by Cecilia Tan
When I was twenty-two, I’d already been in a war zone. “Me too,” I say, but how I was born is nothing compared to the life that’s shaped me. I continue to pretend I know nothing about him. “So you grew up sheltered.”
“Yeah, you know, homeschooled, the whole nine yards. I convinced him to let me go to cooking school. He had a guy chauffeur me to class and wait there to take me back the second I was done.”
“That’s rough.”
“Yeah. So’s getting blown in the walk-in fridge.”
Heh. I could picture it. “You’re a hellion, aren’t you.”
He nods, giving me that coy, seductive look again. “’ts why I need a big, bad top to keep me in line.”
The truth is I’m not that big. I’m more of a Bruce Lee than an Arnold Schwarzenegger—SEAL training puts lean muscle on, not bulk. But maybe he’s talking about my dick. I wonder when we’ll hear from his father next. “We could keep this thing going for a while longer,” I say. “If you want.”
He nods. “Promise me you’ll torture your captive, too?” He gives me the puppy-dog eyes then.
“Torture isn’t really my style,” I say. “Unless you count orgasm denial as torture.”
“Everything counts,” he says. “Maybe a little light interrogation?”
“Like you’ll be able to answer any questions with my cock in your mouth.” I stand up and I notice his cock is doing the same. This kid is all hormones, I swear. I finish my coffee, crush the cup, and toss it into the garbage can. “You want to do this for real, give me the unlock code for your phone.”
He spits out the numbers so fast I have to make him repeat them. “Good boy,” I say as I dig his phone out of his bag. “Tell me which reward you want this morning, my come down your throat or your own.”
“Yours, sir.”
I want to tell him not to call me that. Call me Daddy or Master or whatever fucked-up thing you want. But I like the way “sir” revs my engine too much, too-too much. “Right answer, boy,” I say, already unzipping. My cock smells like Canadian bacon, I swear. “Suck and swallow.”
He’s not quite as proficient at this blowjob thing as his bravado made him out to be. But since he’s got the use of his hands right now, he fondles my balls.
I change the lock code on his phone, turn off all the geolocating services, and power it down before tossing it back onto the bed. Not a moment too soon. Maybe he’s better at blowjobs than I thought. I’m far closer to coming than I expected to get while focused on the phone.
The orgasm makes my knees shake, and at first I’m not confident I’m going to stay upright.
But I do. He gags a little when he tries to swallow. Don’t ask me why, but that’s even better than if he’d guzzled it down like something from a porn video.
When he can talk again, he asks me, “Are you going to tie me up again?”
I nod. “Can’t have you making trouble or running away,” I say, looking through what other restraints and ropes are in his bag. It’s a decent selection. “How’d you keep this stuff hidden from your father?”
“Stashed it in a shed in the woods behind our property.”
I laugh. That’s the kind of thing I’d do. “You’re a regular Boy Scout.”
“Never got to be a scout, so I just have to pretend.”
I grip him by the hair and pull his face close to mine. “You like to pretend.”
“My fantasies have always been better than reality,” he says evenly, his eyes meeting mine as the tip of his tongue touches the corner of his lips.
My fantasies right now have put him in a starring role. What if he wasn’t the Milford scion? What if I hadn’t promised my mother I’d get revenge? What if I’d actually met him on the hookup app and this kinky joyride didn’t have to end?
It doesn’t have to end yet, that’s for sure. I kiss him to see what his mouth tastes like after sucking me down. It tastes like lust and something fresh and new. “Clean up. I’m taking the restraints off so you can shower. But I’m going to watch you do it. I’m going to sit right on the toilet and watch your every move.”
He grins. As if the real reason I’ll be watching him is to see him suds up that lithe body. No, really, kid—it’s just a side benefit.
He takes full advantage of the opportunity to show himself off, running slick hands all over his skin, sliding the motel soap between the globes of his ass like a credit card through a swiper. Good thing I just came, or I might be tempted to delay us even further.
When he’s done cleaning up, I make sure he gets back into the clothes I gave him: cargo pants, a cotton tank top, and a flannel shirt. Not really warm enough for where we’re going, but at least it’s better than the running shorts he’d worn to seduce me. Thank goodness his coat’s down-filled. His hands in front of him, I put him into police-issue handcuffs, telling him to keep his hands inside his sleeves because if anyone sees the cuffs, our little game could end really unpleasantly. A knit cap hides the blond highlights on the top of his head and darkens his aspect.
He grins conspiratorially at me. “Where we going again?”
“Ice fishing,” I say. “You really wanted to be a Boy Scout? This is real Boy Scout stuff.”
The place I’m taking him is a cabin that Garrett, Cassidy, and Ruiz set up some time before I joined their team, when they were convinced WWIII was on the way. A little hideaway open to anyone from our team. It’s basically where you’d want to be if there was a zombie apocalypse and where we all agreed we’d meet if the government fell or UFOs invaded or whatever. Cass brought me here to work on the place when we weren’t sure what was going to happen with our discharge. I’ve been back a few times in the past year or two, but I’ve never seen any sign of the others. Maybe once it seemed like the Zodiac was in a slightly different spot from where I left it. But maybe I didn’t remember exactly.
We drive for another hour. I’ve tried to lay a bit of a zigzag route in case Milford or the police connect the dots somehow. That first rest stop to make it look like we were headed west, when actually we’re going north. That sort of thing. I also overshoot the destination in order to fill up the tank with gas. Maybe they’ll think we’re on the way to the Canadian border, which isn’t that far either.
Our actual destination is an island. One of the more than three thousand coastal islands in Maine. Before we can get there, though, we have to stash the truck in the storage shed, pick up some of the supplies there, and make sure the Zodiac is still seaworthy. I checked everything a few days ago, but isn’t the Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared”?
The only thing I haven’t been prepared for is Chase turning into as much of a lustpuppy as I was when I joined the SEALs.
Time stamp: 0850 Tuesday, Pickerel Bay coastline
The sun is well up by the time we reach the shed. We haven’t seen another vehicle or human since we left the interstate. This stretch of the Maine coast isn’t even busy in the summer—what with a wetlands preserve between here and the nearest town, and the kind of rocky beach that’s neither a good tourist attraction nor the kind of land millionaires want for beachfront property. In the winter it’s utterly deserted.
I get both my pack and his gear bag onto my shoulders. After I lock the shed behind us, into the woods I go. Chase follows, his wrists still cuffed, his eyes wide with curiosity at the trees. The track down to the shoreline is overgrown a bit, but a fairly easy walk if one isn’t hauling an outboard engine.
I’d debated whether I should inflate the Zodiac and prep it for use ahead of time or if I should wait until after I’d retrieved Chase. I’d ended up doing it in advance, but I’m still not sure that was the right choice as we reach the boat on the gravelly shore.
“Ice fishing?” he asks. They’re the first words he’s spoken in an hour, and there’s a quaver in his voice.
“Okay, not really ice fishing,” I say, piling our bags up. “That’s a little more boring than what I have in mind.”
I can hear the breath stutter in and o
ut of his lungs, and it takes me a moment to register he’s afraid. He’s got his fingers twisted together like he’s his own Chinese finger trap. Yeah, this looks like a setup because it is.
“I’m not a serial killer, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I say. I take my gloves off. I’ve got the handcuff key on my key ring, and I hold it up where he can see it. “Give me your hands.”
He holds them toward me, solemn, scared, but obedient. I hate thinking about what kind of father Aiden was to this kid.
He’s not a kid anymore, I remind myself. He’s older than I was when I enlisted. I take the cuffs off and stuff them into my jacket pocket. Then I put my palm against his cheek. His face feels cold. The winter air bites up here. “Listen. I know this is heavy duty. Beyond your usual Boy Scout shit.” The words are harsh, but my voice comes out more tender than I expect. “Tell me if you can’t handle it.”
“Boy Scout shit,” he echoes with a nervous smirk.
“Yeah,” I say without elaborating. When I was his age, the dare would’ve been enough to push me to go along with it.
Maybe he’s a little smarter than I was at his age. “This is something more than a hookup.” My heart hammers a little harder; for a second, I think he’s figured out I’m kidnapping him for real and he might be about to yell for help or run. But then he adds, “I mean, this is the first time a trick has . . . taken me wilderness boating, or whatever it is we’re going to do.”
“You turned a lot of tricks through that app?” The harshness I couldn’t muster a minute ago suddenly grits my voice.
“Not too many,” he admits. The air between us feels thick, like if I reached out to grab him, my hand would be moving through molasses. “And those that did, most of ’em were gone within an hour.”
Does he feel the magnetic attraction, too, or is it just me? I cluck my tongue and try to lighten the mood. “After all the come you swallow, they at least owe you breakfast,” I say. “I thought you were okay with a kidnapping scenario?”
“I was expecting you to hood me, tie me, and drive me around the block in the trunk,” he says, wringing his fingers again.
“That’d have been fun, except that the trunk of a car isn’t safe, and if we got stopped by the cops, there would’ve been way more trouble than either of us could ever want.” I point across the water. Of Maine’s thousands of coastal islands, some aren’t even accessible to humans. Some are only to the very motivated. Garrett might be more paranoid than a bus full of meth addicts, but I send silent thanks to him. From the shore, you’d never know that anyone had ever set foot on that rock. “No more driving around. That’s where we’re going. A private island where I can tie you to the bunk and fuck you next to a roaring fire.” I sound so calm now I’m almost cold except for the emphasis that bursts out on the word “fuck.” At first I think it’s a mistake, like that’s going to scare him worse. But then he steps close to me, runs his hand up and down my fly, and feels how hard I am. Throbbing. Just from the thought.
I try to play it cool, but he knows how much I’m burning for him. He still hasn’t said anything. I don’t know why, but the fact that he isn’t a chatty airhead turns me on. I fill up the silence with more words of my own. “The hood idea isn’t bad, but safety first, you know? We’re getting on a boat. That’s why your hands are free now.”
He nods, and the look in his eye has turned sultry again. If he had been starting to worry I wanted something from him other than hot sex, his suspicion appears quashed by how stiff my cock is.
This is fucked up. I know it. But there’s no going back.
“It would be nice to get away for a while,” he says, and a thrill of victory goes through me.
“Can you swim? The truth, now.” I feel like a hypocrite demanding honesty when the truth is that I’m starting to lose my grip on the big picture. The big plan. All I can think about is how much I want to get him to the cabin and bury myself in him.
“Yeah, I can swim,” he says. “Although nobody would last long in water that cold.”
Not even me. “I plan to stay out of it.”
At the other end I’ll probably get my boots wet, but there’s nothing for it. The cabin’s equipped.
“What do I need to know about this boat?”
“Mostly just keep your ass down,” I say. This little Zodiac isn’t like a military-grade CRRC, and I don’t plan to hit top speed.
The sea’s not too choppy. Which is good because Chase isn’t dressed to withstand getting soaked by the spray. He’s not even wearing gloves, for fuck’s sake. It’s a mild day for December, but it’s a good twenty degrees colder here than it was when he set out from his father’s mansion to meet me. The water’s steel gray under the winter sky, and darker patches draw my eye as I steer the Zodiac away from the shore. Seaweed? No, schools of fish, clustering in the shallows.
We circle the island on the seaward side to the landing zone. It’s near low tide, so there’s a spot of beach that’ll disappear in the next few hours. When I beach the Zodiac, I hop out and pull it until it’s stuck on the rough sand. Chase joins me and helps me drag it a little further, but what’s weightless on water is two-hundred-some pounds on land. I get our packs out of the stow bag, decouple the engine, and prep the boat to be stowed. Once it’s in pieces, it’s easy for the two of us working together to move it to a place above the scrub where it can’t be seen and can’t be reached by the high tide.
Only once does it seem like his hands are too cold, and he barely complains, just makes a dismayed noise as he clenches his fists against his chest after letting go of the frigid, wet rubber. I pull my gloves off again, and he obviously thinks I’m going to give them to him. I don’t. I stuff them in my back pocket, take his hands in mine, and stick them under my shirt. His fingers are chilled to the bone as he presses them against my skin, steaming hot from exertion under my winter wear. My nipples harden against his palms, and he grins as he feels it.
“Better?” I ask as the temperature equalizes between his flesh and mine.
“Much better,” he says.
“Good. Frostbite’s no fun. We’ll get warmed up once we’re inside.”
The hike to the interior of the island isn’t too long, although there are a couple of steep cliffy places. Chase threads his arms through the straps on his gear bag to make it into an impromptu rucksack. Resourceful.
The cabin is as I left it a few days ago, stocked with food, a modicum of bottled water, and some other necessities. There’s not a lot to see in a box-shaped cabin. The “tour” of the place takes maybe fifteen seconds of pointing at stuff: raised sleeping pallet, storage cabinets, weather radio. In the sixteenth second, the only thing stopping me from stripping him out of his clothes is the shred of common sense to get my boots dry. That means building a fire. A squat iron woodstove sits in one corner on a stone slab atop the raised wooden floor. I’ve already split wood, and I have cardboard and matches, all that, prepped from my visit last week.
A Navy SEAL taught me to build a fire, the first SEAL I’d seen since my father’s funeral. I was a Boy Scout, on our troop’s annual “survival weekend” in New Jersey. The instructors were two Army Rangers and a SEAL. They split us into squads and gave us various tests. One was to build a fire that would burn hot enough and high enough to burn through a string a few feet off the ground. Each squad was given only one match.
I hold the box of matches in my fingers, remembering.
“This is really nice,” Chase says, still looking around at the place.
“What were you expecting?” I crouch in front of the stove and check that the paper and kindling are still neatly stacked.
“No idea. A dirt floor and a hole in the roof for the smoke, I guess.” He shrugs.
“Some military buddies of mine built this place,” I tell him. “We’d come work on it between deployments. If you don’t build up off the ground, you end up with a lot of vermin and flooding problems, or so I’m told. If you really want to rough it, I can build
us a shelter to sleep outside. It’s a lot easier to keep warm overnight if there are two of you—”
“No, no, this is nice. I’m not knocking it.” He sounds worried. “You’ve slept outside?”
“In a shelter I built myself? Yeah.”
“In the military or something?”
“No, dude,” I say with a laugh. “Told you. Boy Scouts.” Okay, I decide I’m going to tell him about Boy Scout camp after all. “Two Army Rangers and a SEAL came to our camp and taught us stuff. The idea was if you were stuck in the wilderness with nothing but a Swiss Army knife, could you survive? They taught us to build a shelter, how to make it warm enough to survive in . . . if your clothes aren’t wet.” I get my boots and socks off as I’m saying this and lay them out on the slab. “And how to make a fire that won’t burn out.”
“How do you make a fire that won’t burn out? That sounds dangerous.”
Right. “Sorry, I mean that won’t blow out while you’re gradually dying of hypothermia. Like some serious Jack London shit.”
He chuckles at that. “Oh man, I read those books. Alaska, right?”
Of course he’s read them. Aiden has all the tough-guy classics in his library. Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, Treasure Island. The Heart of Darkness.
Yeah, whatever. “So, the test was to build the fire well enough that with one match you’d get something that would burn strong enough to burn clear through a string.” One match. Here goes. I light one and the paper catches. The flame spreads quickly through the cardboard and ignites the dry wood with gratifying speed. Ta-da. “We were in squads of four. It was a competition to see who could burn through the string first. I had my squad collecting birch bark, kindling, bigger twigs, sticks, on up to small logs. You build a sort of teepee around the bark and kindling with the twigs and sticks, and then once those are going you gradually add on bigger and bigger sticks.”
He peers into the open door of the stove. “Is that what you just did now?”
“Uh, in principle, yeah, but with the woodstove you just lay the kindling in one layer, the small split wood across it, and then the heavier pieces across that, and light it at the bottom.” It’s all caught nicely now. I gesture at him to get his own shoes and socks off. “Plus everything in here is bone dry, which makes it easy. The great thing about birch bark is it’ll burn even if it’s damp.”