Chapter 11.

Life went on for Jon, as much as he would have liked to pull a pillow over his head and stay in bed. If nothing else, the cats still had to be waited on. Every morning he checked to see if the world was still turning, and since it still was, he kept putting one foot ahead of the other.  

The work at the Garden, paid for by the Renfield grant and a few other smaller ones, took up a lot of Jon’s time over the next few weeks, and Connie kept finding other projects for him as well. They ran children’s programs during the summer months and hired some of the teenagers to supervise those, including Rafe and Miguel. Those two boys seemed to have settled down, and there was a great deal of laughter wherever they were.

Connie had found some more money, although she wouldn’t say where, to begin design work for the new building they wanted, and he found himself busy with that as well, working with a clever architect who Connie had hired out of nowhere. There were a thousand decisions to be made about where it was to be placed and how big it would be, where access doors and patios would be placed, even where the bathrooms would be in it. He hadn’t expected the whole thing to be so much work, but every time they settled one issue ten more popped up. If he hadn’t known better he would have sworn that Connie was trying to keep him busy.

He scanned through the Garden’s Facebook pages occasionally, just to keep up with local happenings which were often posted there by supporters. He did this despite being scared that he would see pictures of their benefactor Ed Renfield with a variety of young men, or, worse, repeatedly with one young man, but there was nothing for a while, and he relaxed. Relaxing was the mistake, he thought bitterly. That was always when they struck.

Some helpful person who had a social life posted a picture of Ed with a cute young man wrapped around him. The young man was wearing a silk shirt and had a pair of leather pants painted onto a lithe body, looking quite slutty, in Jon’s opinion, but Ed didn’t seem to mind it at all.

“Local philanthropist and West Side Community Garden supporter Ed Renfield was spotted at The Stingray again on Friday night. It seems to be his favorite nightspot these days!”

Ed was smiling happily down at the young man on his arm, and it seemed fairly clear that they had plans for dessert.

Jon felt like throwing up.

 The following week he dropped in at his favorite Thai restaurant, his favorite, not Ed’s, damn it, and Ed was in a booth at the back with his head close to the same man, and they were both leaning over the table and looking enthusiastically at something. It just wasn’t fair. Jon lost his appetite, and went home to microwave something.

He quit going out, quit doing anything but working and going home to his cats, and tried to keep so busy with the plans for the garden that he didn’t have time to shut his eyes, because every time he did he saw Ed again.

Ed came back into his dreams, and they rolled around together, sometimes in the rich soil of the garden, sometimes on Jon’s lonely bed. Ed was his dream lover again, as though he’d never left. That strong body rolled on top of him and held him down while firm lips kissed him, nibbling at his neck, working their way down his throat and across his chest, finding a nipple and sucking hard.

He arched up in pleasure and the lips moved to the other side while Ed’s clever fingers rolled the moist puckered nipple his mouth had just abandoned. Ed sucked and pulled at his other nipple with his lips, and then gently with his teeth, the big man laughing softly as Jon cried out and pulled his head down even harder, fingers sinking into that silky dark hair.

“God, yes, please, babe …”

Ed’s free hand teased down his belly and found his throbbing erection, and stroked it, gently and then not so gently, large thumb rubbing the liquid bead at the tip across his head, sinking into his slit and making him cry out again. His big man knew every move to please him, to make him cry out in pleasure and in need.

Ed’s mouth followed his hand, and his lips pulled at the trail of silky red hair that ran from his belly button down to the nest of fine hair at the base of his cock. The scar just barely touched that trail, and Ed took a detour to kiss and lick the scar, following it down across Jon’s hip.

Jon’s hips moved restlessly, pushing up, and then Ed’s mouth sank over his throbbing head and sucked on it, pulling the head in and wrapping his lips around the rim, making Jon want to scream. So good, so right. Ed licked and sucked at his head like it was some precious ice cream cone, his hands wrapped around the base and his tongue working at the rim and then probing into the slit.

Jon screamed out then, in pleasure, and bucked up underneath his sweet lover, but the pleasure was just beginning. Ed sucked in his whole thick length, moaning with pleasure as he did so, working up and down, sucking strongly, apparently trying to drive Jon crazy. He was succeeding.

Ed cradled Jon’s aching sac, playing with his balls, rolling them gently in the palm of his hand, running his fingers over and between them until, Jon couldn’t even think any more. Then one clever finger eased back and sank into the sensitive area behind his sac, and Jon would have lost it if Ed hadn’t taken a hard grip at the base of his cock to slow him down.

“Oh no, not yet, sweet one. We’ve only just begun.”

Jon gripped the sheets with both fists, and swore revenge, the minute he could get his hands and his mouth on his darling. Ed just laughed.

“Oh yeah, you’ll get your turn, don’t worry about that. We have all the time in the world.”

Somewhere in the back of Jon’s mind he knew there was something wrong with that statement, but he didn’t want to think about it right then. But thinking about it, trying not to think about it, woke him up, every time.

Apparently he was getting so boring that even his cats wanted better company. Vine, who had never shown any inclination to travel before, went missing. Before he had time to panic, beyond ripping the apartment apart looking for him and wondering if you could call 911 about a lost cat, there was a polite knock on his door. A pleasant looking black woman stood there with Vine in her arms.

Vine kicked away from her and disappeared under the sofa, but she obviously knew cats because she didn’t look offended.

“He came right over the patio wall, and I figured he had to be yours. What a beautiful cat! Oh, I’m Valerie, Bob and I just moved in next door.”

Jon introduced himself and apologized, but she just laughed. “Cats will be cats. Hey, we both work from home, so if you ever need anything we’re right here.”

Jon got the impression that she wanted to be invited in for tea or something, but he didn’t have enough energy. She seemed nice enough, but a bit pushy for a brand new neighbour, and he certainly didn’t want to be best friends with her and Bob. At least now he’d met half of the new neighbours. Too bad Valerie wasn’t some big good looking stud that he could parade out there where Ed could see them together. Not that he would do that. That would involve caring, and he didn’t care.

And he couldn’t figure out where Vine had got over the wall, but gave him a lecture and some extra treats anyway.

He found himself talking to his father more often than usual, not about Ed, of course, but just about life in general. His father, it turned out, was restless and lonely, too.

“Maybe it runs in the family.”

Jon thought about offering to move back east, but he’d never liked it there.  You couldn’t wear shorts to work year round on the east coast, and he liked the people he worked with here. Then, out of nowhere, his father announced that he was making plans to head out to the west coast to visit his only child.

“Um, Dad? Seriously? You taking time away from the office? That’s got to be a first.”

“So? There’s a first for everything.”

Then Jon remembered and felt like an idiot. “Ah, shit, I’m sorry, that was stupid. You took more than a little bit of time off after I was injured. You dropped everything, flew to Germany, and back to Walter Reed with me, and ...”

“That was just being a father. And other than wanting to see you now, I want to meet this young man who broke your heart. Maybe I’ll break something of his.”

“No! It wasn’t his fault, it was those damn brothers of his ...” God, he was an idiot, still making excuses.

“Alright, I may be getting old but I can still take out two of them. And give him a good slap alongside the head as well. What kind of a man would let his brothers ... “

“Dad! Stop. There’s more going on here than we know about.”

And suddenly he realized that it was true. It clicked in his memory that he’d seen that dark-haired young man who had been with Ed at the restaurant before, and he’d been at the garden with his growing family. His very pregnant wife had been proud of the promotion that her husband had just received at the police department. She’d laughed about how everyone underestimated her Mani because he looked so young and innocent.

“Dad? Don’t think we should be on an open line.”

“Ah. I’m going to have my people make some enquiries, and I’ll see you in a week or so. Take care. Love you, son.”