Uncensored Passion (Men of Passion)

by Bobbi Cole Meyer

  “I’m afraid I won’t be coming home tonight. The meeting is lasting longer than I thought it would, and since we’re still in discussions, I’ll be staying in town tonight. I’ll be home sometime tomorrow. Give all my love.”

  Before he could ask anything else, she hung up. Luke frowned at the phone as Lee asked, “What did she say?”

  “She said the meeting was lasting longer than she thought and they were still in discussions, so she wouldn’t be home tonight. She’d see us tomorrow.”

  “Did she say where this meeting was being held?” Harm asked.

  Luke shook his head.

  J.J., in his youthful, impulsive way, voiced what they all were thinking, “Think she’s with some new guy?”

  “If she is, she’s feeling him out, trying to decide if he would be a good fit for us,” Harm said in her defense.

  “Dammit, there are four of us! What the hell does she need with someone new? If she brought a new guy in, that would cut our time with her short, ” J.J. blustered. “Aren’t we enough for her?”

  “Don’t get your dander up, J.J. We don’t know that’s what she’s doing,” Lee said. “If Kayla said she’s in a meeting, then she is. Has she ever lied to us?”

  They all had to agree that she never had. Yet the doubt, now planted firmly in all their minds, persisted as the day wore on. And though no one voiced it, they were all thinking how empty the house seemed without her.

  * * *

  Kayla woke up in the arms of her handsome lover. She looked at him, sleeping soundly beside her, and her heart skipped, remembering the intimacy they had shared and how completely he had submitted himself to her desires.

  The room was dark, and she wondered what time it was as she carefully moved from his arm and slid off the bed. She went to the bathroom and closed the door before turning on the light. She checked her watch. It was 8:45 p.m.

  After using the facilities, she surveyed her image in the mirror. Her face was red from abrasion from rubbing against Trey’s day-old beard growth and the hair on his chest and groin area. She smiled with the memory.

  She had wanted to make the time with Devon a fanciful romp both could cherish once they’d parted, but it had turned into something more. Much more than she’d bargained for—certainly more than she knew how to cope with, she suddenly realized.

  Shaking her head, still staring at herself in the mirror, Kayla silently admitted, I don’t want him to leave. Wonder if he would stay if I asked him to? Would he be receptive to our lifestyle? Would the others accept him?

  For the first time since she’d made the decision to be with Devon, Kayla was feeling guilty, knowing she had betrayed her partners. She knew the reason why her guilt was so acute. Her betrayal went deeper than just sex outside of the family, which her men would probably understand and accept. But what they might have trouble accepting was the fact that she cared so much for Devon Walker that she’d lied to them. She had put him above them, even though they were so devoted to her. Something she would never have believed she would have done.

  She couldn’t explain why she had such a connection with Devon, but she did. He touched her somewhere deep within her soul, in a way none of her partners had ever done.

  With that realization came another wave of guilt. How did she tell them about Devon without hurting them? And yet perhaps it would become a moot point. It all depended on how Devon received the news of her secret. Could he adjust to the polyandry lifestyle? Would he? She decided to feel him out first, before even broaching the subject.

  Having made that decision, she reentered the bedroom and was surprised to find him awake and sitting up in bed, waiting for her. “Did I wake you?”

  “No. I woke because you weren’t beside me. I felt alone. The way I’ll always feel if you aren’t near.”

  His declaration shook her. She bit her lip before saying, “Devon, maybe we should talk.”

  “We should.”

  She curled up beside him and played with his chest hair, wondering where to start, what to say that wouldn’t send him running for the hills, thinking she was crazy for the way she preferred to live her life. She thought the best way to start would be to determine what had molded him into the man he was.

  “Tell me about your life, Devon. Tell me what you want, what you expect to accomplish. I want to know everything about you.”

  “Again, who’s interviewing whom?”

  “No interview, just full disclosure.”

  Trey winced. He was thankful for the darkness so she couldn’t see the guilt that he knew was surely written all over his face at that moment.

  “Tell me about your childhood, for a start.”

  “I don’t like to talk about that.”

  “I know. I could tell, but perhaps you should. Talking about it will release it from hurting you, and I think you need that.”

  “Shrinking me, Doc?”

  “Think I’ve proven I’m pretty good at that,” she threw out the double entendre with a laugh, and he joined in.

  “You damned sure are.”

  Sobering, she prompted, “Tell me.”

  After taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Trey began to open up about his scarred childhood.

  “I have no idea who my father was. And the only thing I know about my mother is that she considered me a mistake she couldn’t deal with, so she abandoned me as a newborn. She left me on the steps of a church with a note pinned to my blanket, giving my name, my birth date, and said that she thought I’d be better off without her because living on the streets was no place for a kid. She added that she had no idea who my father was, that he could have been any one of her many johns.

  “I was put in the system. Later I found out the authorities tried to find her, but finally gave up. The first foster home was good. The Markhams. An older couple who were really great. I was there until I was six, and that was the happiest time I can remember. But then they had to give me up because Mr. Markham got sick and Mrs. Markham was trying to deal with his pending death and the bills, or whatever. Anyway, I was put back into the system.

  “I was then sent to the Donovans. They were a Catholic family with three kids of their own. They had decided to take in foster kids for the money they could get. I found out pretty quickly that was their reason for taking me in. It certainly wasn’t because they wanted another boy to add to their brood. Their boys were all older than me. Kirk was thirteen. John was eleven. Lou was nine. They resented me from the get-go and pretty much made my life a living hell. They did the same with the girl the Donovans had taken in, too. I felt sorrier for her than I did for myself. I’ve often wondered what happened to Cindy.”

  “Didn’t their parents intervene?” Kayla asked. “Or did they even know their boys were mistreating the two of you?”

  Trey snorted a laugh. “They couldn’t have cared less. All they wanted was the money, and as long as Cindy or I weren’t injured, they gave their sons carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to do to us both.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Two years. Then a social worker came around one day right after the three had jumped me and beaten the shit out of me because I rode one of their bikes, and she immediately took me out of there.”

  Trey shook his head, remembering the irony of his thoughts at that time.

  “Man, I thought that was the best thing ever, getting away from the Donovans. But five months later I was placed with the Samsons and realized real fast there were worse things than being picked on by three older boys.”

  Kayla snuggled against him, sympathizing with his pain, realizing his cathartic need to tell all of it now that he had begun.

  “What happened there?”

  Trey was quiet for so long Kayla wondered if he was going to answer her when he suddenly began speaking again, his voice low and guttural, as though the words were being pulled from the depths of his injured soul.

  “Deke and Marion Samson. They were quite a pair. As far as the world k
new, they were the perfect couple. Had a nice home, two nice cars, good clothes, went to church every Sunday. He was a well-known lawyer and a deacon in the church. They were pillars of the community.

  “They had one daughter, Doreen, and convinced everyone their life was complete now that they had taken me in, and I’m quoting what he said because I remember hearing him say it so often, ‘I have the son I always wanted.’

  “At first, I thought I had finally landed in a place I could call home, with people who wanted me. I even had decent clothes to wear to school, instead of hand-me-downs.

  “It was great for the first month. Then I started noticing things that didn’t seem right, that I really didn’t understand but sensed were off-kilter in some way. Looks passed between them and the girl, whispered innuendoes, Doreen’s strange mannerisms whenever her father came near her or touched her. Things like that.”

  “The girl was afraid of her father?” Kayla prompted when he grew quiet again.

  “Doreen was three years older than me. Eleven. She was pretty and big for her age, kind of tall and gangly. She was always so quiet and sad-looking. I couldn’t figure out why at first. I could tell she was unhappy, but I didn’t understand why because it seemed to me that she had everything—until the night I saw her father go into her room.

  “I’d gotten up to get a glass of milk from the kitchen. He didn’t know I saw him. I was passing her door, which he hadn’t fully closed and I watched him as he—ah—dropped his pants and made her give him oral sex. Damn, it shocked me.

  “Doreen didn’t make a sound, just did what he wanted. Like she’d done it a thousand times before, and I suddenly knew that she had. I almost went to Mrs. Samson. I wanted to tell her, but I was afraid to. Later I would discover that she knew about it, that she was just as twisted as he was.”

  Kayla emitted a curse word and Trey nodded. “Yeah. God only knows what a lot of foster kids live through. What you said before, about some people never having children? That was right on the money.

  “I told Doreen the next day that I had seen what her father had made her do, and she was scared to death I would tell someone else. She begged me not to, said he would beat her and me, too, if I did. Said she’d been doing that as long as she could remember and it didn’t bother her anymore.

  “It turned out Mr. Samson—Deke—overheard us talking. He came storming into the room, took me to the bathroom, stripped me naked, and beat the hell out of me with his belt, warning me to keep my mouth shut or I’d get worse. He was careful not to leave marks where anyone could see. That happened on Saturday. Sunday we went to church like the perfect family.”

  Trey snorted his disgust.

  “Mrs. Samson sang in the choir and I sat with Doreen and Deke, squirming because my butt was raw and hurt, until he pinched my arm and whispered in my ear that if I didn’t sit still I would be sorry when he got me home. He said that with a smile in case anyone was looking at us, ruffling my hair as he straightened back up. He had the act down pat.

  “When we did get home, I heard the two of them talking. He was saying that he thought it was okay to start with me now because I knew better than to talk. He said I wouldn’t be any good to her in the way she really liked because I hadn’t matured enough to fuck like a man, but she could have fun developing me. That’s how he put it. Developing me, teaching me how to satisfy her the way Doreen satisfied him.”

  “Dear God!”

  “Yeah, they were both perverted as hell. And that was the night it began. There was no longer any pretense. We all slept in the bed together—or rather, we didn’t sleep for the most part. Doreen would be servicing him while I was forced to service her.”

  Kayla was aghast. “Did you tell the social worker? Surely they were checking on you.”

  “They checked occasionally, but what they saw was carefully orchestrated: a boy who was kept clean, well fed, well clothed, in a nice home with two seemingly loving parents and a foster sister who all doted on him. That was the picture we presented, what Doreen and I knew we had to present if we didn’t want to suffer later.”

  Kayla squeezed his hand, in lieu of words she knew would be inadequate.

  “When you did mature, you were forced to fuck her?”

  “Yes. I matured early, at thirteen. I never understood why they didn’t just fuck each other, but they never did. I found out later from Doreen that her mother had had a hysterectomy after she was born. We both decided that after that, evidently Deke just didn’t find her appealing anymore.

  “He was just into Doreen giving him oral sex and she, Marion, just wanted me. And they both enjoyed watching. So I guess you could say we had an orgy every night. Of course, once I started climaxing, I kind of got addicted to it.

  “Marion Samson was a good-looking woman, so it wasn’t like I was fucking a hag. But when Deke realized I had started to act like I enjoyed it too much, he got jealous and mad. That’s when he started to—ah—periodically beat me.

  “Thinking on it now, I know he was taking out his impotent rage on me. He had this leather strap that he used. He would soak it beforehand, ‘to give it more of a stinging slap,’ he said. Every time I saw him doing that, I knew what was coming. But the blows were always on my back or butt, never where anyone could see the signs.

  “And the older I got, the bigger my dick got, the more jealous he became. Crazy, huh? He didn’t want to fuck her and he wanted me to, made me do it, in fact, but he didn’t want me to enjoy it.

  “We were one screwed up bunch. I was really messed up in my head by then. Even though I knew the way we lived was wrong, I just accepted it as right because it was the only way I knew. So I both looked forward to our nights and dreaded them. I knew it would start out good and I’d get my rocks off, but then I’d be punished.”

  “Damn. How long did you stay in that awful hellhole?”

  “I ran away when I was fifteen, but they found me and brought me back. Deke talked the authorities out of putting me back in the system, said I was just going through a teenage phase and he loved me enough to stand by me. So they put me back in their household.”

  “What did he do to you for running away?”

  “He whipped me, worse than he ever had before, and then locked me in my bathroom for two weeks. Naked. No food. I got water from the faucet. When he let me out, after I promised never to run away again, I was pretty weak. Took me about a month to get over that.”

  “How did he explain your absence? At school and church?”

  “Told everybody I had the flu. I hate to admit it, but that just sort of broke my spirit. I didn’t try to run away again. I stayed and did what they wanted me to until I was eighteen. The beatings stopped, though, when I turned seventeen and had a growth spurt. I was taller than Deke was, and I think he was afraid I’d fight back. Then, as soon as I graduated and turned eighteen, I left to join the Army.”

  “And you didn’t ever tell?”

  “Not until after I finally left. I tried to tell the authorities then, but nobody believed me. Other than that, you’re the first person I’ve ever told everything. Though I did confide some of it to a great chaplain I met in the Army. He got me to realize that I was laboring under a ton of guilt. He helped me to finally forgive myself. It was crazy. I was the one who was abused, but I felt guilty.”

  “Yes, that’s not uncommon.”

  Trey pulled her closer. “This guy had suffered as a kid, too, and he helped me to come to terms with it all. Up till then I couldn’t even have a decent relationship with a woman.”

  Oh, Devon, I’m so sorry.”

  “But hey, it’s in the past. And you know what they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But as far as the future goes, I’d like an old-fashioned one.”

  “Old-fashioned?”

  “Yes. A regular home, maybe even with the proverbial white picket fence, with a wife and kids who wouldn’t have to worry about being beaten or made to do unspeakable things. Just an ordinary, old-fashioned life. That
’s what I want, Kayla. Isn’t that what you want?”

  She contemplated her answer only briefly before saying, “No.”

  Trey rose up, turned on the bedside lamp, and propped on an elbow to stare down at her in surprise. “No?”

  “I don’t know that I believe in marriage, Devon, at least not in the sense you do.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I do believe in commitment.”

  “That’s what marriage is, Kayla.”

  “Not necessarily. Sometimes a marriage degenerates into an obstructive cohesiveness because marriage is the socio-political norm, leaving two individuals tied together in misery.”

  “Don’t psychobabble talk me. Just say what you mean, Kayla.”

  “I mean a piece of paper and some person saying words over you doesn’t make you any more married than a sincerely vocalized commitment ceremony.”

  “So you believe two people should just live together without getting married, so either one can walk away without regret if they so choose?”

  “You can walk away whether you’re married or not, Devon.”

  “I know that, but there’s something more binding about an actual marriage ceremony. I’d like to think the woman I loved would love me back enough to want to marry me, carry my name, and have my children.”

  Kayla was silent, nursing that sinking feeling that had begun when this conversation about conventional marriage and home had started.

  As their eyes locked, Kayla thought, somehow I already knew Devon was this kind of man. He’s definitely a one-on-one, you’re-all-mine kind of guy. So why am I disappointed?

  Devastated was the more appropriate word for how she suddenly felt. The answer hit her hard. She was crazy about this man, this virtual stranger, who had so casually wandered into her life and now dominated her senses. Sure, all her partners were wonderful and all could satisfy her, but none had electrified her feelings in the way Devon Walker had managed to do with his astounding lovemaking that had left her wanting more and more.

  And she had to walk away from him. She knew that.

  It would never work for us. Devon will never consent to being a fifth mate and I cannot—will not —discard the four wonderful men already in my life.