like he was her own kid.

  “But.” His breath hitched. “One day, Hayden and I were playing this elaborate game of chase, and we were running all through his house. No place was off limits. Anyway, we happened to run into Frank’s study.”

  I held my breath, afraid to ask what it was he’d seen there.

  “Frank was, um, watching something.” He swallowed. “It was a porno. I didn’t know what they were at the time. I must have been about… five or six. Hayden was younger. Four, maybe. Anyway, uh, it was pretty low budget. I still don’t know if it was something scripted and staged or if it was… real. There was a man in it. He was wearing this outfit.”

  I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

  “He had on a mask. Black. And he was wearing a black suit that covered him from head to toe. All you could see were his eyes. His mouth. And his… dick. It was sticking out.”

  Oh god. He was describing the Vigil costume. He’d stolen it from pornography? A… “Callum, did you watch a girl get killed on film?”

  He was rigid next to me. “I don’t know if she was dead.”

  “Oh god.”

  “It might have been fake,” he said in a rush of words. “It was probably fake. I’ve looked into snuff films, and they don’t really exist. There are people who want to watch something like that happen on film. A disturbing number of them. But there are very few people who would actually… do it. And of those people, it seems very unlikely that enough of them could band together and actually make a movie and package it and sell it. It was probably fake.”

  Did that make me feel better? Maybe a little bit. But he was still telling me something so horrific that I didn’t know if I could stand it. I hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Frank saw us.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Yeah,” he said in an uneven voice. “He, uh, thought it was kind of funny the way the both of us were gazing slack jawed at the screen like that. He rewound it, and he made us sit down and watch.”

  “He didn’t,” I said.

  “He did,” said Callum. “And that wasn’t the first time. He had a lot of movies like that, with the same guy. Different girls. I kept always wishing it would be the same girl, because if it was the same girl, I’d know for sure it was fake. I’d know for sure that that guy wasn’t carving up all those naked girls for real.”

  I felt sick. Waves of revulsion went through me.

  “Frank made us watch them. Not every time I went over there. But sometimes. Lots of times. I don’t know how many times.”

  “Shit,” I said. “That’s so…” There weren’t words for what it was. “Fucked up.”

  “Yeah.”

  I burrowed my face against his shoulder.

  He rubbed my back.

  It seemed incongruous to me that he was the one comforting me.

  “I didn’t really know what was going on in those movies, Cecily,” he said. “I was really young, and I only had Nolan. There weren’t even any women that lived in our house. Sometimes Nolan hired extra help, but that wasn’t often. It was the first time I’d ever seen a woman naked. It was the first time I’d ever really contemplated sex. And… the thing is… it excited me. I was a little kid, but you know, even when you’re that young, you can still feel something about that kind of stuff, and I don’t know. It seemed to me that whatever sex was, it was this thing that hurt women. Hurt them a lot. And even if I… even if I wanted to want it, I, you know, shouldn’t.

  “And I grew up, and I got older, and eventually, Frank stopped dragging us in there to watch those fucking movies. And I started to figure stuff out. And I knew that what I’d been watching was deviant and out there, and that sex didn’t have to be like that. But… I don’t know.”

  He took a tattered breath. “I started dating Blake when we were both teenagers, and she didn’t want to go too fast, which was fine with me, because the thought of sex made me feel uncomfortable
and weird. Anyway, I just… I could never get past the idea that if I was doing it, it had be, like not good for a girl. Even if she wasn’t hurt exactly. It just seemed… So, even when I was, like, alone, I always just tried to get it over with as quickly as possible. And by the time I figured out that wasn’t really the way you were supposed to do it, it was just too late. I couldn’t…”

  “Oh, Callum.” My heart went out to him.

  “Blake laughed at me. She made fun of me about it. She said it was funny that I was so gorgeous and so rich and useless as a man.”

  “She didn’t say that,” I said.

  “I told you she was never very nice,” he said. “Even when we were kids, she was just sort of self-centered and bratty.”

  “I hate her,” I said.

  “I know you do,” he said. “I don’t really like her either.”

  “I hate Frank too. I hate him. If he weren’t already dead, I would kill him myself.”

  “Frank was twisted,” said Callum. “The way he made sure we watched those videos. The way he seemed to get pleasure at our discomfort.”

  “Do you think he wanted to hurt women too? Like Hayden does?”

  “I think he did hurt women that way,” said Callum. “Maybe even killed them. Girls that I used to hire told me stories about friends they had that were hired for Frank’s private parties. But their friends never came back.”

  I shuddered. “That’s horrible.”

  “You ready for the most fucked-up part?” he asked.

  “What could be more fucked up?”

  “When I put on that suit… when I’m Vigil…”

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” I said. “You said I should trust you.”

  “And I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said. “But I’m different when I’m him. I’m sort of… controlling. Demanding. I tell you what to do.”

  I hesitated. “Well, yeah, but that turns me on.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” I laughed, feeling embarrassed. “Maybe it’s something leftover from our animal brains or something. You ever watch National Geographic or whatever? I mean, when animals mate, it’s not exactly champagne and chocolates.”

  He drew in a breath.

  “What you do to me—what we do together,” I said in a small voice, “it’s hardly on par with a snuff film. You’ve never done anything that I didn’t enjoy.”

  He crushed me against him, kissing my forehead, my eyebrows, whatever he could get his mouth on. “You really are the best thing that ever happened to me. You know everything, and you’re still here. You didn’t run away.”

  “Of course not,” I said, searching for his lips, putting my own against his.

  We kissed. It was desperate and wet and prolonged.

  He broke away. “But I… when I found about your past, I was weird about it. I don’t deserve you.”

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”

  And then we were kissing again. This time it was a little softer. Slower.

  He kissed the tip of my nose. My cheekbones. The top of my head. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” I burrowed in the warm circle of his arms. It was good to be close to him.

  * * *

  When I woke up, Callum was still asleep. He was lying on his back, and his silk pajama shirt had ridden up, exposing his tawny, muscled abs.

  I couldn’t help but reach over and touch him, running my fingers over his skin.

  He made a soft noise in his sleep, sounding pleased.

  Feeling wicked, I sat up and began to unbutton his pajama shirt, baring his chest. I’d only seen it once, the time I’d initiated things after the photo shoot. He was glorious—rigid and tan and perfectly put together. I placed my palms on his pecks and dragged my hands over his chest, exploring every plane and valley.

  He sighed, still not awake.

  When my hands slid down past his belly button, I paused. I was right at the edge of his pajama bottoms.

  Should I undress him further? I bit my lip, unsure. I wanted to, but I didn’t know if he’d wake up appreciative or freaked out. We’d never had this kind of intimacy before. I remembered that when I’d removed his mask, he’d been angry.

  I ran my hands over his thighs, feeling his solid skin underneath the thin layer of silk.

  But things were different now. There were no more secrets between us.

  He shifted slightly, letting out a soft groan.

  That was when I realized he was hard.

  Ooh… Now I really wanted to touch his erection. It taunted me, straining against the cloth of his pajamas. It wanted me to touch it. I could tell.

  Maybe if I started when he was asleep, he’d wake up and realize that there was nothing keeping him from performing exactly the way he did when he was Vigil.

  I tugged at his pajama pants, exposing him.

  His cock lay long and thick against his stomach. It wasn’t completely erect yet, but it was still a force to be reckoned with.

  For a few seconds, I just looked at it. There was something delicious about being so close to a man’s aroused genitals. In that moment, he seemed so powerful and so vulnerable. The collision of those opposites made me giddy.

  And besides… he was pretty.

  I ran a tentative finger over him, starting at the tip and going all the way down the root, where his shaft met the sensitive skin of his scrotum.

  I looked up at Callum’s face. No reaction.

  Now that I had him so exposed, I wanted to explore everything. It was like discovering a new country. I wanted to see and touch it all.

  I carefully traced the outline of his sac. I stroked his balls.

  He moaned, but his eyes were still closed.

  I made another soft stroke.

  His cock stood straight up, stiff and thick.

  It almost seemed to wink at me.

  I licked my lips.

  I wanted to taste him.

  I repositioned myself so that I was crouched over his body, straddling him. This way, I could look up and see his face whenever I wanted. I took the head of his cock into my mouth.

  I moaned as my tongue slid over his soft, hot skin. There was something incredibly sensuous about having him in my mouth like this.

  I took him deeper.

  His hips thrust into my mouth, startling me.

  I looked up at him, but his eyes weren’t open. His lips were slightly parted, and he let out a noisy breath.

  I slid my mouth down his shaft. I dragged it back up. He felt amazing in my mouth. I was getting turned on doing this. I reached down to rub my own clit.

  I bobbed up and down on him, quickening my pace.

  He grunted. He thrust again, momentarily gagging me.

  I recovered, giving him a long lick up the stem of him.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  Jesus. Was he awake? I looked at him.

  His eyes snapped open.

  We looked at each other for a minute. I halted my movement, just staring at him with his cock in my mouth.

  “Cecily…” he managed, his voice hoarse.

  I took that as permission. I took him deep down my throat again, swallowing him.

  And he came.

  Immediately, I felt him spasming, pumping his semen down my throat.

  He pushed me away.

  I reached for him.

  But he looked too angry. He yanked up his pajamas and got out of bed. He stalked across the room to his adjoining bathroom, went inside, and slammed the door after himself.

  I settled on my knees on the bed. Oops. I guessed that hadn’t gone exactly like I’d hoped. But it had been working. When he was asleep, he’d let me give him head with no problem. Whatever made him come prematurely like that, it was in his head. He was making himself do it. He needed to relax, to try to let himself just experience it, and I was pretty sure that the whole problem would go away.

  The bathroom door opened. Callum stood in the doorway, hanging his head. He
was holding a glass of water.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He came across the room to me and handed me the water.

  He was really considerate about making sure I had something to drink after I swallowed, which was sweet of him. I took the glass of water.

  He sat down on the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and sank his hands into his hair. “For a second, I thought it wasn’t going to happen. But you moved, and I couldn’t stop it.”

  I touched his back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It was only that I woke up, and you were kind of hard, and I think your penis is mesmerizing.”

  He laughed. He looked up at me. “Trust me, it was not a bad way to wake up.”

  I twisted my hands together in my lap. “No?”

  He kissed me.

  I set the glass of water down on the bedside table.

  The kiss deepened.

  I pressed myself against him, and we fell back on the bed together.

  He hugged me close, his voice low and rumbling. “You’re amazing. You’re too good to me. But I would have liked that to go on just a little bit longer.”

  I stroked his jaw. “We’ll have to practice is all. It’ll be fun.”

  “No,” he said.

  “No?” I said.

  “I can’t perform unless I’m in the costume. It’s just the way things are. I’m lucky to even have that. I just have to accept that.”

  “That isn’t true,” I said. “You can perform out of it. It’s only that you haven’t done it yet.”

  He rolled away from me, staring up at the ceiling. “See? It’s happening again. I’m disappointing you. Eventually, you’ll get so fed up with me that you won’t be able to stand it, and it’ll be over.”

  I rolled onto my side. I kissed his shoulder. “I seriously doubt that. I told you I was mesmerized by your cock.” I propped myself up on my elbows. “Besides, we have really good sex. Like universe-bursting-into-a-zillion-pieces good.”

  “You want me to be able to do it out of costume, though.”

  “Well, it would be nice to feel your naked skin against my naked skin,” I said. “But I’m not dissatisfied, Callum. I want it more for you than for me. And I’m positive you can do it. We just have to, you know, practice.”