Love Him Free: Book One of On The Market

by Lindsey, E. M.

  Love Him Free

  Book One of On The Market

  E.M. Lindsey

  Love Him Free

  E.M. Lindsey

  Copyright © 2020

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any events, places, or people portrayed in the book have been used in a manner of fiction and are not intended to represent reality. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.

  Cover by Amai Designs

  Illustration by Marceau

  © 2020

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  For more

  Also by E.M. Lindsey

  About the Author

  "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it."

  Shir HaShirim 8:7

  To those who have given up all of your space for others. And to DK for giving some of her space to me.

  Prologue

  His brother was angry. Simon could hear it in the words Levi spat at him before he reached for the light switch and flipped it. It was more than just turning off the lights, it was forcing Simon to sit in the dark, or break the Shabbat and turn them on. It was Levi trying to control him the only way he knew how anymore. And then, Levi was gone.

  The front door shut, Simon sat back and turned his face up toward the ceiling. His brother thought the darkness would be a punishment—it was meant to be, anyway, for Simon’s refusal to yield and let his brother have free run of their bakery. Levi was pushing against the kosher bonds holding him in place, restricting his movements, and Simon knew his brother was mostly furious because Simon would not relent. So, he lashed out, he hurt Simon any way he could. It was just the nature of their relationship anymore, and Simon accepted that.

  The darkness wasn’t a punishment, however. It wrapped around him like a safety blanket and held him tight. It was the only time he felt grounded these days—when he was alone in the dark.

  Temptation pulled at his edges, dug under his skin. He was viciously homesick for something that was never his, a life that was a fantasy, not a promise. The days before Bubbe called to say she was sick—the weeks, the months, the years where Simon thought maybe he truly had gotten out—stayed with him. Then came the night he sacrificed what he could have had for the sake of the one piece of his family still alive. Bubbe was dead not ten hours, and Simon was at his breaking point.

  “If you let my brother live,” he said, not even sure that Hashem was listening, but he was going to try anyway, “if you let him be happy, if you don’t take him away from me, I’ll do whatever you want. This will be my exile. I will give it all up. Just…let Levi have what he wants. Let me keep him.”

  He had made the promise of his own accord, desperately terrified because Bubbe was gone and there was only Levi in the empty space that was once his family. He barely remembered what his father looked like anymore, except where he found him in the shadows of Levi’s young face. His father, Elisha, was thirty when Simon had seen him last, and sometimes Levi’s big grin—his full, beautiful laugh—had Simon spiraling all those years into the past when he was at his abba’s knee, or riding his shoulders and feeling like the world would just go on forever.

  And Simon wasn’t sure anymore that his brother’s hate and resentment was his fault, but someone needed to shoulder the blame. Something had to be responsible for what had slowly and methodically picked their family apart until there was almost nothing left. With Bubbe’s last breath had gone Simon’s last hope of freedom from ritual and sacrifice.

  He told himself this was his choice, but there were days he looked at Levi—days when his brother spat in the face of his observance, of the only thing holding them together—and he hated him. Or at least as close to hate as he could ever get. Logically, though, Simon knew it was mostly his fear of losing Levi.

  And maybe it was insanity to believe that if he abstained from eating fucking bacon and turning a light on during Shabbat that Levi would go to his grave an old man, well after Simon did…but it was all he had. Their parents were dead. Their grandmother was dead. It was just the two of them left, and Simon knew he wouldn’t survive another loss.

  Rising from the sofa, Simon made his way to his bedroom. He had a small, tea-light candle in the window, and he laid the small shade over it, dimming it to nothing.

  His laptop sat on his desk, humming with life. He knew what was on the black screen. He’d watched the video so many times he knew it by heart. Falling onto his back, he sank into the mattress and spread his legs. It was easy enough to wriggle out of his jeans, to kick them to the floor. Levi would be gone most of the night, and this was Simon’s time.

  His skin was already hot, needy, desperate. No one had ever touched him before. He rarely touched himself. He was thirty-six and a virgin. He was half-convinced that the first time a man put hands on him, he’d combust. Closing his eyes, he conjured the vision of the one man he’d never stopped wanting.

  Simon had seen the adult film actor in person twice. He was told by the enthusiastic recruiter during his tour of UCLA that there would be celebrities on campus—but he had assumed Hollywood stars, not viral porn stars.

  He was a couple years older than Simon with a full head of rich black hair and long fingers Simon couldn’t stop staring at. It was Simon’s first semester, and watching the stranger sit in the back of the café and twist his fingers into the language he spoke changed the course of Simon’s life.

  He signed up for ASL as his language in hopes of running into the stranger—but he hadn’t seen him again until his roommate left his computer open with a video titled, Deaf Daddy Bear, Sylent, Tops Twink. His back was to the camera, but Simon recognized him instantly, and he fell under the crashing waves of Sylent.

  He subscribed to all of Sylent’s channels and watched live feeds. He never commented, but he kept up on his ASL… just in case. Not that his life was charmed. Not that the universe was ever kind to Simon Kadish.

  But sometimes, Shabbat nights like this when he was in the dark and Levi was furious, and he hurt deep in places he could never reach, he let the fantasy of Sylent comfort him. ‘Take off your jeans,’ he’d sign with those long fingers of his. His full lips would be curled into a smile, predatory and starving for Simon’s body.

  Simon wouldn’t be able to help himself from obeying. His hands would strip himself down, and he’d stand there bare and terrified. Sylent would look at him, turn him from side to side, rumble his pleasure deep in his chest.

  Then? Then he’d kiss him. He’d give Simon his very first kiss—powerful, intense, all-encompassing. Sylent would kiss Simon until he couldn’t breathe, until he couldn’t think. His hands would wander, touching Simon in all those places he was desperate to feel someone else’s fingers. He’d stroke his cock,
and cup his balls, and press deep inside him.

  Simon groaned, the sound of it startling him out of the fantasy just for a moment. He stilled, fingers clutched in the sheets, but he was still alone. Licking his lips, he fought the urge to touch himself, and his mind wandered back to into his imagination.

  Sylent was there again, pressing him to the wall, lifting one leg so he could slide into Simon’s waiting hole—molten hot and rock hard and bare. Sylent would fuck him so hard, his body would slam into the plaster. He’d cry, and he’d beg, but Sylent wouldn’t touch him until he was so far gone, he was wild and insane.

  Then, a warm, huge hand would wrap around him and stroke him.

  That’s all it ever took for Simon to come—just that thought, that scene in his head. He hadn’t watched it on a porn, and maybe that’s what made it special. He’d watched Sylent enough to know what he’d look like, what he’d sound like—maybe even what he’d feel like, then he created something just for himself so powerful he could come all over his stomach without lifting a hand to touch himself.

  He’d let it dry there, too, just in case. He was never brave enough to ask his Rabbi if cleaning spunk from his chest-hair was considered work on the Shabbat. Instead, he kept it as a reminder of what he’d never have—what he’d given up. Because love wasn’t part of his sacrifice to Elohim, but his life was, and there was no room for anyone else if he was too busy trying to keep his brother safe and keep the last of Bubbe alive with her struggling bakery.

  He breathed out and turned onto his side, wrapping the blankets around him. He hoped Levi was being careful, was at least out there being loved the way he deserved. He knew his brother hated him—and he knew he could change that with the truth, but it was so much more painful than the fantasy Levi lived with. So, he carried that burden with the rest, and hoped that one day his brother would understand.

  Chapter One

  The thirty-six-year-old virginity thing was an accident. Simon Kadish hadn’t planned on reaching his twenties without having an orgasm at the hands of another person. He certainly didn’t plan on making it to his mid-thirties in that same state. Maybe it was an ugly twist of fate that he went from a happy-go-lucky kid running the streets with his friends while his bubbe sold bread at her little stall at the Port market to this anxious, disaster of a man who couldn’t keep it together for ten minutes on a date let alone enough time to get laid. And maybe it was always meant to be.

  Simon was young when his ema and bubbe packed up everything they owned, swaddled his brand-new brother, and boarded a plane for a place he’d only read about in schoolbooks. It was terrifying at first, to be ripped from his home and settled in a little apartment above a bake shop where no one spoke his language. He didn’t understand why he was there, just that his mother was crying a lot, and Bubbe woke up for all of Levi’s feedings, and Simon had to spend hours and hours with a stranger trying even harder at English because he hadn’t been any good at it in school before they left Tel Aviv.

  It was six weeks before he understood that his father was dead. His mother appeared in his doorway in the middle of the night, staring at him until she realized he was awake. She looked haggard, hair a mess and unwashed for weeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed and dry only because he was pretty sure she didn’t have tears left.

  She didn’t say anything right away. She just stared at him, then padded with soft, bare feet across the worn carpet and she climbed into his small bed. There wasn’t space for the two of them, but she took him into her arms and there was the tiniest sliver of the mother she’d been before everything was turned on its head.

  “Ema,” he whispered.

  She shook her head and sniffed. “He’s not coming back, neshama shelli.” She stroked the top of his curls with shaking fingers.

  “Who isn’t?” he asked.

  Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “There was a raid. Abba didn’t get out in time.”

  That was all she said, and Simon was barely eight, but he knew what that meant. Most of the kids his age there knew what that meant. Simon was born into violence and turmoil. He was born into the strangest juxtaposition of peace and love, and violence and death. He knew what bomb drills were, and he knew what it was to be carefree on the beach thinking he would live forever.

  But life was fleeting, and it was a hard lesson for a small boy to learn so quickly. His father had been a good man. He was tall, larger than life with an infectious laugh he used against his mother whenever she was angry. Later, she’d remember it. She’d tell him, “I could never stay mad at your abba. He’d just smile at me, and wink, and chuckle, and my anger would fly away like a little bird.”

  Simon stopped missing him so hard by the time he was nine. Levi was just starting to walk, and his mother was starting to stay out all night. The kids at school still mocked him because he hadn’t lost his funny accent and he had to count in Hebrew to remember his multiplication tables. Bubbe was working to keep their family going, and when his mother did come home, she was like a storm cloud.

  He forgot quickly what it meant to be a kid. He forgot what it was like to have real friends, or real freedom. His mother was never around, but when she was, all she’d do was scream. “I don’t want Simon all alone here!” Her voice would rise and carry through the house, and Levi would whimper, and Simon would hold him a little tighter, like he could protect him from the wrath of the grieving woman. “He’s here taking care of the baby while you’re in your shop! What kind of life is that for him? I’m trying to make things better for us.”

  “You leave Simon alone all the time,” Bubbe would shout back. “You go out, you drink, you sleep around. What’s next, Miriam? Another baby? Some American goyishe seed growing in your belly?”

  His mother swore at her, something shattered on the floor, and then she was crying again. She was always, always crying. “I can’t let anything happen to him.”

  “And what about Levi?”

  She never had any answer to that when Bubbe would ask.

  Late at night, she’d come into the bedroom and he’d watch her stand over the crib and stroke her fingers through Levi’s baby-soft curls.

  “Do you love him, Ema?” he’d ask her.

  She wouldn’t look over, but she would pull her hand away and curl it against her heart. “He looks just like your abba.” That’s all she’d ever say. He looks just like your abba.

  Simon thought Levi looked like a baby—chubby cheeks and wide dark eyes and drool on his chin. Simon thought he’d like his mother to be there in the mornings to feed him his oatmeal, or at dinner to make sure he ate his smashed vegetables.

  But she never was.

  Six days after his twelfth birthday—one year before his bar mitzvah—his mom was taking him and Levi to Colorado Springs when everything changed again. Hashem—or the Universe, he wasn’t even sure anymore—decided to rip everything apart again.

  He didn’t remember the crash, he just remembered his mother yelling at him because he’d mouthed off. He remembered her crying—and she was always, always crying. He remembered her saying she wished he was more like his father, braver, kinder, able to make everyone smile.

  He didn’t remember the way she swerved into oncoming traffic because she’d turned around to yell instead of paying attention. At least, not until much later. All he knew was fear—and exhaustion. Then, tires squealed on the pavement and there was a horn blaring. And then he knew pain. And then darkness.

  Simon woke in a hospital bed—aching from every inch of his body. Bubbe was there when he first opened his eyes. She brushed back hair from his forehead and he could tell she’d been crying. He knew that look. He knew that expression of grief and loss. She had never gotten along with her daughter, not after Elisha died, but she had loved her, and Simon knew in that instant she was gone.

  “Where’s Levi? Where’s…” He tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t obey, every inch of him screaming with an unrelenting pain.

  Her warm hand on his for
ehead soothed him, but only just. “He’s fine. He was in his car seat and he was fine. Not a scratch.”

  Simon swallowed, his throat painfully raw. “Ema?” he croaked.

  “I’m sorry. She never woke up,” was all his Bubbe told him. “It’s just us now, ahva shelli.”

  Simon closed his eyes again and hoped the pain wouldn’t last as long as it had when his father hadn’t come home. He wasn’t sure he’d miss her, though.

  Levi asked for their mom a couple of times after Bubbe brought Simon home, but he was more fascinated by the cast on Simon’s leg, and the places along his arm, jaw, and his eyebrow that had been stitched together with ugly black thread.

  Simon was on crutches during the funeral, the ringing in his ears from trying to manage the pain in his leg and his heart overwhelming him. He barely heard the rabbi speaking over the din, barely understood what was going on—only that it was almost over. Strangers from the temple kissed him on the cheek and hugged Bubbe and promised to be there if they ever needed anything, but Simon didn’t really believe them. He was young, but not so young he couldn’t hear the polite lies in their tone.

  It was easier to just go home. To sleep above the bakery and wake to the smells of fresh things baking and know that this was his life. He’d sit at his window at night and work on his Hebrew because his bar mitzvah was coming the same time as the anniversary of her death, and he’d tried not to think about how small it would be. None of his friends wanted to come—and he didn’t blame them, not that he had many he could have blamed. But the affair would be quiet and somber and a little cruel because it wasn’t just the ritual that was making him the man of the house, but that God was slowly but surely whittling away at his family until there was nothing left.