by JD Ruskin
In February, when he was supposed to go on his trip with his friends, he cancelled. I had told him to go, but he didn’t want to leave me or his sister, the boys or his home. It wasn’t the right time. And I understood. It had taken so long to get to the place we were at, savoring it was still new.
Carolyn had to move a lot of things—beds, television sets, and game consoles—but a lot of it, like the rest of her old furniture, she sold with the house. To get rid of it, she made the price tag a steal, but that was fine. Her husband Mark had signed over everything to her in the divorce. He just wanted his freedom and not to have to pay alimony or child support. She told him she wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Thank you, Cy,” she told her brother as she bawled the day the divorce was final, clutching his hand in the kitchen, which had become the center of our house. “If it wasn’t for you and Web I would have had to fight him for child support, and I don’t want anything from him ever again. I just want him to stay in Vegas and never come back.”
“I know, sweetie,” he told her, hand on her cheek as she got off the stool and came around the end of the bar to launch herself at me.
“I would have had to go to court if it weren’t for you and my brother, Web. Thank you for letting me have my life and my self-respect. Everyone needs help sometime, but you have to deserve it and treasure it. And I do. I love you both so much.”
“She loves you too much if you ask me,” Cy was grumbling as he got ready for bed that night.
“Howzat?” I asked, smiling at him as I watched him storm around the room from the safety of the bed.
“You haven’t noticed that she’s always touching you and hugging on you and leaning on you and staring at you… have you missed all that?”
I smiled at him. “C’mere, darlin’.”
“No, I’m serious,” he snipped at me. “I know she loves me, but I also think that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, she wouldn’t be all that broken up.”
My laughter had to be stifled so I used my pillow.
“Web.”
I lay down and smothered myself. When he pulled the pillow away, the tears were rolling down my cheeks.
“Weber Yates!”
“You’re jealous of your own sister.”
He was glaring at me as I pulled him down on top of me.
“You know you’re the only one I see, idjit.”
“Nice,” he muttered, but disgruntlement gave way to passion when I kissed him. Four months after we had made things permanent, swore the forever to each other, three months after a civil union ceremony that we had at his parents’ place in Half Moon Bay that he invited everyone he knew to, and two months after Carolyn legally made me the guardian of her children that her ex had given her full custody of, still I made the man breathless. I had thought that domesticity would kill my allure, that seeing me entrenched in his life would make me less than hot. But that was not the case. Seeing me in the kitchen at the end of the day, finding me in the backyard watering the lawn, watching me throw the ball for the dog… all those things made the man wild for me. He loved it. And it was amazing.
We were a family, one that I had never hoped to have.
I knew Carolyn was still trying to put money into my checking account that I shared with Cy, but he had it blocked so she couldn’t. I didn’t need her money. I just needed her and her kids and all of them loving me.
I had reconciled the what-made-a-man-a-man part with who I was. Because I was the center of everything. Without me, Cy was different, not the man he was now, warm and loving and free. Without me, the boys didn’t feel protected and grounded and safe. Without me, Carolyn didn’t have a wall to lean on, someone who had her back no matter what. They were all a blessing, especially Cy, but I mattered too, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything.
“Oh dear God, what is that?” Cy whimpered beside me, bringing me back from my wildly roaming thoughts to the here and now of the Easter program.
“It’s a xylophone,” I informed him.
“A what?” Carolyn whispered from the other side of me.
I rolled my eyes. “Micah plays the xylophone and sings. Where have you people been?”
“Are you kidding me?” Carolyn poked me in the arm.
“It’s loud too,” Tristan informed his uncle from the other side of him, putting his hands over his ears. “That’s why Weber makes him practice in the garage.”
“That’s why he’s been in the garage?” Cy asked me.
I nodded as the first notes on the xylophone were struck. The microphone was right there, right where the resounding noise could travel all the way through the crowd and run straight up your spine to the center of your brain.
The lady in front of us said ohmygod, but not in a good way.
The man behind me jolted and kicked my chair. “Sorry,” he gasped, startled.
Carolyn started giggling, Pip climbed out of his seat and into my lap, and Cy turned to me like it was all my fault.
“What?”
“Are you kidding?” He was indignant. “This could damage my cerebral cortex.”
I shook my head. “Probably not.”
“I’m sorry, when did you get your medical degree?”
“I live with a doctor.” I waggled my eyebrows at him. “You pick up a bit.”
Another chord was struck.
“Oh dear God,” Cy whimpered.
“It’s only for the first three songs,” I told him. “Then they switch to maracas.”
He was stunned.
I just made sure Micah saw me when he looked up, and saw me smile. The kid had to be supported, for crissakes.
Before New Year’s, Micah had asked Cy to please pass the mashed potatoes at the table. And Cy had. We made no event of it, and when we made the trip up to see his parents on the first day of the year, having seen them at Christmas a week before, they were shocked to hear him talking like it was no big deal, not speaking any louder or faster or even more, just him, just Micah. His life was settled. If he wasn’t at school or at an activity or with his mother, he was with me. I wasn’t going to die on him, and neither was his mother or his uncle. He had faith in all of us to stick around. His father was gone, but the man had been busy, in more ways than one it had turned out, and the sad part was that Micah didn’t miss what he hadn’t ever had. He didn’t miss the relationship with his father, didn’t mourn the man’s absence. None of the boys did. They didn’t even ask after him, which made me think even worse of the man. I did hope he was happy living in Vegas, though, and I, like Carolyn, wished he would just stay there and have a good life. Ours was perfect; we didn’t need to begrudge him.
The tap on my shoulder brought me from my thoughts. Turning, I looked over my shoulder at a very pained looking, beautifully turned out mother of one of Micah’s classmates.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt. Did you say only two songs like this, or two more and then the maracas?”
“Two more after this, then the maracas.”
“Thank you.” She winced. “Aren’t you Micah’s nanny?”
“Yes, ma’am, and you’re Kellie’s mom.”
“Yes.” She tried to smile at me.
“She plays a mean ukulele. I heard her practicing yesterday.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She was trying to hold onto her smile, her forced cheerfulness. “I forgot there’s that too. Thank you.”
I nodded and turned back around as a hand slipped into mine. Looking over at Cy, I found him smiling at me.
“What?”
“I love you.”
“I love you back.”
“I’m still going to kill you for not warning me about the xylophone,” he moaned as a wrong note was gonged. It was really loud, and his eyes got huge.
“That was cute there, doc.”
He growled under his breath.
Two hours and fifteen minutes later, after the last percussion and vocal interpretation, everyone wanted to know why
the Easter program had xylophones, maracas, bongo drums, and ukuleles anyway.
“It’s about experiencing and appreciating different cultures and their musical interpretations and gifts.”
“It’s what?” Cy asked me as some of the other parents squinted at me.
“World music,” I explained to him. “You need to open your mind.”
He was looking at me like I’d grown another head.
“Oh, Mr. Yates.” Micah’s art teacher, who shared a classroom with the music teacher, was beaming at me. “Bravo, that’s it exactly. We must all expand our minds, breathe outside of our own cultural boxes.”
“Our own what?” Cy tried to ask her.
“I know Becky’s just thrilled to have such phenomenal parental support in you,” she continued to gush.
Carolyn rolled her eyes as Micah came charging across the room in his suit and tie, zipped by his teachers, other parents, his uncle, his mother, and flung himself into my outstretched arms.
He hugged me tight, arms around my neck, and squeezed.
“You were so good, buddy,” I told him, patting his back, feeling his little hand in my hair, the other still holding tight. He inhaled me then, which was his new habit. Apparently, I had a smell that he liked.
“I saw you, Weber,” he told me. “I can always see you so I wasn’t scared.”
“You’ll always be able to see me.”
His sigh was long. Apparently, I was quite a comfort to a six-and-a-half year old.
Later that evening, as I hung up first my tie and then my suit jacket, arms were again wrapped around me, but this time from behind. There were lips on the side of my neck as well.
“Aren’t you supposed to be making popcorn?” I asked him.
“You’re complaining?”
“No, sir.” I took a breath, closing my eyes, savoring the feeling of his hard body against mine, his hands on my hips, and the soft whimper of need from the back of his throat. “I would just not like to be interrupted, is all.”
“We won’t be,” he promised. “The door is locked, and Carolyn is taking care of the popcorn and the movie. We can stay in here all night.”
“What brought this on?” I asked him, turning in his arms, looking down at him as his hands went to the buttons on my shirt.
“You’re leaving me,” he said.
“Yeah, for three days.” I chuckled. “The soccer camp is done Saturday afternoon. We’ll be back Saturday night so we can be here for Easter Sunday.”
“Still,” he said as he opened my shirt and stepped into me, plastering his bare upper body to my chest, to my skin, “it’s the first time since we said our vows.”
“I’ll be back before you know it,” I told him, my hand under his chin, tipping his chin up so I could see his eyes. “But so you know, I’ll miss you too, darlin’.”
“Watching you and Micah tonight—it was beautiful, Web. All three of those boys love you so much, and, I mean, as long as they have you and their mother….” He trailed off.
“You know who I need?” I said, smoothing a hand down over the front of his dress slacks, over the hard bulge of him, enjoying the strangled whine so full of raw, aching desire. “Would you like to guess?”
“No, I wasn’t—Web, I wasn’t fishing or—God.”
I had pressed my groin to his, and all the fight went right out of him.
“Please, Web, I need you.”
I dropped to my knees in front of him.
“Jesus, just watching you go down in front of me could make me come.”
He had already ditched his shirt, which was nice because I loved kissing across the rippling, chiseled planes of his abdomen and touching the sleek golden skin. The man was a work of art, and he belonged to me. Suddenly ravenous for him, I went to work on his belt, worked it loose, and then made short work of his pants, the clasp and zipper. When I shoved his slacks and briefs down together, he gasped as his hard, seeping cock sprang free.
“I want you to suck me, and then before I come, I want you inside of me.”
I was making no promises as I licked his cock from balls to the wide mushroom head. I loved the length of him, how thick he was, and most of all, how he tasted. As I took him down the back of my throat and his hand fisted possessively in my hair, I doubted that he was actually able to make demands and stick to them.
“Please, Web, like you’ll die without me, like you need me….”
I could read him so easily. He thought that the puzzle would work without him. That the boys and me and Carolyn could possibly fit together with him out of the picture. “Now who doesn’t know what he’s worth,” I growled before I attacked him, sucking hard, laving every inch of his beautiful cock, using my tongue, my teeth, and making the suction almost more than he could bear. I would worship him so he’d know that he was everything.
“Weber.” He was panting, tugging on my hair, writhing in front of me. “I need…. I have all the power at… don’t want any… just want you.”
I had to be more careful about my time, and the wake-up call was good. My man, who held other people’s lives in his hands all day, every day, needed to come home and submit all his power to me. He needed to simply feel, to let go, to not think, just be. I was the one; I was in charge. He needed to surrender to me, and I had been focused on the kids, thinking that he was fine with how things were. And he was, he just needed more, and I had to be more sensitive to when he did. I had to look at him more closely and really see him. I promised myself I would. I didn’t want to ever lose him.
“Don’t want you lookin’ for someone else to take care of you,” I told him, as I let his cock fall out of my mouth, rising over him, staring down into his eyes.
“I only want you, ever. You know that.”
I wrenched him sideways, yanked him around, manhandling him, and pinned him up against the wall. “Turn around.”
He was shivering as he moved, and I placed his hands on the dark, smooth wood of the walls. I stripped off his pants and briefs from where they were gathered around his knees and had him step out of them. Just looking at him, clutching the wall, legs braced apart, waiting for whatever I was going to do to him had me hard and leaking.
“Stay.”
“Yes, sir,” he told me.
I was back in less than a minute, putting a towel on the floor under him before I dribbled lube over his crease.
He jolted forward, his cock grazing the wall, and when he tried to step back, I shoved him forward, bending him further, at the same time sliding a finger into his firm, round ass.
“Weber,” he moaned my name, pushing back at the same time I pushed in.
“We all need you, Cy. You make everything work. Never doubt it, never have a minute of uncertainty. It’s you, I swear it.”
“I love the others…. I do, but I need you, Web, want you.”
“You want me to want you, need you?” I asked as I added a second finger and then a third to his greedy hole. I massaged and rubbed, waiting for the tight muscles to loosen as I kissed up the side of his neck, nibbling along the way.
“More,” he begged me.
He was trying to suck my flesh inside, and I wanted to feed him my cock, but I had to wait until I was sure he was ready. I would never, ever hurt him.
“Web!” he gasped. “Please!”
I would show him how necessary he was.
Spreading his cheeks, I pressed my flared head to his entrance.
“Weber, baby… please.”
I sheathed myself to the hilt in one violent forward plunge.
“Web!”
It was lucky the walls were thick and the movie was loud: The Transformers on the enormous sixty-inch plasma TV in the living room would keep the questions at bay.
“Love….”
I slid out just a little, only enough to feel his muscles contract, ripple around me, before I pressed forward, harder, deeper on the second thrust.
“Grab your cock, Cy,” I ordered him, my breath in his ear befo
re I sucked the silky lobe into my mouth.
The noises he was making—whines, cries, and groans—were driving me right out of my mind. The man was beautiful as he came apart in my hands, and watching him, feeling him around me as I buried myself inside of him, had me too close.
“You need to come, Cy. You’re driving me crazy, and I won’t last.”
“Weber.”
“You’re mine,” I told him as my hips snapped forward, hammering into him, wanting to be buried as deep as I could.
“Oh yes,” he rasped, and I could feel him shaking. “Please, I need to just be yours.”
I lost track of everything but the man in my arms, the smell of his skin, the taste of his sweat, and the sound of his breathing. How could I have ever thought that I wouldn’t be spending the rest of my life with him?
“Web.” His voice was swelled with emotion and cracking with it. “Please.”
He needed me to do what I had never thought was my right but I had always had an inkling of. I had to lay down the rules of my home just as I had done with Carolyn’s boys before they moved in. I had to say how things would be.
I took a breath as I held him, even as I fucked him.
“Weber….”
God, he needed me before he fractured in front of my eyes. “Listen, in this house, under this roof, you surrender to me! Everything is mine: your fear, your hopes, all of it. Put it all on me. I can carry it. I’ll take care of you, I’ll protect you, and I’ll love you no matter what because you belong to me.”
“You promise?”
“I swear. Now let go.”
“Show me.” His voice shook.
I shoved my hips forward, pushing inside impossibly deep, and his breath caught as my left arm wrapped around him, across his chest, holding him, pressing him back against my heart and also allowing him to see it.
He had to see. It tore the orgasm from him every time.
To have a glimpse of the thick gold ring that he had put on my finger three months ago, the ring I never took off—the ring that told the world that I was now a married man… that was what he needed.
“Fuck!” he roared, and there was a splatter of cum on the wall in front of him at the same time I filled his quivering channel that tightened like a vise around my cock.