by Alie Nolan
My balls drew up tight, the fantasy so erotic, I couldn’t have held back any longer if I’d tried.
“Come in him,” Elliott growled next to my ear. “Make him ours.”
That was all it took. My orgasm crashed into me with the force of a train. I shot my release deep into the Matty—the fleshlight—shouting as I came. Elliott was only seconds behind me, his grip on my hips increasing to almost painful levels as he came inside me. His hot cum painting my channel as his teeth sank into the side of my neck.
“Holy…” I took a deep breath, trying to regain the ability to speak. “…shit.”
Elliott pulled out, sliding me out of the fleshlight with him, and I felt his cum run down the back of my leg. He pulled the toy off the wall, throwing it onto the floor with no regard for where it landed, and spun me around so he could press me into the cool wall.
He took my lips in a kiss, sweeter than anything we sold in the bakery.
“I love you,” he murmured against my lips, barely a millimetre between us.
“I love you too.”
I knew we needed to talk about what the fuck had just happened, but I didn’t really want to do it naked, with cum spilling out of me.
We needed to get cleaned up before we talked.
And we were going to talk.
I needed to know what that was all about.
I didn’t regret giving in to that fantasy for a few minutes, but I wanted to make sure Elliott was okay, and I needed to know why he’d said that he was imagining it was Matty.
After another shower, I put on a pair of pyjama bottoms and went in search of Elliott. I found him sitting at the kitchen island drinking a cup of tea, another cup sitting on a coaster next to him.
I sat down and took a sip of the tea he’d made me.
“Thanks,” I said, enjoying the perfectly brewed tea, which had, as Elliott would say, ‘far too much sugar’ in it. “Can we talk about what just happened?”
He nodded his head once. “I was assuming we would.”
“Okay,” I said nervously. “What the fuck was that about?”
He laughed, the sound like music to my ears. “I have no idea.”
“I don’t know if I feel guilty for thinking about him like that or not.” I took another sip of my tea. “Did you mean it when you said you were imagining him too?”
He ran his finger around the rim of his mug. “I did. And for the record, you have nothing to feel guilty for. I was the one that made it into something more real than just a fleeting thought, so if anyone should be feeling guilt, it should be me.”
I shook my head. There was nothing for him to feel guilty about. Matty was my ex, not his.
I was the one fantasising about my ex while having sex with my husband.
“Okay, let’s start off by agreeing that neither of us have anything to feel guilty about,” he said.
“Agreed.”
“It was hot though, right?” He chuckled, and I swore I saw the hint of a blush creeping across his face—Elliott was not one to blush very often.
“It was definitely hot,” I agreed.
I didn’t know whether I could come out and ask something as blunt as, “So, why exactly were you imagining your husband fucking his ex while you were fucking him?” but that was the question I really wanted an answer to.
“You want to say something,” Elliott prompted, a knowing grin on his lips. “I can tell.”
I shrugged weakly. “Why?”
“Why what, sweetheart?” My insides always turned to mush when he used endearments like that.
“Why… why were you thinking about him?”
“I mean, you have seen him, right?” he smirked. “He’s beautiful, and more adorable than should be humanly possible. I don’t know. All through dinner, I couldn’t get the image of the two of you out of my head.”
It shouldn’t have been such a turn-on to know that my husband had spent an entire meal imagining me and my ex fucking, should it?
“So, that fantasy, was just that, right? A fantasy, and we move on now.”
His shoulders raised an inch or so. “I guess,” he didn’t sound sure. “Although, it wouldn’t hurt to play make-believe again sometime, just every once in a while, would it?”
“I suppose not.”
I wasn’t going to say no. That had been one of the most intense orgasms of my life, and I was game for a repeat… as long as Elliott was too.
“And you know that I honestly don’t mind what just happened, right?” he asked.
“I know.”
“I love you so much.” He reached his hand out, taking mine in his and gently rubbing my knuckles with his thumb.
“I love you too,” I smiled. “Can we go to bed?”
He nodded and stood from his chair, pulling me up with him, and walking me to the bedroom.
SEVEN
Matty
My phone vibrated on my desk, and I rolled my chair to retrieve it. I didn’t have any patients waiting on me, so I could spare a few minutes to check the notification.
Jake: I’m planning on telling the family about Caleb tonight. Will you come?
I typed out a quick response.
Me: Yeah. What time do you want me there?
Jake: Whenever? No rush, I’ll wait for you.
I took a quick glance at the clock and saw that it was half-past three—we closed at five.
“Hey, Wyatt?” I said loudly, rolling my chair to the door and popping my head out of my exam room, to find our bubbly receptionist, and one of my best friends, looking at me expectantly.
“That’s me,” he grinned.
“Do I have any more appointments this afternoon?”
Wyatt looked at the computer in front of him, his eyes scanning the screen before he shook his head. “You have one in ten minutes.” He read from the screen. “Mrs Sanders’ chihuahua, but after that, no, you’re done for the day.”
I rolled my eyes, and Wyatt chuckled.
“You can head out early if you have other stuff to do, I can hold down the fort.”
“Thanks,” I shut the door and rolled back over to my desk.
I loved all animals. Animals were my life… but Mrs Sanders’ chihuahua, Buttercup, was the devil incarnate, I swore it.
To make matters worse, Mrs Sanders was the type of overbearing pet parent that brought the tiny devil into the practice at least once or twice a month convinced she had X, Y, or Z—all of which she’d found diagnoses of online—and always assumed she could do my job better than I could.
In all fairness, I didn’t blame Buttercup for being a bratty, finger-biting, two-kilogram monster. If I had Mrs Sanders as a parent, I probably wouldn’t have been all that nice either.
I loved living in a small village most of the time, but working in a small veterinary practice in a small village meant I didn’t see a large variety of patients.
Me: I’ll be there in about an hour.
Me: Who’s there?
Jake: Everyone.
Fantastic, fifteen Logans all talking over each other… seventeen if my cousin, Alec, and his boyfriend, Ryan, were on a FaceTime call from America too.
I smiled to myself, already able to picture the shitshow of a conversation this would prove to be.
I made it through the appointment with Mrs Sanders and Buttercup with all my extremities still intact and grabbed my bag from the corner of my exam room.
“I’m going to head out, but I’ll have my phone on me if you need me in the next hour,” I told Wyatt.
“Okay, boss,” he smiled.
“And, Joey is on call tonight.”
He nodded and shooed me away. “I know, I made the rota. Chill, you’re leaving…” he checked his watch. “Forty-eight minutes early, the business isn’t going to crumble in that short length of time.”
“If it was going to crumble under anyone’s watch, it would be yours,” I chuckled.
He stuck his tongue out at me. “Go, now, before I find a way of calling But
tercup back.”
I held my hands up in surrender and walked backwards out of the door.
The practice had me as the only full-time small animal vet, Joey as a part-time small animal vet—we took it in turns to be on call out of business hours—and Darrell, who was our off-site large animal vet. Darrell owned the practice, but was rarely there. He’d started it decades ago, before I was even born, because the village didn’t have a veterinary practice, but he’d always employed other people—like me—to run it while he focused on our clients with livestock in the surrounding areas.
Being the only vet who was always supposed to be there, I felt guilty for leaving, even though I knew the chance of anyone coming in without an appointment was highly unlikely.
I walked home—it was only a five-minute walk—and quickly changed into comfortable clothes.
When I came downstairs Max was lying on the sofa watching something on the TV.
“Where you off to?” He asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“Little Hollow, Jake wants to talk to the family about something, and he wants everyone there. You coming?”
“Yeah.” He hopped off the sofa, switched the TV off, and joined me at the door.
He slipped his feet into his trainers by the door, followed me out of the house, and got into my car.
There were a lot of cars parked in the main houses’ driveway and on the grass surrounding it. Jake wasn’t joking. Everyone was there.
I didn’t know why everyone had chosen to gather at the house on this particular night, but even my cousins Zach and James’ cars were there, and they lived in Portridge.
“When you said, ‘talk to the family,’ you literally meant everyone, huh?” Max chuckled as he got out of the car.
“Yeah, why the fuck is everyone here?” I asked, knowing he didn’t know the answer any more than I did.
“I’m assuming, what with us being the only ones not invited to this apparent family meeting, there’s a good chance they’re trying to throw us another ‘surprise’ birthday party.”
We both laughed as we walked up to the main house.
Our parents, aunts, and grandfathers were always determined to throw surprise parties, but with there being so many of us, and the fact that no one in this family could keep their bloody mouths shut for more than five minutes, the ‘surprise’ part was always spoiled.
We always pretended to be surprised though, and I smiled at the memory of last year when Max and I had spent at least half an hour before ‘spontaneously being invited to Little Hollow for no reason’ practising our surprised faces—our younger sister, Lola, had spoiled that surprise a week before the party.
Our birthday was in two weeks, so the chances were good that the family were once again scheming to surprise us in some way.
“Hello,” Max shouted into Auntie Steph and Ness’ house as we entered. Steph and Ness had more kids than Mum and Dad did, so they lived in the larger of the two main houses, and having the largest house on the Little Hollow property meant that everyone always congregated in their house.
As expected, we walked into the dining room and found our entire family sitting around the table, trying and failing to look inconspicuous. Like this had just been any old random family meeting… that Max and I weren’t invited to.
“What are you two doing here?” Gramps asked abruptly.
“Charming,” Max chuckled as he took a seat at the table. “Love you too.”
“He didn’t mean it like that,” Grandad slapped Gramps’ chest. “Did you, love?”
A handful of Logans started laughing.
“Of course not, boys, sorry,” Gramps said sheepishly. “I just meant,” he plastered on his widest smile. “What a lovely surprise. What brings you both by?”
“Better,” Grandad murmured under his breath.
I smiled at them. I loved my grandparents so much.
Gramps was a retired vet, and his love of animals was what inspired me to follow in his footsteps.
“I invited them,” Jake said over the noise of various conversations people were having amongst themselves. “I wanted to talk to all of you about something.”
That got everyone’s attention, and all eyes locked onto Jake. I pulled up a chair and sat next to him at the table.
“Oh God, are you coming out? Is this where you tell us you’re straight?” Lola teased, and several people laughed.
No one ever really came out in our family. Almost everyone was queer, and you were more likely to have to come out as straight in this family—Lola, my cousin Zach, and his mum, Harri, were, as far as I was aware, the only straight members of our family. No one cared who anyone dated in this family. As long as everyone involved was a consenting adult, “who gives a flying fuck,” as Dad had once said.
“Nope. Still pan.” Jake shot Lola a middle finger.
“None of that,” Auntie Ness chided Jake. “We are a civilised family.”
Everyone burst into laughter.
“Since when?” my cousin, Grace, joked.
“Yeah, civilised my arse,” Mum said, lifting her pint of beer from the table and starting to chug it.
“We… like to drink with Rainy…” the majority of the table started singing.
Auntie Ness, with her civilised comment utterly destroyed, was in hysterics with the rest of us.
“Stop it, all of you,” Dad said, his smile belying his stern tone as he took the pint out of Mum’s hand and placed it on the table. “I don’t need her getting drunk tonight, otherwise she’s coming home with one of you lot. Plus, Jake has something he wants to say.” Dad gestured at Jake.
Conversations always derailed spectacularly in this household.
“As I was saying,” Jake said, still smiling from my mum’s antics. “I… I found Caleb.”
That shut everyone up.
The noise in the room came to an abrupt halt as everyone’s heads whipped around to look in Jake’s direction.
“How?”
“Caleb?”
“When?”
“Where?”
A ton of one-word questions were thrown at Jake. I couldn’t tell who was asking them though, because my focus was on Jake’s mums. Sitting next to each other at the table, they immediately grasped each other’s hands at the mention of Caleb’s name—the son they hadn’t got to have for more than a few months, but had loved as fiercely as they loved their other four kids.
Everyone had been saddened by Caleb leaving, but besides Jake and me, Ness and Steph had been the most devastated. They had spent a long time looking for him, wanting nothing more than to bring him home safely, to be where he belonged.
When Jake didn’t answer anyone’s questions, the room fell silent again, everyone appearing to wait quietly for him to say more.
“Matty and I have been to see him a couple of times,” he said, and looked in my direction. “He’s doing great. He’s married now, and he’s living in Portridge with his husband. They own a bakery.”
“What bakery?” Zach asked.
“Hillam’s,” Jake answered.
“Shit, I’ve walked past that place so many times since James and I moved to Portridge.”
James nodded.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve walked past it a bunch too,” Max added.
“He’s happy?” Steph asked. “He’s healthy?”
“He is,” Jake smiled. “We had dinner with him and Elliott last week. Elliott is his husband. They seem really happy.”
“Good,” Ness smiled, her eyes glossy with unshed tears.
“Now, this doesn’t mean you can all run over there and bother him all at once. I haven’t even told him that I’m telling you all about him. So, please, don’t go there. I will bring him here at some point, when he’s ready, I promise.”
All the heads around the table nodded in sync.
That went better than I’d been expecting. I was expecting chaos levels of talking, to the point where you couldn’t hear yourself think, but they’d
all sat and listened quietly. And they all seemed on board with waiting for Caleb to come to them… whenever he was ready.
EIGHT
Elliott
“Here you go,” I said to Graham—a regular customer of the bakery—as I handed him his to-go order.
“Thanks.” He took his paper bag of treats from me.
“You’re welcome, have a great day.” I smiled. Graham was a sweet elderly man, probably in his late eighties, who’d been coming into the shop every Saturday afternoon since before I was born. My dad had always enjoyed chatting with him, and after Dad died, and I took over the shop, Graham had continued his regular visits.
“You too,” he turned to leave. “Bye, Caleb,” he said, raising his voice slightly so that Caleb could hear him.
“Bye,” Caleb said, poking his head out of the kitchen, his gorgeous, genuine smile lighting up the room.
As Graham left the bakery, he held the door open for someone, and to my surprise, Jake walked in.
“Hi,” Jake smiled.
I mirrored his smile, but when I came around the counter, I wasn’t sure whether to extend my hand for a handshake, or if we were at the level of greeting each other with a hug. I knew Caleb and Jake were at that level of comfort with one another already, but I wasn’t sure if we were.
Before I had a chance to give it more thought, Jake walked straight up to me and wrapped me in a quick hug.
“Is Caleb here?” he asked as he pulled away from me.
“I am,” Caleb said as he walked out of the kitchen, and greeted Jake in a similar hug. “What’s up?”
“Oh my god, it smells amazing in here,” Jake said with a chuckle.
“Do you want something to eat?” I asked him, and his eyes widened.
“I just made a batch of cupcakes,” Caleb said. “Want one?”
Jake nodded. “Definitely.”
Caleb put a couple of cupcakes on a plate for Jake, and he took a seat at the counter.