For I Have Sinned: Bastian and Rob 1 (Southern Sin)

by Julia McBryant

  “I’ll play with it if I want to.”

  “Then you’ll get nothing from me. Pick.”

  Bastian’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  “You can pick. Your right hand or actual sex, Bastian. I won’t play with you if you keep acting like such a seductive brat. You do it for attention, which I’m happy to give you in other ways. I’m happy to cuddle you instead of fucking you. What do you really want right now? Think hard.”

  “I am thinking hard.” Bastian smirked.

  Rob gritted his teeth, turned, and walked out.

  Sure enough, not two minutes later, Bastian appeared.

  “Daddy? Daddy? I’m ready to go to the grocery store now, Daddy. Can we cuddle on the couch after? I don’t know how to cook but can you show me? What do you want to eat tonight?”

  Rob decided to ignore everything that had happened. Bastian had made a decision; it was the smart one, the well-behaved one. So Rob took him to the grocery store. They held hands in the parking lot, Bastian under his shoulder, cuddling against him, begging for physical contact.

  “What do you want?” Rob grabbed a cart. Bastian walked way too close to him.

  “I don’t know, D— Rob. I can’t cook.”

  “We need dinner and we need breakfast. How about mozzarella balls wrapped in basil and melon with prosciutto for dinner? Then we’ll get stuff for sweet tea and coffee, plus your yogurt and my cereal.”

  “Okay.”

  “Go grab us some basil. I’ll pick out a melon.”

  Rob found Bastian staring at vegetables a few minutes later. He laughed. “Oh sweet boy. You don’t know what basil looks like, do you?”

  Bastian reddened.

  “C’mere. Let me show you.” Rob helped him find the basil, then showed him how to pick a good bunch. He showed Bastian how to find the prosciutto with the cured meat, and where the mozzarella balls were, then how to pick a good balsamic reduction and a good olive oil. Bastian got the milk, creamer, and yogurt while he picked out his cereal; they went to find the tea and coffee together. Rob pointed out the ones his mother had always used to make sweet tea. “Red Rose. Always Red Rose. Never Lipton.”

  Bastian snagged expensive coffee. Rob let him, and grabbed a bag of sugar on the way out. Bastian helped load the bags in the car; he helped carry them in the house.

  Rob took charge in the kitchen. “Wash the basil first. Now pick the leaves off and lay one over every cut-up piece of mozzarella. Good. Thank God my mother kept decent salt and pepper and that never goes bad. Grate some sea salt and pepper over it. Now a little olive oil, then plenty of the balsamic. Very good. That’s half of dinner.”

  He cut the melon. Bastian helped him wrap it in prosciutto. By then the tea had brewed, and they sat down to dinner.

  Rob smiled a little as Bastian dug in. “What do you think of it up here?”

  He swallowed. “I like it.”

  “What do you like?”

  “It’s not mine. It was never mine. It’s pretty. I like the bay and I like swimming, but I like best that it wasn’t ever mine.”

  Rob stroked his cheek. “I’m so sorry. It’ll get better.”

  “It already is, some. This is really good. Thank you.”

  “Thank yourself. You made half of it.”

  He spent time spinning on the swing while Rob cleaned up.

  They watched a movie, Bastian nearly on top of Rob and the possum on top of Bastian. Rob tucked him up warmly under one of his mother’s old throws and kept getting him drinks. He asked Bastian over and over if he needed anything. Bastian would have to get used to that.

  When the movie ended, Rob flipped off the TV. “Bedtime.”

  “I’m not tired! I was going to —”

  “Boys need their sleep. You need to go to bed. C’mon, Bastian.”

  Bastian huffed. Rob decided to ignore it. He gave Bastian a pillow to hold, made him banish the dogs from the bed, and lay half on top of him, the way he liked. Bastian mewed quietly and rubbed his ass against Rob.

  “Bastian.” Rob shifted away from him. “No.”

  “Daddy, I need it.” He grabbed Rob’s hand and rested it on his cock. “Look how hard I am.”

  “You’ll not get it from me.” Rob moved his hand. He simply could not keep giving in every time Bastian wanted sex. But Bastian did sleep better after he got off. “You want it? Take a shower and take care of it yourself.”

  “Dad-dy. I want Daddy cuddles.”

  “You need to learn self-control. But for now, take care of it yourself.”

  And goddamn if Bastian didn’t huff, stretch out on his stomach, and ignore Rob. Rob took him in his arms, put weight on him, and let him fall asleep. He stayed awake. Bastian needed to heal. To heal he needed discipline — not spanking, but regular, predictable routine. He needed to be kept in line, yes, but he needed routine. He needed cuddled and taken care of as much as he’d let Rob.

  Rob set alarms before he fell asleep. When they blared at six, he flipped them off and woke Bastian.

  “C’mon, kelpie. Time to go for a swim.”

  Bastian made a noise and flipped over.

  “C’mon. I’ll make us some coffee. We’ve got a lot to do today, kelpie.”

  Bastian needed to be kept busy. He needed discipline. He couldn’t sit around the house all summer.

  So Rob dragged him out of bed, handed him coffee, made him drink water, and shoved a protein bar at him. He didn’t have a bathing suit with him, so Rob sent him out to the bay in skimpy shorts and stayed on the shore to watch. Bastian swam out far, long freestyle strokes, beautiful to watch, then turned and came back. Rob waited with a warm towel. He dried Bastian’s head first so he wouldn’t catch a chill, then walked him inside and stuck him in the shower. He tried so goddamn hard to think of everything.

  “Do you want me to wash your hair for you?”

  Bastian nodded.

  Rob stripped and got in with him. Might as well. He scrubbed Bastian, then himself. Bastian fairly ogled him. “Stop it. Or I’ll get you your own cock cage.”

  Bastian’s eyes widened. “Please no Daddy.”

  “Then don’t be rude.” Bastian lowered his eyes. “That’s sweeter, sprite. What a good boy, and don’t you look pretty like that.” He dried Bastian with the fluffiest towel he could find, dressed him in pajamas, and fed him breakfast. Rob actually fed him breakfast, a spoonful of yogurt at a time.

  “This is stupid.”

  “Hush and let me baby you. You went how many years without it? Now go swing while I order some things off the internet for you.”

  “I’d rather read.”

  “Go swing for a while first. It calms you down and it’s good for you.”

  Bastian twirled mindlessly for a while. Rob placed several orders. He went out to fetch Bastian. “C’mon. I laid your clothes out.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “Thank you. I hate picking out clothes.”

  Rob kissed his forehead. “I know, baby.”

  He drove them down to the art center in town and grabbed two class schedules. Then he took Bastian to a nearby cafe and bought him some coffee. “Three classes. I pick one, you pick the other, and we agree on a third.”

  “What?!”

  “Pick. Or I’ll pick all three.”

  Rob had always been very, very good at drawing, so he picked that class. Bastian hemmed and hawed and finally picked a pottery throwing class. They argued over the third and finally chose something called “Creative Channeling” that promised object art and fine art and basically whatever they wanted. “There. That’s some kind of structure. And there’s a very good yoga studio that offers early morning classes every day. We’ll be taking those at 7:00am Monday through Friday.” He said it flatly so Bastian couldn’t argue. Of-fucking-course, he did.

  “What?! Who said I wanted to do yoga at the asscrack of dawn?”

  Rob leaned close in. “Daddy said so. Daddy says you need to le
arn to relax. You can swim in the afternoons.” He straightened up. “Anyway, you can do it shirtless if you want and have all the soccer moms drool over you, little exhibitionist.”

  Bastian sort of grinned. Yeah, he’d enjoy that.

  They had an uneventful day: lunch, setting up the house. Rob insisted Bastian take an afternoon nap. Of course, that meant cuddling up with him. Which meant that Rob got hard. Bastian moved on him a little. “Daddy?” He used that sweet little voice.

  “What is it, baby?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m so hard, Daddy. I wanna play with my cock and you don’t let me.”

  Rob slid a hand under Bastian, between his legs. “Oh, you are hard.” Like he was fucking surprised. Bastian rubbed on his hand shamelessly. “Look at you. What a brat, rubbing yourself on me like that.” But he was rising too at Bastian hardening.

  “Can we play a game, Daddy? I love to play games.”

  Rob considered it. They could play Bastian’s way in the morning, but only if Rob got him to cuddle at night. “Only if you say you’ll let me cuddle you in my arms tonight.”

  “Ok-ay. I’m just so turned on right now. I can’t think straight. My cock’s so hard. You know how hard my cock gets.” He paused. “Father.”

  “I should spank you.”

  “You like it. You love me slutty, Father. You love a slutty boy in your bed.” Bastian turned to look at him, big eyes blinking widely, a smirk twisting his pretty mouth. “That’s why you liked me from the beginning. You knew I was slutty. You always knew. And when you saw me rubbing my cock in your office you were just gone, weren’t you? Bet you still jerk off about that. I should’ve made myself come in my Speedo, wouldn’t you have loved that? You wanted to fuck me so bad. Now you love that you have a slutty boy who’ll do whatever you ask all the time. You brought me all the way up here so we could play without anyone knowing. What did you order me off the internet, Father? Did you think I can’t check a browser history? It was nice of you to order me some yoga gear and swimsuits. But the other stuff? I saw all the rope you ordered, and the restraints — nice of you to get the padded ones. And you call me a slutty boy. You want to play with me like a toy, don’t you?

  Rob bit his lip. Fuck. He had planned to deploy all of that selectively, as surprises, over the course of the entire summer, when Bastian had been particularly well-behaved. Or not, depending. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

  “And you’re wondering why I’m so stiff?”

  “I should spank you for snooping on my laptop.”

  “Thanks for the super-premium lube, too.” As glad as he was that Bastian seemed back to his sarcastic, bratty self, he shouldn’t be this goddamn bratty.

  Rob took a deep breath. “You were very bad. That was extremely naughty of you to go digging through my computer and I don’t expect you to ever do it again, do you understand?”

  “Why? You got porn on there? Can I see? Girls or guys?”

  “Daddy says turn around now.”

  Bastian whirled around with a little squeak he clearly couldn’t control.

  “I know you can’t take a nap without getting off. And you need to take a nap. But I’m going to do the goddamn bare minimum for you, do you understand? And you’re in trouble for the rest of the day. No TV, no books. You can swing, you can swim, or you can help me with the house. That’s all. When you wake up, we’re going to the grocery store and you’re going to help cook dinner. Immediately afterwards, you’re going to bed and I don’t care how tired you are. I’ll pet you until you go to sleep, and I’ll even help you go to sleep, but there’s your day.”

  “Then I don’t wanna nap now.”

  “You need your rest. Lie still.” Rob cupped his now-soft cock in his briefs. “Don’t think I’ll be taking these off you.” He began stroking Bastian. “And don’t think I’m taking you out, either.” He teased and petted, ran his hand up and down until Bastian was stiff, then began jerking him quickly. Bastian went fast, sticky in his briefs.

  “Go clean up and change. I’ll stay here until you go to sleep.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  He stayed quiet and well-behaved for the rest of the day. That night, before bed, Rob reminded him what he promised. “You said if we played your way this afternoon, I could cuddle you tonight.”

  “You never played a game. So I don’t have to.”

  “Then you don’t get anything.”

  “Okay.”

  Bastian tossed and turned, clearly restless. Rob refused to relent. He got cuddling or he got nothing, but he couldn’t stand to see Bastian so frustrated and unable to sleep. Finally, he got up and went looking for something.

  Sure enough, he found a pair of old winter gloves in a closet. He cut the tops off and bound them together with some room between them. Bastian could push them off, but he’d feel restrained. “Put these on. I didn’t get the restraints to tie you to the fucking bed. I got them because you could sleep in them and feel safe. They’re padded and you’d wear them loose so they didn’t hurt you.”

  Bastian blinked at him and slipped the improvised gloves on. He tugged; they held, thank God. He pulled his hands under his chin. “Thank you, Daddy. Can you lie mostly on top of me now?”

  Rob held him close. This was as much cuddling as he would get tonight. Bastian molded himself against him. “I love you.” Rob kissed his head. “I’m trying my best, Bastian. I swear to God I’m trying my best to take care of you. I know I’m fucking up. But I’m trying.”

  “I’m trying to let you but it’s hard because you’ll go away.” Bastian spoke in a dreamy voice. Poor thing. It was so much easier for him when he was held so tightly.

  “No, sprite, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “But you might. And I don’t wanna go to UGA. I know too many people there.”

  Rob took a deep breath. “Then we can figure something else out, okay?”

  “I’d even do Carolina. Just not UGA, okay? Please don’t make me. I’m so scared.”

  He switched, so easily, from that sarcastic, mocking teenager to this frightened child Rob held in his arms. Rob could take care of him. If he gave him enough discipline and structure, if he gave him enough love, if Bastian worked hard enough on banishing the idea that he killed Brendan — he could be okay. And if he stopped worrying Rob would leave. How could Rob prove he wouldn’t leave? He had already left everything else behind.

  “What will make you know I’ll stay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There must be something. What can I do? What would make you believe it? I left everything behind. I moved you up here with your menagerie. I’m taking care of you as best I can.”

  Bastian turned to him and blinked. “Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Say I killed Brendan. Say you love me anyway.”

  “But you didn’t —”

  The dreaminess disappeared. “Say you know I’m capable of the worst thing you can imagine, and you still love me. Say it. Say you know I killed him and you still love me.”

  “I’m not feeding into that delusion. You were a little boy. You didn’t kill him.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I did or didn’t in the end, does it?”

  “I refuse to say that you did. I won’t do it. I won’t feed that bullshit.”

  Bastian kept looking at him. He seemed to be waiting. The air hung heavy in the bedroom. Bastian was a terrible weight in his arms, a hurting thing. Anything to make that hurt go away — he would do anything. Fuck it. Just fuck it. Rob looked into his eyes. “If you killed Brendan —" because he couldn’t make himself get closer than that ” —I still love you. I still think you’re worthy of love. You’re still a good, brave boy, and you’re still mine. Even if that’s what happened, Bastian.”

  Bastian broke down.

  He hadn’t expected that to happen. Rob pulled the gloves off him. He gathered Bastian into his arms and held him as tightly as h
e could. Any sort of comforting phrase, he mouthed it, groping for words in the face of something so enormous. I love you. You are good. You are brave. You’re kind and gentle and you never, never have to worry again. I have you. I won’t let go. I promise I won’t let go, baby, I won’t let you go.

  Bastian cried for most of the night, deep, hitching, hard sobs. Rob couldn’t fathom, after so many hours, where they came from, how even grief could find such energy. But sometime around dawn, as the black began seeping into gray, Bastian’s sobs turned to whimpers, then simply to tears. “Let me get you some water. You’ve cried yourself sick, baby boy. You have a fever.”

  Bastian nodded. He drank a whole glass in one hard chug. “Can I have some Advil?” He hadn’t spoken real words all night, only those terrible sobs.

  Rob got him some, and some more water. He downed that, too.

  Rob sat next to him and pushed the sweaty stands of dark hair from his forehead. They were getting so long. “You need to rest for a day or two, honey. You made yourself sick.”

  Bastian nodded. “Stay with me until I go to sleep?”

  Rob curled around him. “I’ll stay as long as you need.”

  Chapter 8

  Something had shifted.

  They began yoga later in the week. Bastian got up without grumbling. He checked; with his grades, Carolina would still let him in. He made plans to transfer everything. What the fuck Rob would do, he wasn’t sure. But something would come up eventually. South Carolina was hurting for teachers.

  They started their art classes. As soon as Rob picked up the pencil, it came back like an old, forgotten power: the ability to look differently at a thing, to shade and shadow and sketch what began as odd forms into something beautiful. Rob hadn’t missed it until he had it back. Bastian laughed at his own efforts, but Rob — Rob touched something lost, the reason he’d almost taken the art track in high school. It returned to him as if he’d never left, this gift, the pencil on page, the flow of it. He began drawing when Bastian swam in the afternoons.

  Bastian’s swimmer’s body started to return, those long lats. He looked like himself again. He cuddled more. He even learned to throw on the wheel, and he enjoyed it. Rob never got the hang of it. Goddamn thing, his pots always collapsed. Rob caught Bastian doing yoga outside of class and sneaked out of the room before Bastian saw him. It was helping. Something was helping. The discipline or the love or that admission on the horrible long night, something had helped. Or maybe Rob was learning to be a better daddy. God, he hoped he was being a better daddy. He hoped he was taking care of his Bastian. He drew. He drew Bastian; he drew fruit; he drew fish and crabs and whatever he could think of. He filled pads of paper.