Eric again rose to the bait, stiffening. “He is very well trained. He’ll prove it now by apologizing to Alfonso in the way requested. Won’t you, Johnny?” Alfonso still knelt, his spread ass in Johnny’s face. Johnny closed his eyes. Eric saw the struggle in Johnny’s features and a part of him knew he was pushing him too far, too fast. But the die was now cast—he couldn’t call this off without completely losing face.
Eric waited to see what Johnny would do.
~*~
Johnny had wanted to obey, even though the sight of Alfonso’s, puckered little asshole, slightly opened as he pulled his own ass cheeks apart, made Johnny feel a little sick. Eric had never asked such a thing of him, not even in the privacy of his apartment. That wasn’t Eric’s style. He didn’t get off on humiliation, preferring erotic torture and delicious sex.
Why was he allowing this now? Where was the Eric he thought he knew?
Johnny was aware there was a tension between Eric and the other Doms, and knew he was the cause of it. He still wanted to please Eric, but he was exhausted and overwhelmed. At this moment he wanted nothing more than to run out of there, get away from all these gawking strangers and back to the safety of Eric’s apartment.
He became aware the room was completely silent, as everyone waited for Eric’s sub to humiliate himself in front of them all. Every fiber of Johnny’s being rebelled. He might feel submissive toward Eric, but most certainly not toward the creep kneeling shamelessly in front of him.
He looked up at Eric, silently begging him to do something to fix this. Eric stared back, and there was no mistaking the warning expression in his dark eyes. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Johnny closed his eyes and leaned toward Alfonso’s bared ass. He felt sick to his stomach and dizzy. Focus. Submit. This is for Eric.
Slowly he leaned forward. Just as his nose touched Alfonso’s buttocks he recoiled, sitting back on his haunches. He stared up at Eric and said softly, “I’m sorry. I can’t. I won’t.”
Dull red color washed over Eric’s face. “You won’t?” he said in a cold, quiet voice.
“Please, Eric. Don’t make me. I can’t.” Eric grabbed his head, forcing him back toward Alfonso’s bared ass. Johnny struggled, shoving Eric from him. Several of the men moved closer. Johnny felt panic rising inside him. He felt alone, confused, betrayed.
“Abuela. Abuela. Abuela!” Johnny shouted his safeword, and then burst into tears, hiding his face in his hands.
Eric dropped to his knees, quickly taking Johnny into his arms, whispering, “Ay, Dios mio. Lo siento. I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me, Johnny.”
Johnny turned his head away.
Chapter 16
To keep him company and, Eric had told him, as a reminder of his place as a sub, Eric had printed out some of the photos he’d taken over their months together, and placed them in an album for Johnny to look at during the week when they were separated. It now contained over fifty pictures, all of them graphic reminders of Johnny’s developing status as not only Eric’s lover, but as his submissive.
Usually Johnny took it back and forth with him, so Eric could add new pictures each weekend. He was careful never to leave it lying around, even though he lived alone. But that weekend he had forgotten the album at his apartment.
Would Johnny have gotten around to telling his family in his own way in his own time about his sexual orientation and his new lover? Probably. But on that Saturday night, while Johnny was being subjected to sensory overload at the BDSM club in New Jersey, his options were being removed from him by an accidental discovery.
Johnny’s parents had a key to his apartment for emergencies. Johnny’s mother, Ann, had sent Johnny home with a tuna noodle casserole several weeks before, and as he had recently barely been by to see them, he hadn’t returned it. She really needed the casserole back, and was annoyed that her last several calls to his cell phone had yielded no return call. Annoyance began to give over to worry that particular Saturday evening.
Johnny always answered his phone if he could, or returned calls in a timely fashion. She’d left several messages over the course of the day and evening. Turning to her husband, Ann said, “Frank. Something’s wrong with Johnny. He always calls back. I need my casserole dish and that boy is nowhere to be found. What if something’s wrong?”
“Relax, Ann. He’s probably shacked up at that girl’s house he’s ashamed to introduce us to. He’s fine.”
Ann was unconvinced. “I think I better go over there and check, just to be sure. And then I can get my dish too. I have to cook for tomorrow’s potluck dinner at the Swenson’s and I need that casserole dish.”
With a disgusted sigh Frank stood up. “Oh, all right. Let’s go. I can see you won’t shut up until we go over there and get your damn dish.”
“No need to take that tone with me, Mr. Wilson,” Ann huffed. “I can go myself. It’s only two blocks away.”
“Oh no you don’t. It’s dark out. I’d worry myself sick if you went out alone. You know that. Let’s go and get this over with.”
As Frank unlocked the door to Johnny’s apartment, Ann called out, “Yoo-hoo! It’s just us, Johnny. Mom and Dad.” A quick look around the place made it clear he was not at home.
As Frank flicked on the overhead light, Ann moved toward the kitchenette in search of her dish. Frank followed her, sitting down at the kitchen table to wait for her. He saw the photo album and picked it up, idly curious.
“What the hell…”
Something in her husband’s tone made Ann swing around to see what the matter was. Frank’s face was beet red, his mouth gaping open like a fish flopping on a boat deck. Was he having a stroke?
“Frank! What’s the matter! What is it?” In a flash she was by his side. His mouth was working but no words were coming from it. He pointed to the open album. Ann glanced at it, did a double take and sank slowly into the chair next to Frank.
“Sweet Jesus, Mary mother of God,” she whispered. Together they stared at picture after picture of their youngest son in various stages of undress. He was pictured tied down in chains and rope, completely naked on his knees with a cock down his throat—by virtue of Eric’s camera timer—blindfolded, gagged, displaying his welted ass and in any number of other compromising poses.
His parents were speechless as they turned the pages, unable to help themselves as they stared at the images. Frank was the first to break the spell. He stood up and took the album, hurling it against the wall.
“I’ll kill him,” he raged. “I’ll kill the bastard! No son of mine is going to be some goddamn pansy faggot queer pervert! We raised him, I let him work for me at the garage, even though his head is up his ass half the time, and this is how he repays us. Jesus, when I get my hands on him, I’m going to kill him!”
Ann was twisting her hands nervously as she watched her husband thunder around the tiny apartment. He pulled books from the shelves and upended furniture, searching for god knew what else in the room.
“Filthy pervert! My god, he’s lucky he’s not in jail. What the hell does he think he’s doing? I can’t believe a son of mine…” Frank continued to smash around the apartment, tossing clothing from the bureau, brushing toiletries from the bathroom counter, ignoring the bottles shattering against the tiles.
“Frank. Frank! Calm down. This isn’t good for your heart. Stop it. Calm down, I say! You’re destroying his place, ruining his things. You have no right!”
“I have no right?” Frank turned to stare incredulously at his wife, his face still mottled red, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth. “I have no right? I brought that little bastard into the world and I can take him out. Jesus, a goddamn homo queer, all these years, hiding like a serpent in the bosom of our love…”
“Oh stop it, will you?” Ann said, exasperated with his over-dramatization, though she shared his sense of shock and outrage. “There has to be some kind of explanation, something…” She trailed off, at a complete loss as to what sort of explanat
ion there could possibly be. She stared around the apartment at the mess Frank had created and began to move on auto-pilot through the room, replacing books and straightening what he’d mussed.
She found the album on the floor and, holding it gingerly between thumb and finger as if it might try to bite her, she set it back on the kitchen table where they’d found it. They left the apartment, Frank still raging and Ann still murmuring for him to stop, her casserole dish forgotten.
~*~
Johnny was bone tired when he got back to his apartment. He’d barely slept a wink the night before, tossing fitfully beside Eric, eager for dawn. It was late Sunday morning, and despite Eric’s pleas that he stay, Johnny felt he had to leave. He needed some space, some time to process the weekend.
They’d left the Cavern quickly after he’d been compelled to use his safeword. Johnny was silent on the ride home. Eric spoke at length, apologizing again and again for having pushed Johnny too far, too fast.
“I’m such an idiot!” He had said for the fiftieth time. “I forgot, Johnny. You are so sexy and so submissive at home, I forgot just how different it can be out in public. I thought you were ready and I just totally ignored your cues.
“You told me, over and over, you weren’t ready and I didn’t pick up on it. I thought it was just stage fright. Opening night jitters. I thought everything would be fine once you got past that initial thing.”
His face was a study in pain as he drove, staring ahead, his hands clenched on the steering wheel. Johnny felt an ache in his own heart as he watched the obvious anguish his lover was going through, but he wasn’t ready to say anything.
Even if he’d wanted to, Johnny couldn’t let Eric off the hook. Too much had happened too fast. He needed space. He actually wished Eric would just be quiet for a while.
As Eric was reanalyzing what went wrong for the fourth time, all the while beating himself up, Johnny finally said, “Eric. Listen. Can you just shut up about it, please? I don’t hate you. How could I hate you? I love you, man. I just need some time, okay? I need time to process this.”
Eric had quieted, a single tear rolling down his cheek that made Johnny’s heart break. Gently he had touched Eric’s knee. “Listen. This isn’t all your fault. I tried to take on too much too. I thought I could handle it. I really wanted to please you. I didn’t want to let you down. I guess I just have limits I can’t get past. Don’t want to get past, I guess. If that makes me not a sub, then I’m not a sub, I guess.”
“No, no. Like I’ve said before, those labels don’t mean anything. For me you are perfect. Just as submissive as it’s right to be for us. I’m so sorry I pushed you. I let my ego get in the way of taking care of you. I let you down, not the other way around.”
Johnny had wanted Eric to drop him off at his apartment in Brooklyn but Eric had begged him to stay the night. “Please. I won’t ask a thing of you. I just want to sleep next to you. If you go now, I think my heart will break clean in half.”
Johnny had smiled in spite of himself. Eric was so dramatic sometimes. He’d agreed, and though he’d turned away from Eric in bed, he’d allowed him to hug him, spooning him from behind as they drifted finally into sleep.
Now Johnny sank onto the futon, resting his head in his hands for a while. He realized he was thirsty and got up to get a bottle of water. As he entered the kitchenette, he noticed the casserole dish next to the photo album.
Wait a minute…he looked at the dish, puzzled. He hadn’t left that there. And the album, the front cover was bent and folded. Johnny felt adrenaline gush through his body like a cold wave of fear. He could barely breathe and his heart was suddenly pounding a mile a minute.
Mom…
They had his key! They’d come for the stupid dish and found his slave album. He glanced around the apartment, now noticing things seemed askew. He could just imagine his father tearing through the place, looking for Johnny so he could wring his filthy, perverted neck.
Why, why, oh why had he left the damn album lying around like that? He knew his parents had a key! Jesus, was it possible for anything more to go wrong on this horrible weekend? Was the whole world lined up just to fuck with him? It sure felt like it. He looked around his apartment again, more certain than ever he’d been busted.
Johnny felt bile rise into his throat. He was going to vomit. He ran to the bathroom and leaned over the toilet, but the moment passed. Dizzily he leaned against wall, wiping sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. He noticed the strong smell of his aftershave and saw the shards of glass in the trashcan, a large blue stain on his white tile floor. The room seemed to rise to meet him. A gray mist fogged over his vision and he could hear a distant ringing piercing his brain. Leaning against the wall, he let himself slide to the floor, closing his eyes.
He came to a few seconds later and for a moment was completely disoriented, thinking he was back at Eric’s apartment.
Eric.
He could hardly bear to think about him, not now that his family knew. They knew! And not only that he was gay, but that he was sexually submissive, involved in perverted sex games with a man he sometimes called Master!
The whole thing felt sick and dirty to him now, filtered through the lens of his own guilt and embarrassment. At that moment he thought he never wanted to see Eric again. And what would happen now? What would his parents do? What would his father do? How could he show up at the garage? His career was finished. His life was finished!
These histrionic thoughts were momentarily stopped by his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He saw the missed calls and knew his mother had probably been trying to reach him. He’d left the phone in Eric’s apartment when they’d gone to the club and in the tumult afterwards, hadn’t even looked at it.
Now he saw the name flashing across his screen and it seemed like a lifeline at that moment. Amanda. Before she had a chance to say anything he said, “I have to see you. Now.”
They met over coffee and pancakes at a diner near Amanda’s apartment. Johnny was only toying with his food, having no appetite. In very sketchy terms, he described his adventure at the Cavern, and what he’d found upon his return to his Brooklyn apartment.
Instead of spouting fountains of sympathy at his plight, Amanda said, “Well, that’s good. Cat’s finally out of the bag. You don’t have to try to come up with a way to tell them. They already know. Just give them time—they’ll come around.”
“Just give them time?” Johnny said incredulously. “Are you kidding? You obviously don’t know my family. I mean, my mom, maybe. But my dad? My brothers? No way! This is it, Amanda. I have no more family. I can just hear my dad now, shouting, I have no son!”
Amanda laughed but sobered at Johnny’s woebegone expression. Gently she said, “You know what? Not having the approval of Frank Wilson might not be the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“What?”
“I’m saying, this man, and excuse me because I know he’s your dad, but from what you’ve told me, and you’ve told me plenty, Frank Wilson is a bully. He raised you, yes, but so what? That was his job. And from what you’ve said, he wasn’t exactly a loving and supportive father. Seems like he expressed himself more with his belt and his fist than his words. And he employs you, yeah. But so what? You work hard for the guy, and you still can’t afford more than that crappy little dump you live in, no offense.”
“Amanda, you don’t get it—”
She cut him off. “No, Johnny. I think maybe you don’t get it. There are people who love you in your life. Who really love you. That’s your real family.”
“Like who.”
“Like me, you big dope. Me, for one. And Eric for two.”
“Oh, well—” Johnny began, waving his hand dismissively.
“Stop it! Stop right now, Johnny Wilson, before I slap your face. Just because you had a bad scene at that stupid club, are you honestly going to sit here and tell me what you’ve got with Eric is worth nothing? That it all came down to this one
thing? That because he suddenly showed himself as just a vulnerable, regular, fallible guy, you’re going to dump his ass? Jesus, Johnny. I know you’re immature, but this takes the fucking cake!”
Johnny started to protest, to bluster, deny and defend. Then he processed the last sentence and instead started to laugh. Amanda laughed too, and soon they were hysterical, the tears rolling, the other patrons at the diner staring at them curiously.
When they’d caught their breath and were somewhat composed Amanda said, “Johnny. Don’t take yourself so fucking seriously, please. It’s tedious. And it isn’t fair to the people who love you. Oh, and I wasn’t done with the list. Billy and Sandy and their kids love you too. Right?”
“Yeah. At least they love the Johnny they thought they knew.”
“Oh give it a rest. They love you! Whether or not they know who you like to sleep with and what turns you on, what difference would that make? If you found out Sandy liked to be fucked by a Great Dane, would you suddenly hate her? Want to disown her?”
Johnny laughed. The image was too funny, but he understood what she was getting at. “Nah,” he admitted. “That’s her business. And Billy’s, I guess. I mean, if he’s cool with it…” He laughed again and suddenly the world didn’t seem quite so dark and hopeless.
“Exactly. I rest my case.”
“Well. I haven’t heard from my parents. I’m sitting here freaking out about it. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, that’s where you’re in luck, J. Because I know just what to do. I have this special knack of knowing just the right thing to do in every situation.” She laughed and ran her fingers through her spiky hair, today dyed in thick swaths of red, gold and brown, in honor, she said, of Thanksgiving. “So here’s what you do. And in this order. Number one, you call Eric, who is probably at home dying a thousand deaths thinking he’s lost his lover.”
Golden Boy Two-Volume Set Page 19