Behind Iron Lace

by Celeste, Mercy

  Lunch came and went, Darcy stayed in his office. Caleb went down to O’Doul’s with the office staff. He brought him back a sandwich and a beer but didn’t stay long. Darcy checked in with his other field writers, went through the next months’ worth of leads. He wrote notes and suggestions in the margins of his daily planner. He thought it all through the day as he sat alone in his office, his life, his future. It was time to move on to the life he wanted, not the one Bailey had chosen for him.

  After work he would give Bailey two weeks’ notice. The decision left him feeling oddly lightheaded. To be at loose ends right now scared him, but he had options on the table. Good options.

  He toyed with the idea of going back to school for his doctorate. He always meant to, there just never seemed to be time. The associate professor position would give him the opportunity, if he took it. He wanted to take it. The thought of going home to Oregon appealed to him like nothing else.

  Nothing except waking up every morning next to Caleb. His chest ached at the thought. His stomach swirled in a strange way making him dizzy and lightheaded.

  There were colleges in New Orleans, several to be precise. He might not have a cushy job waiting for him at one but he could definitely apply for graduate school. He had the grades and the test scores and he had the money put away. He could apply for a teaching certificate in Louisiana and teach at one of the many high schools in the parish. There was so much he could do.

  But what if Caleb meant what he said that day out at his family estate? When his mother passed, he would not be here anymore. What if he took one of the offers to go to the Middle East or Korea?

  The thought of losing Caleb scared him. That he could feel this way about a man terrified him. Hell, that he could feel this way at all terrified him.

  At the end of the work day, Darcy finally left his office to do the usual Monday run down on the upcoming release, what he expected the next two days and just a basic pep talk. When he finished he went back into his office, sat heavily on one of the armless visitor chairs, and leaned his head back. The chronic tension ache in his neck had returned sometime after lunch.

  “You hurting again, cher?” The voice was soft and welcome, the heavy click of the door closing set Darcy’s heart to racing. The touch of Caleb’s hand on his shoulder all but killed his ability to breathe and think at the same time.

  “Just tension from holding the phone wrong is all.” Darcy ached with need as Caleb massaged his neck, gripping the muscle tight much like he had the week before. “Your hand on my neck is what got us into this mess.”

  “What mess would that be, cher?” Caleb threw a long leg over his legs and before Darcy could blink, he sat straddling him. His body hard in all the right places felt so damned good Darcy couldn’t help but wrap his arms around him and hold him close.

  “This mess, the one where I can’t stop wanting you. Did you lock the door?” He looked up into Caleb’s eyes, the burning need he saw there made him want to weep.

  “Now why would I do something like that? It might give your crew the wrong idea about us.” His lips were tender when he touched Darcy’s mouth.

  “And someone walking in after I strip you naked wouldn’t do any such thing?” Darcy swallowed Caleb’s rumbling laugh. “Oh God, you taste so good, Caleb, I love you so much.”

  He twined his fingers in Caleb’s hair, holding him gently as the kiss turned primitive. Caleb moved against him, his cock hard and hot as it stroked him through their clothes. “I’ve wanted you all day long, cher. I need you now, baby.”

  “Caleb…” he didn’t know what he was going to say, he didn’t need to say anything, just kiss and explore, and—

  “Hey, Dar?” He heard Bailey gasp. Caleb froze in his arms. Terror like he’d never known seized him. He didn’t need to look at her to know this was not going to go well. “Oh, my God. I am… I don’t… I—oh God.”

  He heard the door close again as all the blood in his body seeped to his feet. “I thought you locked the door?”

  “I did, at least I thought I did.” Caleb was pale, his eyes filled with panic as he climbed off Darcy’s lap. “What do we do now?”

  “How should I know? This is more your department.”

  “Hate to burst your bubble, but I haven’t exactly had to deal with a jealous ex before. Or keeping my boyfriend’s gay little secret for that matter.” Caleb had the decency to wince after the words left his mouth. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. It’s not as if I’m completely out of the closet either. Shit.”

  “I should go and try to explain. I don’t know what I’m going to say. What should I say?” Darcy’s brain raced in circles with fear and panic chasing each other in tight twisting turns. “Shit.”

  “I wouldn’t say anything. It’s not her business. But I’m not you, what do you want her to know? That I was just too pretty to resist. That I forced myself on you. That you are just experimenting with your sexuality. Anything you say probably will fall on deaf ears anyway.” Caleb turned his back to him. He stood at the window looking out over the street his shoulders slumped. “I’m gay, Darcy, most of the rest of what I told you was bullshit, except that. I sleep with women to hide who I really am. So long as you know two truths about me, I am gay, and I am in love with you. You’re going to have to figure everything else out for yourself. And that includes your relationship with Bailey.”

  “Do you think she will out me, us, if I don’t go talk to her?” Who was he kidding? This was Bailey after all. The term drama queen was invented for her.

  “Probably, she seems the type to use something like that against you. At least go and test the waters. Tell her whatever you want. I’ll wait here for you. We’ll go somewhere after and talk.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “As horrible as it is to say, she doesn’t even know the world exists anymore, she won’t miss me for a couple of hours longer. At any rate, we said our goodbyes a long time ago, last rites have been performed, there’s nothing left but a shell waiting to die. It’s killing me watching her suffer, I need to feel alive or I’m afraid I’ll follow her to the grave.” He turned to face him, his long lean arms crossed over his chest as if he were cold. The silver bracelets made the slightest sound. “You made me feel alive again, baby. Just go talk to Bailey. It’s been coming since before we met, afterward we’ll figure this thing between us out.”

  “All right.” Darcy still had no idea what he could say to save his ass. Deep inside he didn’t know if it mattered. He was thinking about making a life with Caleb, yet here he was unable to face the idea he might actually be gay. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  He glanced at Caleb one last time before he left the safety of his office. There were only a few people still lingering in the office, Amber met his gaze over her computer, she looked puzzled, no one else even noticed him. He took that as a good sign Bailey hadn’t already spread what she’d seen around the office.

  He knocked once at her door and, without waiting for her to answer, he walked inside and came face to face with a pair of dangerous eyes filled with malicious intent. “Hey Bailey, your faggot boyfriend is here.”

  Shit. So much for this being between the two of them.

  Too many minutes had passed. Caleb paced Darcy’s small office, going to the window to peer out as he tried to be patient and give him time. But how much time did he really need to talk to Bailey? Either she would keep quiet or she wouldn’t. Caleb leaned toward the wouldn’t side.

  After fifteen minutes, his patience gave out and he stepped out into the main office. Amber sat at her desk staring off toward the back, her face pale. She held her phone limply in her hand, her eyes looked frightened. That’s when he heard the shouts. Darcy’s voice and another, a deeper voice than Bailey could possibly have.

  “What’s going on?” Amber half stood but Caleb motioned for her to sit still. “Why is Darcy shouting? Caleb…?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” He ease
d down the hall to Bailey’s office, shaking his head when Amber rose to follow him. The door was slightly ajar. He could see Bailey standing against the wall, shock on her face, and her hand over her mouth.

  “Damn it, Bailey, call your bitch off,” he heard Darcy say. His voice was low, almost a growl filled with anger and frustration. He couldn’t stand hearing him like that so he pushed the door open and just stood there for a moment trying to take in what he saw.

  Darcy lay on the floor. His glasses, broken in two, were near the door, a trickle of blood oozed from his nose. But that wasn’t what set his heart to racing.

  Chester sat on his chest, his knees on Darcy’s arms, holding him pinned. Darcy tried to throw him off, his stomach heaved with each attempt.

  “All this time I’ve been trying to get your attention, all this time you played straight, and in the end some pretty fuck was all it took to make you show your true colors. I fucked your damn girlfriend, hoping you’d notice me. I took her completely away from you and you let me.”

  “Chester, stop this.” This from Bailey, her face contorted with sorrow. “Get off him.”

  “He won’t take you back. You’re not his type Bai, now that he’s tasted man meat. Does he have a big dick, your boyfriend? Bigger than mine?” Chester eased up on his knees and undid his jeans.

  Caleb couldn’t see past the red haze filling his brain. He launched himself into the office with a roar and in seconds, he was staring into the much smaller man’s terrified eyes. “Keep your Goddamned hands off him, you little fuck, or I will—”

  Chester quickly lost his fear, his lips curled into a sneer, there was a demon in his eyes, one with knowledge he shouldn’t have. “Or what, you’ll kill me just like you did your lover in Baton Rouge?”

  Caleb lifted him off the floor with one hand, his neck muscles tightened under his grip. “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know all about you, Remy Caleb Lasseigne Mitchell. I looked you up.” His voice was strained, but he didn’t struggle, he just smiled an oily smile and laughed in his face. “Darcy, your boyfriend here spent two years in prison. Did you know that before you let him fuck you?”

  “Shut up.” Cold slithered along Caleb’s spine, making him weak, the haze in his brain turned black.

  “Do it, choke me to death, just like you did your professor boyfriend. Think you’ll get just a manslaughter sentence this time without your grandfather to protect you? Oh yeah, I know about him too. One of the great crime bosses back in the day. He owned half this city. The whores and the bars. Nice family you’re marrying into there, Dar.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Darcy laid his hand on his arm. Shame overwhelmed him at the touch. “Caleb? Is that true?”

  Caleb let Chester fall to the floor. He lay there holding his neck and laughing. “I’m pressing charges, you prick. Gonna send your ass back to jail.”

  “Do it and I’ll send you right along with him,” Darcy said. He was so close Caleb could smell him. He could hear the adrenaline pumping in his system. “Caleb?”

  “It’s true. All true.” Caleb couldn’t look at him. He didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes. He didn’t want to see the betrayal or the hate that would follow. “I’m sorry.”

  The black haze was gone now, purged by fear and the need to save his own skin. He pushed past Darcy and without looking to see where he was going he pelted down the three flights of stairs to the street. The air outside was too heavy, he couldn’t catch his breath. A storm was brewing, the gray clouds pressed down on him, pushing him to the concrete as if it wanted to bury him.

  Without thinking, he turned and started to run, only stopping when the familiar sign of something safe came into view.

  He saw his uncle’s startled face as he burst into the bar, the early evening crowd parted for him. “Caleb, cher, what—”

  Caleb reached over the bar and pulled out the first full bottle of whiskey he could get his hands on and with a twist of his wrist, he had it open. He didn’t answer his uncle. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He pushed his way through the crowd to the back and the private rooms where he slammed the door closed on what was going to be his future. The whiskey burned a path to his stomach. He stumbled into a row of filing cabinets and that’s where he was when he heard the door open.

  “I don’t know, cher, he looks like the hounds of hell are after him. Did he hit you, Darcy?” his uncle said softly; there was concern in his voice.

  Caleb heard a soft “no, someone else did,” and something in him broke. He couldn’t stop the sob that erupted from somewhere deep inside.

  “I’ll get you some ice.”

  “It’s okay, just a scratch, I’ll live.”

  “If you’re sure, cher? I’ll leave you to sort him out then.”

  “Okay.”

  The door closed, trapping Caleb in with his past and his lost future. Darcy didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Caleb took a gulp of whiskey letting the anger he kept in check loose from its cage. “Just say what you came to say and then go, okay?”

  “I’m trying to understand. I don’t want to take that little slime ball’s word. Caleb, please tell me what he said isn’t true.” There was despair in his voice.

  “It’s true. I spent two years in prison for murdering my first lover.”

  “The professor? You were what, eighteen or nineteen?” The despair was gone now, replaced by a calm reasoning tone. God, Caleb hated the tone. It was the shrink voice.

  “Eighteen. I was wild back then. I was into just about anything I could think of to piss my father off. Drugs, petty theft, tagging. I raised hell in this town with my grandfather pulling my ass out of the fire on more than one occasion. Helps having a mob boss in your corner, cher.”

  “Don’t use that accent right now. Be straight with me, Caleb, help me understand this.”

  “I told you the day we met that I come with a load of shit. Remember?”

  “I remember. Everybody has shit.”

  “Not like mine. You won’t like what I was, what I did. But I’m not that person anymore.”

  “I know. Just tell me what happened. Make me understand.”

  Caleb turned to face him. The blood from the gash on his nose had dried now, a bruise beginning to spread around his left eye. He sank to the floor in a crouch leaning against the wall. Anger welled in him at the pain in the blue eyes staring down at him. He couldn’t do this. This man—this man—he didn’t deserve this man. He didn’t deserve the love of someone so pure.

  “I told you the truth, mostly, he was a photography professor. I took his class, and discovered I had a talent for capturing more than was visible to the naked eye. He liked my vision and he liked my paintings. I was looking for a father figure, I guess. Hell, now that I think about it he was older than my own father. I let him seduce me.”

  Darcy just nodded as he leaned back against the door. “I really was a virgin, and I was in love. I was so fucking stupid. Darcy, I can’t tell you this shit. I’ve never told anyone this.”

  “He used you. Come on, Caleb, there are professors at every college like him.”

  “Not like him. Christ, I hope not, that would be tragic. He took me home with him for Christmas to meet his wife. To fuck his wife while he watched. It was messed up. He fucked me, I fucked her. They were messed up. I thought I’d died and gone to some kind of perverted heaven. When school started back, we met in a motel every evening. About a month after that, I found a strange man waiting for me. I let him do things to me while the professor watched. I liked it. I liked them all. In the spring—” the memory of that night threatened to kill him. Even after all these years it hurt so much.

  “There was another man?” Darcy nudged him out of silence.

  “A big one, bigger than me, he was… rough. It was brutal. When he was finished fucking me, he beat the hell out of me. Broke two of my ribs, split my lip wide open, broke a tooth or two. I could barely see. I wasn’t a virgin. He was pissed, because I
wasn’t a virgin like he was promised. Ranting about the money he paid to have a fucking virgin ass to fuck and I was a fucking whore.”

  “Oh.” The shock in Darcy’s voice tore at him. Caleb took a gulp of whiskey. In for a penny in for a pound.

  “He’d been selling me. Pimping me out to his friends, then strangers, for money. Because he liked watching and he had a lifestyle to support. After they were through, he’d hold me, and pet me like a fucking dog. Call me his good boy. I was getting laid, and my ego stroked. I never thought…” He pushed the memory into a small box and after another drag on the whiskey bottle, he leaned his head on his knees. “That night, I couldn’t control the monster that lives just under my skin. He was selling me. He didn’t love me. He was—I choked him to death with my own two hands. Someone called the cops. When they busted in I was sitting naked on the floor. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I couldn’t tell them what happened. I couldn’t speak. I went to the hospital. A couple of days later I went to jail. I was a John Doe. My grandfather came looking for me. But it was too late. I had already confessed to manslaughter. He pulled some strings. Even in Baton Rouge, he had some power, not much but some. I got a light sentence. Five years. After two, my grandfather had the charges dropped to self-defense and got me out. He used his influence on the inside too to protect me. All I had to do was be someone’s bitch and my life was easy. Of course, he carved his fucking name in my flesh. His gang symbols on my body. He tatted me up real good. Could have been worse, could have been my face, or my arms. I could have had to service a whole cellblock. Or get my ass kicked for being too pretty. Or a Lasseinge or, well, it didn’t take much to get your ass kicked.”

  Darcy didn’t say anything, but Caleb could hear him, his breath was harsh as if he was crying. He couldn’t take that. “When I got out my grandfather picked me up. Gave me a car and a few hundred thousand dollars and told me to disappear. I wasn’t to show myself back home and upset my family. The scandal had nearly killed my mother and he wouldn’t put up with a damned fag for a grandson. He’d done all he was going to do for me. I was twenty years old and I was on my own.”