Governor

by Lesli Richardson

  They’ve both volunteered a few things to me over the past couple of weeks, stuff they’ve discussed. That’s good enough.

  I trust.

  That’s what’s most important, something Carter’s emphasized to me over and over again, that I need to learn to trust. If I can’t, I’m going to have a miserable damn life.

  We head inside. While I’ve seen pictures of my dad on Facebook, when he walks in with his wife, Katie, and my brother and sister, it still jars me a little. My last memory of hugging him before saying good-bye and not realizing it’d be the last time I ever saw him is still etched in my head. He had a full head of brown hair and my green eyes.

  The green eyes are the same, but his hair is shorter now and mostly silver. He’s sixty-two, a couple of years older than Mom.

  Katie is thirty-two. Which is something I knew, because it’s always been one of Mom’s prime points to blast him over.

  Danny is going to turn five tomorrow and he looks nearly identical to me as I did at that age. Susie—who primly insists on being called Susan—is six going on sixty, apparently, and has my dad’s green eyes but her mom’s black hair.

  It’s ironic that I have two “Sues” in my life who both act way older than their calendar age, I suppose.

  Katie warmly hugs me and quickly shows she’s the anti-Mom, thank goodness. My dad and I awkwardly hug for a long moment.

  I’m shocked that I find myself struggling to hold back tears when they prickle in my eyes. Susa takes over talking and asking questions while Carter rests a hand between my shoulder blades for a moment, hanging back with me while the hostess seats everyone else.

  “Deep breaths, boy,” he whispers. “You’ve got this.”

  Now that I’m here…

  Fuck you, Mom.

  I want to be here, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let my fear spoil this precious gift I’ve been given.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  In our dinner conversation, we stay away from the past, mostly. Dad asks me about school, about what the three of us are studying, and I ask the two kids about stuff.

  They are cool kids.

  I have a little brother and sister.

  I’m still trying to wrap my head around that. Before now, they weren’t real, as stupid as that sounds.

  Katie and Dad don’t live far from the steakhouse, and we follow them home. It’s a modest home in what feels like a middle-income neighborhood. It’s not even as nice as the house I remember us living in before the divorce, but inside is clean and feels homey.

  Like there’s real love being nurtured within its walls.

  Danny and Susan show me around while Dad, Katie, Carter, and Susa sit in the living room to chat. I join them a short time later after stopping by the bathroom to pull myself together again.

  Once Katie’s put the children to bed, I guess that’s when Dad feels he can finally open up.

  He removes his glasses and sets them aside. “I owe you an apology, son. I’m sorry I left you behind.”

  I don’t even realize I’m crying until Susa’s up and reaching for a box of tissues Katie hands her, and Carter switches places to put me between him and Susa on the couch.

  “I’m not going to say this is none of my business,” Carter says as I cry on his shoulder, “because Owen’s my best friend. This is absolutely my business. But that woman is damned toxic.”

  “I know.” Dad glances at Katie before looking at me again. “I cheated on your mother. I’m not proud of that, and it’s a story Katie’s already heard. What I thought was drive and determination on Elandra’s part was way more darker and disturbing than I ever bargained. She pushed me away and punished me every chance she got for me so much as having an opinion that differed from hers.”

  I would normally call that a cop-out, except I was raised by the woman and I know exactly what he’s talking about.

  “After a while,” he continues, “no matter how I tried to approach her to go to counseling, or to work with me…I gave up. Yes, I handled it wrong. If I could take it all back, I would. I would have taken you and left her and not given her ammunition to use against me. Unfortunately, our prenup had an infidelity clause in it, and I was stupid.”

  “She would have been vicious even if you hadn’t cheated,” Carter says.

  “Yeah, but she couldn’t have wielded the prenup against me the way she did. I didn’t have the money to fight her. I could barely afford the child support every month.”

  That gets my attention. “Wait…what?”

  “What?” Dad asks.

  “Child support?”

  “Yeah. Over double what the state mandates. That’s another reason I had to move for work. I was making nearly double out here. It was the only way I could afford the payments. I knew if I was so much as a minute late with one, she would have dragged me into court with a contempt motion.”

  Rage burns within me. “She told me you never paid any support. That you made a couple of payments, told her you couldn’t afford it, so she ‘let you off the hook’ because she could afford to take care of me.”

  He’s better at hiding his emotions than I am, but he slowly shakes his head. “Every month until you turned eighteen. Did you ever receive any of the cards I sent you for your birthday, or holidays? Or any of the phone messages I left when I’d call to talk to you?”

  I’m…I’m trembling, I’m so enraged. I’ve never felt like this in my entire life, and it scares me.

  If Mom was standing in front of me right now, I’m not sure I could stop myself from wrapping my hands around her throat and strangling her.

  That fucking terrifies me.

  “Why don’t the three of us step outside,” Carter quietly says, standing and gently tugging on my arm to get me to stand, too.

  I want to call her and scream at her right now, which might be why Carter reaches down and fishes my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans and tosses it to Susa before we follow Dad outside.

  It’s still hot, but since it’s after dark I can feel cooler air trying to work its way in. It’s not muggy like Florida, but as I stare up at the sky, at an unfamiliar vista of stars not usually visible with Tampa’s light pollution, I struggle against the urge to throw my head back and scream until my throat is raw.

  Carter’s never left my side, keeping a hand on my shoulder, or along the small of my back, or even holding my arm.

  Dad steps over and I realize he’s crying now. He’s left his glasses inside and stares at me with a weight and weariness I recognize all too well. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I left you behind. I thought maybe she would treat you kinder if I wasn’t around.”

  “She didn’t,” Carter says, but he’s totally focused on me.

  “She lied to me about everything,” I flatly say. “Everything. She said you couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to me, and I was lucky she took such good care of me. Once she heard about you getting remarried, she said that was proof you had shiny-object syndrome, and that you’d likely be cheating on her before long.”

  “That’s what abusers do,” Carter says. I’m not so out of it that I miss he’s using what I think of as his “Sir” voice, but his tone is soft, gentle. “They isolate their victims, groom them, make them dependent upon them, and turn everything around so the victim blames themselves without question.”

  “I don’t even know my cousins,” I finally choke out. “My aunts and uncles.”

  “They want to get to know you,” Dad says. “I told them you were coming out to visit. A couple will be here tomorrow, but there are still a bunch in Florida who want you to contact them. My older brother, Dan, still lives in Tampa, with his wife, Judy.”

  That’s right, I’d forgotten about Uncle Dan. That’s likely why Dad named his son after him. They don’t have kids, not for lack of trying on their part, based on what I gleaned from our dinner conversation.

  “He’d like it if you give him a call,” Dad says. “If you want to,” he quickly ads.

  Carter
pats my shoulder. “He will, when we get back to Tampa. We’ll arrange to have them come to Susa’s.”

  I’m still struggling through my rage, through a turbulent rush of emotions smacking me all at once.

  The truth that my mother was far more cruel to me than I’d ever dreamed possible.

  No, there’s no fucking way I can ever stay under her roof again. And if she does cut me off…

  Well, there’s Carter and Susa. They’ve promised to take care of me, to help me out.

  I turn to Dad and hug him. “I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to you often or do this sooner. I just…I was scared of her.”

  “I know, son. It’s okay. I’m so sorry I left you with her. I thought I was doing the best thing for you.”

  “I know.”

  “I miss going fishing with you. I don’t know if you saw it, but I still have that one picture of us, it’s hanging there in the living room, along with a couple of others. They’re the only ones I was able to take. I mean, I have some smaller pictures, but not a lot.”

  It’s that soft comment that finishes me. The three of us end up sitting right there on the ground, Carter behind me and me in the middle as I sob in my dad’s arms.

  When I moved out before the start of this school year, one of the things I made sure I took were pictures of me and Dad that were hidden away in storage totes in closets or tucked into photo albums. I suspected if I didn’t that I might never again be able to get them.

  Right now, I’m glad I did.

  There’s only one picture of me hanging on my mother’s walls, and it’s my high school graduation picture, and she and Austin are in it.

  If it wasn’t for that picture, the casual observer in her home would assume I never existed.

  * * * *

  We finally leave their place about ten o’clock local time. The hotel room is a suite with a king-sized bed and a sleeper sofa, but Carter tells me we’re all sleeping in the bed.

  I’m too wrung out to argue. I don’t even think about it when he takes me into the shower and bathes me, then hands me sleeping shorts to wear and curls up with me in the middle. Susa grabs a quick shower and joins us, wearing a T-shirt and panties, I’m assuming, but I’m too busy crying to feel the slightest bit sexy or nervous or anything else.

  I feel…gutted.

  Raw.

  Wounded in even deeper ways than I ever realized before. Like an abscess I thought was cleaned out is far deeper than previously known, exposing a much greater vein of infection just getting started.

  “Let it out, Owen,” Susa gently says where she’s pressed along my back with her arm around me. “You can’t hold on to this.”

  “And don’t do anything rash,” Carter cautions. “Let’s get you through the weekend, get home to Tampa, and decompress from this. We have finals coming up soon. You’re not going back to her house, so it doesn’t matter right now.”

  I know he’s right, but it’s so tempting to grab my phone and upload every damned last one of the pictures I took—or Susa or Carter took for me—from dinner onto Facebook and tag my mother in every last one of them.

  In the short span of time I’ve known her, Katie is already a far better mom to me than my own mother. There’s nothing fake or pretentious about her. Her house isn’t perfect.

  Her kids have slightly messy rooms that show evidence of life and love.

  Their refrigerator is covered with photos and schoolwork and things they’ve drawn. She works part-time and volunteers at their school. Danny’s just started pre-K.

  They have a beloved pet cat.

  As I fall asleep securely nestled between the two people who know me best in the entire world, I wonder to myself if Katie would be okay with me calling her Mom.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I feel worse than the morning of the hangover when I awaken Saturday. In sleep, I’ve rolled toward Susa and find Carter is spooned along my back, while Susa has cuddled tightly against me.

  My brain takes a few moments to process this.

  That Carter’s arm is around me, and Susa’s body is pressed against me.

  My eyes snap open when this finally hits me, along with the fact that despite how much my brain and heart hurt right now, I’m sporting epic morning wood. Normally, Carter and I go run, and that kills my boner, until we hit the shower.

  I can’t get out of bed without waking both of them, either.

  Sure, Susa’s become quite adept at jerking me off during play, but this is…different.

  “No, you don’t need to think about moving,” Carter rasps from behind me, his arm tightening around my waist.

  His hand dips lower, under the waistband of my shorts, and wraps around my erection. He doesn’t start stroking me, just holding me.

  Still not helping.

  I struggle to remain still and not fuck his hand even as he softly chuckles in my ear.

  Susa draws in a deep breath and opens her eyes. “Mmm. Morning.”

  I don’t know if Carter’s intent was to distract me, but it’s working.

  “No run this morning, obviously,” Carter says to Susa. “But I think boy deserves a reward for last night.”

  “Oooh, nice. What kind of reward?” Her hand also snakes under my waistband, over Carter’s, lower, now cupping my balls.

  Carter shifts position so I can roll onto my back. Now they’re both smiling down at me.

  This doesn’t feel fair to them. “Do…do you want me to do something for you?” I’m terrified to ask that, terrified they’ll both say yes, but it’s the good kind of terror. I’m not sure how I’ll respond if they take me up on it.

  They exchange a look. “You don’t need to worry about that right now, boy.” He squeezes my cock, making me moan. “Shorts off.”

  Neither of them release me as I manage to shove them down and shimmy out of them.

  “Good boys earn rewards,” Carter says as he slowly starts stroking me. Susa plays with my sac, and within a couple of minutes they have me nearly out of my mind with need. I beg, plead for permission to come, and am ordered to put my hands behind my head and keep them there.

  Their hands change places, Susa stroking my cock while Carter plays with my balls, and they do that several times as I’m reduced to a literal puddle.

  Finally, Carter sighs. “What do you think, pet?” He’s called her that a few times. It seems to be his pet name for her, and why would I begrudge that?

  “I don’t know. He has been really good.”

  “True.” His hand is now the one on my cock.

  She props herself up on her other elbow and leans in, her lips just above mine. “Who’s our good boy?”

  “Me, Ma’am. I’m your good boy!”

  “That’s right,” Carter says. “You have been a very good boy. Would you like Ma’am to kiss you while I make you come?”

  “Yes, please, Sir!” I’m not even sure if it was penetrating through to my brain what I was agreeing to. He could have just as easily asked if I wanted to be fisted in the middle of the casino downstairs and I might have said yes by that point.

  Susa sweetly smiles at me and slants her mouth over mine. Her tongue traces the seam of my lips and makes me open my mouth, now a full-on sultry, sexy kiss that makes me moan.

  “Come, boy,” Carter firmly orders as he starts jerking my cock.

  I’m actually glad she was kissing me, because I’m sure it muffled the sound of my cries as I explode in their hands. I’m not even sure what’s going on as Carter orders me onto my hands and knees and Susa climbs up to the head of the bed, spreading her legs.

  Turns out she wasn’t wearing panties after all.

  Carter fists my hair and guides me up, between her thighs. I’m struggling to mentally process this when her hands cup my face and tangle in my hair. “Good boys get other kinds of rewards, too,” she says.

  Carter’s hand disappears, but he grabs my collar and twists, taking up the slack. He’s not choking me but if I tried to pull away, I’d be feeling
it.

  It’s obvious what they want me to do.

  Fuck yeah, I want to do it.

  I dive between her legs and pray I’m halfway decent, because this is something I’ve never done before. She’s bare except for a small, well-trimmed landing strip. I bury my face there and inhale her sweet, musky scent, taste her, listen to her and Carter telling me what a good boy I am and what to do.

  When she comes, she’s grinding against my mouth and Carter’s whispering what a good boy I am in my ear. I can feel Carter’s erection rubbing against me through his shorts, but he holds me in place and orders me to do it again.

  And again.

  Turns out three is the magic number. That’s when Susa finally gasps with another sweet cry.

  “Carter,” she says.

  Carter eases back on the collar but tugs, making me sit up.

  My face is covered with her juices, and I feel dazed, blissful, subspacey…

  And I’m once again as hard as a rock.

  Carter grins. “There’s our good boy.” He ruffles my hair. “Go get in the shower. I’ll be right there. Close the door so we don’t steam up the whole room, please.”

  “Yes, Sir.” I do, after using the toilet.

  He joins me a couple of minutes later. I hear him using the toilet first, then he steps into the shower with me, immediately pinning me against the wall and jerking me off with a wide smile on his face.

  I thought maybe he’d take care of himself, too, but he doesn’t. When he turns so I can scrub his back, I notice he’s not hard anymore, but that’s not my problem, I guess.

  I’m Sir’s good boy, and I’m slowly but surely learning to only worry about the things he tells me to.

  Life feels better that way. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve felt less anxious in most ways. Before all this, I’d be more than halfway to an ulcer this close to finals.

  Now? No big deal. I mean, yes, I’m studying hard, but Carter and Susa constantly reassure me I know the material and that they are accurate outside barometers of how well I’m doing.

  I’ve got this.

  Even better, I’ve got them.