by Cecilia Tan
I take off into the woods at a light jog. I can’t really go any faster than that. Even circling the lean-to in the copse where there’s little underbrush, I still have to be careful where I step. It’s a decent-enough workout, but I don’t really get to clear my mind the way a long, repetitive run would.
Up on the watch point, the wind is whipping fiercely. It’s sunny and clear right now, but the wind chill is fierce. I jog back into the copse to use the phone.
There’s a reply from Aiden. This one sounds much more like the cold, calculating man I know, a man who is used to valuing human life in dollar increments.
I’ve been advised to transfer you the money and get my son back safe. However, I have also been advised to first acquire proof from you that he is still alive. I have also been advised to give you half of the ransom money upon receipt of that proof, and half after his safe return. $2.1 million in the first transfer awaits your proof that he is alive. The remaining $2,070,131.29 will follow as soon as he is safely released into my custody.
Seeing the exactitude on the calculation makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle—proof that he knows it’s me and he knows why I’m doing this. What other research has Aiden done on me besides the exact amount of my mother’s unpaid medical bills? There shouldn’t be much to find at this point . . .
I switch over to the weather app to glance at high and low tide times for the upcoming week. Sunset at 1555 tonight. Chance of snow in a couple of days. My mind is on Chase, though. Aiden wants proof that Chase is alive? What kind of proof should I send? If I ask Chase to make a video or something, I’ll have to tell him the truth.
Think it through, Eric, says a voice in my head that sounds a lot like my dad’s. Haste makes waste.
I jog back to the cabin. Inside I find Chase crisp-frying the pollock after coating them with salt. When he’s done, we eat them right off the bones like cobs of corn, holding them in slightly singed fingertips. His lips are greasy and salt-laden and taste like satisfaction.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” he says when I pull back from devouring him.
Hope rams itself down my throat and makes my heart stop painfully. “Do you?”
“Yeah. I mean, think about it. Would you want to go back to living under my father’s roof?”
I shrug to hide the twister of emotions knocking everything over inside me, trying to figure out what to say. “This place isn’t really made for long-term living,” I hedge.
He looks around as if what I’ve said is a bit too obviously inaccurate—c’mon, it’s a bunker for holing up indefinitely post-apocalypse—but doesn’t call my bluff. “Yeah, I suppose we’ll get tired of eating fish eventually.” His voice holds a bitter note.
I try to kiss it away, to tell him without words that I’m not the least bit tired of him, that I’m not rejecting him. Not in the slightest. I’m rejecting the impossible notion that he might actually mean forever, that he might actually mean staying with me.
I don’t completely succeed. He acts placated but still seems somehow ruffled underneath as we go about our day. Today we’re caulking cracks to keep drafts out of the cabin. We easily hauled in enough pollock to feed us for a week or two, assuming it stays cold enough to keep them frozen, which seems likely given how this December has been going. He’s right that we might get tired of eating it. Might have to get creative with the canned goods to add some variety . . .
No, I think. No. I’m about to send Aiden some proof that he’s alive, after all, and after that it should all be over pretty quick. We won’t still be here weeks from now.
Chase isn’t the only one who wishes we could stay on this island forever, but wishes are just a way to wound your future self with promises you can’t keep.
“You know, we should do this at night,” he says. “One of us could be outside with a flashlight and one inside to see where the light shines through.”
Huh. “That’s a good idea.” At least, it sounds like one. We’ll have to try it to find out. Later. I’ll need to remember not to just tie him up right away when it gets dark. Maybe if we make love now, I think, I’ll be more patient tonight.
Having thought of it, I now instantly want it. I want to make love to him just for the pure joy of being with him, knowing full well our days together are numbered. “Hey, come here.”
He puts down the caulking tube and comes over to me. I’m standing by the front door. He looks up at the metal pipe bolted into the lintel. “What’s that for? Bondage?”
I snort. “Pull-ups. The only reason I haven’t been using it is the door has to be open when you do it, and that’ll make it cold in here.”
He has that cheeky look in his eye. “You’ve never tied someone to it?”
“You’re the first and only hostage I’ve brought here,” I say. “Can’t say what the other guys may or may not have done with that bar.”
“You’ve never been tied to it, either?”
I curse inwardly for having kindled his curiosity about the other guys. “No. My days on the bottom are long over.”
He sucks his lower lip into his mouth and when he speaks again, it’s plump and wet. “I hope mine aren’t.”
I slip a hand around his waist and pull him against me. “You sure? For me it was . . . a kind of apprenticeship. A way to prove myself.”
“Yeah, true,” he says, his hands sliding under my shirt to my bare skin. “I’m not saying it’s not that, sometimes. With you especially. I . . . I really like being tested.”
“So I’ve seen.” This close I can smell the wood smoke in his hair.
“You were okay with the . . . the guys? . . . putting you through it?”
“Yes, I was okay with it.”
“Even though you’re not a bottom?”
“I was a willing participant in all of it, if that’s what you’re asking,” I say. “And I think dividing the world into tops and bottoms leaves out a whole lot of people.”
“Okay,” he says with a nod. “Okay. I hear what you’re saying. But bottoming is not a phase I’m going through, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good. Because I love fucking you so much,” I say, rutting against his hip bone. “And I want to right now.”
“Yes, sir,” he whispers as he turns his neck aside for me to hickey my way from his ear to his shoulder.
Before long, I’ve flattened him against the bed and I’m taking my time rubbing my erection against his through our clothes.
His hands settle on my biceps. “How many push-ups can you do?”
“Many,” I say, then trace a tendon in his neck with my teeth until he squirms upward against me. “Got pretty close to a hundred in two minutes before they would even look at me to go to boot camp.”
His eyes flick toward the bar over the door. “And pull-ups?”
“Twenty-five.” I’m holding myself above him now. “Why all the questions?”
“Curious, I guess.” He pumps his hips upward, making his dick graze mine in a hell of a tease. “It’s hot how in-shape you are.”
“All it takes is time,” I say. “Anyone can make themselves strong physically with repetition. Mentally strong? That’s another story.”
He pushes his pants down and rubs his bare erection against my crotch. “Did the guys you talk about make you mentally strong by . . .” He hesitates. “By what they did? Fucking you in the shower and that kind of thing?”
My instinct is to deny it, to say, Hell no, we were just horny as fuck. Not to mention bored and sometimes stupid. If anything, all the power sex games bonded our team emotionally more than they affected us mentally. But I can hear a note beyond mere curiosity in Chase’s voice. He’s seeking something.
And who’s to say my mental toughness wasn’t improved by those games? Or that Chase’s isn’t being built up every time I challenge him?
These thoughts sweep through my mind at lightning speed, and I nip at his mouth while I choose my answer. “You’re already mentally strong,” I say.
He has to be or he’d have cracked before this.
“You think so?”
“I know so. Or you’d be begging me for less, not more.” I sit back on my haunches to undo my fly. “It’s why it’s fun to push you. If you were weak, I’d worry about taking you too far.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Instead I mostly worry that we’re both going to be so chafed from constant sex that neither of us will ever recover.”
He snorts with laughter. “I’m doing okay so far.”
“See if you still say that in an hour,” I say. “Because my number one plan is to make my cock at home in your ass.”
“Yes, sir,” he says as he exhales.
I do fuck him for what feels like an hour. Long and slow. No talking, no tests, no power games. Just me giving and him taking. My attention goes no further than the nest of our discarded clothes. Chase’s skin is all that matters, and the sounds that he makes as we join, and the way the blood pumps through my chest.
We fuck until I come. Taking my time like that, it happens slowly, but when the orgasm bubbles up, I don’t try to stop it. I let it build, sweet and slow, until it shakes loose, ripping free of me with a sudden harshness of breath that feels surprising given the gradualness of its approach.
Chase holds me in place, all his limbs wrapped around me, keeping me from withdrawing. He’s breathing hard, too, but I can feel his cock trapped between our bellies, hard as a pistol grip. “That was—”
“Not over yet. You next.”
He hums in anticipation. I disengage from him gently and then put his own underwear over his eyes as a blindfold.
I suddenly know what proof I’m going to send to Aiden. “Stay still.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, breathless but obedient.
I tie his wrists to the bedposts with rope, then his ankles, spreading him across the bed in an X. I aim the cell phone camera up one leg, capturing his throbbing erection and his blindfolded face in the same shot. I add a video to the collection of still photos, a few seconds of his cock twitching. No doubt that he’s alive.
Here is your proof. He is alive and well. I promised I’d keep him safe and wouldn’t hurt him, and unlike some people, I keep my promises. You have my word he’ll be returned to you whole and healthy if you meet my demands. Make the deposit and I’ll tell you where to find him.
The video trickles into the internet. The cell phone signal is weak here and it fluctuates, sometimes disappearing and then reappearing. I play with Chase’s balls with one hand while I monitor the phone in the other. He’s more patient than I am, lying there content to let me tease him endlessly, while I can’t wait for the damn upload to finish. Eventually it goes, though. There, Aiden. There’s your proof that he’s alive and well, with all his limbs.
I’m jubilant that the operation is proceeding as planned, but my gut twists at knowing that soon this will be over.
I’d best savor him as much as I can. I take his cock in my mouth, and the salty tang of his pre-come makes my mouth water.
Time stamp: 1318 Monday, Ledge Island
Today it’s above forty-five degrees, and in the sun the weather feels, as they say, “nice.” We finish the last of the caulking from the outside now that it’s within the temperature window for the stuff, and then celebrate after lunch by sunning ourselves on the promontory rock like lizards. Even at midday the sun is on its winter slant—weak, but it still feels life-giving after the cold snap. When the wind starts to whip up, we head back into the cabin.
“What’s for dinner, scout?” I say.
He folds his hands like a waiter, his heels together. “Tonight’s menu: your choice of beef stew from a can, fish, or ramen noodles.”
“You found ramen?”
He shrugs and makes his hair stand up when he runs his fingers through it. I think he has no idea that he looks like a grass stalk gone to seed when he does that. “You didn’t say I couldn’t look through the storage bins. I was surprised to find some in there. I’d think bugs or rats might chew into them.”
“I’m not sure there are rats on this island, but there are chipmunks.”
He looks hopeful. “Maybe we should eat it before something else gets it?”
“You like ramen?”
“You don’t?” Those two words seem to open up a million questions, depending on my answer.
I press on instead. “When did a rich boy like you eat ramen?”
“Everyone eats ramen noodles,” he says, moving to the bin where they’re stored. “It was something I could make for myself before I knew how to cook. Something I didn’t have to ask a nanny or a nursemaid for. First it was the kind in the cup, and then I moved on to the kind you make in a pot.”
“Which kind do we have?” I ask, as if I don’t know. As if I didn’t take the last few packages out of my mom’s nearly empty cabinets when I cleaned out her house, as if I didn’t bring them here because I couldn’t bear to let them go to waste.
“The kind in cups,” he says, producing two Styrofoam Cup Noodle packages. “I know we won’t eat for a while, but I’ll fill the kettle.”
“Not much protein in ramen,” I say, but my objection is as weak and slanted as the winter sun.
“I could make some fish, too.” He gives me that shrug again. “And know what I saw at the watch point today? Wild chives.”
That makes me smile. “Onion grass?”
“What you call onion grass is actually a kind of onion, you know,” he says. “I’ll go pick some. It’s kinda freeze dried, but it’ll taste good on ramen noodles.”
I sit on the edge of the sleeping pallet. “Ramen,” I say.
“Yeah.” He sounds confused. “That mean you’re saying yes?”
“Ramen. Not ramen noodles.” I can hear my mother’s voice in my head, chiding me age four or five when I asked for my favorite food. I’m not trying to be a hard-ass, but I can’t help it. “That’s like saying ‘noodle noodles.’”
He winces. “I know, I know, so they said at culinary school, if you want to be technical about it. But I guess you like to be technical about most things.”
I nod. So true.
“But are we having them or not, regardless of what you call them?”
I stretch out on the bed, trying to sound as laid back as my posture. “Sure. Go fill the kettle and pick your onions or whatever so we’ll be ready when it’s time to eat.”
He bounds out the door like a puppy let off the leash. I find myself smiling again. I might have to admit I feel happy when I’ve smiled twice within five minutes. It tells me how happy I could have been if Aiden hadn’t fucked with my life.
Or if I hadn’t fucked with Aiden’s life. But if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have gotten to know Chase like this in the first place. Or would I? If I’d gone crawling to Aiden to beg for my old job back after he’d let my mother die . . .? Would I have been assigned to bodyguard Chase on trips to his culinary school?
I have to wonder. Generally speaking, Aiden had kept me and the rest of “the muscle” away from Chase—was it because he thought we might do something inappropriate with his beautiful angel of a boy? And was that why once he found out for sure I was gay, he had to get rid of me?
What Chase said about a bodyguard driving him to and from culinary classes gnaws at the back of my brain. Too old for a nanny at that point. Did Aiden even let him learn to drive a car? That mansion really was a gilded cage, a soft prison.
Chase returns with the water and greens, and preps the meal for later, whistling while he does it. From my vantage point stretched out on the bed, it feels decadent to have him serving me. Is this what Aiden feels like every day, an emperor with servants scurrying to do his bidding? My years of employment with him certainly lead me to think so.
I can’t lie still while Chase works. I sit up and search for something to keep my hands busy. I dig my boots out from under the pallet and look them over. There’s one pair for using in the water and one for running overland. They’re bo
th in fairly good shape right now, but if I don’t maintain them, I know I’ll run into trouble eventually. If we ever come back here long term, we should add more clothing and shoe-repair supplies to our pack list.
Chase sits beside me while I stow them back underneath. Then I quickly reach for him.
He flinches away, and my heart fucking breaks, my hand falling as limp as some other parts of me. Words, Eric, words. Use them. “Are you . . . all right?”
“Oh, just . . .” His gaze is on his lap, head tilted downward in shame.
“Just what?” I’m suddenly alarmed, and that makes my voice sharper than the nurturing tone I’m trying for. I reach more slowly toward him this time, unsure why he’s—I’m—we’re—suddenly so fragile. My fingertips make cautious contact with the flannel on his shoulder, but I move incrementally to let the weight of my hand settle there. I resort to whispering to make my voice soft. “Just what? It’s okay. You can tell me.”
Under my hand I feel the tension begin to notch downward. “I don’t want to let you down. I want to be . . . you know, ready, whenever you need me.”
He’s talking about sex, but those same words could’ve come out of my mouth any number of times when I was a young recruit. I know how to handle this one. I’ve been given this speech. “I had a chief petty officer tell me once in no uncertain terms it was my job on the squad to hump the fire hoses during fire-training week. I wrenched my elbow on the second day and didn’t tell him. I thought it was my job no matter what. Didn’t want to let him or the squad down.”
“What did you do?”
“Suffered. Made it worse. Made myself an ineffective part of the team. Because I didn’t do what I should have first, which was tell him I was hurt. It wasn’t my job to decide that an injured sailor should keep trying to do a job he wasn’t fit to do. That’s his job. So I made it impossible for me to do my job and for him to do his job.”
He looks up at last. “Yeah, but . . . having sex with you isn’t a job.”
We’re tiptoeing through a minefield, and I have no idea what we might be about to set off. “Then you should be even more honest with me.”