by Ana Newfolk
I didn’t allow myself to come until Isaac had his orgasm. He kept having aftershocks as my cock touched his prostate over and over again, as I kept going so I could drink in the essence of his voice as he called out my name.
Isaac pulled away from me and turned around. His hands cupped my face. I’d hoped the cascading water from the shower had masked my tears.
“Shit, Max. What’s happening?” Concern was etched in his voice and his face.
I couldn’t reply so I kissed him, and because I didn’t want to worry him I kept the kisses light and gentle. His hands roamed down my body until they found my still-hard cock. He removed the condom and stroked me until I was the one begging for relief.
We finished the shower after I came and Isaac made a fuss of drying me with his towel and then took me back to bed. The sheets were clean so he must have changed them before he joined me in the shower. As if I couldn’t love this man any more.
We lay facing each other. Isaac took hold of both my hands and brought them to rest against his chest.
“I hope you tell me what’s bothering you, Max. I just want to support you.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, “silly, really.”
“Whatever it is, if it’s giving you nightmares, and making you cry when we’re making love, it’s not silly.”
“Is that what we were doing?”
“Max, I love you. I think we established that in Lisbon. To me, what we do goes beyond sex. It’s sex with a million other layers of greatness on top. Love is just one of them. The biggest one, but there are more.”
“You’re an amazing person. I love you so much.”
He traced my face with the tip of his finger.
“I just don’t want to lose you,” I finally confessed.
“What makes you think you’re going to lose me?”
“My dreams. They make me believe you’re going to go away. That you’re not going to like what you see anymore and you’ll go back to Portugal.”
I couldn’t stop the tears flowing freely from my eyes.
Isaac got closer to me and kissed my face. Wherever there was a tear he licked it clean.
“You’re a bit salty, like the ocean. Have I ever told you how much I love the ocean?” he said gently. “Let’s sleep, baby. We have a day off tomorrow; let’s do something together, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed as my eyes felt heavy with sleep.
He still hadn’t stopped kissing my face but his kisses had become even more gentle.
“Love you,” I whispered.
“Love you too, Max.”
I fell asleep again but this time my dream was good.
As agreed we spent the day together. I wasn’t due at the hospital until tomorrow so I had a whole day and another night with Isaac until my double shift.
I wanted to show Isaac around the city but we ended up walking around Central Park all day. It was a cold mid November day so I’d insisted we go shopping so Isaac had a coat that was more adequate for the New York winter, but he didn’t want to leave the open space of the park for the busy stores.
We took photos of each other and the two of us together and sent some to Alex. He replied immediately telling us to have a good time and that he missed us.
He also said that Sofia was still refusing to call him papa, and that Max was loving his new home at Alex and Joana’s house. Apparently he was now Sofia’s protector and wouldn’t let anyone other than family get close to her. How he knew who was family or not was anyone’s guess.
“Do you miss them?”
“Of course I do.”
“But?”
“I like your butt,” Isaac said, pulling me closer, and leaning for a kiss. “I miss them but I can keep in touch with them. I can video chat and exchange photos. But if I’m there I can’t be with you and that is so much more painful to consider.” He reached up to my head to stroke my still-too-short hair.
“Come on, you. Take me home. I need to warm up and there’s only one way I can think of that will work.”
“At your service.” I followed as he pulled my hand in the wrong direction before he corrected himself.
We stopped at the store to get some ingredients to cook dinner and then went home.
My building was an old fire station that had been converted into residential apartments so it wasn’t unusual to see a homeless person sitting outside the main front door, hoping to get some shelter from the cold.
I always carried a card with me with my name and the address of a temporary shelter where they could get food and sometimes a bed for the night. It kept the neighbors happy that the homeless didn’t stick around very long once they had somewhere to go.
I spotted the small figure as soon as we turned the corner. Usually we got older homeless men but this looked like either a very small person or a very young one.
“Hi there, are you looking for somewhere you can stay the night? Maybe get some food?”
I put my hand in my jacket to get a card out when the person looked up at me.
It was a girl. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen, with long dark curly hair that was tied in a ponytail. She had a big bruise on her face that extended to her big brown eyes that were looking at me like a deer in headlights. I felt immediately protective of her and wanted to know who’d done that to her.
“Are you Massimiliano Moretti?”
The air rushed out of my lungs. It had been years since I’d heard that name. I felt Isaac’s presence next to me, anchoring me as though he knew I needed him.
“Who are you?”
“Lucy… Lucia Lopez. I’m your sister.”
Chapter Fourteen
Isaac
When the girl called Max by what sounded like his full name all color drained from his face, but her next statement got him to lose balance. He took a half step back and leaned into me. I was pretty sure he was completely unaware of how hard he was gripping my hand.
“I don’t know who you are but you have the wrong person. That’s not my name and I don’t have siblings.” Max pulled me toward the door of the building.
“I can prove it,” Lucy said with determination and then pulled out her phone. When she found what she was looking for she showed Max the phone.
He shook his head as he looked but I could tell that whatever it was it confirmed what Lucy had said.
It was getting dark, and the temperature had lowered significantly. I wasn’t sure what Lucy wanted, but she looked like she may need help, and I needed to get Max warm since he’d insisted earlier in giving me his coat.
“Why don’t we go upstairs and talk properly?” I squeezed Max’s hand. It felt cold in mine but I hoped he could still feel my silent plea that he probably needed to hear the girl.
“Okay, fine,” he said, unlocking the front door of the building.
I smiled at Lucy and asked her to follow us up. She looked a little unsure but put the phone back in her pocket and came up the steps behind me.
When we got inside the apartment Max asked Lucy to take a seat on the sofa and dragged me toward our bedroom.
I closed the door behind me so Lucy wouldn’t hear us.
“What the fuck!” he said, fortunately quietly enough that he wouldn’t be heard outside.
“You really don’t know her?” I asked.
“No.” He was pacing the room, running his hands through his hair.
“I thought your name was Max James.”
“It is. Massimiliano Moretti is my birth name. I changed it a while ago.”
“What was it that she showed you on the phone?”
“My birth certificate.”
I stepped in front of Max to stop him from wearing down the carpet and put my arms around him.
“Baby, it sounds like there’s a story there. You can tell me what it is, or not. It doesn’t make a difference to me because I love you no matter what. But that girl out there,” I pointed toward the living room, “looks like she may be in trouble. Hear her
out.”
He put a hand around my neck and pulled me in for a kiss that left me breathless, as though he was trying to take some of my strength for himself. I let him take whatever he needed and then followed him back to the living room where Lucy was still sitting in the same place we’d left her.
We sat on the ottoman Max had in front of the sofa, leaving the coffee table between us.
“Do you want something to drink?” I asked. “Or eat?”
She shook her head.
Max cleared his throat, steeling himself. “Who are you really? And how did you get a photo of my birth certificate?”
Lucy brought a hand to her mouth and chewed on her nail. Her whole demeanor had changed as though she’d used all her courage to approach Max and was now afraid to do what she came here for.
“I saw it in my… our dad’s office. He had it with a bunch of papers on his desk.”
“How old are you?” Max asked.
“Sixteen, I’ll be seventeen in two months.”
“You can’t be my sister. You’re too old, plus you look nothing like—” Max stopped himself and got up to pace the living room.
“She’s not my mom,” Lucy said, raising her voice for the first time.
Max stopped pacing and was facing the window looking out into the street. It was dark so I knew he wasn’t looking at anything outside, just his own reflection in the glass. His body was so tense I was wondering when it was he would finally fall apart, and what would happen when he did.
I got up and walked to him. I put my hand on his back and gently rubbed it up and down. He looked at me. His eyes showed such pain and confusion.
“Lucy,” I said, turning my face to her but keeping my body facing Max, “why are you here?”
She paused at my question and then tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.” She gathered her coat and backpack. “I didn’t know what else to do. I thought you could help me. I’m sorry.”
She was halfway toward the door when Max caught her and held her in his arms. I heard her sob in his chest so I gave them a moment and went to the kitchen to prepare a drink. I had a feeling cold chocolate milk wouldn’t go down well this side of the Atlantic, but hot chocolate was a universal heart-mending medicine so I took three cups from the cupboard and warmed up milk on the stove.
When I came back to the living room carrying a tray with the hot chocolate Max and Lucy were sitting on the sofa together. She seemed to have calmed a little but was still quiet. I put one mug in front of her, and one in front of Max with a bowl of marshmallows I’d found in the cupboard. I’d never had the combination before, but all the Christmas movies I’d seen as a kid made it look delicious.
They both filled their mugs until there were no marshmallows left. When they realized what they’d done they both laughed.
“My mom died when I was ten.” Lucy took out a photo from the pages of a notebook she carried in her rucksack and showed it to Max. He gasped. The photo was of a beautiful young woman with dark curly hair down to her shoulders. I presumed she must have had some Hispanic heritage from her looks. She was holding a small baby and looking up at the man standing next to her. I didn’t need to guess it was Max’s dad because they looked very similar, the only difference was that Max had blond hair, a contrast to his dad’s dark, but they both had the same brown eyes.
“She had cancer. Dad wasn’t around much. Mom used to say he was busy working so he could provide for us. I was actually happy when he wasn’t with us because every time he came to stay there was always lots of shouting and I used to see marks on my mom’s arms and sometimes on her face after he left. In the beginning I didn’t notice much, I guess I was too young to understand, but at school I never saw any of the adults with those blue marks on their skin, so one day I asked her. She got really mad at me and made me promise I wouldn’t talk about it again. She was so upset, I did what she asked.”
“You saw bruises,” Max said and Lucy nodded, her eyes red with tears running down her face again.
“Just after I turned ten Mom kept getting sick. We didn’t have insurance, so she never went to the doctor. She died a few months later. I heard a doctor tell my dad she had a rare type of cancer.
“I used to stay with a neighbor when Mom went to work so I thought I would stay with her after Mom died, but then Dad came to get me and said I was going to live with him and his wife. I didn’t understand at first.” Lucy stopped for a moment to drink some of her chocolate.
“I’m so sorry to hear about your mom, Lucy,” Max said.
I could see he was hanging by a thread and I was going to suggest we call it a day so I could find a way to calm him down but then Lucy continued.
“My dad’s wife was so beautiful. She had this perfect white skin that looked like a china doll and her eyes were so blue it was like I was looking at the sky. I thought she was going to be my new mom. All I wanted was my old mom, but this lady looked like an angel so I wondered if my mom had sent her from heaven to look after me.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“She was really mad that I was living there. She kept shouting at Dad. Asking him how he could do this to her. I tried being nice to her and remembered all the good manners my mom had taught me. I tried so hard but she just pretended I wasn’t there. They both did. There was always a plate with food at the table for me and they took me shopping for things like clothes and school supplies, but the rest of the time they didn’t talk to me very much.”
Max had his face hidden by his hands while his elbows were resting on his knees. I couldn’t tell how he was taking the news that his dad had had a mistress and a child. I also didn’t understand how he didn’t know about it. Where was he when this happened?
“So you’ve been living with them all this time?” Max asked without raising his head.
“Yes, until last week.”
“What happened?”
“Two weeks ago I was looking for something in Dad’s office and I saw some papers on his desk. They mentioned you. There was a will and your birth certificate. I didn’t know about you so I read the papers. It was a combined will leaving everything to you if they both died, but it had an old date and there was a paper with a recent date.”
“I don’t want a fucking cent from them,” Max said with his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white.
I kneeled in front of him. He readily opened his legs to let me get closer. I ran my hands through his hair and he relaxed under my touch.
“Baby, why don’t we call it a day and carry on tomorrow?” I was relieved when he nodded.
“Lucy, do you have anywhere to go?” The way her gaze moved from me to Max told me she didn’t, even if she’d remained silent. I was going out on a limb but I looked Max in the eyes as I spoke to Lucy.
“Would you like to stay here for the night? We have a spare room.”
She looked down at her hands and nodded shyly. “I won’t be any bother; you won’t even know I’m here.”
My heart broke a little for the young girl but it filled with pride when Max got up to show Lucy the spare room.
I left the cups in the sink and went to our room to run the shower, got undressed and got in knowing Max wouldn’t be too far behind. I was right.
We didn’t speak as we took our time washing each other. Our bodies reacted as usual but we didn’t do anything about it. I just wanted to comfort Max. Even without having the full picture I could tell he was hurting a lot.
“Do you want to tell me your side of the story?” I asked when we finally went to bed.
We were facing each other with our hands interlinked against our chests.
“Not much to tell. I thought I had the perfect upbringing, perfect parents, perfect life, until I told my parents I was gay. Joel had told his parents, and I foolishly thought mine would be okay with it. They weren’t. They told me to get out of the house. I was fourteen. Looks like Lucy went to live with them a few years after I’d been gone.”
Max said
it in such a detached way, as though he wasn’t talking about himself, and I couldn’t help the tears that escaped my eyes.
I had so many questions.
Max had also been kicked out of his home by his parents but he’d been so much younger than me. How had he survived? Had he moved in with Joel? The way he’d talked about their time together as teenagers made it sound as though they were occasional sleepovers. Where had he stayed when he wasn’t there? How did he feel knowing his parents had kicked him out for being gay but had allowed Lucy to stay? Why had Lucy run away as soon as she found out she had a half-sibling?
All the answers had to wait for another day because Max’s hands roamed my body as he said, “Isaac, please make love to me. I need to feel you inside me.”
I knew what he was asking for. The escape of focusing on nothing else but the way in which our bodies connected. He was hoping for the pain, the pleasure, and the search for that magical high that was going to make the whole world disappear. There would be nothing else but me and him until exhaustion claimed us.
I would gladly spend the rest of my life giving him that.
Chapter Fifteen
Max
It wasn’t like I’d been sleeping well lately, so yesterday’s news had completely shot any chance of letting go and finding some rest.
My favorite thing in the whole wide world was to feel Isaac buried inside me so deep I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began, so I’d near enough begged him to fuck me so I could escape all the noise in my head.
Halfway through our lovemaking I’d changed from chasing the orgasm to fighting it. The more Isaac pushed my buttons the more I pushed back. He touched, sucked, and licked every inch of my skin he could reach all while moving in and out of me in a variation of slow- and fast-paced thrusts.
When I finally let go, he swallowed my screams of pleasure with his mouth. I remember little after that but since I couldn’t feel the evidence of my release, I assumed Isaac had made sure we were both clean before he came back to bed.