JAG

Title: It Goes Like It Goes

Author/pseudonym: Tinnean

Fandom: JAG           

Pairing: Clayton Webb/Clark Palmer, Wills Matheson/Theo  

Rating: NC-17  

Email address: Tinneantoo@earthlink.net  

Disclaimer: OK, I know it's been a while, but darn it, they *still* don't belong to me. And you can't convince me Bellisario deserves them! Wills and Theo and the rentboys are mine, as are all of the employees of the DSD. Except Clark Palmer, of course. He's his own person.  

Status: new/complete  

Date:   12/02  

Series/Sequel: This is seventeen in the Mind Fuck series, and follows Just Another Tango.

Summary: Someone is screwing with Clark Palmer's department. Guess who isn't pleased. Meanwhile, Wills is telling Theo, 'Come along with me, the best is yet to be.'

Warnings: m/m (well, duh!) Implied underage. And a serious mush alert. Sorry, I can't imagine how that happened!

Notes: A.A.S. is Associate in Applied Science degree, generally a 2 year course, although if you take it at night, it can run forever. The song Wills sings  is Isn't It Romantic. #### indicates change of POV. This one is for the real Tim and Jake, who are two truly marvelous gentlemen. Thanks, as always, to Gail, for her patience and ideas, which helped kick-start the story every time it threatened to stall. Everyone should have a beta as fantastic as she is.

It Goes Like It Goes

Part 1

When I returned from Fall River after my old lady's funeral, I found that my old apartment above the rentboys was almost ready for me to move in. I went to see it and was impressed with the repairs that had been done. It was filled with the smell of new sheet rock and fresh paint and the sharp bite of varnish on the finished hardwood floors, and my footsteps echoed hollowly as I walked through the empty space, reacquainting myself with it.  

Sweetcheeks leaned against the door frame, pride in his expression. "Wills did this, Palm. You've got a really talented boy there."

"Are you planning on keeping him, Sweetcheeks?"  

"Call me Theo. I'm not in the business any more."

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow at that bit of news. "I'm glad you took my advice." He looked as if he was about to say something, but then he just smiled and shrugged. He didn't answer my question, though.  Instead, he asked when I'd be moving in.  

Moving in meant moving out of Clayton Webb's townhouse, just when I was getting used to being around him.  

I liked coming home and finding dinner expertly prepared and waiting for me, or on the nights when Clay would let me know he'd be working late and that I'd be getting in before him, bringing home some take-out, or maybe sometimes going out with him to a little restaurant.  

I liked spending the evening reading while Clay played something classical on that grand piano in the music room, although he'd surprised me once with a red hot, boogie woogie rendition of Chattanooga Choo Choo. He was a talented pianist.  

I surprised him myself one night, when I'd been so horny I hadn't been able to wait for bedtime, and so I had taken him over the kitchen island. He was laughing as I kicked his legs apart, undid his trousers, and prepared him hastily, and then he was moaning as I linked my fingers with his, thrust into his hot, tight ass, and fucked him into incoherence.  

Most of all though, I liked sharing that bed with him, although sometimes, if I'd had an especially hard day, I'd wind up going on to the room that he'd told me was mine for as long as I liked. Sometime during the night I'd wake up enough to realize I was no longer alone. Clay would have found his way to my bed, and he'd climb in with me. I would mumble something, and he'd spoon up behind me, lick my neck, and tell me to go back to sleep.  

I knew it wouldn't last forever; nothing did, but I didn't want to give that up yet, so I was able to delay the move for a week or so, telling  myself that I needed to replace all the furniture that had been destroyed or damaged in the blast that had resulted in me getting booted from my apartment at Forest Heights.  

Sweetch… Theo recommended a furniture store in Rockville , Maryland . He even volunteered to go with me, saying a little too casually, "It'll give me something to do until Wills can come over."  

I just as casually didn't respond. What my agent did on his own time was not my concern, as long as he didn't get me killed or let himself get soft.  

"I… I like him, Palmer. I like him a lot. The thing is… Shit, I've never felt like this about anyone." I kept my mouth shut. "I've been a professional for twelve years, and I don't fucking know how to deal with this!" Where the fuck was the exit to Rockville ? "Has he… uh… has he said anything about me to you, Palm?"  

"Jesus, Sweetcheeks… Theo!" I took my eyes off the road and glared at him, and he seemed to wilt. I could see why he had been in big demand. He looked about twelve years old. "Fuck. Yeah, he talks about you all the time. He wants to take you for long walks at sunset on a beach, holding your hand. He wants you to have his babies. Fuck, Theo! He's a guy!" Guys didn't talk about shit like that.  

He gnawed on his lip and looked out the passenger window. The signs for Rockville appeared, and I guided the car into the exit lane. "Uh, Palm?"  

"Yeah?" I was looking over my shoulder, waiting for the opportunity to merge with the flow of traffic.  

"Do you think he really likes me?"  

I'd never heard the former rentboy so unsure of  himself. "Trust me, Theo. He really likes you." I spared a glance at him. His face was lit up, and if he was a puppy, he would have been wriggling all over. I shook my head and turned my attention back to the driving. Good thing I'd never let myself get like that.  

****  

"Mr. Palmer, I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but I think you should take a look at this." Matheson strode into my office without waiting for Ms. Parker to inform me of his arrival. Unlike my predecessor, I made sure I was available to the agents who worked under me.  

He extended a floppy disk to me, holding it so as to avoid leaving fingerprints. He radiated tension, but he was learning. The only reason I knew that he was tense was because I was looking for it, and I could see it in the faint lines that bracketed his mouth and tightened the skin over his cheekbones. I took the disk from him and slid it into the slot in my computer. "All right, what am I looking for?"  

"If you'll allow me, sir?" He leaned over, placed his fingers on the mouse, and double clicked on a seemingly innocuous file.  

The page opened up, and I scanned it and felt my blood pressure begin to rise. "This is your debrief for the Curtin affair." I'd still been out of town, so Matheson had been on his own. He'd done a good job on seeing that Demon Spawn got the doctored inhaler, and then keeping an unobtrusive eye on him until he'd used it. I'd enjoyed reading his description of how the man died. If he lived long enough to get out of this business, he could give Stephen King a run for his money.  

"Yes, sir." He stayed standing; I hadn't offered him a seat.  

"This was a confidential matter. No one was supposed to have a copy of this except me and Mr. Wallace. Where did you get this?"  

"I found it. In my secretary's desk." His eyes were challenging. "I was looking for a blank CD..."

"Matheson," I interrupted. "Don't bullshit a bullshitter."

"No, sir."

"I didn't ask why you were looking in her desk. Don't explain when it isn't necessary."

"Very good, sir. Sorry."

I picked up a pen and beat out a tattoo on the edge of my desk with it. "Why were you in her desk?"

He was almost distracted by the pen. He took a deep breath and let it out soundlessly. "I don't trust her."  

"Obviously. Why?"  

"Mr. Palmer, the DSD doesn't hire fools. Well, not generally." I wondered if he was thinking of that asshole, Sperling, or his friend Mikey Shaw. "Miss Jones acts like the quintessential dumb blonde, the kind who has to wear a tee shirt with the word 'head' on the front and an arrow that points to the neck. I tried to get into her file in personnel, but I was denied access. It didn't make sense. If she's just a low-level member of the typing pool, there shouldn't be any security on her file at all."  

"So you went searching through her desk?"  

"Yes, sir." He returned my gaze coolly.  

"Okay. Someone is keeping tabs on you. I want to know who, and I want to know why. It could be a simple matter of jealousy over your promotion." Even in the DSD there were instances of professional rivalry. "But it could also be something more insidious than that." Trying to get to me through him. Fucking office politics. If that was the way it was, I'd have no problem erasing whoever was interfering with my agent. "The Curtin matter is a dead issue." That surprised a laugh out of him, which he hastily converted to a cough. What, did no one think I had a sense of humor? I scowled, and he blanked his expression. "Be that as it may, we have no need to be concerned with it at this point. Now pull up a chair. I have a new assignment for you."  

Fuck. I realized that assignment would take him out of town almost immediately, and there wouldn't be time for him to find out who was behind this. *I* could have done it in that amount of time, but he wasn't me. All right, I'd do it myself; I didn't think it would be wise to wait until he got back. "Matheson, cancel those last instructions. I'll deal with the puppet master."  

"Yes, sir." I waited until he sat, and then ran over the situation in Phoenix . He listened carefully, asked some pertinent questions, then nodded. "When do I leave, Mr. Palmer?"  

"You've got a noon flight out of Dulles to MacArthur in Islip ." Having lived in New York before his family moved to Massachusetts , Matheson knew of the airport on Long Island . "You'll have about ten minutes to get to Southwest Air's gate; it's a small airport, so that shouldn't be a problem."  

"No, sir. I'm familiar with MacArthur."  

"Good. Now, this man, FitzWilliam is overseeing both the building of the Bradenhurst Corporation's new Southwest headquarters, and a nuclear power plant that's going up outside Phoenix . How are you going to see he disappears?"  

"After I get to Phoenix , I'll report to the job foreman as a traveler. Once I start work, I'll learn FitzWilliam's schedule. From what you've told me, he does like to drink. Some construction workers are like that." He shrugged. "None of the men who know him will be surprised to see him with a buzz on. It's my understanding that the tubes of the powerhouse should be ready to be fired up in a couple of weeks. I'll find a way to get him in one of them. Once it's sealed, no one will hear him if he regains consciousness, although I can add a little something to his drinks to make sure he doesn't. And when they're done running the tests, all that will be left will be a handful of dust."  

"How will you get the men to accept you?"  

He leaned back in his chair, confident of his abilities. "Once they see I can pull my own weight, all I'll have to do is pick a foreign make car in the job's parking lot and slash its tires, and I'll be in like Flint ."  

I let his reference to a 60s spy spoof slide. "Blue collar workers tend to be resentful of anything that takes work away from them. All right." Indicating our discussion was concluded, I removed the disk and handed it to Matheson. "Put this back where you found it." I glanced at my watch. Miss Jones should have arrived by now. I buzzed my own secretary. "Ms. Parker."  

"Sir?"  

"Get Matheson's secretary away from her desk."  

"Yes, sir."  

A good secretary was worth her weight in triplicate reports. Now that I felt Matheson was capable of doing the job, I'd have Ms. Parker see about getting him someone whose loyalty would be solely to him.  He lingered at the door. Something else seemed to be on his mind. "What?"  

"May I… Never mind, sir. I'll make sure my desk is cleared off, go home and pack, and leave for the airport."  

"Matheson. You can let Theo know you have to cancel any plans you've made."  

He looked relieved. "Thank you, sir." I knew I didn't have to tell him to reveal nothing of his whereabouts for the next few weeks. He left my office, and I turned to my computer.  

It took me a quarter hour to hack into Miss Jones' files, and that was using a back door program to overcome the obstacles that kept popping up in my path. I wondered how long it would have taken Matheson. When I finally zeroed in on the man from whom she was taking orders, I whistled silently. A senior director. He'd been a deputy director when I'd first been recruited, and we'd had some run-ins even then. I couldn't understand why he didn't like me. I was a very likable guy.  

I set up a program that would have everything she sent to him forwarded to my computer first. It was untraceable, and it would give me the opportunity to correct any… misapprehensions. When I was done I spared a thought for the agent I was training, and the former rentboy with whom he was involved. That was an odd pairing, but no odder than deputy directors of the DSD and the CIA. I wondered how long either of those relationships would last.  

####  

I hadn't been lying when I'd told William Matheson that no one had called me by my name since I was fifteen. "Theo Bascopolis, you stop being gay right now," my father had shouted, "or else you get the fuck out of my house!"  

Ma cried and wrung her hands, and my little sister threw herself at me and held on, but Poppa just stood there with his hands clenched into fists, his face set.  

So I got the fuck out of his house. I met a man who gave me the name Sweetcheeks. He showed me what to do with my raging hormones, making me feel things I'd never even dreamed of, and then he told me if I wanted to stay with him, I'd have to peddle my ass on the street.  

I wanted to stay with him, so I did as he ordered. I even stayed when he started to beat me. But when he got coked up one night and came at me with a knife, threatening to slit my nose like Jack Nicholson's in Chinatown , I turned the knife on him and left him bleeding on the kitchen floor. And I hit the road in a panic.  

For the price of a blowjob, the trucker who picked me up agreed to let me ride along with him as far as DC.  

It was raining when he pulled his rig into the lot of an all-night greasy spoon. He bought me a last dinner, squeezed my hand between both of his, and said, "Take care of yourself, kid. Adios." After he left, I stared down into my palm. He'd given me a couple of twenties.  

Washington was an expensive town, and forty bucks wouldn't buy much, except maybe a little time. I was aimlessly walking the streets, scared spitless and trying not to show it, when I turned down a blind alley and found myself on the fringe of something bad. A kid about my age was facing off a gang of street trash. "We've been watching you, pussy boy!" one of them yelled. "And we don't want your kind in our neighborhood!"  

"Grab the little queer!" "Get his pants off!" "We're gonna fuck his faggot ass!" They goaded each other, obviously trying to work themselves up to committing serious mayhem.  

There was something about the dark-haired kid's determination to stand strong against them, and I decided to try to help. "The cops are coming!" I shouted shrilly. "Somebody ratted you out and called the cops!" They broke and ran. "Come on!" I called softly to the kid. "We gotta get outta here too."  

He grinned at me as we raced in the opposite direction. "No one called the cops, did they?"  

"What do you think?" I threw him a hesitant grin back.  

We rounded a corner and ran straight into another group of older boys. "Oh, fuck. We are so fucked!" We were gonna be beaten, raped and left for dead!  

"No, no! It's okay!" The kid with me hurled himself at the leader, babbling in relief. "Oh, geez, Tim! You found me! It's a good thing you make us carry cell phones! I never would have gotten a message to you otherwise! I was so afraid!"  

I stared at him in puzzlement. He hadn't looked frightened to me.  

"Pretty Boy, you okay?" The oldest of the group checked him out to make sure he wasn't hurt, tipping his head back to study his face, patting him down, running his hands over chest and back, and the kid seemed to wriggle like a puppy being petted.  

"Yeah. They woulda had my ass for sure if it wasn't for this dude!"  

"You got Pretty Boy out of a bad situation? Thanks. Who're you?" The tone wasn't hostile, and as his eyes ran over me, I felt the tension slowly seep out.  

"I'm… Sweetcheeks. Who're you?"  

"I'm Tim." Probably in his early twenties, he was a little under average height, light brown hair and eyes, with a toned, compact body that was clothed in butter-soft maroon leather. The skintight leather outlined the muscles of his pecs and biceps, and I moistened suddenly dry lips, startled to feel my dick twitching in interest. "I run this crowd. Sweetcheeks, huh? That's a hustler's name."  

The abrupt rush of desire vanished, and I tensed again. "You got a problem with that?"  

"No." He was amused by my challenging stance. "Do you hustle?"  

I wouldn't show how scared I was. I shrugged as if it was no big deal. "Not much else for me to do. My old man threw me out when he found out I was gay."  

"It's a tough world out here, kid."  

"No shit, Sherlock." I expected him to take a shot at me for my snarky remark; it would have earned me a smack in the mouth at the very least from the man I had killed. I was surprised when instead he turned on the other boy.  

"And just what the fuck were you doing down here, Pretty Boy? You know this part of town isn't safe."  

The kid frowned at him. "My john drove to a deserted area a few blocks over. He turned out to be an off duty vice cop, Tim!" he complained. "He told me he was going to book my ass for soliciting, unless I put out for him whenever he wanted. Professional courtesy, he called it. Shithead. Of course he didn't tell me this until after he'd had me! The son of a bitch! I had to duck out of his car and run for it. Lucky I was able to get my pants up, or I'd have fallen on my face for sure!"  

"Fuck!"  

"Not if I could help it! And what are you guys doing down here?"  

"Mustang recognized him. He'd been busted by him a couple of times and knew what a shit the pig was, but it was too late to stop you. As soon as he got your message, he rounded us all up, and we came hot-footing it after you. We couldn't let anything happen to you." Tim ran restless fingers through his hair. "We've got to get a better class of johns. He didn't hurt you, did he, Pretty Boy?"  

"Nah. But it was a good thing I prepped before I left. And it was a better thing you taught us not to trust them from the getgo!" Pretty Boy bent over, and when he straightened, he had a wad of bills in his hand. He waggled it complacently. "The bastard thought he could have my ass and then take his money back. He didn't want me touching his dick," Pretty Boy shrugged at the anomaly, "so while he was busy putting on the condom I gave him, I tucked the money away in my sock, and he didn't see what I was doing."  

"Way to go, kiddo!" Tim ruffled the midnight dark hair. I couldn't believe the relaxed attitude these rentboys had toward their occupation. Maybe it was because they had each other to fall back on. Tim turned back to me. "Sweetcheeks, you saved Pretty Boy, and we owe you. If you want, you can stay with us for a while."  

I had nowhere else to go, so I went with them, and as it turned out, I wound up staying for more than a while.  

****  

One of the first things I learned was that among the safety of their own, the rentboys went by their given names. Mustang was Cris, Pretty Boy was Paul, Tim was… Tim. But I wouldn't let them call me Theo. It still hurt too much. So they called me Sweetcheeks, or Sweets.  

True to his word, Tim, who ran our stable, found ways to get us off the street and into the plush hotel rooms of a more cushy clientele. We went on to service mostly foreign diplomats who liked pretty boys, but some politicians as well, and they were guaranteed to pay well and not play too rough.   

Tim was what they called a leather daddy. He took on the clients who had a taste for being dominated, who wanted to take a walk on the wild side. He had a talent for numbers as well, and when he saw that I did too, he made me get my GED, and he started to teach me everything he knew. We socked away every spare cent that was earned in investments and interest-bearing bonds. T-bills just didn't yield what they once did.  

Tim eventually decided he was ready to retire. He'd taken a portion of his earnings and opened a discreet little club in Atlanta . "Ah'm a Jawja boy," he said, thickening his accent until it flowed over a body like warm honey. I was a little dismayed to find I had a thing for accents, or maybe it was just Tim's; it always got to me. I worried about that in the beginning, and I tried not to let him see how much his suth'n charm turned me on. I could have fallen in love with him very easily, but he didn't want that, not from any of us.  

"Sweets, you have the best business sense of the lot, so I'm giving you possession of the little black book." He pulled me up on my toes and glowered down into my eyes. "Don't lose it! I'm not fucking kidding! If the press ever got hold of these names, half the countries in Europe would fall, not because their ambassadors were sleeping with boys, but because they were sleeping with American boys! Got it? We protect our clients!"  

He'd drilled that into us, and that was one of the reasons we did so well. We gave value for the dollar, and we kept our mouths shut. Well, except when a client wanted to put his dick in them.  

Not long after Tim left, we found the place where we now lived, a rather shabby apartment building. There were more of us then, but our numbers tended to vary. And since I'd started running the stable, I'd continued Tim's policy of no hardcore drugs. The ones who objected either moved on or passed on.   

About six months after that last move, a tense, wiry man in his late twenties, with ears that were quite noticeable, moved into the studio apartment above us. Pretty Boy volunteered to keep a watchful eye on him, ready to intervene at the first sign that he was going to muscle in on our territory.  

We knew Clark Palmer always took the stairs, never the elevator, and so my friend waited for him in the stairwell, between our floors. Afterwards, Pretty Boy told me of his confrontation with him. "Hey."  

Palmer reached for something hidden by his jacket, but relaxed marginally when he recognized Pretty Boy. "I know you. You live downstairs, right? You're the one called Pretty Boy. What do you want?"  

"I want to make sure you keep your mitts off our johns," he stated flatly. "It took us a long time to get such an elite group of clients, and I don't intend for anyone to steal them away from us!"  

According to Pretty Boy, Palmer had looked stunned. "You think I'm a rentboy? I'm flattered. I think. Listen, kid..."  

"Kid? I'm no kid! I'm seventeen!" Pretty Boy could look fierce when he wanted to, and I could just imagine the expression on his face.  

And Palmer had laughed. "Listen. I don't work the streets. I have no interest in working the streets. Your johns are safe from me." He trotted past Pretty Boy, shaking his head.  

"And didn't I feel like an asshole! I really misread the situation, Sweets," Pretty Boy said ruefully.  

"Don't worry about it, Paul. I'd've done the same thing if I'd come across Palmer first. C'mon, I'll give you something that will make you feel better." I waggled my eyebrows at him salaciously, then led him into the kitchen and took a carton of ice cream from the freezer. "Get the syrup, cherries and whipped cream, okay? We can eat praline pecan sundaes till we're ready to puke." I watched as he drizzled caramel syrup over the ice cream. "So. What kind of equipment do you think he's packing?"  

He grinned and began to dig in. "When I tell you he's packing a shootin' ir'n, I'm not just talking about his dick! This is one dude we'd better leave alone!"  

"Fine by me, babe. It's never a good idea to sleep with the neighbors anyway." I leaned forward and fed him a spoon of my sundae.  

We still kept an eye on him, and if Palmer was aware of our surveillance, he never called us on it. He was in and out of the building at weird hours, and there were times when we didn't see him for weeks on end, but he minded his own business, and we minded ours.  

And then one of our visitors got a little too enthusiastic. I don't know how he'd learned of our services, but the Russian who showed up at our door had the correct password, so I assumed he was safe; I was wrong; he was sociopathic was what he was. He indicated he wanted one of the younger boys, and they disappeared into one of the back bedrooms. A shocked cry of pain, and the meaty sounds of fists connecting with flesh alerted us to the fact that Houston , we had a problem. There were a few of us who hadn't gone out yet; we were getting ready for our 'dates'. We burst into the bedroom, but in spite of the odds, we couldn't restrain the bastard, and we were taking a pretty good pounding.  

Clark Palmer heard the shouts, thuds and other assorted noises. He came down and casually let himself into our apartment. I'd just been tossed against a wall, and I could see him standing there. His gaze was bored as he observed the broken furniture, my battered colleagues, and the hyper john. "All right, what's all the fucking racket about?"  

The Russian sneered at him. "I have my little fun. These? They are nothing! Why for you not go away so I do not have to hurt you too, huh, Jim Dandy?"  

"You've been watching too many bad action movies, asshole," Palmer tisked, and he proceeded to beat the shit out of the big man. We watched in awe. It was over faster than we could believe. The Russian was almost unconscious. "Sweetcheeks, call a cab, would you? I want this garbage out of my sight." Palmer dragged the man down the stairs by his feet, his head bouncing painfully on each tread, and out of the building. We trailed along, not wanting to miss the end of our little drama. He grabbed the Russian by his collar and the seat of his pants, and tossed him into the cab. "Take this miserable piece of shit to the Russian embassy, and let them deal with him."  

The cab driver looked at the bills Palmer handed to him and nodded. "Not a problem, Mac." He burned rubber getting out of our neighborhood.  

"Now, if the excitement for the night is over, I need to get my beauty rest." Palmer stared at us, as if daring us to question his statement.  

"Thank you." I touched his arm. "We owe you, man." Another thing Tim had taught me: you acknowledged your debts, and you made good on them. "You can have your choice, any of us you want, for however long you want, gratis." My colleagues nodded in agreement.  

"That isn't necessary." Was he uncomfortable because I'd offered him a guy, or because he'd done a nice thing?  

"It is necessary. You saw what was happening. We would have been out of work, and the Kid might even have needed to be hospitalized. The offer is open-ended, Palmer. It has no expiration date."  

"Yeah, yeah." He started toward the stairs, then paused. "You going to change your policy about having clients over?"  

"Because one john got over-excited? One of the hazards of the trade," I shrugged. "Doesn't happen often, and when it does, we deal with it."  

"It's not the best trade to be in." It was his turn to shrug. "But you'll do what you want to do. If you need help, bang on the pipes next time." Before I could remind him we didn't have pipes, he went back up to his apartment. I followed my boys into ours, and we set about seeing what could be salvaged.  

The place was a disaster area, and I sighed. I'd have to tap into petty cash and go shopping. "Kid, you sleep in my bed tonight. Tomorrow I'll take you to the furniture store in Rockville , and you can pick out what you want. We're going to need a whole new living room, too. Oh, well. I was getting bored with Country French anyway."

The Kid grinned happily and went to wash the blood off his face. Fortunately, his nose wasn't broken, and the next night he was back to work.  

****  

Whenever I saw Clark Palmer, which wasn't too frequently, I'd remind him of the offer, and he'd murmur, "Some other time, Sweetcheeks." That was the way it was for the next year or so, until one night when Pretty Boy and I were both at home. I'd come down with a really nasty head cold, and he had taken the night off to nurse me through it. Of us all, he had the widest nurturing streak.  

He was sitting in the recliner with his legs hanging over an arm, stuffing white cheddar popcorn in his mouth, and I was curled up on the sofa, wrapped in a cashmere afghan, which had been a gift from a grateful gentleman friend who had thought he was impotent; turned out he was just gay. The area surrounding me was littered with tissues, and on an end table was a mug of tea that steamed gently. Pretty Boy had stirred a large spoon of honey into it, knowing that made the tea palatable for me. We were watching the Howard Hawks' version of The Thing from Another World, and in spite of the movie's age, we were both caught up in the desperate battle at the top of the world between a handful of soldiers and civilians and the threat from outer space. I groped for the mug just as the sound of the door buzzer shattered the tense silence. Pretty Boy and I both jumped.  

"Fuck!" I'd spilled tea in my lap.

"I'll get it, Sweets. Take another sip. And don't whine," when I made a face at him. "It's good for what ails you!"

I grumbled under my breath, but did as he ordered. He would have made a good doctor, and sometimes I wondered what our lives would have been like if our families hadn't discarded us like so much trash.  

"You got any whiskey?" It was our upstairs neighbor, and I'd never heard such pain and fury in his voice.  

"No. Palmer, what's wrong?" Ever since the older man had gotten him out of a sticky situation when a congressman had had a heart attack in his bed, Pretty Boy treated him as if the sun rose and set on him, and I couldn't help feeling a little morose. I blamed it on my cold. "Is that blood on you?" The question was strident.

"Not mine," Palmer responded carelessly. "What about gin? Vodka? Rubbing fucking alcohol? Goddamn it, I need a drink!"  

"You know we don't have any liquor here." That was a lie. I heard a fist slamming against a wall and a steady stream of swearing in a vicious monotone, and Pretty Boy's voice became gentle. "Come with me, babe. Come on. I'll take care of you."  

I heard his bedroom door close. It had taken that incident with the congressman for us to formulate one of our staunchest rules: Do not bring clients home. Only… Palmer wasn't a client. I unfolded my legs and made my way into the kitchen, sniffling and dragging the afghan behind me. Something stronger than tea was in order, I decided. I put water in the reservoir, counted out the spoons of coffee into the filter, and set the coffeemaker to brew. Then I went back into the living room to watch the rest of the movie.  

Two hours and another creature feature later, the coffeemaker automatically shut itself off, and I had to turn it on again. If they didn't come out soon, the coffee would be so scorched-tasting I'd have to throw it out and brew a fresh pot.  

I was coming out of the bathroom, the diuretic quality of the tea playing fast and loose with my bladder, when Pretty Boy slipped out of his bedroom, shirtless and limping a bit. "Shhh. He just fell asleep."  

"Did he hurt you?" I could see bruises on his shoulders, scratches on his back, and love bites on his neck. His nipples were red and chafed, and there were more bruises showing where the waistband of his sweatpants hung low on his lips. "Motherfucking son of a cocksucking bitch, I'll tear his dick off and shove it up his ass!"

"I'm fine, Sweets." His eyes became dreamy. "That was… intense!"

"Oh, no! Tell me you didn't kiss him!"  

"I didn't kiss him," he repeated dutifully, but before I could sigh in relief, he spoiled it. "He kissed me. Oh, god, Sweets, that man's lips are awesome!"  

"Jesus, you haven't fallen in love with him, have you? Ah, fuck, Paul, you know better!"  

He flushed. "Oh course I haven't fallen in love with him! What do you think, I'm stupid?"  

But he looked uncomfortable, and I wasn't sure I believed his assertion. I scowled at him. He was going to get his heart broken, I just knew it. "How many times have I told you… I should have burned that fucking copy of Pretty Woman when Mustang brought it home! Johns don't fall in love with hustlers! And how could you let him mark you like that?" A violent sneeze interrupted my diatribe. "You realize you won't be able to work until all these marks are gone?"  

"I'll see you don't suffer because of what I did to Pretty Boy." Palmer had opened the door so quietly we hadn't even heard it. I wheeled to glare at him, stumbling a little as the afghan tangled in my legs.

"I told you we owed you, Palmer, so just shut the fuck up about paying. But jesus, I never thought you were the type to get carried away like that!"  

"Sorry." His face was wiped clear of all expression, but there seemed to be an echo of pain still in his eyes.  

"Fuck it, Palmer…" I felt guilty.  

"My mistake. Pretty Boy, I thank you for what you did. For what you allowed me to do." He raised his hand, about to touch the thick, black hair, then dropped it to his side as if he was afraid he would hurt him.  

Pretty Boy had always been a touchy/feely kind of guy. Clark Palmer obviously wasn't. I could see he was taken aback when Pretty Boy launched himself at him. "It's all right, Palm!" he whispered. "I told you in the bedroom, it's the least I could do."  

Awkwardly, Palmer patted Pretty Boy's back, then stepped out of his embrace. "Thanks."

"Palm, you want to spend the night? If you need to be with someone…"  

His eyes went flat. "I don't need anyone, Pretty Boy. I have to go. Thank you again. Good night." He crossed to the front door and left our apartment, muttering to himself.  

Pretty Boy and I exchanged glances. Then I went into the kitchen. He followed me, but didn't say another word, just stood there as I poured out the stale coffee and rinsed the pot. I prepared it for the morning and slid the switch to auto. "You need to soak in a hot tub," I told him abruptly.  

"You're the one who's sick," he reminded me.

"It would have been nice if you'd remembered that," I groused. "Come on. I'll sit with you until you're done."

"Sweets, you don't have to…"  

"Like fuck I don't. I go to bed and you drown, how do you think I'm going to feel? Now don't piss me off, Paul." I hustled him into the bathroom, filled the tub, and sat on the commode and watched while he stripped off his sweatpants. "Let me check you."  

"He didn't tear me."  

"Paul. Bend over and let me check your ass, or I'll smack you upside the head with the loofa." I waited until he balanced his weight on the edge of the tub, then parted his cheeks with careful fingers.  

There were more bruises on his thighs, but I blew out a breath of relief to see his hole smeared with lube. I'd been worried that Palmer had been so out of control he hadn't stopped to prepare my friend. "You're okay."

"Well, hell, I told you that!"  

"Get in the tub. Smartass. I can replace you with a puppy, you know. Just like that." I snapped my fingers.  

He snapped his fingers back at me, "Just like that?" and snickered. He sank into the water with a soft exhalation as the heat soothed him, then grinned up at me. "But, you won't. You like me too much. Besides, none of our clients are into dogs." I threw a washcloth at his head, and he ducked automatically. The grin turned into a pained grimace, and he hissed as bruised muscles protested.  

"You know what set him off tonight?" The steam in the small room was going a long way to easing the congestion in my head and chest, and I felt marginally more human. Enough so that I rolled up my sleeves, knelt beside the tub and ran the loofa gently over his shoulders and chest.  

Pretty Boy sank lower into the tub, and I pulled back my hands. The ends of his black hair slapped wetly around his face as he shook his head. "But jesus god, Sweets, I've never been fucked like that before. He wouldn't let me offer him comfort; he got his cock into me, found the right angle, and then he hit my prostate with every single stroke and wouldn't stop until I came! I've never come that hard! And he did it again and again!" He shivered, and I knew it wasn't from the cold. "Intense."  

"I guess it makes sense. A man like Clark Palmer would care about his partner's satisfaction, if only for his own self-esteem. Still, I wonder what happened. He doesn't strike me as the kind of man who allows himself to lose control." It was my turn to shiver. I'd never been fucked like that. Pretty Boy had it right: intense.  

"Sweets." His eyes were suddenly tired. "You ever think of the future?"  

"Getting out of the business, you mean?" He nodded. "Sure. But what would we do? I don't think our kind of 'people skills' are what they have in mind when they ask about it on resumes."  

His silence spoke louder than anything he could have said. He drew up his knees and rested his cheek on them. "I figure we've got maybe another six good years. Maybe a little longer; you look younger than you really are, and the johns like that."  

"Tell me about it. We need a plan, Paul."  

"And we'll come up with one." He pulled the plug, stood up, and rinsed himself off with the shower attachment. I handed him a bath sheet and helped him out of the tub.  

"You're not going to be in love with Palmer now, are you?"  

"No, Daddy."  

"Cheeky bastard."  

He grinned at me, but then it faded as he considered the years behind us, the years before us. "Still, it would be nice to have just one person in my bed…"  

Silently, I agreed with him.  

Rentboys could dream, just like anyone else.  

****  

Six years passed faster than I realized. Paul took some classes in nursing, of all things, and I actually managed to get an A.A.S. in Computer Accounting Technology. The nest egg that Tim had started for us grew and grew.  

Our stable thinned out as rentboys either retired or moved to another state to start their own stable. I wouldn't let them work locally and cut into the profits, but the boys did well for themselves. They had money, they had talent, and they had their health.  

For this past year, it had been just three of us, Pretty Boy and Spike, and me. On the nights they didn't work, they were pretty much together. I felt left out and lonely. And then, to my everlasting amazement, someone came into my life who didn't seem to care a fuck that I had peddled my tail for the last twelve years.  

Now it was Pretty Boy and Spike, and Wills and me, and when I really stopped to think about it, I couldn't catch my breath. Maybe Poppa was wrong, and my life would amount to something.  

For someone who had never had a male lover, Wills took to it like a duck took to water. It made me feel like the most powerful man in the world, knowing he let me, and only me, fuck that delectable ass of  his.  

Since we'd met in the emergency room of George Washington Hospital , Wills had been over almost every night. Sometimes he'd even stay the night.  

The night before had been one of those times. I'd been so pleased he could stay, and I wanted to show him in the best way I could. I whispered against his lips, "Fuck me, babe!"  

I'd surprised him. We'd never done that. "Theo, what… You want me to…"  

"C'mon, Wills." I wasn't going to let him know how serious this was to me. I kept it light. "Don't you want to know how it feels to be buried balls-deep in a guy's ass?"  

"A guy? No." Before I could pull away from him, he nuzzled the spot just below my right ear. "But your ass? Oh, yeah!" His voice was hoarse. The sight of this man so affected because he wanted to fuck me was unbearably arousing, and I  rolled onto my belly and got my knees up under me.  

His movements were slow and thorough, teasing the sensitive skin behind my balls with feather strokes, lipping the curve of my ass, warming the lube in his palm before pressing his fingers into my hole, twisting and curling them. I almost levitated off the bed when they found my prostate. The fingers of his other hand gathered the drops of pre come that oozed from his own cock and slicked them over mine. With firm jerks, he began to masturbate me. I spread my legs further, whimpering, needing him deeper inside me. He removed his fingers, and I looked back over my shoulder to watch as he smoothed on a condom. His fingers were trembling, and I began to tremble also.    

"Easy, babe." Wills' broad, calloused palms caressed my flanks. He lined up the blunt head of his cock with my hole and pressed steadily into me. "There's no rush; let's take our time. My god, you're so tight! So hot! I could make love to you all night long!" His hands were hard on my hips, and he talked to me the whole time, his words rough with desire. "I've wanted this since I saw you that first night. I didn't think you'd want to, really want to… This is so good! You're so good!" It was as if he was worried I wouldn't know who was taking me.  

As if I had any doubt.  

He did take his time; he nipped and sucked on my neck, and he made it the best for me. His cock rubbed across my prostate, and he kept it rubbing across my prostate, prodding it with each movement forward. I clamped inner muscles and moaned and shivered as my balls tightened and drew up close to my body. "Wills! Fuck me! Baby, please! Harder!" I was panting with need.  

"Come for me, Theo!" And without a touch to my cock, I came, spattering hot semen on my abdomen and chest and the sheets on the bed, shaking as my orgasm fried the synapses of my brain and left nerve-endings in a tingling mass. I would have sunk in a boneless, blissful heap into the wet spot, but he kept my hips up, kept pounding into me, and unbelievably, the ripples of pleasure continued to roll over me.  

When he finally allowed himself to come, pulsing deep inside me, I was biting the pillow, almost sobbing from reaction. Only then did he let me collapse onto the mattress, still spitted on his cock, spread wantonly beneath him. His chest heaved, and his breath whistled as he struggled to regain it. He eased himself out of me, and after he disposed of the condom, he turned me over. He straddled my thighs and leaned forward. With little cat-like flicks of his tongue, he licked the come from my torso, and I moaned.  

He would have lain down beside me, but I tightened my arms around him and refused to let him move; he had no choice but to settle himself on top of me. I ran my nails lightly down  his back and over his ass.  "That was great, Wills! You were great!" What I didn't say was that together we were fantastic.  

Wills nipped my ear and mumbled a drowsy response that was too garbled to be understood, and his breath whispered over my cheekbone. I followed him into sleep.  

****  

The shower shut off, and in the silence I could hear Wills singing. His speaking voice was deeper than the light tenor that soared to caress the notes and phrases of the song. "Sweet symbols in the moonlight, Do you mean that I will…" Abruptly the song stopped, but I didn't think anything of it; I just assumed that he'd either forgotten the rest of the words, or else they'd been muffled by a towel.  

I finally knew how Paul had felt that time when Palmer fucked him, I thought smugly. I could still feel Wills, as if he were buried deep inside me. I flipped onto my stomach, sprawled across the bed we'd been sharing, and I watched him saunter back into the bedroom, toweling his thick hair dry. Another towel was tied low on his hips, and I eyed it with interest, wondering if by wishing, I could get the terrycloth to slip. He caught me watching and blushed, and I wondered if it was because of his state of undress or that I'd heard him singing.  

"It's so early. Do you have to leave now, Wills?"  

My lover nodded and dropped the towel, then opened a dresser drawer and took out a pair of boxer briefs that I'd bought and placed in there for him. I got a funny feeling in my chest: he wore them for me, even though he preferred regular boxers.  

I sighed loudly, hoping he would take pity on a poor former working boy and maybe come back to bed, but he just grinned at me over his shoulder. "Okay, fine, be that way." I found it hard to tear my gaze away from his ass. Then he pulled the boxers up and that glorious ass was hidden. I sighed again, hardly any sound at all this time. "Would you tell me something, Wills?"  

"If I can." His line of work was very secretive, and we never spoke of it. He turned, and my eyes dropped down to where his cock was outlined by the snug white material of his briefs. I bit back a whimper and resolutely forced myself to look away. "Theo? What did you want to know?"  

"Huh?" For a moment, I couldn't remember what I was going to ask him, and his sly grin told me he knew how distracted the sight of his body had made me, especially since now I knew how well that body could pleasure mine. "Uh… I just wanted to know how you got that bullet scar on your butt." He started to chuckle. "I didn't think the question was that funny," I huffed. He was having too good a time at my expense. I swung my legs off the bed and padded to where he stood by the chair where he'd laid out his clothes. I wondered if he'd consider leaving some changes of clothing here in my apartment. I wondered when he'd take me back to his apartment.  

His back was to me, and I slid my palms up the defined muscles, tracing another scar that curled from his kidney to just below his shoulder, following my hands with my lips. He shivered as the warmth of my breath flowed over his spine. I laid my cheek on his shoulder. "I don't like the idea of someone shooting you, especially not in the ass."  

"I wasn't too happy about it myself, let me tell you! I shouldn't have laughed at you, Theo; I'm sorry. It's just... it isn't a bullet scar. It's from a nail gun."

"Ouch!"  

"Yeah, that was my reaction." Wills brought my hand to his mouth and tickled my palm with his tongue, then reluctantly stepped out of my embrace. He scooped up his clothes, brought them back to the bed, and sat down to pull on his socks. "I worked construction during summer vacations until I graduated from college."  

"Mmm, so that's how you got these nice muscles!" I'd known he was handy. He'd helped out when I mentioned I needed to have some work done in the apartment we were giving to Palm, but I'd just assumed it was stuff he picked up from his dad. I climbed onto the bed and draped myself over his back so he could feel my partially aroused cock. He tipped his head sideways, allowing me to trail a string of kisses up the side of his throat to his earlobe while my fingers teased his nipples, and this time he was the one distracted.  

"Um… where was I?"  

I raised my lips from his ear. "Doing construction work during the summer?"  

"Right. It was my uncle's company, and all the cousins worked for him when we needed spending cash. This happened just before the start of my sophomore year in college. Uncle Jake won the bid on a single-family housing development, and we were framing out the first six houses that were going up. My cousin Harry thought I was paying too much attention to the girl who was running the electrical wire, so..."  

I paused in my exploration of his left ear. "A girl, Wills?"

He peered at me over his shoulder, the turn of his head brushing his hair against my mouth, the scent of the shampoo he had used filling my nostrils. It was my shampoo; I didn't remember it smelling that good on me. "Well, yeah. Uncle Jake was an equal opportunity employer. Didn't matter if you were male or female. As long as you could do the job, you had the job."  

"That's nice, babe, but what I meant was… you dated girls?"  

"Yep." He took his clutch piece from the night table and leaned over to strap it to his ankle.  

Of course he dated girls. He had as much as admitted he'd been a virgin when it came to guys. "Is that all you have to say about that?" Had I suddenly become stupid?  Why was I pressing him for the gory details?  

"Yep." Wills grinned at me and pulled his undershirt on over his head. He stood to slide his long legs into his trousers, and he left the front gaping open while he put on a white, tailored shirt. His eyes were on the buttons, and his fingers worked quickly. He wasn't deliberately making a production of dressing; he didn't even realize how avidly I was watching him.  

"Um… do you still date girls?" I was glad he couldn't see my face, especially since I'd just realized that I wasn't stupid, I was jealous. On second thought, that did make me stupid. What right did I, of all people, have to object to whatever he did when he wasn't with me?  

His head jerked up, his expression exasperated. "Theo, in case it escaped your notice, I'm dating you right now."  

He was, wasn't he? I sat back against my heels, relieved. "Oh, yeah?" He scooped up a damp towel and threw it at me. "And your cousin Harry had no idea you liked guys?"  

"No. As far as any of my family knows, I'm an unregenerate heterosexual."  

My emotions were all over the place. As quickly as I had become elated, now I deflated. A lot of the men I had 'dated' considered themselves heterosexual. As long as I was the one who sucked them off, or the one getting fucked, they didn't have to think of themselves as gay, or bi, or anything other than true blue het. I dropped the subject abruptly, not wanting to know just then how he rationalized that up until last night, in our relationship, I always fucked him. "Okay, so your cousin Harry literally nailed you in the ass. That was a little extreme, wasn't it?"  

"Not really. And it was just a graze. I understood. Harry was suffering from unrequited passion." This was the first time he had ever talked about his family. His dark eyes glinted with humor. "He wound up marrying the girl!"  

I smiled a little and said, "I still think that was extreme. Remind me to kick the shit out of him if I ever meet him!" Yeah, sure, I chided myself. Like he's ever going to bring you to meet his family.  

"Theo, it was an accident." Wills could see I didn't believe him. He tucked his shirt into his pants and zipped himself up, then threaded his tie through his collar and began to tie a knot. "Harry is the world's worst shot, and it was just my rotten luck that the one time he aimed anything more dangerous than a water pistol at me, the damned thing ricocheted off a tool chest and managed to hit me! Trust me, he felt worse about it than I did!"

"Somehow I doubt that. If it was deep enough to leave a scar, it must have hurt like hell!"  

"Well, it did smart." He came back to me. "If it bothers you, babe, I can have it removed."  

"Asshole!" I growled. "I don't want anyone else touching your ass, not even a plastic surgeon. You're perfect, just the way you are." I grabbed his tie to pull him down into a kiss. There was something so arousing in him being completely dressed, and me being completely naked. His lips were warm and pliant on mine. "I love kissing you," I murmured against his mouth.  

"Really?" He sounded surprised, and I let him pull his mouth away. His lips were glistening and slightly puffy, and his eyes were heavy with renewed passion. I reached down and squeezed the bulge at his crotch, and he groaned. "Fuck. I've got to go, Theo."  

"You'll come by for dinner?"  

"If I can." It was the same response he always gave. "I'll call, okay?" Wills rubbed his thumb over my lower lip, took my mouth in one final, mindbending kiss, and then left for work.  

I flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. From out of nowhere, I was blindsided by old insecurities. I liked Wills Matheson a lot, maybe more than a lot, but I'd given up on dreams. Too many years, too many men in my bed.  

Now that I was alone, I could admit to myself that I'd hoped he would tell his family about me. Oh, not all about me, but that he was seeing me. //All right, Bascopolis, snap out of it. You've got him for now. Enjoy him, and don't fuck it up!//  

He called later that morning to tell me he wouldn't be able to come over for dinner, and that he'd call me. I tried to reach him, but all I got was his answering machine. And when I didn't hear from him, I wondered if this was the beginning of the end.  

****  

Pretty Boy sauntered into the kitchen while I was working the crytoquote in the newspaper in ink and having my third cup of coffee. Although he'd been home from the hospital for a few weeks now, he still tended to favor his left side. The bruises had long since faded, and the hair that had been shaved so his scalp could be stitched was growing back nicely. "How are you feeling, Paul?"  

A fucking maniac had beaten him so badly that I'd been afraid we were going to lose him, but Clark Palmer had seen to it that he'd gotten a private room in Washington Hospital and the best treatment money could buy.  

Palm had suggested it might be time to find another line of work, and I could tell from the tight look on his face that he expected Pretty Boy and me to argue with him. After all, we'd never be able to pull down the kind of money in the straight world that we made in a single night on our knees, or on our hands and knees.  

It had been a wake-up call, though, and Palm got no argument. Pretty Boy agreed simply because if the 'john' hadn't insisted on having the older rentboy, Spike was the one who would have gone out to turn that trick.  

He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down opposite me. "We really should get out of this business, Sweets. I don't know about you, but I'm getting too old for all this bullshit."  

"Yeah, well, I've only been letting them fuck my ass or my mouth because I'm a greedy slob."  

His expression became opaque. "You've stayed in the business for the same reason I have, Sweets. We were looking for a little warmth, even if it was bogus."  

"You've got the real thing now. You've got Spike."  

He smiled, suddenly appearing almost as young as when I had first met him. "Yeah, I've got Spike," he said softly. "And now you've got Wills." He saw the expression on my face. "Or do you? Come to think of it, Spike says he hasn't been around lately."  

"Work." I hunched a shoulder irritably. "That's all I  know. You know he can't talk about what he does."  

"You've gone and fallen for him, haven't you?"  

"Pretty dumb, huh?"  

"Why? Why can't rentboys have a little happily ever after?"  

"Yeah, well, the last time I saw him was the morning after I finally let him fuck me. You came home a couple of days later."  

"Oh, baby, you think it suddenly hit him what you've done all these years?"  

I nodded miserably. "I knew this would happen. I just… hoped it wouldn't be this soon." He pulled me into a hug, and I let myself be comforted. "Speaking of Spike, where is he?"  

"We weren't speaking of him, but okay. He's still sleeping."  

"You've been keeping him really close to you, Paul."  

Spike had been with us for a little more than a year, and Pretty Boy had been protective of him from the start. I'd watched from the sidelines as, without his even realizing it, he'd fallen in love with the spike-haired kid, and now he was riddled with terror that one day the body in the hospital bed or on the slab in the morgue would be Spike's.  

He shook his head. "His choice." He scrubbed his face. "Sweets, we need to talk." I picked up my coffee cup and motioned for him to continue. "Spike's been turning down 'dates' every night for the last three weeks, and I haven't been well enough to work. Too much of this has been falling onto your shoulders."  

"Uh…" I hadn't wanted to bring up the subject, but it didn't look as if I had any choice. "Actually, I haven't seen any of my regulars either. I kind of… er… uh… I've been taking a sabbatical." That sounded reasonable. He was watching me with a little frown between his eyes. "Listen, Paul, why don't you finish breakfast, and I'll pull up our accounts online, and we'll see where we stand."  

Spike shuffled into the kitchen just then and paused by his lover's chair, leaned down, and bussed him sleepily. His white hair, the roots beginning to grow out, hung lankly around his face, the goop he used to spike it having been washed out during his shower. He opened the refrigerator, took out a carton of orange juice, and chugged a healthy gulp. "You done with the paper, Sweets? Can I have the funnies?"  

I folded the newspaper to the requisite page and handed it to him. The chair scraped over the floor as I pushed it back and rose to my feet. "Finish breakfast, then meet me in the office."  

****  

You get lazy sometimes. You let things slide. You know you should get out, find another path, another line of work. You don't because it's just easier to stay where you are, doing what you've done for the last twelve years, even though, while you didn't exactly hate it, you…   

You didn't much like it.  

Of the original stable of rentboys, only Pretty Boy and I were left. It was high time for us to have this conference. We weren't getting any younger. I pulled up the spreadsheets on the computer, and he and Spike leaned over my shoulder to peer at the figures.  

"Wow!" the youngest of our stable breathed. "We really have that much money?"  

I turned in my chair and watched as Paul absently ran his hand down Spike's back, cupping an ass cheek. "We've been making some good money, and the stock tips that broker passed on to us before he had to take early retirement were all solid. So if you're serious about getting out as you say you are, Paul, you can. Spike, too."  

"I'm serious as a heart attack, man!" Paul tucked his lover close to his side and studied the screen thoughtfully.  

"If Paul is getting out, then so am I." Spike was willing to go along with whatever Paul decided.  

And I would also because… well, hell, my lover had asked me to. I found myself lost in memories of that evening in Pretty Boy's hospital room. Wills had grown so cold when he'd learned that I really hadn't needed to hustle. And when he'd realized that all it would take to get me to stop was him saying, "Stop," he'd said the words, and I was now an ex-rentboy. An ex-rentboy, and an ex-lover?  

"Well, gentlemen, I guess this means the business is dissolved."  

####  

Since I'd met Theo, I'd spent most of the nights in his bed, a few times even being able to stay for breakfast, but for the first time since I'd known him, I'd been the fuck-er rather than the fuck-ee. And I'd liked it.  

"C'mon, Wills," he'd teased. "Don't you want to know how it feels to be buried balls-deep in a guy's ass?"  

"A guy? No. But your ass?" My mouth went dry. "Oh, yeah!"  

I had no intention of rushing this. My hands were shaking as I touched him, but I kept my touches light so he wouldn't realize that I was continually on the verge of coming, especially after I slid into the overwhelming heat of his snug opening. It was a good thing I knew how to extract square roots in my head, because otherwise I would have embarrassed myself by coming too quickly.  

Afterwards, as we lay in a sweaty, trembling tangle of arms and legs, Theo told me I'd gotten him off without a touch to his cock. "That was great, Wills!" His sigh was sated, and he ran his palms over that scar on my back and down to my ass, squeezing it. "You were great!"  

I didn't stop to wonder if he said that to all the men he took to his bed. I was the one in his bed now, and he'd agreed to give up hustling. I was satisfied with that.  

Sometime after dawn, Theo woke me out of a sound sleep, kicking the blankets off, thrashing and flailing, his words broken and almost indistinguishable, his voice that of a young teen. "Please… don't cut me… Fast Franky, please… be good… promise I won't… oh, god, don't…  so much blood… jesus… dead… musta killed him… run… gotta run…gotta …"  

"Shhh, baby. Shhh. It's all right." He was freezing. I pulled the blankets around us and held him snug against my side, and stroked his hair. "I'm here, babe. I've got you."  

"Wills?" My name was a sigh on his lips. He burrowed into me, and as he absorbed my warmth, he finally slid into a more peaceful slumber. I, on the other hand, was wide awake.  

I glanced over at the clock. The alarm was set to go off at 5:30 , and although it lacked a little more than an hour until then, I knew I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep, so I stayed awake, running a hand soothingly over his back, mulling over what I had heard. This wasn't the first time Theo had spoken in his sleep, but it was the first time he had mentioned someone by name. As soon as I was able, I'd go online and see what I could find out about this Fast Franky character.  

The next time I looked at the clock, it was almost time to get up. I eased my arm from under my lover, shut off the alarm and rolled out of bed, heading for the bathroom. After I flushed, I caught sight of my image in the mirror and sneered. Bed hair. I turned on the shower. My mouth didn't taste too good either. How did Theo stand me?  I brushed my teeth while I waited for the water to reach the temperature I preferred. I'd been raised in the Northeast, and I liked my showers hot.  

As the water beat down on me, and I ran the soap over my body, I started to hum. I usually sang in the shower; it freed my mind to puzzle out various and sundry matters that intrigued me. Or in this case, disturbed me. While I sang something at random, I mused over what Theo had mumbled in his sleep.  

I'd already learned that Theo came from Tarpon Springs, a town in Florida , and that his father had thrown him out for being gay. My own father was going to be disappointed when I told him it looked like I'd be swinging that way from now on, but I couldn't see him reacting so violently.  

My mind wandered to something else that concerned me. On the nights that I stayed the whole night with Theo, I had to make sure I had enough time to drive home and shower before going to work the next morning. I liked having his scent all over me. On one of my few days off, I even went the whole day without showering, occasionally rubbing my nose against my shoulder and inhaling, but if I went to work smelling of my lover, I had the feeling Mr. Palmer would not be overjoyed, simply because it was unprofessional. Theo had already made some room in a drawer for the underwear he had bought me. I wondered how he would feel if I asked to leave a suit and maybe a couple of shirts in his closet. And maybe a razor. And a toothbrush.  

I shut off the water and stepped out of the tub, and I suddenly realized what I was singing. I shut up fast, unable to believe that of all the songs I knew, that was the one my subconscious chose, with the damning line, "Do you mean that I could fall in love perchance…"  Perchance, hell. I was on the fast track to falling in fact. I just hoped the sound of the water running had drowned out the sound of my voice. Or maybe Theo was still asleep?

Theo was awake. But he didn't say anything about it, and I was relieved. I was relieved.  

He also didn't say anything about his nightmare. I was going to bring it up when the sight of him on his belly on the bed, watching the towel around my hips with distinct lasciviousness, brought me up short. For the first time since I'd been recruited by the DSD I considered calling in sick.  

Of course I didn't. I dressed, planted a kiss on that mouth of his, and drove to work on autopilot. The events of the night before insisted on replaying themselves in glorious Technicolor, with full surround sound. I was looking forward to seeing how we would spend the coming night.  

****  

On my way to work, I stopped at a McDonald's drive through for coffee and a cinnamon roll. It was a good thing I didn't have to get out of the car, because I'd been hard since Theo had whispered against my  lips, "I love kissing you." I'd never kissed a guy before Theo, and kisses I'd shared with women had been brief and careful, because I was always afraid I'd hurt their tender lips. I had no fear of that with Theo; he drove me wild, and he liked it the wilder I got.  

Once I pulled into my parking spot, I reined in my lustful thoughts, and by the time I arrived at my office, I was only half hard.  

My secretary wasn't at her desk yet. A blue-eyed blonde with Marilyn Monroe curves, Miss Jones had presented herself to me with the simple statement that she was my secretary. If she was as dumb as she appeared, the DSD would never have hired her. This was the reason why I hadn't been able to go back to bed with Theo. Something unusual was going on, and I needed to get to the bottom of it. My intention this morning was to find out who she really worked for. I hung up my jacket, turned on my computer, and logged on.  

Twenty minutes later, I was aggravated, frustrated, and just plain pissed off. My secretary was supposed to rate only level one security, yet I couldn't get into her file in personnel. I was getting that feeling at the back of my neck, the one that warned that I'd better watch my ass.  

I stalked into the outer office. Miss Jones still hadn't arrived at work. It was early, but I knew that Mr. Palmer's secretary was almost always there before him. Methodically, I went through her desk, finally finding what I was looking for by sheer blind luck. She had a floppy disk in the case that held blank CDs. I went back into my office and inserted it into my computer.  

I stared at the screen in shock. Fucking hell in a handcart. This was not good. How had she managed to get a copy of that file?  I took the disk out and headed for Mr. Palmer's office, not even bothering to clear it with his inestimable Ms. Parker.  

****  

I was disappointed that I wouldn't be the one to discover who had Miss Jones in his pocket, but there just wasn't enough time.  

Mr. Palmer had a job for me, and I hoped he didn't see how I pleased I was. He was trusting me to erase someone who was giving Bradenhurst, and by extension the DSD, a headache, and this entailed more than waltzing into an office, putting a slug into a geek's brain, and waltzing back out. After clearing off my desk, I needed to get home, pack the work clothes and tools I would need for this job, and get to the airport. Fortunately, Mr. Palmer had given me permission to let my lover know I had to cancel our tentative plans for the evening.  

He had his secretary way-lay mine while she was in the ladies' room as was  her normal routine when she got in to work, and I was able to replace the disk in the CD case. I didn't bother wiping it for prints; both Mr. Palmer and I had been careful handling it, and if anyone was suspicious enough to check for them, the fact that the disk had none at all would be damning.  

I was in my doorway when she came strolling in. "Ah, Miss Jones. I was just looking for you. Get me a cup of coffee, would you?" If it had been Ms. Parker, I would have added 'please'.  

"Of course, Mr. Matheson. Regular, right? Milk and two sugars?" Her voice was soft and breathy.  

*I* wasn't the one who took his coffee that way. "Black, Miss Jones," I corrected gently. "No milk. No sugar."  

"Oops. That's right. My bad." She giggled and turned to hurry out into the hall, where the coffeemaker shared by the junior agents in this wing of the DSD was located. It seemed she gave her hips an extra wiggle, and I wondered if her next set of orders would be to try to seduce me. Not that she would have succeeded, even if I wasn't involved with someone already. Miss Jones was too much of a man-eater, in spite of that little girl demeanor she tried to project.

She quickly brought my coffee, fluttering her long lashes at me. I gave her a tight smile and went back into my office. It took me about an hour to get everything in order, and then I set up precautionary firewalls. If anyone tried to get into my computer, they would be in for a nasty surprise, an electrical shock being the least of it. They would also have to explain why every computer on the seventh floor suffered meltdown. I gave a grim smile of satisfaction, logged off, and shut it down.    

Miss Jones was on the telephone, and she looked uncomfortable to see me. I turned to lock my door. "You can return to the typing pool, Miss Jones. I'll let you know when I need you again."  

Her lips pursed into what I imagined she thought was a provocative pout. "Why? Are you going somewhere? How long will you be gone? When will you be back?"  

I arched an eyebrow at her, a perfect imitation  of Mr. Palmer's reaction to such impertinent questions. Her eyes darted away to linger on my door, and she worried her plump lower lip uneasily. "Good morning, Miss Jones." As I left she turned off her computer and gathered her belongings.  

****  

It didn't take me long to change into jeans and a chambray shirt, and to pack. Then I reached for the phone. Theo's number was on speed dial, right after Mr. Palmer and my family, and I pressed 'three' and waited impatiently for the call to go through.  

"Hi. You've got me. Now tell me what you want to do with me!"  

I'd been hoping to actually speak to him, and I  was so disappointed when all I got was his answering machine that the message I left was brief and stilted. "Hi, Theo. It's me. Um… I can't make it tonight. I'll call you, okay?" I couldn't think of anything else to say, and I hung up.  

I'd have to fly to Phoenix from New York , to back my story of being a tin knocker from a New York local. The DSD had inserted another identity into the union records, and for the next few weeks, I would be Matt Williams. Since Matt Williams wasn't licensed to carry a weapon, I had an ingenious little gadget, almost like a kid's Transformer, that appeared innocuous but twisted into something lethal. Mr. Bradicich of Ordnance was very proud of it. I put on my denim jacket and slid it into a pocket.  

After a final check to make sure the television and lights were timed to go on at specific intervals, making it appear I was an home, I slung my carry-on over one shoulder, the briefcase that held my laptop and cell phone over the other, and left.  

****  

The assignment was completed. It had taken me less than the anticipated three weeks, there were no loose ends, and nothing to tie the DSD in to the disappearance of FitzWilliam. Mr. Palmer would be very pleased.  

On the trip home, I changed my itinerary so that I had a stopover in St. Petersburg rather than Cincinnati . There was a little something I needed to take care of in Tarpon Springs.  

I was running on fumes by the time I got back to Washington , but I went directly to the building that housed the DSD. I typed up my report and saved a copy to my hard drive, as per Mr. Palmer's instructions. Then I went to his office to debrief. Afterwards he studied my face. "You look like shit, Matheson."  

"Thank you, sir." He waited, but I had no intention of having my head bitten off. I wasn't going to explain that the trip home had too many connecting flights.  

"Very good, Matheson." He looked pleased. "Now, about your connecting flights… " Oh fuck. Had he learned what I had done? "One of them was to Florida , and you spent nine hours there."  

I sighed. Why was I surprised? Of course he had. He was Clark Palmer. "Yes, sir. There was a layover in St. Petersburg . I took that opportunity to rent a car and drive up to Tarpon Springs."  

"Why?"  

I crossed my legs and leaned back in my chair. My eyes felt like a beachful of sand was in them. I hadn't slept since I'd left Phoenix , and just prior to that I'd been working seven twelves, seven days a week, twelve hours a day. That was why the Phoenix local needed out of town workers, called travelers. It was a big job, and they were hiring all the men they could get.  

"Tarpon Springs has the largest Greek community in Florida , Mr. Palmer." I met his eyes. "Theo came from Tarpon Springs. Did you know he used to be a choirboy in Agios Giorgios Greek Orthodox Church? He's been afraid to go home because he thought he killed the man who whored him."  

"He didn't?"  

"Mr. Palmer, Theo was fifteen. He was small for his age, scared out of his mind, and he had no clue how to use a knife. It glanced off the scumsucker's ribs, and the wound bled like a son of a bitch, but it didn't kill him. When the asshole fell, he hit his head and knocked himself unconscious. Theo panicked and ran. Now on the other hand, I am an adult." The only thing that scared me was an unhappy Mr. Palmer. "And I was taught by a master how to handle a knife."  

"Mmm hmmm. I take it the world now boasts one less scumsucker? I approve, Matheson."  

I was able to breathe a little more freely. "Thank you, sir. I wasn't sure you would, considering it was strictly personal."  

"But you killed him anyway."  

"He was pimping for another boy. Mr. Palmer, I have a younger brother that kid's age."  

"Half-brother," he corrected sharply. Of course he would know my family background. "All right, Matheson. I understand why you acted as you did. Just this once I'm going to overlook it. If you had gotten caught, the DSD would not have bailed you out, you know."  

"I'm aware of that, sir. It won't happen again." It wasn't likely that Theo would be in that position again.  

"See that it doesn't. By the way, Miss Jones is still your secretary, but not for too much longer. I have someone else in mind, who I think will suit you much better." His hazel eyes glinted with humor, and I hoped whoever he gave me was as competent as Ms. Parker. "Okay, you may as well take the rest of the day off, and tomorrow as well. We'll need a little time to put our plan into motion." Our plan. That made me feel good. "Get some rest. I'll want you at the top of your game. The coming days are going to be… busy." He checked his desk calendar. "You're scheduled for this weekend off, aren't you?"  

"Yes, sir. I have no plans, though, and if that's a problem, I can come in."  

"No. I don't foresee any difficulties." He bared his teeth in a grin, but this time his eyes didn't reflect it, and I suppressed a shiver.  

****  

I unlocked the door to my apartment and let myself in. It was dim, the air warm and close from having been shut up for all this time. I dropped my carry-on next to the alcove that held the washer/dryer combination, and went to raise the blinds and open the windows. A soft May breeze blew in and began to chase away the stuffiness.  

I went into the bathroom, stripped and took a shower, then wrapped a towel around my waist and emptied my carry-on into the washing machine. While the jeans and work shirts were washing, I went to call Theo. I'd missed him, and not just my dick. Maybe I could interest him in coming over, although I had been reluctant to let him see my apartment. It was impersonal, just the place where I slept, and I'd been too busy making my way in the DSD to be bothered doing anything with it.  Still, he might not notice.  

The light on my answering machine was flashing, indicating I had messages. "Your mailbox is full," the female voice told me. Fuck. The telemarketers must have had a field day with my poor, defenseless answering machine. Soliciting calls were the only kind I got, which was why I never bothered to retrieve my voice mail while I was away. I sighed and pressed the button to play the messages.  

"Hi, babe, it's me." Theo? I sank down into an overstuffed chair, a broad grin on my face. "Damn, I guess I missed you. Give me a call when you get this, okay?" According to the female voice, this had come in just after I'd left for Phoenix .  

I was reaching for the phone when the next message played. "Hi, sweetie." Warm, throaty, unconsciously sexy, it was Jill, my father's wife. Twenty years younger than Dad, she put the lie to the evil stepmother tales. She had been my babysitter, watching me whenever my parents would go out, and I had been madly in love with her. I had announced to everyone that as soon as I was ten, which I figured would be old enough, I was going to marry her. She had been watching me when the phone call came about the accident that killed my birth mom. Jill married my Dad when I was ten, and that was even better than marrying her myself. I smiled. "Out of town again? That company of yours certainly keeps you hoping! I won't call your cell number, this isn't an emergency. Your Dad just wanted to remind you about the Memorial Day picnic. Uncle Jake is bringing his brood from New York . Will you be able to make it this year? And will you be bringing someone with you? You really need to have a social life." I could hear my father in the background calling her. "Gotta go! Bye, sweetie."  

Phone calls from home always left me feeling good. I gazed up at the ceiling, contemplating bringing Theo up to Cambridge for the picnic. I wondered if he'd want to  meet my family. I wondered if he'd try to kick my cousin Harry's ass.  

I listened absently to the next three messages, which were soliciting calls. I didn't need storm windows, car insurance or my rugs steam cleaned, and I erased them immediately. And then the fifth message played. "Wills? It's me. Theo. You're still not home? Call me, will you?"  

The sixth message was from him also. "Wills, are you there? Is everything okay? Shit. We need to talk. I… I miss you, babe. Call me."  

And interspersed with more telemarketing calls, were others from him as well. "Where the fuck are you, Wills? Look, Palmer told me you were away…" He'd gotten in touch with my boss? Why? "… but I know you know how to get your messages, so obviously you're avoiding me. Are you avoiding me?" He sounded distressed. "Call me, okay?"  

"All right, fine. You don't want to talk to me, I don't care! I don't need… Aw, fuck, Wills. Call me! Please!"  

"Listen, Matheson. I don't have to have a ton of bricks fall on me to get the message! You had my ass, and now you don't respect me any more. If that's the way you feel about it, fine!" He was breathing heavily, and then, almost plaintively, "I didn't mean that! Call me?"  

"'kay, 'at's it," he slurred through his last message. "'m through beggin'! Have it y' own way. 's far 's I'm concerned, we're through. S' do me a favor," his voice cracked, and he was shockingly sober. "Don't come around any more! Ever! Bastard." The receiver slammed down.  

Fuck. What had happened? When I'd left, I'd thought everything was fine between us. Suddenly I was no longer exhausted. Theo thought he could brush me off just like that? Not. Fucking. Likely. I stalked into the bedroom and ripped open dresser drawers.  

When I had gone to Theo's building to do some work on Mr. Palmer's apartment, I couldn't help but notice Theo's reaction to the clothes I had worn, a black pocket tee shirt and blue jeans that were so worn they were faded to almost white over the crotch, thighs and butt. I pulled them on. The tool belt would have been overkill; so would the work boots. I went with Doc Martens.  

The answering machine was still playing out messages when I stormed out of my apartment and ran down the stairs to underground parking.  

I kept finding myself increasing the speed of the boxy sedan that the DSD had given me, and I would swear and slow down. The last thing I needed was to be ticketed for reckless driving.  

There was a strange car in front of the building, and I became rabid. Who the fuck was parking in the spot that was mine? I slammed the car door so hard I wouldn't have been surprised if it had bounced.  

Spike met me at the top of the steps. "Uh… Sweetcheeks doesn't want to see you."  

"Too fucking bad!" I picked him up and physically moved him out of my way. He squeaked.  

Pretty Boy stood blocking their front door. "He doesn't want to see you, you bastard!" he hissed at me.  

"Tough shit, because he's going to!"  

"Matheson, you can't go in there! He isn't alone!"  

"Listen to me, Pretty Boy. I haven't slept in almost two days. In the past twenty-four hours, I've been in three different time zones, six different airports, flown four different airlines and driven the rental car from hell. I get home to find out I've been broken up with over the tele-fucking-phone, and I no longer have a lover.  Now, you're Mr. Palmer's friend, and he would hate it like hell if I hurt you. So I'm advising you, for both our sakes, to get the fuck out of my way, because if you don't, I will go through you!"  

The door opened. "Wills?" Theo looked awful. His skin was pasty, his eyes were bloodshot, and I could smell the alcohol on him from where I stood. "What do you want?"  

"I want to know why you're throwing away what we had!"  

"All we had was some hot, sweaty sex."

"You can't believe that!"  

"Don't you tell me what I can or can't believe, you cocksucker!"  

"But I've never sucked your cock, have I?" I planted my palms on his chest and shoved. Theo stumbled backwards, and I followed him, pausing to glare at Pretty Boy over my shoulder. "Find somewhere else to be. Theo's gonna be tied up for quite some time!" And I shut the door in his face.  

"What are you doing?" Theo backed away from me.  

"You need a bath." I grabbed his arm and gave him a shake. "You smell like a brewery!"  

"Well, it's your fault!" he said sulkily, tugging in a futile attempt to free himself. I wasn't about to let him go, not yet. "Why couldn't you tell me to my face if you didn't want to… if you wanted to break up with me?"  

I  came to a dead halt. "What?"  

"Palmer told me you weren't available, but I saw you, goddammit! You were walking away from me down Massachusetts Avenue , and you fucking ignored me when I called your name!"  

"Theo!" I blew out a breath in exasperation. "Did it ever occur to you that it might not have been me? Why wouldn't I answer if you called?"  

He avoided my eyes, his expression miserable. "Because of my past!"  

"What? Never the fuck mind! Get in the bathroom and get those clothes off!"  

"Wait a second! Where are you going?"  

I'd been heading in the direction of his bedroom. "Pretty Boy said you had company. I'm going to find him, beat the shit out of him, and throw him out. And then I'm going to whale the tar out of you too!"  

"What? I didn't do anything! I wasn't the one who cut and ran! And there's no one else here but me and the guys."  

"Is that what you think I did? It was work, Theo. I left you a message. What do you mean there's no one else? That isn't what Pretty Boy said!"  

"He was just trying to protect me and get you to leave. The message you left wasn't worth shit. 'Hi, Theo. It's me. Um… I can't make it tonight. I'll call you, okay?'" His tone was mocking. "Only you fucking didn't. What was I supposed to think?"  

"You're an idiot, you know that, Bascopolis? You've known Clark Palmer for what, ten years, twelve years now? You know when work is involved he can disappear at any time and be gone for weeks. That's my job too! If you can deal with him being away, why is it such a problem with me?"  

"Because I don't fucking love him!" he shouted, breathing hard, and when he realized what he had said, his eyes widened in dismay, and he smacked himself in the head. "Oh, fuck!"  

I'd been winding myself up to a good head of steam, and that knocked it all out of me. "So, that means what? You love me?"

"Don't let it bother you, Matheson. I'll get over  it."  

"Yeah? You think I'll let you?"  

"Huh?"  

I crowded him back toward the bathroom. Now that I knew there was no one else in the apartment that I would have had to kill, I could concentrate on Theo. "I've got a newsflash for you, babe. If I couldn't get things sorted out with you," I reached into the shower and turned on the water, "I was going to make you return something of mine you've got." I stripped his clothes off him and gestured for him to get into the tub. He did reluctantly.  

"What are you talking about? I don't have anything of yours!"  

I shed my own clothes and followed him under the water. "No?" I braced my forearms against the tile and leaned in to lick at his lips. "My heart, Theo. You've got my heart." I slid to my knees before him and took his cock in my mouth. It was soft, but it wasn't soft for long.  

****  

Between the long hours I'd put in on the job in Phoenix, my recent lack of sleep, and the incidental fact that Theo and I kept at each other like manic minks the whole night, even if I had remembered to set the alarm, I'd have slept right through it.  

It was the heady fragrance of freshly brewed coffee made from freshly ground beans that roused me. I angled myself up on my elbows and sniffed appreciatively. Before I could pry my eyes open, the warm rim of a coffee cup was pressed to my lips.  

"Careful, babe. It's hot."  

"I like it that way." I took a sip. "Like I like my men," I added innocently.  

"What you mean 'men', gay boy?"  

"Fuck, Theo, don't make me laugh when I have a mouthful of coffee!"  

He laughed softly as he put the cup on the night table and then climbed on the bed and settled himself beside me. "We're… we're okay then?"  

I opened my mouth, about to toss out a teasing remark, then saw how hopeful he looked. "Yeah, babe. We're okay." I took a deep breath. The air in the bedroom was warm and redolent of our night of lovemaking. "Theo, what are you doing for Memorial Day?"  

"If we're not working, we usually go down to the Mall and watch the fireworks display. Want to come with me this year?"  

"Actually, I was going up to Cambridge to spend the weekend with  my family."  

"Oh. Sure. Well, maybe some other time…"  

"Theo, I'd like you to come with me."  

His mouth opened and shut, and he swallowed. "What will your family say?"  

"'How do you do?' Truthfully, I don't know. I've never brought anyone home to meet them."  

"What, not even when you were in college?"  

"Nope. So, will you come? And no double entendres, wiseass!"  

"I'd… I'd like to, Wills…"  

"Cool. I'll call my stepmom and let her know we'll be there."  

"You have a stepmother? Are your parents divorced?"  

I was looking around the room. I knew it was silly to need to be dressed, but I didn't feel comfortable speaking to either of my parents while I was naked, even if it was over the telephone. "No, my mother was killed in an accident when I was five. Jill's the best. You're going to love her."  

"If you say so." But he seemed doubtful. I wasn't worried, though. "Wills, what are you looking for?"  

"What in freaking hell did I do with my shorts? I can't find them anywhere!"  

"You didn't wear any."  

I froze in the middle of the floor. "That's right. I was so pissed with you, I forgot all about them."  

Theo went to the dresser that held some spare underwear and tossed them to me. "Well, I have to say I approve of your choice of wardrobe." He picked up the jeans and tee shirt and ran a hand over them.  

"I thought you might. I chose them with you in mind, you know. I liked how you responded to them the last time I wore them." He looked up sharply, his eyes glowing with remembered heat. I pulled the jeans up my legs and over my hips with slow, undulating movements.  

He realized I was teasing him, and licked his lips. "Know how I'd really like to see you dressed, babe? In a hardhat and toolbelt and work boots." He pulled me against him and slid his hand over my ass, tracing the crevice, pressing against my hole.  

I felt myself grow hot. "And that's all?"  

"Hmmm." He pretended to consider it. "Well, maybe a pair of cutoffs. Maybe."  

"Kinky." I was finding it hard to breathe.  

"Babe, you ain't seen nothing yet! Here." He handed me the phone, then ran his palm over my chest, pausing to tweak a nipple. His grin was slumberous as he watched it peak and become pebble hard. "Make that call. In the meantime I'll make you some lunch. What sounds good to you?"  

"You?"  

"Comments like that will get you soundly kissed!"  

"I've got the day off, and I'm not going anywhere."  

Turned out I didn't make that phone call for quite some time.  

****  

Theo retreated to the kitchen to put together some soup and sandwiches for a late lunch while I dressed again and called Cambridge . The phone rang for so long that I was getting concerned, and then a young, female voice picked up. "Hello? Um… Matheson residence."  

"Hi, munchkin."  

"It's Wills!" she screeched in my ear, and I winced. "Mom! Mommy! Hurry! Wills is on the phone! Guess what, Wills! Princess Kimba had her kittens on my birthday!" Princess Kimba was one of a pair of  American Bobtail cats that my stepmother raised as a sideline.  

"That's great, Marti. Do you have families picked out for them yet?"  

"She only had three this time! Mom says we can keep them! And guess what!!"  

"Marti, you can hang up now, Mom has it."  

"But I was going to tell him…"  

"Hang up now, Marti." She waited until the extension clicked. "Hi, sweetie! How are you?"  

"Is everything okay, Jill? How come Marti's home? It's the middle of the week."  

"Everyone is fine, Wills; it's after 3, of course she's home! What about you? Is everything all right with you? How come you're calling in the middle of the afternoon on a workday?"  

"I did good on an assignment, and my boss gave me the day off."  

"Ah, that's great! Wait until I tell your Dad! He'll be so proud of you."  

The pride in her voice was evident, too. "Cool. Listen, Jill, I'm calling about the family picnic. I'll be there, and I'd like to bring someone home with me."  

"That's great, sweetie. You know any friend of yours is more than welcome. This house has enough bedrooms to house a platoon!"  

"The thing is, I… uh…I think I'm going to need you to run interference with Dad for me, Jill."   

"Oh? Is something going on that I should know about?"  

"Um…" Jill was easy to talk to, but how did I explain to my stepmom that I was sleeping with a guy?  

"Maybe you'd better tell me about this friend of yours, sweetie. Is she blonde? Brunette?"  

"Red head. Actually, Jill, he's a guy. And he'll be sleeping in my bedroom." There was silence on the other end of the line. "Jill?"  

Theo was suddenly in the doorway,  looking tense. "What's wrong?" I shook my head at him.  

"Wills?" My stepmother's voice was soft. "How do you feel about him?"  

"I… I've never felt this for anyone before. He means a lot to me."  

"Oh, Wills!" I could hear tears in her voice and for a moment I clutched. I wasn't sure if they were happy tears. I should have known better. "It's about time you found someone, sweetie! Now, tell me everything: what his name is, where you met him, how long you've been seeing him, what he does for a living. Come on, tell, tell!"  

I smiled at Theo and shooed him out of the room. "His name is Theo Bascopolis. I met him when I was… visiting someone in G.W. Hospital a couple of months ago, he's not working right now, and if my apartment wasn't so cruddy, I'd invite him to move in with me."  

"If that's all that's stopping you, babe, you can move in here!" Theo called from the other room, revealing that he'd been listening in.  

"I heard him, Wills," Jill's voice was warm in my ear. "He sounds nice."  

"He's more than nice. He's…" I was starting to sound fatuous, so I shut up. Another time I would tell her he was the one I never thought I would find. "So, Jill… can you talk to Dad for me? Kind of prepare him? You know how he reacted when J.R. decided he wanted to go Goth! This will make him go ballistic."  

"Your father is a little on the conservative side, although I could understand his objection to your brother getting numerous body piercings, especially since we'd have to give our permission! A Prince Albert ! Can you imagine?"  

"No, thanks, Jill. Just the idea makes me want to cross my legs!" The thought of having my dick pierced held no appeal to me.  

She chuckled in sympathy, then mused, "You know, your father is a good man, and all he wants is your happiness. It's not as if you're a little boy any more. It's just going to take a little while for me to work on him. Alice has been making noises about visiting her grandchildren in New York . This might be a good time for her to go. After I've told your father about you and Theo, if he starts fussing, I'll mention it to him. I wonder how he'd feel about me cooking tonight."  

"Um… Jill, do you think that's a good idea?"  

"Why ever not? You know I love to cook!"  

Jesus, my poor father! "Uh… Jill…"  

"Let me get going, Wills. I'll need to come up with a suitably romantic, candlelit dinner that will be guaranteed to turn your father's mind to mush. We'll see you and your friend on Saturday, sweetie. Love you."  

"Love you more. Bye." I hung up the phone and turned to find my lover hovering in the doorway, and briefly I forgot about the ordeal my father would be facing. "Jill thinks you sound nice, Theo." I grinned as he actually blushed. "She'll let my Dad know how things stand between us."  

"Will he be all right with it, do you think?"  

I sighed. "He will when Jill gets done with him!"  

His brow furrowed. "What am I missing here?"  

"Jill is going to make dinner for Dad."  

"And?"  

I walked up to him and pulled him into my arms. "My stepmother is great, and she loves to cook," I told him as I nuzzled his throat. "She's got a shelf filled with cookbooks by Julia Child, Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck; she collects them, and she has binders filled with recipes that she cuts out of newspapers and magazines. She really intends to try them sooner or later. The only problem is, she couldn't find her way around a kitchen if her life depended on it. She can't even boil water without scorching it! She burned spaghetti! That's why we have a cook."  

"I'm sorry, I still don't get it."  

"Jill has no idea! She's the most wonderful woman in the world, but she has this blind spot: she really thinks she's a good cook."  

"Wills, I'm a good cook. I am."  

"Damn straight, you are."  

He relaxed in my arms. "Will it work?"  

"If Dad doesn't have to wind up getting his stomach pumped! He's not stupid. As soon as he gets a clue that Jill intends to visit the kitchen, he'll pay attention to whatever she has to say, and I'm pretty sure he'll at least give us a chance. "  

"I wish… I wish my family had been as accepting. Oh, well, I guess if wishes were horses, I'd have a stableful." His smile was a little wistful, and it almost broke my heart. He stepped out of my embrace and left the bedroom. "Let's have some lunch," he said over his shoulder.  

I didn't know what to say to him. I'd been spanked as a child, sent to my room or grounded for a week, had the car keys confiscated as I grew older, but no matter what foolish or rebellious things I'd done, I'd never feared that I would be thrown out like so much trash. I knew how much Theo still loved his father, he had talked about him in his sleep; otherwise, while I was down in Florida , I'd have offed him as well as the creep who had turned my lover into a whore.  

****  

The next day I was at my computer, working on something Mr. Palmer had given me. Odd things seemed to be going on in Europe . A group calling itself Prinzip had suddenly shown up on the radar screen of the intelligence community. So far, two DSD agents and six CIA operatives who had assignments on the Continent had gone missing.  

The buzz of my intercomm jolted me out of my intense concentration. I keyed the response button. "Yes?"  

"Mr. Matheson." It was my secretary. "Mr. Davies wants you in his office immediately!"  

The senior director of public relations. A frison of anticipation ran up my spine. It was showtime! "Tell him I'll be with him shortly."  

Unlike other government organizations whose very lifeblood depended on how the public perceived them, the DSD used its department of public relations to make certain the public never learned of its existence. Even most high-ranking government officials were unaware that there was such an agency.  

Along with his own department, however, Davies seemed to have a finger in just about every pie in the Defense Security Division, and word was he had been close to Robert Sperling. When Sperling had blown himself to kingdom come trying to break into Mr. Palmer's apartment, and I had refused to believe the body was Mr. Palmer's, he had been quick to agree with the insinuation that there was something physical between my superior and me. I hadn't informed Mr. Palmer of this, because once I'd found him alive and in the company of a certain rentboy, quite frankly I'd forgotten all about it. And truthfully, it would have felt too much like telling tales out of school.  

I logged off my computer and reached for my suit jacket. After a quick tug to make sure it hung properly, and I was presentable, I left my office.  

Earlier, Miss Jones had come into my office, ostensibly to bring me my coffee. She extended the cup to me, and when I would have taken it from her, she let her fingers drift over mine. I stared into the cup; she'd got it wrong again. "I take it black, Miss Jones. If you can't remember a simple thing like that, then perhaps you should go back to the typing pool."  

"Oh, but…"  

"I'm sure you have something that needs doing at your desk?"  

She'd gone a little pale, then turned on her heel and stalked out as if she had a corn cob up her butt.  

Now she stiffened slightly, her color high, but she didn't meet my eyes, and she continued keying information into a requisition form. She didn't know it, but by the end of the morning, Miss Jones would no longer have a position on the seventh floor.  

I went to the stairwell and trotted up to the tenth floor, where Public Relations was located. When I reached Mr. Davies' office, my breathing was only slightly accelerated. His personal assistant peered at me over pale rose-tinted, wire-framed glasses.  

"I'm Matheson."  

His lip twitched into a sneer, and he sniffed. "Mr. Davies will see you shortly. Take a seat over there, please."  

Instead of sitting where he indicated, I propped a hip on the edge of his desk, plucked a rubber band from the tray that held supplies, and began to play with it, forming a cat's cradle. I kept my eyes on his and said nothing, just wound the rubber band in and out of my fingers.  

Suddenly his intercomm crackled to life, fracturing the thickening silence, and he jumped, then stabbed at it. "Sir?"  

"Send Matheson in."  

I dropped the rubber band back into the tray and rose from the desk. Keeping my movements easy and contained, I entered Mr. Davies' office. "You wanted to see me, sir?"  

If I'd never seen Clark Palmer scowl, the expression on Anson Davies' face might have alarmed me. However, when he saw I was not reacting as he intended, his scowl darkened, and he tossed a sheaf of papers across his desk toward me. "Would you care to explain this to me?"   

I picked them up and glanced through them, then raised my eyes to meet his. "This seems rather cut and dried. What, exactly, did you need explained, sir?"  

The sound of his palm coming into contact with his desk was sudden and loud, and I fought back the urge to flinch, simply permitting myself a blink. "Don't toy with me, Matheson! You were in Phoenix earlier this month."  

I said nothing. Mr. Palmer had made it clear that assignment was completely under his jurisdiction and strictly classified. No one was supposed to know about it.  

"No response, Matheson? Maybe this will loosen your tongue!" 'This' was a grainy 8x10 photo of Theo and me. It must have been taken with a high-powered telephoto lens.  

It was right after Mr. Palmer's apartment had been blown up. Pretty Boy had offered him an apartment in the building the rentboys owned until he could find something else. Mr. Palmer had to go out of town for a funeral, and Theo had mentioned that since the place needed some work done before Mr. Palmer could move in, this would be the ideal time. "I'll just hire someone to deal with it." The place had been empty for a while, and needed some refurbishing and a few minor repairs.  

"No need to waste money on someone who'll only do a half-assed job. I'll take care of it for you, babe." I had volunteered, more as a chance to show off my handyman skills to my lover than to impress my superior. I'd gone over wearing faded jeans and a tee shirt, my tool belt slung low around my waist, and I'd 'rocked a couple of walls, replaced some plumbing fixtures and cleaned out the traps, and run a cable line so my boss could have high speed internet access.  

Theo had been so impressed he'd pulled me into his arms, as sweaty and covered with plaster dust as I was, and thoroughly mapped the interior of my mouth. If whoever had taken the picture had waited a few more minutes, he would have gotten an even more eye-popping shot. Quickly removing my tool belt and letting it drop to the floor, Theo had undone my jeans and shoved them down past my hips, then spun me around, bent me over and with one hand tight on my dick, he'd fucked my brains out.  

I raised my eyes from the photo and let the corner of my mouth curl into a grin. "Mind if I keep this?"  

"That's a copy!" he snapped.  

"I'd still like to keep it." I decided to lob the ball back into his court. "I'm sorry, Mr. Davies. I don't understand why you think this picture should disturb me."  

"That young man you're kissing is a whore."  

"I would think that's my worry. And I still don't see where you're taking this."  

He was out of his chair so quickly it went spinning back to hit the wall behind him. "The DSD frowns on its employees indulging in such activities." I took out my wallet and withdrew a slip of paper, which I handed to him. "What's this?" he asked irritably.  

"This is a list of the ladies who are available for a …mmm… how should I put this? A less than long-term relationship? It was supplied to me by Human Resources."  

"Women are perfectly acceptable! Men are not!"  

I thought of Mr. Palmer, who I'd learned was sleeping with a man. I hadn't tried to find out who it was; that wasn't my business.  

It suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Davies was so concerned with my sex life that he may have let the Phoenix matter completely slip his mind. Keeping my relief hidden, I decided to see if I could confuse matters further by throwing out a red herring. "Sir, if you refuse to allow me my Constitutional rights, I'll have no choice but to bring a suit against the DSD, and you personally."  

"Are you trying to get yourself killed? You don't threaten this organization in that manner!"  

"Did it appear that I was issuing a threat? I'm so sorry, Mr. Davies," I said unctuously. "That was certainly not my intention. And of course, the DSD could have me killed at any time. But then they'd have to go to the trouble of finding someone else with my talents, recruiting him, and spending the next three years training him."  

"And I would be pissed as hell." Mr. Palmer. I almost sagged in relief. Davies wasn't Mr. Palmer, but he was still a senior director. "Give it up, Davies."  

"What are you doing here, Palmer? This has nothing to do with you! It's between your boy and my department." He dropped back into his chair.  

"If it involves 'my boy,' then it involves me." He strode across the room and stood next to me. "What's this?" He took the photo from my fingers and examined it. "Uh huh. Are you sure you want this?" he asked, revealing how much of the conversation he'd overheard. At my nod, he shrugged and handed it back to me. I caught a glimpse of his eyes as he regarded the man before us. They were flat and cold, and I was glad they weren't directed at me. The director of Public Relations very audibly ground his teeth. "Keep that up and your dentist will be very upset with you." Mr. Palmer flashed his own teeth at him in the grin that had gotten him labeled a sociopath.  

"You and your cloak and dagger maneuvers, Palmer! This isn't the Cold War any more," Mr. Davies snarled, his level of frustration a notch higher. "We are aware that Matheson was in Phoenix at the same time 'Bill' FitzWilliam disappeared. As you should know, Fitzwilliam was an irreplaceable contact for the DSD."  

"No one is irreplaceable, Davies. Surely you've worked here long enough to have learned that simple fact? And what gave you the impression that Matheson was in Arizona whenever it was you think FitzWilliam went missing?"  

"'Impression' my Aunt Fanny's mustache!" Mr. Palmer let the PR man see his amusement at the archaic term, but Mr. Davies was rushing on, almost frothing at the mouth at this point. "It's a goddamned fact, Palmer, and you should be the one aware of it if anyone is!"  

"Mr. Davies thought I might be interested in this, sir." I handed my boss the papers the senior director had thrust at me. Mr. Palmer took them and thumbed through them casually. What he held was a detailed account of my time in Phoenix , from the time I stepped off the jet at Sky Harbor International until the afternoon I ran into FitzWilliam in a local gin mill and spent the next couple of hours feeding him carefully doctored drinks.  

"Hmmm. This says that Matheson got FitzWilliam back to the building that's under construction for Bradenhurst, knocked him out and dumped him where a pylon was going to be set, and then dumped about five hundred yards of cement on top of his body. Is that what you did, Matheson? I forget."  

"I did not do that, Mr. Palmer," I assured him earnestly. I faced Mr. Davies. "I'll be willing to take a lie detector test to that effect, sir."  

"Do you think I don't know you're capable of passing a lie detector test, even when you're lying yourself blue in the face?"  

I attempted to look as if my feelings were hurt. In this case, at any rate, what I spoke would have been the truth. That was not how I had disposed of FitzWilliam's body.  

"Of course, you can always get a court order to have that pylon removed." Mr. Palmer considered the man before him. "The floors above it will need to be shored up. Not sure how long that will take, but it's a big job. Once that's done, it should only take about eighteen hours to break apart the foundation and get down to the base using jackhammers. That will set back the completion of the building by about another eight months on top of the five months it's already behind, and the cost of the over-run will be at least an additional seventy-five million dollars. And all that would be found would be rubble. The CEO of Bradenhurst would not be pleased with you, Davies."  

Davies' face grew purple with thwarted fury. "FitzWilliam is dead, and this debrief proves it!"  

"No, Davies. That debrief is a tissue of lies. All it proves is that we discovered your spy, and she discovered a carefully laid out plan! Matheson."  

"Sir?"  

"Wait outside."  

I left the office, closing the door behind me. Mr. Davies' assistant stared up at me, his eyes wary. The voice of my superior came over the intercomm, which had been left switched on.  

"Accept the fact that FitzWilliam was screwing us over! The fucking son of a bitch had a nice little business going on the side;  he sold the weapons that were slated to be stockpiled in that building for the DSD to the Russian Mafia and replaced them with fourth rate hardware that was guaranteed to misfire at the crucial time, getting our people killed."  

"Impossible! He checked clean!"  

"Jesus, Davies, you desk jockeys give me a pain in the ass." Mr. Palmer sounded disgusted. "Next time you need to investigate some asshole, talk to me. I'll get someone who knows what he's doing."  

"But FitzWilliam is dead!" Mr. Davies reiterated stridently.  

"Are you sure of that? Knowing that I… that the DSD was onto him, what makes you think he hasn't just decided to cut his losses and run?"  

"No! He wouldn't… It's not… That's impossible!"  

"Is it? You should leave the 'cloak and dagger' tactics to my department. Tell me something, Davies. Why is Public Relations involved in this?" The other man was silent. Mr. Palmer on the attack was not a man to fuck with. "Why was the secretary assigned to my agent tampered with? Whose idea was it? What's your connection to FitzWilliam?"  

The PR director's voice was hoarse. Stress? Nerves? "These are unfounded allegations. I deny them vehemently. You have no proof!"  

"But I have no doubt that if I start looking for it, I will find it! And when I do, The Boss…"  

"Trevor Wallace will never believe you over me!"  

"Maybe." I could picture Mr. Palmer shrugging, that cocky grin on his face. "But Mr. Wallace is a big believer in delegating, and knowing that, why would I bother him with a matter that falls under my jurisdiction in the first place? You've known me a long time, and you know I've earned my reputation." His voice grew low, as if he leaned closer to the senior director, and deadly. "I'd have no qualms in turning the tenth floor into a wasteland. Now give me the tape. Did you think I wouldn't realize you would try to record this meeting? Oh, and one other thing, Davies. I don't like having my people interrogated without being informed of the fact." The threat in his words hung implicit between them. He didn't have to say, 'Don't do it again.'  

I stared pensively at Davies' assistant, then extended my hand, waiting for the backup cassette to be dropped into my palm. "It would be better if you gave it to me. You really don't want to deal with my boss." He fumbled with the micro-recorder, finally getting the tiny tape out of it.  

Mr. Palmer came out of the office, ignoring the man behind the desk, who eyed him with shocked horror, his face ashen. "Matheson." Mr. Palmer indicated with a jerk of his head toward the door that I was to follow him. The assistant held himself very still, as if his very motionlessness would render him invisible.  

"Geez," I groused as we walked down the corridor to the stairwell. "You'd think the guy had never seen members of Interior Affairs before!"  

That surprised a laugh out of Mr. Palmer, and he paused before opening the door. "You're sure you want to keep this picture? It really doesn't do you justice."  

"That isn't my best side." I ran my forefinger over the image of the man who was embracing me. "But it's a damn good shot of Theo."  

He stared at me, then his mouth quirked into grin. "I think I could get to like you, Matheson."  

I handed him the backup tape, and he slipped it into his pocket, and we returned to the seventh floor.  

****  

It turned out to be one of those days. On a scale of one to ten, I figured it would rate about a fifty.  

By the time I got back to my office, Miss Jones was gone. In her place was a brunette who reminded me vaguely of a young Ingrid Bergman.  

Later that day, word came down that Mr. Davies, senior director  of Public Relations, was taking an extended leave of absence, due to a sudden flare-up of a chronic ulcer.  

And that night, Theo got me onto my hands and knees, pushed into me, and pounded unrelentingly against my prostate, jerking me off as well until I exploded and filled his hands with my semen. Afterwards, while he was spooned up behind me, nuzzling the spot below my left ear that always made me melt like butter, he murmured, "Wills?  You awake?" I was half asleep, but he took my mumbled grunt as an assent. "I've been thinking, babe. Paul wants to go home, and I'm buying out his share of this building. He and Spike will be moving to California to live. I'll be here by myself." I was abruptly wide awake, and I held my breath. "It sounds like you really don't care much for your apartment; it isn't the best, and it's kind of dumb to keep it when you're over here most of the time anyway. There's plenty of room; we could convert one of the bedrooms into an office for you, and you can have your own bedroom too, for… you know… if we have a fight, and you need some space?" Theo was asking me to move in with him.  

"Yeah."  

He was surprised by immediate agreement. "What, 'yeah'?"  

"Yeah, I'll come live with you and be your love."  

He was suddenly hard, pressing urgently against my hip. "You really will? Fuck, Wills!"  

"I really hope so!" It only took Theo a minute to roll on a condom, smear on some lube, and slide back into my still-slicked passage.  

Oh, yeah. On a scale of one to ten, the day was definitely a fifty.  

****  

Early Saturday morning, Theo and I were on a shuttle bound for Logan . It landed on time, and since we only had carry-ons, we went directly from the gate to pick up the rented Mercury Cougar. On my own time, I loved driving powerful, sporty cars as opposed to the sedans the DSD favored. Within ten minutes, we were driving out of the airport.  

Because I knew the roads that would avoid the worst of the holiday weekend traffic, it only took us about half an hour to reach the tree-lined street where my family lived and turn down it. Theo let out a whistle when he saw the house, two stories plus gabled attics and a finished basement. The bay windows that looked out on the front yard were bordered by lilac bushes whose blooms were fading. Two ancient oaks stood sentry on either side of the walkway that led to the front door. The long, curving drive was empty now, but by the time the rest of the family showed up later in the afternoon, cars would be parked in it all the way to the street.  

The backyard sported an Olympic-sized, heated swimming pool, as well as a lighted tennis court. An oak even older and larger than the ones in the front shaded a quarter of the yard. A knotted rope hung from one bough, giving access to a treehouse that had first been mine, and had then gone to my younger brother. I'd spent plenty of nights in it, some with my friend, Michael Shaw, and I was looking forward to sneaking out after everyone had gone to bed and demonstrating to my lover the joys of roughing it.  

In the far corner of the yard was the Doll House, a little-girl-sized replica of Barbie's dream house that Dad had built when my sister Marti was born. It might have made more sense to wait until she was old enough to enjoy  it, but since she was the first girl in the last four generations of Mathesons, Dad had gone a little overboard. It had two floors, and there was a miniature working elevator, just like Barbie's house, a bathroom with a Victorian tub, and even a kitchen with running water. Uncle Jake had come to visit, and they spent the whole spring working on it, even letting me help, my first construction job.  

"Jesus fucking god! Who's your father, Donald Trump?"  

"Nah." I parked the rental car and popped the trunk so we could retrieve our carry-ons. "When Dad bought this place twenty years ago, he got it for a song; you wouldn't believe how rundown and neglected it was! It took a few years to get the house renovated enough to live in it; he just worked on it a little here, a little there. He could have sold it at a massive profit, but he brought Jill with him when he was going to put it on the market, and she fell in love with it. He sold Uncle Jake his share of the business, and we moved here."  

"And Wills hated it." Jill stood at the back door, smiling and holding it open for us. "He had to leave his friends and his school and his favorite baseball team behind." We climbed the steps, and I leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Hi, sweetie. And you must be Theo. I'm so happy to meet you. Come in, please."  

"Mrs. Matheson. Thank you for having me here." Theo unzipped his case and produced a lavishly wrapped hostess gift. "Wills mentioned how much you enjoyed cookbooks."  

"Please, call me Jill. Thank you, I'm sure I'll love it. Marti's gone shopping with Alice for some last minute odds and ends, and J.R. is around here someplace." She continued chatting as she carefully removed the pretty paper. "And Jack, Wills' father, is down in the basement, looking for the horseshoes." Abruptly, she sucked in her breath. "Oooh! The first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking!" She stroked the cover with reverent fingers and turned the pages. "A first printing! And it's been autographed by Julia Child!" There was a sound behind her. Dad stood there. "Jack, look!"  

"That was a very thoughtful gift. Bascopolis." His eyes were cool and measuring as he acknowledged Theo's presence. "Jill, take William's guest up to his room. I'd like to have a word with my son."  

Shit. This didn't look promising. "I'll join you in a few minutes, Theo. As soon as we're unpacked, we can go swimming if you'd like."  

Theo returned my father's gaze. "Mr. Matheson, I'd just like you to know that I care a great deal for your son; I won't hurt him. I think the last thing any of us would  want is to see him hurt. I hope you'll give me a chance."  

My father gave a curt nod, but his expression remained guarded.  

"Come along, Theo." Jill looped her arm through his and smiled up at him. "Wills has mentioned that you cook also…"  

Dad waited until they left the kitchen. "A very personable young man, William. But Jill tells me he's unemployed."  

"He's in the process of changing jobs, and…"  

"Wills." I breathed a sigh of relief that he was calling me by my nickname again. "He could be a deadbeat. Don't let him get his hands on your money."  

"Dad, Theo has a degree in computer accounting; he's better with money than I am. He has a stock portfolio that… Well, let me put it this way. The last thing Theo Bascopolis needs from me is money. And besides," I had to smile, "I'm too young to be his sugar daddy!" Although now that my father had put the idea in my head, I found it irresistible, and my attention wandered. //I'd come home after a hard day tracking down bad guys and blowing them to little bitty bad guy meatballs, as per Mr. Palmer's orders of course, to a meal cooked by my lover, maybe finding him in an apron and very little else…// I was suddenly hard, and I hoped Dad wouldn't notice.  

"I don't understand. You could have any woman you wanted." My father looked baffled. "In college you had more girlfriends than we could shake a stick at! Every time we turned around, there was a new coed clinging to your arm!"  

"Didn't you ever wonder about that, Dad?"  

"I thought you were a stud."  

I couldn't help laughing. "Geez, I was lucky I could achieve penetration!" His expression became pained. "Sorry, Dad; more than you needed to know, huh? Like you said, I went from one girl to another. I always used to wonder why I couldn't…" //Come with them.// I thought better of what I'd been about to say. "Um… why I couldn't settle with any one of them. Now I know."  

"I can't understand it."  

"That I'm gay?"  

"Wills!" He was exasperated with me. "I mean, you're a good-looking man, son, but…"  

"But Theo is flat-out gorgeous. I know." He gave me a look I didn't understand, but I'd think about it another time. "I don't understand it myself, but I'm not going to question it. You know something, Dad? He loves me."  

He shook his head. "Well, if you're going to persist in this…" He let the rest of the sentence hang, and I became anxious.  

"Do… uh… do you still love me, Dad?"  

He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a shake. "You're my son, William." This time the look he gave me was one of those 'you're talented, handsome, and brilliant, and on top of that you walk on water' –type looks, and he pulled me into a hug. "I'll always love you, no matter what. Just… don't encourage Jill to cook for me again."  

****  

Jill had chosen to interpret my father's request to take my guest up to 'his' room as installing Theo in my room. When I got there, he was not alone. He faced my younger brother, who was regarding him intently.  

"I see you've met J.R. Have you introduced yourselves?" They each gave a slow nod.  

"Why's he staying in your room?"  

"Jar, Theo is my friend."  

"There are other rooms, and you only have one bed." He starred accusingly at the double bed that had been mine since I was younger than he.  

Theo grinned at that. "How are you going to explain your way out of that one, babe?"  

"Babe? Is this guy your boyfriend, Wills?"  

No sense beating about the bush. "Well, he's a boy, and he's my friend, so I guess, yeah, you could say he's my boyfriend."  

"Nicely done, Wills." Theo was laughing softly. "That's a roundabout way of putting it, if ever I heard one."  

"Well, that fucking sucks! How come you can have a boyfriend, but I can't have a Prince Albert ?"  

"Two totally different sets of circumstances, Jar."  

"They both involve dicks."  

Before I could think of a response to that, Theo stepped in. "Do you really want your dick pierced?"  

"N—no. It's just… I'm fifteen, and they treat me like a kid! All my friends have body piercings."  

Instead of bringing up that hoary chestnut that involved friends, the Brooklyn Bridge , and jumping off, Theo simply murmured, "Suppose you tell me what part of your body you do want pierced?"  

My brother stared my lover hesitantly. "My nose." He pointed to show where. "My friend Pat has this really cool nose ring."  

"Pat?" I stepped closer to Theo and whispered, "This is the kid everyone calls Damien, because he's like the Antichrist!" Theo gasped and averted his face, biting his lips to prevent a burst of laughter.  

Meanwhile, unaware, Jar was continuing, "I thought if I told them I wanted my dick pierced, we could… you know… kinda bargain down to the piercing I really wanted?"  

Theo drew in a few deep breaths in order to get himself under control. "Smart."  

"But it didn't work." He was aggrieved as only a teenager could be. "Dad wouldn't even discuss it. He said no way, and Mom backed him up."  

Theo's expression grew pensive. "I had my nose pierced. I used to wear a quarter karat diamond stud in it."  

Jar's eyes became enormous. "Yeah? But… you're not wearing it now. I can't even see where the hole used to be."  

"I stopped wearing it. A cl…" He caught himself before he could say 'client' and smiled at me apologetically. "Someone I knew told me it looked like a zit. Not the impression I wanted to give. Plus, y'know, if you have a ring, someone gets pissed at you and rips it out, it hurts like a mother!"  

"Well, sh… shoot." He kicked at the rug. "I hate it when the 'rents are right." He peeked at me from under his lashes. "Sorry about the 'fucking sucks,' Wills. You won't tell Mom, will you?"  

I didn't think he'd appreciate it if I ruffled his hair; I slipped my hands into my back pockets instead. That action stretched the material of my jeans tight across my groin, and Theo watched with interest. I felt my face heat up. "Um… huh? Oh, no, I won't tell her. Listen, we're going for a swim. You want to join us?"  

"You bet! I'll change and meet you at the pool." He dashed out of my room.  

"Well, that went pretty well." I hadn't been sure how my brother would react to me bringing home a male lover. "Thanks, Theo."  

"My pleasure, babe." He crossed to where I stood and hugged me, his cheek pressed against mine. There hadn't been time to shave before we left for the airport, and although we had shaved the night before, our cheeks were rough with our morning beards. I liked the feeling. If Theo's soft moan was anything to go by, so did he.  

"Theo, I…"  

"Wills!"  

"… didn't shut the door. Why didn't I shut the goddamned door?" I whispered in my  lover's ear, and eased out of his embrace. "Hi, munchkin." A miniature dervish threw herself at me, and I caught her up and hugged her, then set her down. Theo's hand rested on my shoulder. "Did you just get home? Theo, this is my sister, Marti. Marti, this is…"  

"I know! He's your boyfriend!" She was peeking up to stare at Theo and didn't see me roll my eyes, but my lover saw and winked at me. "Jar told me! Hi, Theo!" She turned to what she considered more important. "He said you're going swimming! I want to go too! I just wanted to make sure you'd wait for me!"  

"Sure thing. Go get changed." I shut the door behind her and made sure it was locked. "Sorry about that, babe. My sister tends to speak in exclamations."  

"You have a great family, Wills."  

"Glad you like 'em, because they're yours now, too."  

It seemed saying something like that was another thing that was guaranteed to get me soundly kissed.  

####  

Matheson was back from Cambridge , and there was an air about him that hadn't been there the last time I'd seen him. I sat at my desk, studying him as he presented the results of his investigation. It was more than someone getting laid on a regular basis. Human Resources had notified me that he'd put in a change of address, and when they rattled off the street number, I'd recognized it: it was the same address as Theo's.  

My agent was all business as he laid a print-out on my desk, however. "It's a very covert organization in Europe , Mr. Palmer." He pointed out some aspects that seemed to correlate with the disappearance of some of our people. "Apparently, their interests are allied to this country's, because when they contact CIA operatives to set up meetings, there's no question of the request being declined. I'd say it was because the CIA doesn't know their ass from their elbow, but even DSD agents have gone to the assigned rendezvous." He ran a hand through his hair. "The number of our people missing has risen to four."  

I drummed my fingers restlessly on the arm of my chair, then nodded. I'd contact a source in Paris , and see what he could come up with. Michael Samuelle wasn't DSD, but he was one of the best. And what was more, I trusted him.  

"Keep monitoring this situation, Matheson. And if there's the slightest change, get in touch with me immediately."  

"Yes, sir." And he left, his step jaunty. As the door closed, I heard him whistling the strains of a disgustingly sweet melody. Jesus, some people moved in with a lover and totally lost their minds.  

"Mr. Palmer. You have that meeting with the deputy director of Public Relations, and the senior directors of In-house Security, Human Resources, and Finance," my secretary buzzed to remind me.  

"Thank you, Ms. Parker." Normally, meetings like these were The Boss' bailiwick, but Mr. Wallace had been called out of town. Before he'd left, he'd delegated me to represent him. I smiled as I gathered up his notes, and the notes I had made from them. The senior directors were going to be so unhappy to see me. It really broke my heart.  

****  

My cell phone rang just as I was coming back from that meeting. "Palmer."  

"Hi." It was Clay.  

"Hi, yourself." No names, not while we were at work. I dropped into my chair. "What's up? We still on for tonight?"  

"No. That's why I'm calling. I have to go out of town, and I'll be away for a few days." Well, fuck. I almost missed his teasing, "Will you miss me?"  

"Hell, no!" I snapped, irritated to realize I would miss him. "I have to move my stuff out of your place anyway. This will be as good a time as any to get it done."  

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening, and I kept my breathing shallow, waiting to hear what he would have to say. "Does… does that mean it's over between us?"  

Was he looking for an excuse to end it? "It's over when I say it's over, Webb!" That came out of my mouth? Fucking hell, was I out of my mind?  

"Yes?" He sounded happy, and suddenly I didn't feel so bad. After all, he was the one who had jumped to the conclusion that I was ending our affair. I relaxed back in my chair and let the sound of his voice wash over me. "All right, Clark . I'll be looking forward to seeing your new place.  I have a housewarming gift for you. And don't go looking for it."  

He laughed at my growled, "As if I'd do something like that!"  

"Of course! I don't know who I was thinking of. Must have been some other DSD agent who kept breaking into my house! But just so you don't wear yourself out, I gave it to Mother to keep for me."  

Well, hell! "Spoilsport."  

"That's me." I could hear an announcement from a P.A. in the background, and he became serious. "That's my flight; I have to go. Get some help moving. I don't want you to hurt yourself. I should be home by the weekend, and I have some serious plans for you."  

Plans. Yeah. My mouth went dry thinking of some of the things we had done. I licked my lips. "I'll see you in a few days." The phone clicked in my ear.  

Four days. I thought about Clay in that big, king-size bed that I'd bought, with the headboard just made for handcuffs.  

I flipped my phone shut and decided it might be a good idea to work through lunch; there was always plenty to do in Interior Affairs.  

Four days. They could pass pretty quickly.  

~End~

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