Somewhere to Belong

by Caitlin Ricci

  I smiled and sent him another message. It would be the last one for the day, since they’d started boarding and I was about to get on the plane. Of course. Take care.

  I turned my phone off and put it back in my briefcase before heading onto the airplane.

  THREE DAYS in Cleveland had me ready to come home. I was thanked for my work, the CEO shook my hand, and I was back on a plane to return home to Colorado the next day. I’d met up with two guys in my three days in Cleveland, both of them perfectly fine in their own ways, but I was hardly enthusiastic about either of them.

  Getting back to Colorado, where I’d been born and raised, was always pleasant, but returning to my recently inherited house in the Rocky Mountains was not. I hadn’t been close to my father and hadn’t spoken to him in at least ten years. I hadn’t even known that he was sick before he died. But he’d left me a three-bedroom house in Thornwood, and out of the blue, I found myself with a property I’d never been to in a town I’d never heard of.

  It wasn’t a bad place to call home, if I ever got around to that point with the house. As it stood now, I was indifferent to it. Having a house that was paid off was nicer than having to pay rent, but the house felt sterile whenever I walked through the front door. It was cold and often covered in dust. I’d unpacked my boxes, what few I had since I was never in one place long enough to really accumulate much. I didn’t have anything in my kitchen since I hated to cook for just myself. But this wasn’t Denver with its many restaurants and bars. There was only one restaurant in Thornwood, which was a diner, and I greatly disliked greasy diner food.

  With a sigh I settled into my favorite chair, the only piece of furniture I’d brought over from my place in Denver, and contemplated the Italian takeout I’d purchased on the way from Denver International Airport to Thornwood. It had been over an hour’s drive, and though the restaurant I’d stopped at was one of my regular favorites, the idea of heating up my pasta primavera in the old microwave was not at all tempting. Instead I turned to my phone and began browsing through the app. I didn’t exactly want someone right then. But talking to someone might have been nice. Eli had been active within the past forty-five minutes according to the app. Maybe I could interest him in going out to dinner with me. I’m back in town. Can I take you to dinner? I messaged him.

  Can’t. Sorry.

  I frowned down at his nearly instantaneous message. Are you busy? I could wait. For most guys I wouldn’t have bothered, but Eli’s refusal to let me get emotionally close to him had intrigued me from the beginning. A few hours with him when we weren’t having sex right away might have been just the treat I needed to break me out of the work-travel funk I’d slipped into since coming home.

  I don’t go out with the people I screw. Sorry.

  Well, that was incredibly blunt, especially for him, since he rarely said anything to me. I see. I was just a hookup to him. Which made sense. But in a way it also shed a different sort of light on any potential friendship I might have been able to find with him. I wondered what about me he found objectionable beyond someone to spend an hour or so with. Perhaps it was my age. I was a few decades older than him after all. Or maybe it was that I was black and he was very Midwest farm boy.

  I’ll be free in a few days. I hadn’t expected another message so soon from him, and especially not one where he initiated us getting together. That was never our way. I messaged him for a meeting. He was never the one to reach out to me. Until now. It was strange, and I wanted to know why he was changing that part of our dynamic as well.

  But did I want to see him anymore, given that I knew he had no interest in seeing me with my clothes on? The answer was a resounding yes. Whatever his reasons for not wanting to be anything more than sexual partners was, that didn’t diminish the times we spent together. I will contact you then. Good night.

  His answer came a few seconds later. Night.

  Chapter Three

  Eli

  I HAD the day off, so I’d been lounging in a pair of track pants all day while binge-watching Netflix and eating popcorn for all of my meals. It had been a great day, until the son of my apartment manager came knocking on my door.

  “Hey,” he said once I’d opened it.

  “Can I help you?” His name was Billy, or Bobby, maybe Brent. Something with a B. I hadn’t really paid attention much. He did landscaping around the apartment complex, and once in a while, he was the maintenance man if his dad couldn’t make a call or was busy or something.

  He smiled at me and leaned against the doorframe, halfway putting himself in my apartment. “I wanted to let you know that your rent will be increasing by three hundred a month starting on the first. You’ll get a notice in the mail telling you that too.”

  I’d been afraid of that. “Well, that sucks. Thanks for the heads-up and all, but really, it sucks ass.”

  His smile turned sharper then, becoming far more predatory and dangerous. I held my ground and didn’t back away, but I knew from years spent in the club when I was being sized up and when someone was interested in me.

  “Don’t I know you from the app?”

  He probably did. Most of the gay guys that I knew had used it at least once. More often than not, though, they were weekly users. I feigned ignorance. “What app?”

  He ran his hand up the inside of my arm, too quickly for me to pull back before he’d left me feeling as if there were spiders crawling over my skin. I rubbed my arm to ease some of that feeling.

  “Hot Guy Hook Ups,” he clarified for me.

  “What about it?” I was defensive now as I glared up at him. I had a sinking feeling in my gut that I knew where this conversation was going, but I really didn’t want to be right.

  “How about we come to an arrangement? You take care of me sometimes, and I’ll keep your rent the same.”

  And there went my faith in humanity, all because one douchebag had to be an asshole about it. “No.”

  But his smile never slipped. “Fine. A few times a week and you won’t have to pay rent at all.”

  I was already tight on money as it was, and I didn’t have the extra to be able to move and pay another security deposit plus first and last month’s rent. I could ask my friends for help, but none of them were in any better positions than I was. I could ask for more hours, but I knew the rescue didn’t have extra money to give me. I could have the hours. That wasn’t a problem. There were so many horses to work with and so many house checks to do that if I wanted to work sixty or more hours a week, I could easily do that. But I wouldn’t be getting any extra for it.

  Having sex with him a few times a week wasn’t any more repulsive than having sex with some of the guys I did anyway. I always meant to say no to the ones who were jerks about it or who called me a slut within the first few minutes of meeting me just because I happened to really like sex, but I never did. I had sex with them like I had sex with the nice guys like Grayson who let me come first and never hurt me more than I wanted to be. The awful guys, though, those were the ones I never went back to. I wouldn’t have that option here.

  Could I have sex with this guy without even knowing his name just so that I could keep living in my apartment? Sure. I probably could. But would I like myself at the end of the day? That was another question and one I was afraid of the answer for.

  With a sigh I knew I’d made my choice. “You always wear a condom; no one ever knows about this; I don’t do any kind of blood, poop, or piss; and you don’t get to tie me down. You want to have sex with me, those are my terms.”

  He laughed. “You want to keep living in this apartment then here are my terms. I get to fuck you at least three times a week. You say someone else’s name and it’s off, and we’re never going out together. I’m not dating you. I just want your ass. And the condom is when I want to use it, not when you do. That clear?”

  Like I’d ever be caught dead in public with this asshat. “Sure. But you message me first. On the app. You don’t just show up and demand I get naked.
I have a job and a life, and this doesn’t get to interfere with either of those things.”

  He didn’t seem put out by that at all. “Fine. I’m Brent.”

  He already knew my name. “Anything else?”

  “You working or having that life right now?”

  With a sigh I backed up and let him into my apartment. Shit.

  Brent closed my door behind himself and snapped his fingers before pointing at the ground like I was some dog for him to boss around. Maybe that’s exactly how he thought of me. Was it better to be a slut that wanted this or a whore who couldn’t afford rent any other way? I tried not to let those thoughts matter as I took him out of his pants and began giving him the quickest blow job that I could possibly manage.

  “Good whore,” he moaned as he put his hands in my hair and roughly grabbed me. I went faster, using every trick I knew to get this over with as quickly as possible. He barely gave me any warning before he started coming, but I still managed to pull off of him and he ended up shooting over my chin and chest.

  “Thanks,” Brent said, putting himself away.

  “Yeah.” I didn’t care that I had come on me when I went to open the door for him. I only wanted him out of my apartment as quickly as possible.

  “See you in a few days.”

  I shrugged. I’d agreed to that, but I wasn’t going to give him the impression that I was somehow looking forward to having his dick in my mouth again.

  I HEARD from Grayson a few days later. I’m back in town, he texted, along with an address. I’d been avoiding going out with everyone else who messaged me, pretty much because I was already feeling degraded enough as it was and didn’t need to do it any more, but Grayson was never like that. He gave me the address to a hotel and asked me if I wanted to come join him.

  I can be there in an hour, I replied.

  I’m looking forward to seeing you again.

  I was too. Not just for the sex, but to have someone who didn’t call me a whore in the middle of a blow job and who didn’t yank on my hair so hard I thought he was going to pull some of it out. I missed being respected, if not cared about, and Grayson gave me that.

  I showed up in his hotel room, and he was waiting for me, as usual, but this time he had takeout containers on the little table by the window, and he still had his pants on.

  “Hi, Eli. Come, sit down.”

  “Uh. Hey.” I joined him at the table and looked at the various food. Thai, Indian, and Italian. “Couldn’t decide?”

  He laughed. “I didn’t know what you would like. And you said that you don’t go out with people, so I thought we could have dinner together in.”

  Okay, so that was actually a really sweet thought. “Thanks. And, for future reference, the only thing I don’t eat is a salad.”

  Grayson smiled at me, and we began dishing out our various foods onto paper plates. “That is good to know. How’ve you been?”

  I shrugged, and my mind instantly went to my shitty new arrangement with Brent. I wanted to think about the horses, but he was there, his red mottled face above me as he fucked into me and told me, again, what a dirty whore I was as if his insults would start to matter to me at some point.

  “You’re quiet. Is something wrong?”

  I shook my head to get myself out of thinking like that. We didn’t talk about each other. Up until last time, I hadn’t even known his name. What was I supposed to tell him? I didn’t want to break into a friendship zone, but I didn’t want to lie to him either. One of the nice things about hooking up with the guys from the app was that I never had to lie to them because there were no expectations of me when we were together. It was just about sex. And now Grayson was messing that up. Still, I had to tell him something. And I felt like I wanted to as well, which was a strange and new experience for me.

  “I work at a horse sanctuary, and we had a good week. Lots of adoptions. Yesterday we had an open house with games and stuff.” It felt weird, and also kind of good, to tell him even that little bit about myself.

  He smiled and gave me a nod. “That’s lovely. I pictured you in a counseling center helping people, but helping horses I can also see. I’m a business consultant.”

  Which sounded like an important and pretty busy job if I had to take a guess. And he’d pictured me in anything? Much less a counseling center? Did that mean that he thought about me in a nonsexual way when we weren’t together? My alarms were going off.

  “Do you live in Denver?”

  We were in the capital now, in the Brown Palace Hotel, which was expensive and old, and taking public transit to get there had been a little tricky. “No. I live—” Shit. I’d been about to tell him what city I lived in. That was a huge nope for me. “I don’t live in Denver.”

  “I don’t either. I used to, though. I inherited a house in Thornwood.”

  I had to stop myself from dropping my forkful of chicken korma back onto the paper plate. I knew someone who lived in Thornwood. Trent, the first guy I’d ever met on the app, was there. I’d been clingy with him, and he’d given me only silence. I’d learned my lesson fast.

  “You’re wearing glasses today. They make you even cuter, and you look a bit younger with them on.”

  Was younger better? I wasn’t sure, but I liked that he thought I looked cute. “Thanks. I, uh, normally wear contacts.” I wanted to stop there, but I realized I was kind of being a jerk when all he was doing was trying to have a conversation with me like two normal people did when they had dinner together. Two normal people who hadn’t just learned each other’s names after months of having anonymous sex. “I work with a lot of the untrained horses, and sometimes I get thrown, and I’ve had my glasses break from the fall. Plus they get dirty when I’m riding in the arena when no one has bothered to spray it down to keep the dust from being horrible. So contacts work better for me.”

  He nodded and finished off his plate of food. He’d brought a ton of it, but he didn’t act like it was a big deal either. It was good food, but I was on edge from being surprised with not only dinner but also a conversation with him. Part of me was freaking out, and the other, much saner part of myself was remembering that this was Grayson. I’d known him for months. This was fine, and I wasn’t in any kind of danger.

  He got up from the table, and I joined him. “If you’re not done, you can keep eating. I won’t rush you.”

  “I’m good, thanks.” I moved away to begin pulling off my clothes. I knew what came next. This part was familiar to me.

  He eased up behind me, and I rested my head on my forearm on the wall. I took out the plug, tossing it aside, and I heard him getting undressed before he put on a condom. Then, instead of fucking me against the wall like he normally would have done, he ran his hands over my lower back.

  “You have some scratches. Someone new?”

  Great. Of course I did. Fucking Brent. I sighed, probably louder than I meant to. “Something like that.”

  Maybe he could tell that this was one topic I definitely didn’t want to talk about because he dropped it and slid deeply into me without any kind of prep or warning. He was the only one I trusted to be like this with me, because having my body pressed against the wall pretty much made me immobile. I had no leverage if I wanted to get away. But the nice thing about it was that when we were like this, he became all I was aware of. I only saw the wall, and I only felt and heard him. His cologne was faint and reminded me of old woods. And though he fucked me hard, he wasn’t rough with me when he touched me. He ran his hands over my body, and he slid his fingers between my legs to cup my balls and hold them as my cock flopped against my stomach with each hard thrust he gave me.

  “Eli… Eli… Eli….” He whispered my name, and I closed my eyes. No one knew my name. Maybe it was a mistake to give it to him. Brent never used it, even though he knew it, but the first chance Grayson had, he’d used it. And surprisingly, hearing someone else say my name made my pleasure spike. I whimpered, and I didn’t need a dose of quick pain to get me to t
he edge. All I needed was him pumping away inside of me and his hand on my balls as he kneaded them gently between his fingers even as he roughly took my ass. I cried out and came, and he wasn’t long behind me.

  Then we stood there shaking and sweaty with him leaning against me and pushing me against the wall as if he needed the balance to be able to stand. He kissed the back of my hair and released my balls only to run his hands over my chest and stomach. He smeared some of my come, but most of it had gone onto the wall or the floor. He didn’t seem to care or mind that his hands were getting sticky, though, as he felt me all over as if he was worshipping me. There were no orders for me to get dressed, and no one was there tossing cab money at me as if I was just a few degrees shy of being a rent boy. Instead I had Grayson, who seemed to really care about me on some level. And I began to panic.

  “I need you to let me up.”

  He didn’t try to force me to stay. He backed up, and I began getting dressed again. Plug first after washing it, then my jeans, my shirt came next, and then my shoes. I didn’t even bother with my socks this time.

  “You can stay and shower here,” he offered me. Just like he always did.

  I was quick to shake my head. This needed to be the last time between us. He couldn’t care about me, and I couldn’t fall for him. I was a mess, and I was clingy, and I knew what I was good for, and a relationship wasn’t it.

  “Thanks, but that wouldn’t be a good idea. Bye.”

  I was already halfway out the door when he said, “I’ll let you know the next time I’m in town.” I didn’t say anything back to him after that.

  Chapter Four

  Grayson

  I TRIED messaging Eli the next day when my trip was canceled at the last minute. But he didn’t respond. When I got back from another trip two weeks later, he didn’t respond to that message either. I tried a few more times, but after a month of sending him messages, I’d known when to stop. I wasn’t going to keep asking him to spend time with me when he had so decisively made things clear to me that he was no longer interested in seeing me. I only wondered what I’d done to deserve the cold shoulder from him. I’d been kind, and I’d been interested in what he had to say. I hadn’t pressured him to do anything, ever, and I’d respected every boundary he ever set for us. I just didn’t get it.