Daddies, page 5
My insomniac anxieties always let up here, though. The sound of morning rain soothes me, as do my boy’s soft snores. It’s a luxury to have this gay-owned place to come to when we need a break from our lives. Quietly I thank God for such a retreat, thank God Brendan and I are together, pray that this weekend will help him recover.
It’s cold up here in the Potomac Highlands, even now, mid-May, so last night I heaped blankets on us but left a few windows cracked so we could hear the soft sounds of the country night and the rain, if it came as predicted. Naked beneath those blankets curls Brendan’s small form. When he’s upset, as he has been recently, he sleeps in a fetal position, his arms and knees drawn up. Right now he reminds me of a bereft orphan, a butterfly slowly metamorphosing in its cocoon, or—a much darker analogy, considering his recent gloom—one of those bodies found buried in an Irish bog, victim of a prehistoric sacrifice.
Enough of that. It’s a quarter to nine, my coffee’s done, the breakfast bell’s due to ring soon. I rise, stretch out on the bed, and spoon Brendan’s body with mine. “Cubbeeeee Boy, Fuzzzzy Face,” I whisper in his ear, draping one arm over him, bumping his back with my chin, fully aware of how silly love-names can sound but damned glad to have someone to address them to anyway. “It’s about time for breakfast. Smells like biscuits and bacon down at the lodge.”
A long intake of breath, a sigh. “Mmmmm” is his response, a combination of returning awareness and enthusiastic hunger, that’s my guess. If anything will make Brendan feel better, Lost River biscuits will. He stretches, snuggles his butt against my groin, shrugs the covers half off, then rolls over and blinks up at me.
“Mornin’, honey,” I say, kissing the tip of his nose and fondling his hairy tits. I want him as badly as I did the first night I saw him, beating on a punching bag across the gym. His body was the first thing to catch my eye: half my size, short and compact, a sweet little physique in knee-length workout trunks and tight muscle shirt. His furriness fascinated me. Brown body hair curled over his collar front and back, spiked out of his armpits, matted the slightly curved belly his boxing exertions occasionally revealed, and layered his thighs and calves. I moved to a bag nearer his to take him in during my workout, to lap up with my vision what my tongue so wanted to savor: the tight curves of his chest, tiny points of nipples barely visible beneath his shirt, the round curves of his adorable butt. Then the face seized me, that man-boy’s face furrowed with effort and glistening with sweat as he hammered the bag, that cute pug nose, chestnut brown hair falling over his brow, neatly trimmed goatee of the same hue, framing full, pursed lips.
All that had me heated up, but the eyes were what started me dangerously doting. Beneath those long brown lashes, inside those deep blue eyes, I saw that evening, I see this morning, something awkward, innocent, an adolescent’s insecurity inside a mature man’s body. Something fragile, something damaged, in need of protection, in need of someone bigger, tougher, stronger to defend him. Our eyes met as we rested between rounds, he smiled at me, and suddenly I wanted to lift him into my arms and carry him home. Instead, at evening’s end, nervous as I was, I introduced myself. That little flash of social courage has saved both our lives.
Brendan winks at me, grinning around the rolled-up bandana I tied between his white teeth last night. I can feel his nipples hardening beneath my touch. With his bound hands he caresses the black and silver hair on my chest. “Hungry? Need to piss? Want to be untied?” I say. He nods, childishly eager. I’ve freed his wrists and have begun working out the knots about his ankles when we hear the breakfast bell.
Brendan is too busy scarfing up scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, hash browns, and buttered biscuits topped with apple butter to notice the raised eyebrows we’re getting. Another gaggle of sleek queens Does Not Approve. The four of them—clean-shaven, in their mid-thirties, dressed in pastel sweaters—are, in the midst of loud and animated gossip, scrutinizing us from the far end of the communal breakfast table. They’ve observed the juxtaposition of my silver-streaked beard with my boy’s youthful brown goatee, they’ve noticed the chain and padlock slave collar Brendan’s wearing—very visible this morning above the scoop of his tank top—and now they’re exchanging glances and whispering. We get this all the time at Lost River.
It’s annoying to drive three hours to a gay guesthouse only to be snubbed by other queers. We joke about being queer-starved when we’re home in Roanoke. Having both done our time in gay bars, these days we’d just as soon spend our evenings quietly together. We get a little warm on wine while I cook us a good meal; then I read while Brendan puts on his headphones to play computer games, or we snuggle on the couch watching DVDs, or I play guitar and he sings those sad old ballads he favors. Being such stay-at-homes, we don’t see many other gay folks, so visits to Lost River are one way we try to connect to queer community.
This visit, though, most of the gay guys—refined sorts from nearby DC, thin, gym-toned, fashionable, and color coordinated—are far from friendly. I’ve seen them wrinkle their noses at us when we spend time during our high-summer visits reading around the pool or relaxing in the hot tub’s bubbles. I’m too burly, Brendan’s too hairy, our age difference is too great. So today’s chilly, rainy late-spring weather is a good excuse to stay inside our cabin and avoid their sour opinions. Those occasional judgmental glances are one reason I bring a cooler of groceries to Redbud Cottage and always cook dinners for us there, rather than joining other guests in the onsite restaurant at day’s end. Breakfast comes with the price of the cabin, so I have to tolerate their silent disapproval in the morning. Evenings we keep to ourselves. Brendan always says he doesn’t mind the looks, that guys like that can fuck themselves, that I should just ignore them, but it still pisses me off. My boy’s taken enough shit off his family lately; he certainly doesn’t need to be treated to the supercilious rudeness of this pack of urbane snobs.
“C’mon, Cubbie,” I say, once Brendan’s happily gobbled his second helping. As we leave, I give the gaggle o’ queens a glare. One of them smiles archly; one of them rolls his eyes.
The rain’s thickened by afternoon, though it’s grown warmer and breezy. My cub and I sit in the companionable silence of those partnered for years, rocking in chairs on the Redbud porch. The scent of wet pine pervades the air. The storm lowers its pearly gray scrim; clouds swallow the distant mountaintops and fill the hollows with fog. At home, he’d be entertaining himself with his beloved computer games or tapping out text-messages to friends. Like most kids of his generation, he’s inordinately attached to technology, but his computer’s at home, too big to be easily portable, and we’re so far out in the boonies here he can’t get cell-phone reception. Fine with me. Like most men of my generation, I think the young are too addicted to their machines. Denied electronic stimulation, he’s reading the latest Hallow-mere novel by up-and-coming fantasy writer Tiffany Trent, and I’m working through Virgil’s Georgics for a World Lit class I’m scheduled to teach next fall. Occasionally one of us lifts his head to say something before we fall silent and the whisper of rain envelops us again. He offers to fetch wood from the lodge so we can have a fire tonight. I offer to get out my guitar, but, as he has ever since the wedding, he claims he’s in no mood to sing.
It’s exactly three P.M. when Brendan snaps his book shut and exclaims, “Damn, this is good!” I look up to find him smiling crookedly at me, smiling the way he used to before that awful Covington wedding. “Dad?” he says.
I recognize the little lilt to his voice. I know what he wants. He’d asked for it on the drive up here.
“Ready to meditate, huh?” I reach over to muss his hair. “Okay, boy, get upstairs and strip. I’ll be there in a minute. Let me finish this section.”
Brendan’s naked, lying belly down on the bed, in the dim light of rainy afternoon. Thunder rumbles in the distance as I pull neat coils of rope from our suitcase. Without being asked, Brendan crosses his wrists behind his back. I bind his hands, then braid rope about his elbows and upper arms, cinching them tightly together. I cross his ankles and tie them, I rope together his knees. Finally, I connect his wrists and ankles behind him with a short piece of rope, bending his fuzzy nakedness into a strict hogtie.
Now we’re lying on our sides, facing one another. He smiles again, white gleam in the dusky room, but his eyes are very sad.
“Thanks, Daddy. I’ve been needing this bad,” Brendan whispers, brushing his cheek against mine. Rain grades from patter to pound on the windowsill above the bed. We gaze into one another’s eyes for a long time before I gag and blindfold him with bandanas.
“You gonna be okay like this?” I say, rising from the bed. “This is what you wanted?”
Brendan nods into the darkness I’ve encased him in, the tight womb I’ve woven around him.
“You asked for an hour, so that’s what you’ll get, buddy boy. I’ll be up every now and then to see how you’re doing. Okay? If you need me, just shout. I’ll be right downstairs.”
Brendan grunts and nods. He bites down on the bandana. He flexes his limbs against the limits of his bonds and then goes limp. I can almost see the tension drain from his muscles. It’s hard to pull myself away. I want to stand here and study the beauty of his furry, bound young body for hours, but I know he wants to be left alone, he wants to be left here, safe, uncomfortable, and helpless, while I go off to do other things. The enforced blindness, silence, and restriction force him to go inside himself, he’s said, like a sensory deprivation tank; he’s made to think and feel more deeply than daily circumstances otherwise might allow. Powerlessness like this is, for him, a kind of therapeutic purging. He’s always less anxious, less sad afterwards.
So I leave my boy there in spring storm light. Downstairs, I fetch my book off the porch—the rain’s gotten too hard to read outside—and I continue the Third Georgic in an armchair by the fireplace. Every fifteen minutes I silently mount the stairs to check on him.
“Cubbie?”
Brendan’s on his belly, bound limbs making an arch over his back. He sighs and nods. I unknot the rope securing his wrists and ankles together, then unbind his feet and knees. I slip a pillow beneath his loins. I spread his legs. I stroke his ass.
Brendan groans. The skin of his buttocks stipples with goose pimples. I’ve never met any man who more adores having his ass eaten, and I’ve never encountered a butt I’d rather eat. Small, perfectly shaped, and covered with dark hair. As softly as possible I run my fingers over the dark thatch in his crack, over the tiny ridge of his perineum. Brendan shudders and gives a little gagged cry. Gently I tug at the hair around his hole. Then I stretch out on the bed between his legs and begin the feast.
“Beg me, boy,” I breathe into his ear, slipping the condom on.
“Please, Daddy…” Melodious bandana-mumbling. Brendan lifts his well-tongued butt off the pillow as I ease in two lubed fingers. For a second, strange similes flicker through me: crown jewels displayed on velvet, baby birds with their hungry mouths open wide. His bound hands clench into fists. Cold air wafts through the window screen. He bounces on the bed, cocks his ass, humps the pillow. “Please, Dad, fuck me. Please, Dad, fuck me. Shut me up, hold me down, and fuck me.” His mouth may be muffled, but I understand exactly what he’s saying.
Roughly I tie another bandana between his teeth to join the first. Roughly I press a piece of duct tape over that, sealing his mouth shut. I climb on top, position myself, prow aiming for the narrow sea-channel. With minimum effort, I slide my cock head inside. Brendan wiggles and gasps, spreading his thighs wider. He’s so open, after half an hour’s ass-eating, he’s so ready. With one hand I grip the padlock of his slave collar; with the other I grip his cock. He pushes up and back; I push down and in. Thus the sweetest of rhythms begins.
The burning wood pops and sparks when Brendan slips another log on.
Sated after clam sauce over pasta, salad, garlic bread, and Brendan’s favorite dessert, German chocolate cake I picked up at a Roanoke bakery on the way out of town, we’re sipping the last of the wine.
“Buddy, I just finished my book. You mind if I play guitar?”
Brendan doesn’t look up. He knows what I’m about. “Sure, Dad, go ahead.”
“Will you sing for me?”
“No, Sir, don’t feel like it. You go ahead. I wanna finish this book.” Brendan sinks a little deeper into his armchair, studying the fire for a few seconds, then drops his gaze to his novel.
Shoving down what I want to say, I pull out my guitar and tune up, hoping some well-picked melodies might change his mind.
Something nudges me awake. Brendan’s patting my face with his bound hands.
“Sit up,” I say.
He does, with some effort, swinging his roped feet to the floor. I rise, walk around the bed, grip his elbows, and raise him to his feet. Bending, I wrap one arm around his torso, slip another beneath his knees, and lift him into my arms. I’ll be fifty in a few years, so, as big as I am and as small as he is, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to pull this off. My elbows have been aching lately in the gym, and during times like these, when I carry him. But for now, despite those nagging joint-pangs, there are few things more gratifying than cradling my little captive as if he were my child. I stand in the darkness, looking out the window at the black notch that night’s distant mountains make against night’s distant sky. Then I head carefully toward the glow of the bathroom night-light. I lower Brendan’s bound feet to the floor; he finds his balance and with bound hands holds his cock. From behind, I wrap my arms around him, steadying him as he pisses.
Back in bed, we lie face to face. I lick his lips, kiss the moist bandana between his teeth. He kisses me back, rubs his brow against my bearded chin. Fingering one another’s nipples, we sink together into sleep.
Lost River is high today with recent rains, a brown torrent laced with white. We stand by it, munching our barbeque sandwiches and chips. Somewhere north of here it disappears into the earth, only to emerge later as the Cacapon River. I try to imagine it rushing through miles of darkness, beneath pastures, roads, and homes. You could stroll through high grass, admire wildflowers, herd livestock, put up hay, and never know it was throbbing there inside the earth, beneath your feet.
After a big pancake and sausage breakfast in the lodge—the snotty DC boys were conspicuously absent, and a lesbian couple was very affable—and some morning reading, we’ve grabbed lunch at the General Store. This afternoon we’re going to hike the trails at Lost River State Park and buy some tomatoes at the little local grocery for Caprese salad I’m going to pair with shrimp scampi tonight. Brendan can’t cook; in fact, like most guys his age, he doesn’t possess many practical skills, other than being a techno-whiz. But he makes a better living working at Wachovia than I do teaching at Roanoke College, and God, the boy can sing. Degree in voice from Radford University, beautiful baritone.
Except lately he won’t sing. But I’ll keep trying. After dinner, my guitar will come out again.
We’re returning to our car when Brendan stops and points at a bush with white blooms. “What is that?” he asks.
“Baby’s breath?” I hazard.
He nods. “Yeah, I thought I knew it. They had it all over the place at Beth’s wedding.”
I grab his hand. He shakes it off and climbs into the car.
Sometimes in my dreams I blow his father’s brains out. It feels damn good.
The scent’s wisteria. It fills the midnight air. A great vine of it clambers over the balconies of those guestrooms overlooking the pool. Fallen blossoms float on the water. I lean back, breathe the perfume in, and thrust softly into Brendan’s mouth. He’s on his knees before me, hands grasping my ass, sucking happily, thirsty for “Dad-sap,” as he calls it. The dense night-shadow of redbud trees shelters us from any onlooker. Only seconds after I’ve shot down his throat, stuffed my dick back in my shorts, and helped him to his feet, the night’s silence is splintered by shill whoops. Around the corner of the lodge comes The Queenly Gaggle, obviously intoxicated. They fling themselves onto poolside lounge chairs, laughing uproariously.
We didn’t come to the country to listen to this. I wrap one solicitous arm around Brendan and give them a curt nod as we pass. One of them snorts. Just as we round the lodge, one shouts, “Hey, kid, who’s your Daddy?”
Stiffening, I clench my fists and start back. “Hey,” Brendan says, tugging on my sweatshirt. “Fuck ‘em. I want another piece of cake and then I want to cuddle in that big bed. Come on, Dad. Please?”
I know how much my anger frightens him sometimes—it reminds him too much of his father’s—and laying into those bitches isn’t going to help him heal, which is what we came here for. So I let him steer me to the cabin. I’m old enough to know when to lead and when to follow.
Barely dawn when Brendan’s eager butt bumps me awake. I roll him on his back, force his already bound hands above his head, with more rope tie them to a bedpost. Fishing a pair of his tighty whities from the little pile of dirty clothes we’ve accumulated here, I carry them to the bathroom, hold them over the commode, piss on them, and wring them out. Loosening the bandana between his teeth, I stuff the sodden briefs into Brendan’s mouth and tie the same bandana around his head to secure them. Rolling on a condom, I use simple spit to moisten us. Now his legs are propped on my shoulders, my hands are cradling his head, my elbows are pinning his biceps to the bed.
Brendan moans with pain as I enter him too roughly; his eyes widen, his brow crinkles up. He knew what he’d be getting, how brutal the morning can be when I go to bed angry the night before. The bed creaks as I pound him, as we rock together. Soon I can tell from the blissfully flushed look on his face, the glazed and adoring look in his eyes, that the discomfort’s subsided and he’s into it now. “Mmm mmmmm, mmmm mmmmmmm,” he moans, digging his heels into my back and urging me deeper inside him. The rope tethering his wrists to the bedpost grows taut, then lax, taut, then lax. He’s like a docked boat riding the tide, tugging at its moorings. When I think he’s close, I lean over, taking first one tit and then the other between my teeth, his bushy chest hair tickling my nose. Behind the piss-briefs he shouts. When I grip his cock, he shoots a pearly load that spills over my fist and onto his belly. As his ass throbs around my shaft, panting I come inside, then collapse on top of him.
