by Eden Myles
Kate sighed. “Maria moved one of the statues in the music conservatory after dusting it and Da tripped over it and fell down. Why weren’t you here to warn him about that?”
My heart immediately started knocking in my chest much too hard. “Is he okay?”
“No, he hurt his knee, and now he’s cantankerous and insufferable! I made him go to bed. But I’m really cross with you, Daniel! I pay you to look after him!”
“I know,” I said. I started reaching for my clothes. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right over.”
***
The last place I wanted to be this morning was getting off that bus in the West Village. I stood in front of the gates of Mr. Karenina’s estate for a moment, trying to get my breathing under some kind of control, then I passed the keycard he had given me over the scanner of the gate call box and heard the familiar pinging noise of the gate unlocking. I pushed through it, locked it behind me, and started trudging up the stone path to the pavilion like a guy going to his execution.
I let myself into the house and found Maria sitting at the kitchen counter, crying her eyes out into a paper napkin. She looked up at me and said, “He fire me now. I just know it!”
I pulled the French doors closed behind me and said, “He’s not going to fire you, Maria.” Actually, I had no idea what Mr. Karenina was planning to do with Maria.
Maria sprang up and turned to me. “My grandchildren…they live in Guerrero and they depend on this money! You talk to him, Daniel?”
Oh God. I looked at Maria’s grief-stricken eyes and all I could do was nod. “I’ll talk to him.”
Maria hugged me and started crying all over my shirt, then she started kissing my cheeks and telling me what a good boy I was. After that humiliating experience, I picked up my notebook and pen and started walking the house.
It had only been a week but she had made a mess of it! After I marked down all the hazards, I made my way upstairs, deliberately avoiding Mr. Karenina’s bedroom. My plan of action, such as it was, was to mark down all the hazards I found and leave them on the kitchen table for Kate to find. I had no intention of going into her father’s room.
But then I started worrying about Maria. Would he really fire her?
The worry ate a great big hole of guilt right through me until I couldn’t stand it anymore, until I finally summoned up enough courage to approach Mr. Karenina’s room. I stood in front of the huge, oaken double doors and breathed slowly in and out, in and out. I had to force myself to lift my hand and tap at the wood.
“Come,” said Kate.
I let myself in and found her sitting at her dad’s bedside. They were looking at a photo album together. Or rather, she was, and talking about the pictures. But when she saw me, she blanked her face, stood up and turned to glare at me. I had a feeling she knew about our fight, how I had hurt her father. “Daniel. What are you doing here?”
“I finished walking the house,” I said in a small, lilting voice. “I have some hazards I’d like you to look at.”
She considered me a long moment before tucking the photo album under her arm and walking over to take my notebook. While she looked over the list, I said, “Do you mind if I speak to your dad alone for a moment?”
She glanced over at Mr. Karenina. He was dressed in a long silken dressing gown and lying propped up against a mound of pillows, a laptop in his lap, paying me no attention at all. “Da?”
The keyboard he was working over was a little larger than the standard laptop’s, and I realized his was outfitted with a refreshable Braille display keyboard, something I’d read about online. He stopped touch-typing but did not grace me with his attention.
“Da?” she said again.
I stepped forward. “It’s important,” I told Mr. Karenina. “It’s about Maria.”
He finally acknowledged me, but he said to Kate, “Give us a few moments alone, Solnyshko.”
Kate gave me a dubious look, as if she didn’t trust me to act responsibly in her father’s presence, but started for the door. I waited until she was gone before I turned to face Mr. Karenina.
“Well?” he said in a less than friendly manner.
I looked him over and told my heart to stop pounding so hard against my chest, fearful he could hear it. “Maria’s afraid you’ll fire her.”
“Is she? She should be.”
“But you can’t,” I said, taking a step toward the bed. “Her family is depending on the money she sends home to Mexico.”
He looked at me steadily with those dark, solemn eyes. “She doesn’t listen, Daniel. As her employer, I expect her to follow my instructions.”
I felt a surge of unreasonable anger. “She made a mistake! Haven’t you ever made a mistake in your life?”
“Yes,” he answered softly, bearing his teeth in a bitter smile. “I’ve made a few recently.”
I closed my eyes. I took a deep, rattling breath and let it out to keep from running from the room like a frightened child. “Mr. Karenina…Alexei…you can’t do this to her.”
“You’re an awful big champion of a woman who doesn’t like you, Daniel.”
“That doesn’t matter! You can’t fire her. It isn’t fair!”
“This is my house!” he shouted at me so I flinched. I had never heard him shout before. I decided it wasn’t a sound I wanted to hear often. “I can do whatever I want here, Daniel!”
I felt the awful burn of tears. I shook my head. “You know what? Fuck you, and fuck all this. I’m done.” As my tears began to fall, I turned away. I wouldn’t cry, not in front of him, eyes or no eyes.
I had almost reached the door when Mr. Karenina called me back. “Wait, Daniel,” he said in a softer tone of voice.
I stopped, my hand on the doorknob, but I didn’t turn around.
“Does this mean so much to you?”
“Yes,” I told him, blinking away the tears. “Yes, it does.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry I fucked things up the way I did. I’m sorry I broke our agreement. I’m sorry you’re so angry with me. But the truth of the matter is, I’m not sorry about Simon. He’s a nice guy, the kind of guy I’ve been waiting for. The kind of guy I could settle down with…if and when he ever comes to grips with himself. And I’m not ashamed, Mr. Karenina, because this is what I want out of my life. I want what you had with Elizabeth. I want a partner and a family someday, and I think maybe he can give me those things. If you think I’m wrong in wanting that, then there’s nothing more to be said here.” I turned to face him. “But I’m going to ask you not to take your anger out on Maria. She had nothing to do with any of this.”
I stopped speaking and just stood there, watching him, waiting. Had I gotten through to him?
He seemed to consider my words. Finally, he said, “Come here, Daniel.”
He didn’t look like he was prepared to eat me, so I took a few tentative steps toward him. He reached out and took my hand and pulled me down so I was sitting beside him on the bed. It was then that I realized he’d tucked one of my old shirts under the covers with him. He’d dislodged it when he sat up to take my hand. I didn’t say anything about it, though. I knew how important Mr. Karenina’s pride was to him. I was a little surprised when he embraced me and rested his head on my shoulder. He didn’t do anything, just held me like that, his face buried in the side of my neck. He sighed against me, breathing me in.
“I’m an old man, Daniel,” he said at last, and he sounded tired and so very fragile. “I forget what young men want.”
“You’re not so old,” I told him.
He didn’t immediately answer me. It took me a moment to realize he was sobbing softly against my shoulder, but he was trying to be dignified even in that. “In the last two years of Elizabeth’s life, we traveled all over the world, Daniel, made something of an adventure of it. We tried everything, every imaginable cure. We did everything we could. But she still died. She died and there was nothing I could do about it but watch.”
“I’m sorry,” I tol
d him as I felt my heart break for him. I wrapped my arms around him and slid my hand up so I was cupping the back of his head. I held him but didn’t say anything for some time.
“I love how silent you can be,” he told me after a while. He leaned back and swiped at his damp cheeks. “People underestimate silence. But I love how you don’t offer long, rambling explanations for things that can’t be explained.”
“I only talk too much when I’m nervous around a guy, you know that,” I told him with a small smile. “And then the more nervous I get, the more I talk, and the bigger fool I make of myself until he tells me to shut up.”
“Do you talk too much in front of Simon?” he asked.
I thought about that. “No. Only you.” I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand this pain, this constant wanting. I leaned down, seized his face in my hands, and kissed him roughly, hungrily. I tasted his tears. I sighed and pushed my tongue into his mouth and our tongues entwined and slid wet and hot over each other’s. We made out for a little while, sighing into each other’s mouths until we were both breathless.
“I’m not fired, then?” I asked.
“You’re not fired,” he told me as he kissed me, nipping at my lower lip. “But we may need to make another arrangement.”
“How do you mean?”
“Do you love me, Daniel?”
“I love you,” I told him truthfully.
“Will you be with me? Will you go anywhere with me?”
“Anywhere,” I told him as I slid my hands under his dressing gown, along the hard, familiar planes of his pecs and abs, then lower down, until I’d reached the edge of his pajama bottoms. “Where are we going?”
“My daughter has a house in Martha’s Vineyard. She’s been at me for years to move there to be closer to her, and she’s been insufferable about it…”
“Funny, she says the same thing about you.” I seized his cock and balls through his pants as I kissed him hard. My aggression surprised him, but at the same time, I could feel him stiffening in response to my rough, bold handling of him. “And yes,” I said, fondling him, “I’ll go with you.”
“You’ll be giving up New York.”
“I’m graduating this year,” I told him. “And if I have to start my own business online, I will. I love you. I’ll do anything to be with you, Alexei.” I reached up and pulled his dressing gown open and flicked my tongue over his exposed nipples, biting and sucking the hard, raised nubs until he trembled for me and ran his hands down the sides of my body. I pushed myself up on my knees so he could run his hands down my spine and over my ass. I licked and sucked my way down his belly to his groin while he ripped at my clothes. I pulled at his pajamas, sliding them down his hips and lowered my head to kiss at the soft dark fur at his groin. I breathed in his sweetly familiar male scent, so hungry for his taste, his touch, that I could barely control myself.
He grabbed my hair and tried to push me down, to take his cock in my mouth, but I wasn’t feeling very submissive tonight. I wasn’t feeling submissive at all. What had Simon said? I was being a bossy alpha of late. That might be true, but it was only because I’d learned from the best. Instead, I resisted him, grabbed him by the edges of his open dressing gown and pushed him down to the mattress. I covered him, palmed his cheek, and kissed him anew. I kissed him because I wanted him. I kissed him because I loved him. I kissed him because he was mine, my entire world. His face showed some surprise when I slid my leg over his, pinning him. I applied some pressure and he grunted in pain.
“Sorry,” I said, and reached down to massage his sore knee. “Does it hurt very much?”
“Nothing hurts when I’m with you, Daniel,” he answered, and I smiled and moved my hand up his thigh, clutching him tight, tighter. His eyes widened in surprise when I spread his legs and buried my face in his lower belly, licked the underside of his swollen cock, and then traced my tongue down his crack and started lapping at his ass. He closed his eyes and groaned and writhed as I nibbled and swirled my tongue across his tender opening, and when he was just wet enough, I sank two fingers into him. I thrust in and out and Alexei threw his head back and rocked his hips against my finger fucking.
I took his erection in my mouth, swallowing him down inch by inch while I continued to pump my fingers in and out of him. I sucked hard, grazing his cock with my teeth, and before long he was whimpering and arching against me, his shoulders and the crown of his head pressing deep into the mound of pillows as he gave himself over to the pleasure, and to me. The feel of him moving against me, the vulnerable, animal sounds he made, were intoxicating. I watched him gasp and thrust, lost completely in the pleasure I was bringing him, and soon every part of me began to throb in tandem with him. I groaned as the ecstasy of controlling him, being with him, overwhelmed me.
I pulled my mouth off his slick, spit-encased cock long enough to say, “Do you love me, Alexei?”
“Yes, Daniel,” he answered with surprising calm and tenderness. “I love you.” He reached up and seized me by the back of the neck, dragging me down to kiss me with the trembling power of his need, but I wasn’t finished with him just yet. I pressed his shoulders down, kissed and licked the side of his neck until he moaned. I reached between my legs and stroked myself until I was wet, then I slicked my cock with my own pre-cum and nudged it against him. He resisted me at first, but I held him down. I kissed him until he weakened and gave in, spreading his legs and tilting his pelvis upward a little for me. His sightless eyes found me, but there was something so feral and passionate in them that I felt my breath catch at the sight even as I slammed my meaty, wet cock deep into his ready hole.
His entire body lurched against me, but he closed his eyes at my forced entry and said, “God, yes, Daniel. I love you, Angel moy.”
“I love you too.” I began to move inside of him, slowly at first, but not too gently, and he gasped with each hard upward thrust of my cock. “Come back home with me, Alexei,” I gasped out before I even realized what I was saying. “Be with me at my sister’s wedding.”
He groaned and his entire body arched into my thrust. “Yes, of course,” he answered, and his voice nearly broke with emotion, as if I had offered him the sun, moon and stars.
Satisfied, I coiled my hands around his cock and put everything I had into the fucking I was delivering him. He lurched and writhed. He reached around and gripped my ass, trying to hold me deep inside his body as I slammed into him again and again. All his muscles constricted around me and I thought I would scream from the exquisite pressure pulsing through my cock. Instead, the sounds that came from my throat were more like the low growls of some aroused wild animal, and I found myself crouching entirely over him, his knees by his ears as I brought him to climax fast and hard. He cried out near the end and I leaned down to kiss him as he came hard, his seed spurting between us. Alexei’s orgasm left him trembling inside and out, and I reveled in the feel of him moving beneath me like that, so vulnerable, so utterly lost in our lovemaking.
I pinned his shoulders and growled as I rammed his ass, working myself up to my own climax. It didn’t take long, and within seconds I felt the familiar lurching sensation in my spine and I came with a cry inside him. My climax left me drained but filled with love and lust for him.
He reached up and tugged me down by the hair. “Daniel,” he said breathlessly, flicking his tongue across my lips, “I really must compliment you on your skills. If you keep this up, you may one day be a gentleman yourself.”
“I don’t want to be a gentleman,” I told him honestly. “I’m happy just being your courtier.” To prove my point, I made an effort to clean up our mess by licking his chest and abs clean. I was nearly to his cock, which was already stirring for me, when the door of the bedroom burst open and Kate stepped in, balancing a covered tray for her father on her arm cast.
“Da, I thought you might want lunch…” She stopped and looked at us with deer-in-the-headlights eyes, then turned on her heels like a soldier to deposit the tra
y on a nearby table. She used her good hand to cover her eyes and said, “Never mind, I’ll come back later. It’s obvious you’re busy.” She rushed for the door, throwing over her shoulder, “If you gents want me, I’ll be downstairs, washing my eyes out with vinegar.”
Alexei snorted.
***
As I drove the rental from the airport to my folks’ place, I wished Alexei could see the rolling landscape and Flint Hills passing us by on both sides of the highway. He would have liked those shiny, black, almost prehistoric ridges of rock. He would have found them beautiful to run his hands over. Like most of the Midwest, the landscape was otherwise as flat as a dinner plate, so you could see for miles in every direction, the tiny farms and cattle ranches, the golden patches of prairie grass, and the hard flinty ridges of rock to break everything up. It was April, and unseasonably warm, much too warm to have the windows open, but I had insisted on it anyway so Alexei could at least breathe in the Heartland.
“Will you miss New York?” I asked. “I mean, after you sell the house?”
“No, Daniel,” he told me. “Martha’s Vineyard smells too good.”
I laughed at that. “I’m going to do that one day. I’m going to blindfold myself for a whole day and see if everything smells as good to me as it does to you.”
“If you blindfold yourself, I may take advantage of you.”
“Just don’t take advantage of me at my parents’ house, okay?” I laughed at that too, a little nervously, and, sensing my unease, he reached over and set his hand on my knee reassuringly. He didn’t say anything, but then, he didn’t have to. I knew he was here for me, regardless of what happened this weekend.
It was near suppertime when we finally arrived at my folks’ place, just outside Junction City. It was a huge, rambling old farmhouse, with enough guest rooms for half my family, many of which were staying over for Chloe’s wedding the following afternoon. I felt the butterflies in my stomach swarm when I realized how many cars and pickup trucks were parked in my folks’ long, gravel driveway. It looked like half my family was here.