by A. C. Katt
“I thought he called you guys. He didn’t call me. I don’t know where he is. It’s not like him to be late.”
“He has a cell phone. Why don’t you call him?” Rick suggested.
Milo dialed the number. No answer. Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang.
Milo picked it up. “Liam? Where are you?” The others watched as his expression changed and tears ran down his cheeks. He kept his voice calm—barely. When he hung up, he explained, “He sounds hysterical. He found Lily and she wasn’t breathing. They’re on their way to Bayshore Community Hospital. I’ve got to go.”
“We’ll all go,” Sam replied. “You’re in no shape to drive.”
They arrived just in time to say goodbye. Gentle, caring Lily died, and Liam became Milo’s responsibility.
Chapter 3
Memories, like shattered glass sparkle in the sun
Razors to the heart they are, each and every one
—Liam O’Shea, “Razors to the Heart”, Just Liam
* * * *
Liam believed his mother had survived her last year on iron will alone. She badly wanted to witness her boy’s success. It took three days to bury Lily with all the formality and honor Liam and Milo felt she deserved.
Liam held up until the day after the funeral. Company came, some of whom hadn’t made it to the funeral. Suddenly, he bolted from the living room, where his neighbors and friends had gathered to offer comfort, and ran to the upstairs toilet. Thirty-one minutes later, after Milo saw to the guests, he sought Liam out. He found him curled on the bathroom rug next to the toilet, his face red from exertion and tears. He clutched his stomach, the muscles sore to the touch.
“I should have come up here sooner. Guess you have nothing left to heave, buddy.” Milo reached up to the rack over the toilet and pulled down a plain white washcloth. He wet it in the sink. Then, sitting down next to Liam, Milo pulled him onto his lap. “Don’t worry. I’ll get the hang of this guardian stuff.”
Milo wiped Liam’s face and hands with the cool cloth. He placed a gentle kiss on Liam’s forehead, and Liam broke out again in heartfelt sobs. He cried on Milo’s chest while Milo rocked him back and forth to soothe him.
After a while, Liam’s body and brain began to function. Nestled in Milo’s arms he got a raging hard on, and underneath his ass he felt the poke of reciprocal interest. When Liam turned to Milo to respond, Milo hugged him in a quick fashion before shoving Liam off his lap.
Milo rose, and in a brisk tone said, “Please, get it together. The people downstairs wish to pay their respects to your mother, and they can only do so by talking to you.” Then Milo turned on his heel and walked out of the bathroom.
Liam knew he had lost control. For years he’d maintained iron control around Milo. He’d known he was gay since his first flush of sexual interest around the age of twelve. He arranged ‘Lover’s Suite’ to serve as his declaration of love to Milo, a love that Liam believed Milo would never return. Yet even in his current misery, Liam felt the poke of Milo’s interested organ.
The way Milo backed away from me so quickly tells me he doesn’t want me to know. He thinks I’m too young. I’ll just have to show him I’m not. With a new determination, Liam went down to see to the guests.
* * * *
Over the three days following Lily’s death, the band moved in to Liam’s house. The guys planned it that way, but Liam felt it should be just him and Milo. When the last guests left, Rick, more than half-plastered, went to bed. Sam and Milo went out to one of the local pubs for a few beers.
“You know,” Milo said, “Liam doesn’t like it that we all moved in together.”
“Did you give him the line about bonding and needing the practice time?”
“Yeah, but it’s not flying. I’m happy you guys are there if for nothing other than keeping me honest.” Milo lifted his bottle to Sam in a half-hearted toast.
“Look, bro, you have to keep it in your pants for at least another two years. Longer, if you can. He needs time to grow up and fall in love.”
Milo shot Sam a look. “You’re kidding me. You know as well as I do what Liam’s orientation always has been. We grew up protecting him from himself.”
“Yeah, and now we have to loosen the reins and let him get some experience. Don’t worry, I’ll give him the safe sex lecture. I know you can’t do it. You want to lock him up for a couple of years so that when he’s ready, you can pounce.”
“I know he’s gay,” Milo insisted.
“I know you’re gay, yet I’ve seen you fuck cheerleaders until the leather split on the back seat upholstery of your old man’s Buick. If you don’t push him out of the nest, you’ll be full of doubt and regret later. It’ll be like waiting for a train wreck.”
* * * *
At two A.M. that morning, Liam heard Sam and Milo fumbling with the door keys as they tried to be quiet in the loud way only drunks can manage. He thought he heard a giggle and crept out of his room to the top of the stairs. Sam tiptoed downstairs to the bottom floor of the bi-level to the fourth bedroom, which he claimed as his own because he wanted no distractions from his studies.
Liam sat on the third floor landing where he could observe the door, stairs, and living room from behind the wrought iron rails of the balcony.
If that bimbette on his arm doesn’t qualify as a distraction, I’m not sure what does.
Then Liam noticed Milo had a distraction of his own. A curvy blonde with big hair and not too many clothes sat on the couch next to Milo. Liam watched as Milo fondled her breasts without much interest. He would bet that he wasn’t even hard. Liam let out a sigh.
Milo shouted from the room below. “Liam, get the fuck into your room and go to sleep. I may live here, but have enough common decency to give me some privacy.”
Liam skulked back into his room, pulled the pillow over his head, and for the second time that day lost it. However, this time Milo didn’t hear him over the moans of the slut downstairs.
Milo spent their first evening alone in the house banging her into the floorboards under the living room rug.
* * * *
1997
With Liam’s eighteenth birthday two months away, the situation at the house deteriorated. It became too small for four men and everyone chafed at the lack of privacy. As their fame grew, the once-quiet house became a tourist attraction. Liam finally had enough.
One morning, as Milo shoved yet another one of his bimbettes out the door before heading to the kitchen, Liam stomped down the stairs. “Milo,” he shouted from the stairs, “this is my house, right?” Liam entered the kitchen, his body taunt with tension, his face red.
Not knowing what had him upset, Milo nodded in assent.
“If this really is my house, I want to sell it and move into a condominium by myself. I feel like I’m running a whorehouse in Vegas. I’m no longer comfortable in my own home.”
“Calm down, Liam. Us guys are entitled to a little recreation.”
“Then how come I’m not one of the guys? The last time I brought a guy I met home, you swarmed all over us like flies on shit. I’m seventeen; I’ll be eighteen in two months. I want out of this fucking gilded cage.”
“I promised your mother I would take care of you until your eighteenth birthday. Then you can do whatever the fuck you want. But until then, you live by my rules.”
“Well, you better start looking for real estate, because on my eighteenth birthday I’m outta here, even if I have to sleep in the park!” Liam stormed out the door, got into the Miata he received for his seventeenth birthday, and took off down the street.
Rick and Sam entered the kitchen. Both men looked at Milo warily.
“Looks like you screwed the pooch once too often,” Rick told Milo. “I warned you he was at the breaking point. You can’t be his confidant, friend, and almost lover during the day, and then bring a broad home at night and screw her until she screams. These walls are thin, man. He hears everything. He won’t go to sleep until he know
s you’re home, either.”
“I hate to admit it,” Sam said, “but my brother’s right. You are too jealous to let him have a relationship of his own, yet you flaunt yours in his face.”
“What relationships do I have? I’ve never slept with the same woman twice since he turned sixteen. I spend almost all my spare time with him. We rehearse together, we eat together, we hang out together. The only thing I don’t do is sleep with him. Damn it, you know I can’t do that for another two months.”
“If you really want him,” Rick said as he made his coffee, “start courting him and stop bringing home the bimbos. You should have enough strength of character to last for two months without sex. God knows the kid hasn’t even been able to cop a feel since he hit sixteen. That’s down right unnatural.”
Sam poured himself a cup of coffee. “Going to look for a new house might be a good idea. I suggest we look in Rumson. We can afford it, and they handle celebrities well over there. At least women won’t show up at the front door swinging their panties in his face.”
Sam poured some cream into his coffee. “You have a tendency to procrastinate, Milo. You haven’t started auditioning drummers, and you know I’m leaving in January. You’ve let Liam drift without ever telling him how much he means to you. You’re still in the fucking closet, for Christ’s sake, and your father’s been dead for a year and your mother’s in Florida and wouldn’t care if you were a eunuch as long as you keep on sending her support checks. Get your ducks in order, or the band’s going to lose its singer, and you’ll lose far more than that.”
“Yes, damn it, I’ve been saving him for myself. I’ve waited two years so I can do the right thing by him. I gave Lily my word to take care of him, and that means waiting until he’s legal.” Milo brought his fist down on the scarred oak table. “I refuse to lose him. I’m going to tell him everything tonight. It’ll sure as hell make the next eight weeks go easier. As for you two, don’t come home tonight. Sam, if you really need to study, go to your mother’s. Rick, you always have somewhere to go. Don’t come home piss drunk, go get a room.”
Milo stalked upstairs, looking back once to see the Stein brothers grinning at each other.
* * * *
When Liam returned home that night, he found Milo waiting in the living room with an open bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table. Liam looked at him quizzically. Milo never kept liquor in the house.
“Hi, baby,” Milo said softly. “Come sit with me.” Milo patted the open cushion on the couch beside him. Liam sat, warily facing Milo.
“What’s that for?” Liam asked with suspicion.
“It is a bottle of 1985 E. Guigal Cote Rotie La Mouline, a Bordeaux from France. It’s a peace offering of sorts. I’ve got to tell you some things. Please don’t interrupt me, I have difficulty talking about my emotions as it is.”
“Okay,” Liam said as he fiddled with the button on his shirt. He looked down and to the side, not wishing to meet Milo’s eyes. He prepared himself for news he knew he didn’t want to hear.
“Please look at me, baby,” Milo asked in a gentle voice. He put his hand lightly on Liam’s right shoulder. “The last two years have been the most difficult of my life.” Milo watched as Liam’s eyes filled with tears.
Liam wiped his sleeve across his face and stared at the man he loved so fiercely. “You don’t have to take care of me anymore. In two months I’ll be eighteen and out of your hair forever, if that’s what you want.”
The twin furrows appeared across Milo’s brow, and he began to bite his lip. Feeling nauseous, Liam stood and clenched his fists. Milo grabbed his hand and pulled him back down to the couch so close that their thighs met.
“Baby, please sit next to me.” Milo poured a little wine into the two glasses. “Fine wine is meant to be savored. The longer it stays in the cellar, if it was a good year and the rains came, and the sun shone on the grapes, it ages and becomes better over time. Then it reaches a peak. The sommelier uses his wisdom and experience to determine the moment when the wine reaches perfection, when it has to come out of the cellar to be savored for all of its taste, texture, and bouquet.”
Liam settled, relaxing into Milo’s side, soothed by his melodious tone of voice.
* * * *
Milo pulled Liam onto his lap, gently stroking his hair and arm. He could see the length of Liam’s erection through the tight jeans he wore. “Baby, you are my fine wine. I started falling for you through your music when you joined the band at twelve.”
Liam tried to say something, but Milo placed his finger on his beautiful lips. “Quiet, baby, let me finish. I knew there would never be anyone else for me the day after we buried Lily and I held you in the bathroom. I haven’t permitted myself to go near you since.”
Milo saw Liam’s face come alive with emotion.
“You had to know how I felt about you,” Liam said. “The whole fucking world knows how I feel about you!” Liam made to pull away.
Milo kissed him reverently, almost chastely, but with a hint of all of what he reined in. “I promised your mother, baby. I promised Lily I would do the right thing by you, and the right thing does not include seducing an underage boy who might feel like he has to perform to continue to maintain a roof over his head.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
Milo gripped him fiercely. “Because I’m afraid you’ll bring someone home, or go to someone else. I’ve lived in fear of you finding either a guy or a girl for years. I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to tell you why I’m waiting, why I still have to wait until you’re eighteen.”
“You didn’t have a thing to worry about. I’ve loved you since I first saw you. There will never be anyone else for me. It’s you, and always will be.” Liam laughed through the tears of happiness coursing down his cheeks.
“I’m gay,” Milo said. “I’ve known that since just before I met you, but I’ve never fucked a guy. I’ve been waiting for you it seems like forever. On your eighteenth birthday, I’m going to make love to you, hard, passionate, then slow and sweet. In the meantime, we’ll do some old-fashioned courting.”
Something broke inside Milo. He frantically trailed his mouth over Liam’s skin, his lips pushing aside the fabric of his shirt and his tongue licking along Liam’s collarbone to the hollow of his throat, just below his prominent Adam’s apple. Milo’s tongue moved in slow circles down Liam’s smooth chest as he unbuttoned his shirt. His hands caressed Liam’s skin, eyes watching Liam’s reaction to his touch.
Rose nubs pushed up from the flat of Liam’s pectorals, begging for Milo’s mouth. They didn’t have to beg long. Milo’s long fingers rubbed and pinched while his tongue laved in concentric circles, teasing. He pulled with his teeth, lightly, then with more bite. Milo pushed against his lover. The denim outline of Liam’s cock strained hard against his soft blue jeans.
When Milo felt Liam shake, he closed his eyes, and tightened his arms around his lover. Liam completely surrendered himself to Milo’s hands and mouth. Milo thrust against Liam, feeling Liam’s long, slender cock moving against his groin.
Liam matched his fervor. His hands grasped for the hem of Milo’s shirt, reaching for skin. They ground against one another, each feeling the urgency of passion long denied. Liam began to shudder, calling Milo’s name. Hearing his name on his baby’s lips while in the throng of orgasm sent Milo over the edge too.
“My God, I can’t believe you did that to me without so much as a finger on my cock. I shouldn’t have let it go so far, but baby, I couldn’t stand by and let someone else have you. Can you wait for your birthday, baby? Can you wait? Because I promised Lily.”
“I can wait forever as long as I know you want me.”
They lay quietly in each other’s arms. Milo finally spoke. “Liam, you know that your age isn’t our only concern, don’t you?”
“The guys? Any fool who looks my way knows I’m gay. The guys know.”
“I’m more concerned about the fans who think
we’re het.”
“The fans know about me already.”
“No, they think you’re young and flamboyant and that I’m het. I’ve been banging girls for years to keep from touching you. We have to stay in the closet until the time is right.”
Liam looked at him. “When will the time be right?”
“When the band’s position is so secure that nothing matters but the music.”
“How long?” Liam asked, running his hand down Milo’s arm.
Milo answered cryptically. “The better we get, the sooner we’ll be free. In the meantime, let’s start looking for your birthday present.”
“And what would that be?”
“A house in Rumson, large enough to include a small recording studio with enough property to insure privacy for us, plus enough land for me to plant the garden I’ve always wanted.” Milo pulled Liam into a sitting position. “Let me clean you up, love.”
He settled Liam back onto the couch and covered him with a throw. Bounding up the stairs, he opened the door to Liam’s bedroom and grabbed two pairs of plaid flannel drawstring pants, one for himself and one for Liam. When he returned to Liam, he carried a bowl of warm water, a cloth, and a soft towel. Lovingly, he slid Liam’s jeans down his legs, handing him the warm cloth.
“In two months, baby,” Milo said, “I’m going to be the one to clean you up while I worship your gorgeous body. For tonight, I still have a promise to keep.” Liam took the cloth and the flannel pants and made quick work of the change and the cleanup.
“Come on,” Milo encouraged. “Tonight we began your education in the art of wine appreciation, and maybe I can stretch my principles enough so that we can sleep together tonight.” They sat and drank the excellent Bordeaux Milo chose. It was a ritual he intended to repeat. Milo felt the tension melt from Liam’s body as he sipped at the half-glass of wine Milo allowed him.
* * * *
“Are you going to kiss me?” Liam asked as he settled back into Milo’s arms, his hands reaching around to touch his beloved’s face. He traced it with his fingers, learning the planes of his cheeks and the angle of his chin. Liam began to place gentle kisses down Milo’s jaw line until he met the collar of his T-shirt. “I love the stubble on your face, the smell and color of your skin, and the way your hair curls around my fingers.”