Chapter 12

Friday afternoon had been a manic whirlwind of cleaning. Ellie had enlisted everyone else in a quest to scrub every cumstain away, hide every dildo, and maybe sweep up those crumbs while they were at it. The most interesting finding was a large pair of pink panties nestled behind Josh’s TV screen. April calmly took her property as he blushed scarlet.

The reason for the cleaning was the imminent arrival of a reluctant Craig and Ellie’s three children. The kids didn’t know about the exact nature of her living situation and the relationship all of us had, and Ellie wanted to keep it that way.

Even after the place was spotless, Ellie still paced around the room, rearranging and un-rearranging things sporadically. Dawn and April sat on the couch, looking like serene little angels. Julia and Josh got annoyed by her constant fidgeting and went back to their rooms, while Simon and I tried unsuccessfully to reassure her. Then, finally, a station wagon pulled into a driveway, and Ellie bolted to the door.

Ellie’s kids had Craig’s lanky frame, but her halo of blonde hair. Allie was a preteen girl who moved with the awkwardness of a growth spurt, and had her eyes glued to a Nintendo DS even as she walked up the steps. The two younger boys looked a little lost, but Craig guided them to the front door.

The doorbell’s ring was still in the air as Ellie threw her arms around all three kids. Allie squirmed out of the embrace, but the other two returned it. Craig stepped inside and looked suspiciously at the house. For all the cleaning we had done, it was still dark and a little dank. His eyes lingered on April, who gave him a sweet smile.

Ellie and Craig got to discussing the logistics of returning the kids, while the little ones themselves started wandering around. Evan hopped up onto the couch next to Dawn and April. “Do you guys have Cartoon Network?”

“We don’t have cable, but Josh did download a bunch of episodes of Adventure Time that you can watch,” Dawn said. He shrugged.

Ellie gave Craig an awkward hug, arms all at right angles, and he left. She turned back to the assembled gathering of kids, young and old, and put on her most practiced smile. “Who wants to go to East Side Mario’s?”

It was fun at first, having a different set of voices around. It was amazing the energy that kids had, their ability to effortlessly leap from one topic to another and then run around the house three times. But their energy quickly surpassed our own, and we found ourselves sitting on the floor faintly muttering “that’s nice.”

We also realized quickly that we were facing a weekend without sex, without the casual nudity and petting that had become a part of our daily lives. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal. But somehow, my clothes kept feeling tight and stuffy, and the process of an evening spent on the couch watching DVDs seemed hopelessly boring.

I talked about this with Simon outside, while he was smoking and the sky was lightly spitting rain. “It’s weird, man,” he said. “It’s like going home for Christmas.” I hadn’t even thought about that, but the fall air had turned cool and the trees were already mostly bare.

“I’m thinking about calling up that Troy guy.” I watched Simon’s face carefully as I said this, but he didn’t seem to have much of a reaction. “Have you and he...”

“Oh yeah,” Simon said.

I paused again, not sure how to phrase my next question. “What’s he like?”

Simon laughed. “Troy’s a little intense. In all things, really. But he’s a good guy. If you and he ... well, it’ll be a hell of a ride.”

I blushed. “What do you think about what he said? About us being gay?”

“Well, we do suck each others’ dicks,” said Simon. “So if someone was to call me a faggot, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree.”

I glanced around, making sure none of the kids were in earshot of that language. “I mean, I basically have to say I’m bi, right? I’m in the LGBT, or however many letters there are nowadays. But somehow I don’t feel like breaking out the assless chaps and marching in a parade.”

“Too bad,” said Simon. “You would look good.” He bit his lip in a way that made me very upset that we were currently forbidden from sex in the house.

I took my phone out of my pocket. I had entered Adam’s number into my contact list, but the text box still sat, devastatingly blank. What would I say, anyways?

“You going to text him?”

“Maybe sometimes today,” I said.

“Do it now,” Simon said. The way he looked at me made me feel like I would be a coward if I didn’t.

I typed out a simple message. Hey, do you want to hang out today? This is Mike, from Simon’s house. I thought it might take Troy a while to respond, but the reply came quickly. Sure. I’m free this afternoon.

Simon cocked his head. “Ah, the art of the booty call. You’re welcome.”

I paced around the block twice after getting to Troy’s address. For once in my life, the bus had gotten me somewhere early, when I would really have preferred to be fashionably late. He lived in the basement of an East End brownstone. I finally walked around the side and knocked at his door.

Troy answered the door in a dressing gown, hanging over his broad shoulders atop a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt with a logo I didn’t recognize. I was once again shocked by his size – he barely fit in the doorway. He stared down at me with an almost predatory grin, then welcomed me in.

“You want a beer, man?” he said.

“Uh ... sure.” Troy’s basement apartment was pretty utilitarian. There was a pyramid of milk crates piled up against the wall, which seemed to contain some sort of books or magazines, and a long futon opposite it. He handed me a bottle of something from a local microbrewery. It had more of a kick than I anticipated at first, and I grimaced.

Troy took me by the wrist. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two,” I said. I didn’t mention that my birthday had only been two weeks ago.

Troy chuckled. “You’re such a kid. You’d think you were having your first drink.”

“I’m not! I mean, it just had a bit more spice than I thought it would.”

“It’s okay, kid,” Troy said. He put one finger to my lips. “You’re safe with me.” Then his finger was gone, replaced with the hard press of his lips.

It felt good to be desired, good to be the hunted instead of the hunter. He pulled me down onto a soft futon, calloused hands guiding my shoulder. Troy’s body loomed over me, almost enveloping me. He broke away from my lips and lapped at my neck. He grabbed my crotch roughly, and his touch instantly made me erect. I grabbed onto his broad shoulders, but I was less caressing back and more just holding on.

Troy drove his pelvis into mine, and I could feel his aggressive hardness jousting against mine. He pulled at my shirt, dragging it up until he could palm my chest and roll my nipples between his palms. I found myself mewling in response, a sound that I had never known I could make before.

He brought his lips up to blow hot breath against my ear. “Let’s go into my bedroom.”

I barely got a glimpse of Troy’s bedroom before I was down on his mattress. I was face-down against the pillow this time, his lips on the back of my neck, and his hardness pressing between the cleft of my ass, foreshadowing for what was no doubt to come.

My pants were off before I knew what was happening. Troy ran his rough fingertips over my throat and then down my chest. I shivered as it made its way into the waistband of my underwear. He grabbed my balls in his paw and pulled gently on my whole crotch. I felt strangely feminine, like one of those women in a romance novel swept away by the buff barbarian.

I reached backwards to try to feel him, not wanting to be entirely passive in our encounter. I couldn’t grab onto anything exciting – a side, then the bulge of Troy’s shoulder. He brought one hand up and wrapped it around my face. I could smell my own arousal on his finger tips. I took his index finger into my mouth and sucked it like a small cock. Well, that was something I could do, at least.

Troy shoved my underwear down to my knees and slapped me on the ass. I winced, genuinely in pain but also relentlessly erect. Troy’s fingers slipped through my anal rosebud. I had no idea when or where he had gotten lube, but the familiar liquid coolness was definitely on those digits, coating my inner walls. I took another one of his fingers in my mouth, bracing myself for what was to come.

“You ready, kid?” Troy asked. How could I say anything but yes?

I glanced over my shoulder, to take a look at Troy. He was nude now, and I could see tattoos dotting his broad body, although I didn’t have time to make any out. I could only compare him to Simon, and he seemed so big and hairy by contrast. Nestled within his pubic hair was his cock. It seemed a bit shorter than Simon’s, but was much thicker.

With a finger fish-hooked into my mouth, Troy pulled my head down again until I was staring at his black bedspread. Then I felt his thick cockhead pressing up against my asscheeks.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” he whispered into my ear. I nodded, but he wanted my body to say it. I pushed my ass up to meet his member, in a serpentine motion that felt completely alien to me. I even reached down to grab at his cock and put it in me, but he slapped my wrist away. Troy wanted to be in control of everything, and for now I was fine with letting him.

He entered me with an aching, deliberate slowness. When his thick cockhead slid through my rosebud, it was as if the air was forced from my lungs. His dick felt like it just kept going and going, until finally I felt his balls resting on mine.

Troy grabbed me by the chin and bent my head back so that I was staring into his wolf-green eyes as he fucked me. His rhythm was quick and jagged, impossible for me to get used to. I just had to grab onto the bed and accept the forceful pleasure making its way through my body.

My own cock grew red and needful as Troy continued filling me with his. His thick fingers dug into my shoulders, an almost painful sensation but nothing compared to the strange liquid prostate pleasure that was pooling in my torso. With a ragged breath I reached down to stroke my dick to give myself some blessed release.

Abruptly, Troy rolled around, and in his ursine grip I spun around with him. I was suddenly staring up at the bright light, my pink body spread eagle and on display for anyone who wanted to see it, as his cock pistoned rapidly in and out of me and I was coming, coming, oh god I was coming, spurting jism across my chest as I let out a moan I didn’t know I had in me.

My red cock had just begun to shrink as Troy slammed me down on his shaft one more time and shuddered. In a moment, I felt his own cum dripping down my inner walls. He stayed in me for a while, still hard, one arm thrown around my chest. I felt as if he was claiming me as his prize – and there was nothing I wanted more than to be claimed.

“So,” Troy said. “You want another beer?”

I was slightly more content when I got back home, even if my ass was a little uncomfortable. I had to check myself in the mirror in Troy’s dingy bathroom before I left to make sure he hadn’t left any marks, but other than a few red fingerprints on my hips there was nothing that would give me away. In the house I passed by Josh and Ellie’s son duking it out at Soul Calibur. I had a freshly-downloaded folder of Breaking Bad episodes waiting for me – I hadn’t seen the show, but I heard great things.

When I entered the room, I froze. Allie, Ellie’s teenage daughter, sitting cross-legged on my bed. I desperately hoped that she hadn’t seen the butt plug sitting under my bed (hey, you gotta use that employee discount), and that she didn’t have too many questions about the “hand lotion” on my desk.

“Um ... hi,” I said.

Allie got up and stared me down, as best she could at five feet tall. “You’re Mike, right.”

“Yes, and this is my room.”

“Are you having sex with my Mom?”

I was taken aback, both by the bluntness of the accusation and its complete accuracy. “That’s none of your business,” I finally managed. “And get out of my room.” I sounded a little bit like a 13-year-old myself, I realized.

Allie’s lower lip curled. “My dad says that she’s screwing some young guy here. I figure it’s you, because that Josh guy is too dumb, and Simon seems gay. So are you?”

For a moment I considered telling her the blunt truth that Ellie was fucking all three of us. But something told me a more delicate tack was required. I sat down on the bed, and Allie sat back down next to me. “Listen, you should be having this talk with your mom, not me. But the thing is ... she’s a grown-up, and that means she can have sex with who she wants to. It doesn’t mean she loves you any less – this is just a separate part of her life.”

Allie sniffled. “So you are fucking her.”

“Watch your language,” I said.

She rolled her big brown eyes. “Please, I’m thirteen. I’m almost a grown-up. I can say fuck.”

I tried to remember what I was like at her age, so petulantly confident in my own maturity. I had read the racy sections of a few romance novels my mom had left lying around the house, and thought I knew about sex – although in my fantasies the women were strangely nipple-less, and anything beyond the vaginal was unimaginable. Then again, for me thirteen was less than a decade ago. When I was Ellie’s age, would I see my current self the same way – as full of headstrong, misplaced confidence in my adulthood?

Allie seemed to have little patience for my silent musings. “Just tell me you’re not going to try to be my new dad or anything.”

The idea made my heart stutter. Whatever experience I had, I was not ready to be a father in any capacity. “No! I mean ... you seem great, and we’re happy to have you over to the house at any time. But your mother and I aren’t in a relationship.” That last sentence was true enough, but also felt a little wrong to me.

“Good,” said Allie. “My dad has a new girlfriend, and I hate her. She’s a redneck, and keeps buying dumb stuff for me. I don’t know why Dad is dating her.”

This, too, was part of adolescence I remembered: the contempt for lame parents and other adults, the utter confidence that you wouldn’t turn out like them.

“Listen,” I said. “Your mom loves you a lot. She went through hell just trying to get a chance to see you. I know that sometimes it can be awkward, especially in this ... situation ... but you should really try to let her know how you feel too.”

Allie looked at me cautiously. Maybe she was trying to decide if I was a peer or an adult to be ignored, or maybe she was still trying to figure out if I was fucking her mother. But ultimately she got up and sniffled. “Well, thanks for the chat Mike.”

I lay on the bed for a while after that, not feeling in the mood for television any longer.

Ellie had the kids for a nine days, a week and two weekends. At first, it seemed like an eternity of adjusting our routines, forgoing sex except for the occasional quiet quickie in the shower or a basement bedroom, someone driving Allie and Evan to school and back, dealing with Jacob’s crying fits that came without any seeming reason. But, as quickly as we had gotten used to the new normal, it was coming to an end.

We decided to let Ellie have the last Saturday night to herself. It was Simon’s idea – he said that it would be nice to at least give them the illusion of being a normal family with a big house. I thought that sounded a little bleak, but I guess that was how Simon presented things. Julia recommended a bar for us to go to. It was on the other side of town, which seemed a long way to go for some pitchers, but I was not in the mood for an argument with her.

Half an hour of Josh’s rickety driving later, we pulled up a Paul’s Tavern that could charitably be called a dive. I got some idea of why Julia had taken us here when I saw the sign, constructed of those one-off disposable letters. “BURLESQUE NITE – SATURDAY”

“So what is this, like, stripping?” Josh said.

“It’s more like erotic performance art,” said Julia.

“As long as some girls their ta-tas out, I’m good,” said Dawn.

We passed through a haze of cigarette smoke to get in the front door. Inside, we found a table and sent Simon up to the front to get drinks. Glancing around, I could see that the crowd was a little unusual for a grimy bar: I saw flashes of dyed hair, fishnet stockings and metal studs. There was a long stage set up, running right past our table and across a good portion of the floor, with some hastily-assembled red curtains. The whole thing looked kind of sleazy and cheap, but I tried to keep an open mind. After all, that had worked well for me so far.

Simon came back with beer and glasses. We fell into an easy conversation. We joked about Ellie’s kids and the whole strange experience of having them over – particularly when Dawn and April had to explain to <young kid> why they were wrestling in bed – as well as US election next year, the creeping onset of winter, and a million little inside jokes. In a weird way, I had learned to enjoy talking with these people almost as much as screwing them, learned to appreciate both Julia’s brittleness and Dawn’s seemingly reckless abandon as more playful stances than hard-and-fast truths.

A familiar face ducked into our little huddle. “Hi everyone,” Padma said. “How is the free love bunch doing?”

“Great,” said Julia. “How’s homo-normativity?”

We filled Padma in on all of the recent events, from April’s arrival to Ellie’s family crisis. Padma laughed at most of it, while Connie seemed a little spooked. Padma talked about her new job working as a barista and applying to grad school. “I’m mostly applying to Canadian schools, but I put in an application to Columbia as a moonshot. How about you, Mike?”

I blinked. “How about me what?”

“You should think about applying to grad school. There’s still about a month left before the deadlines.” I gave a little chuckle, which forced Padma to furrow her brows. “I’m serious! You’re a great writer, which is rare in phiolosophy. And I hate to say it, but working at an adult bookstore is not a future.”

“I’ll think about it,” I mumbled, but quickly changed the subject. Still, the idea continued to sit uncomfortably in my stomach.

Simon nudged me. “Hey, did you get that message from Elliie?”

He didn’t have to specify what message he meant. “Yeah. Uh, what do you think about it?”

Simon had a wariness in his eyes that reflected my emotions. “I mean, it’s ... a lot. And it’s not something I would normally be into, of course. But you know, if she wants to...”

Before we could continue, the lights started dimming. A baritone-voiced announcer began speaking from somewhere I couldn’t see.

“Ladies, gentlemen and good people of all genders or lack thereof ... welcome to the Lake City Erotic Revue! Please welcome, your emcee for the evening ... you’ve seen her on websites you erased from your browser history ... TRINH TRAN!”

I was questioning the purpose of having both an announcer and an MC, but all such thoughts left my head as Trinh Tran stepped out from behind the curtain. She was a statuesque woman of Asian descent with raven-coloured hair that fell over her shoulder in a neat column. She wore a glittering golden dress, showing off her considerable cleavage and tanned shoulders, and matching gloves. She walked onto the stage in arched silver heels, her long legs running up to the dress’s short hem. Trinh took the microphone and spoke with a clipped Australian accent.

“How’s it going perverts?”

There was a squeal of approval from the crowd. I looked over to see that Julia was among the squealers.

“I just flew in from the Valley” – more whoops – “but there is nowhere I would rather be than Paul’s Tavern tonight. That’s because tonight we’ve got a wide spectrum of sexuality and talent on display here. I’ll be your host, and I just might be doing a little dance of my own at the end.” She gave a little wink, which got howls in response. “First off, we have someone who I know very well – probably from all the fucking we do – please welcome to the stage ASHLEY EXTRA!”

There was another round of applause as Trinh took a seat by the side of the stage and the curtains parted again. The woman that came through had beach-blonde hair and pale skin, and made Dawn look like a twig. The scarlet dress she was wearing fought a losing battle to keep her curves in to saunter down the runway. To dispense with euphemisms, Ashley was fat, but she was also hot as hell.