Chapter 3
That night all of Rebel’s dreams had been about the big dark haired lawman and his gruff voice. What the hell was it about that annoying fucking sheriff? He obviously didn’t like him, wanted him gone, probably even more now.
“You like him.”
He put the paintbrush back under the sink after taking it from the water where it had been soaking. Rebel had all of the windows open and was glad for the cool breeze. Once he heard Aunt Candace’s voice he wished it was as easy to blow away with the wind as the paint fumes were.
“Just because I think he’s hot does not mean I like him. He’s a big hetero asshole who wants the fairy out of his town.”
The voice got louder, but was still laced with affection, “You don’t know that.”
Rebel walked outside and over to the sagging door of the detached garage, opened it then walked in to squat in front of his bike. He hadn’t had the time to work on it the previous few days but he picked up the wrench and said, “I do know that, Auntie. You were the only one that ever wanted me around for longer than it takes to give a good blow job.”
“Rebel Anthony Marino!” He turned his head quickly and there she stood with her hands on her hips, the light behind her nearly obscuring her face but not so much that he didn’t see that disappointed look. Smiling with the memory, of how with that look he felt worse than he ever had with the beatings from his stepfather.
“Sorry Auntie.” Why exactly he was saying sorry to a memory, he didn’t know, but he said it again anyway. “I’m so sorry Auntie.” His head hung down and he fell back on his ass, the wrench falling to the dusty cracked cement floor with a clang as the pain came over him. It hurt, it hurt so fucking bad. The pain felt like it would kill him. “Sorry Auntie…” was all he said over and over. The guilt of not being there for her in her last few years, of worrying her while he was in jail all those times, of not calling more, writing more or, sending her cards for her birthday. No matter how he neglected her, she loved him. She would drop anything and anyone to be there for him when he needed her. And that woman, the one and only person to ever give him unconditional love was gone from his life.
As he wept his hands found his hair and he pulled. The pain from it not coming close to the pain he felt inside, pain that couldn’t escape in tears. It stayed and seemed to grow the more he cried. He had always heard that crying cleansed the hurt a little but it didn’t. He knew what would though.
The VW bus was there, another left-over remnant of Candace Perry’s hippie days and Rebel ran into the house to get the keys. Once they were in hand he ran back, got into the much loved faded yellow bus and felt another wave of sorrow hit when he saw the bobble head of Timothy Leary with peace beads and crazy eyes. That was so Aunt Candace, a hippie but not above laughing at herself about it. Running his fingers through his shoulder length hair he started the bus and pulled out of the garage.
The town was small. Shit it was miniscule, but it had the basics. A grocery store, diner, post office, library, Candace’s shop, two churches, one Catholic and one Baptist, and of course three bars. He passed by the first, not wishing to hear honky tonk music all night. The second was a jockey sports bar so he looked at it, considered the possibilities but went down the road a little farther to the scruffy local dive bar. LoLo’s bar was old, the outside walls made of silvered wood and an unpaved parking lot. There were old wagon wheels making a short fence across the front to keep the drunks from running into the facade wall.
He parked behind one and saw only two more cars in the dirt lot. He wanted a drink but more than that he wanted a fight, a fuck or both. Either one would do and either one could get him sent out of town by Mr. Tough Sheriff Man. So he was glad there were going to be few opportunities for him to find either in LoLo’s. Maybe he could just go get a drink; head back to Aunt Candace’s house and do a hundred push-ups or something to get his aggression out.
Once inside, the slow drone of The Eagles’ singing about the Hotel California and stabbing something with their steely knives but not being able to kill the beast filled the air. To him it meant the beast inside of him, always rearing its ugly head. His beast was the trouble that always found him no matter how hard he tried to hide from it.
After ordering a beer from the bartender, a short man that had to look around the taps instead of over it, he paid for the beer and took it over to a lone table in the corner where he could see everything but would be cloaked by shadow. He sipped slowly as two more people came in to join the two men at the bar talking to the bartender. They were all older men who were in their fifties at least. Calming a bit he smiled inwardly. None of them would be first on his list of someone to fuck or fight with so he leaned back in his chair and took in the place.
It was just as he thought it would be. Antique everything hung on the walls and ceilings as some kind of sexually neutral décor. Old bicycles, mail boxes, tin cans that long ago held coffee or motor oil, and even the casing of an old radio straight out of the 1930’s. The jukebox was nearly as old and still played records instead of CDs. There was a wood stove in the corner with a pile of kindling that nearly reached the ceiling. Suddenly his anger drained. It was hard to be angry in such a place; it was all too…grandparentish. Was that even a word? Probably not but it fit and who the hell could be pissed off or horny while thinking of their grandparents?
The next people to come in were more his age, two guys and a girl who was wearing a deeply plunging top and couldn’t keep her purple covered eyes off of her boyfriend, a brute with shaved head. The other man was less handsome, shorter, but not quite as small as the bartender, and had shocking red hair. Rebel sat back to watch the soap opera unfold in front of him.
It was obvious right away the Red was completely enamored with Shaved Head’s girlfriend, and after a few glances he saw right away that Shaved Head had a little secret that his two companions had no idea about. He met one of the glances with his own and a cocked eyebrow. Shaved Head nodded toward the bathroom and Rebel smiled, happy that he would get to at least get off to finish his rough night.
He got up strutted; his hunch shouldered way, across the old wood floor to the men’s room and leaned against the wall next to the restroom door. Not even two minutes later the door opened again and Shaved Head walked in and looked around. He found what he was wanted and it wasn’t the urinal.
“Hey,” he said to Rebel, his eyes roaming over Rebel’s 5’11” frame while lingering over the stiff cock in Rebel’s tight, paint stained jeans.
“Hey yourself.” Rebel moved close to him and the man used his sexiest moves but he didn’t need to. Rebel was ready to have a cock fuck his mouth.
“Haven’t seen you around here before.”
What a great line and so unnecessary. He was already in the fucking men’s room with the stranger and almost panting. “I’m new in town.”
A smile spread across Shaved Head’s face. “Well consider me the welcome wagon.” He put his hand on Rebel’s shoulder and pushed him to his knees. Rebel looked up, his eyes twinkling as he got the man’s pants unbuttoned then slowly removed his cock and gripped it, stroking over it a few times while he smiled wickedly.
“Get to it,” Shaved Head said as he smiled back at Rebel.
Rebel got chills all over at the order and he wrapped his teeth around the crown dipping the tip of his tongue into the slit to taste and getting a squirt of precum for the effort. He slid his mouth over the shaft while flicking his tongue up and down the underside of it, hitting all the sensitive spots and making the shaved headed cutie buck his hips while he grunted. Rebel soon felt a tight hold on either side of his head as his mouth started to get fucked.
When Shaved Head held his cock in Rebel’s throat and Rebel swallowed around it he got a loud groan from him and Rebel smiled, finally getting to breathe as the man pulled back some. Rebel was taking his own cock out to jerk off while having his mouth stuffed when the bathroom door opened.
It all happened so fast he would barely remember the events right when asked later, but how it actually happened was this. The door opened and he was pushed to the floor by Shaved Head, his head hitting the wall but not hard enough to knock him out. This was a good thing because he may have been beat nearly to death if he hadn’t jumped right up, just missing the boot that flew at his head as Shaved Head screamed, “Fucking Faggot trying to suck my cock just because I was trying to take a piss!”
His friend, Short Red Haired and Lovelorn was at first shocked then angry, stepping to Rebel and throwing a punch that Rebel moved from just enough that it connected with his shoulder instead of his face. However Shaved Head was on him again and Rebel thought stupidly why he didn’t at least put his cock back in his pants while they beat the shit out of him. That was right before his own anger kicked in and the pain and anguish that he’d pulled back earlier and stored in a tiny box inside of himself came busting out and he let it go.
Rebel was no pansy. Oh he had been once, in his awkward teens when his body had been stick-like and his demeanor was yet to bloom into the Rebel his mother named him. He couldn’t count the number of bigger boys who had beat him up, until one day his muscles hardened, as did his heart, and that was the time Rebel learned to fight back.
He gave a perfect side kick to Shaved Head that sent him crashing into the big metal trash can and ducked another attempted punch from Short, Red Haired and Lovelorn, which he blocked and sent one of his own. His connected dead on to Short, Red Haired and Lovelorn’s mouth which made blood fly to splatter on the wall. Just as Shaved Head was back up and trying once again to kick Rebel people started flying into the restroom, pulling the three apart as LoLo had his phone in hand calling for Sheriff Colton.
An hour later his rage was starting to wane and he found himself in the steel barred cage of the town’s jail. He sat on the edge of the bunk as he looked up to see the sheriff staring at him from behind a desk.
“You ready to talk yet?”
Rebel hung his head and shook it, letting his hair wave around his face like a curtain. “What’s the fucking point?”
Sheriff Colton got up and ambled across the tiled floor to stand outside of the cage with his hands stuffed inside his pockets. “The point is that I have a pretty good idea of what happened but I’d like to hear it from you.”
Rebel looked up at him and pushed his hair behind his ears, got up and went to the bars, grabbing onto them. The intense look the Sheriff was giving him was nearly too much to take, like the man could see right through him into place he didn’t want anyone to see. Instead of letting him into those places Rebel broke eye contact and looked down at his boots.
“You won’t believe me even if I tell you so what is the point.”
Sheriff Colton’s voice was low and barely above a whisper as he took his hands from his pockets and gripped the cross bars of the cell. “You sound pretty sure of that.”
Rebel kicked a rolled up gum wrapper with the toe of his boot watching it roll the two inches before he said, “It’s pretty obvious being that I’m in here and they aren’t.”
A slow chuckle escaped from the dark lips of the sheriff and finally Rebel looked back up but no higher than those lips surrounded by the dark scruff of a three day old beard. “I figure it went something like this. Travis Walton wanted a walk on the wild side with the new guy in town and once he got caught, his buddy and him tried to beat the fag out of you. This has happened to you before and you didn’t let them kick the shit out of you so you fought back and sent them both to the clinic. One with a broken jaw.” Rebel looked up into the now gleaming eyes of the sheriff and was rewarded with a wide smile. “Good for you.”
oooOooo
If Rebel Marino looked down submissively one more time he would go into the cell and fuck him until he couldn’t walk. It was so sexy and so unexpected. The rough, tough, brash bastard was so fucking sensual it was hard to be around him at all but behind those bars, his defenses down and surprise lightening the tiny lines around his eyes was crazy sexy.
“So how do you know all that? I mean it’s been pretty obvious you don’t like me. Those boys are local right? Why believe the scenario that makes me out to be the good guy?”
“Didn’t say you were a good guy. It took three men to pull you off of those boys but I know you aren’t the bad guy and that is enough.”
Rebel squirmed a little making Jack’s cock pound behind his pants and he turned around and headed back to the desk to get the keys for the cell. “I don’t like my people fighting but I would have done the same. Travis Walton is a closeted prick who has hit on me more times than I could count whenever he’s been drunk. I don’t fuck dickheads like him. I like my men with real balls.” Once he turned back around to unlock the cell he glanced up into the shocked face of the younger man and chuckled. “What you didn’t think the sheriff of a small town could be gay?”
“No…well…not really.”
He wasn’t the first to be surprised by it. Many had been downright shocked speechless when they had found out about his sexual orientation but he was already a town fixture and there was no one who didn’t like him so eventually it became completely normal to most in the town. For those who weren’t keen on gay people in general they pretty much chose to ignore the fact that the man watching over their welfare was not going home to a wife and kids after his workday was finished.
Jack held the cell door open and asked, “Do you want to press charges?”
Rebel just shook his head and stood still once he was out of the cell. Jack closed the door and wanted to touch him, reassure him a little but he couldn’t. There was one thing he was afraid of besides Rebel Marino himself and that is he had the feeling that if he touched him once he would never want to stop.
“Tell them not to worry I’ll be gone soon enough.” With that Rebel walked out of the office.
Sitting on the edge of the desk Jack looked at the closed door with a longing he didn’t like feeling.
“Why don’t you go after him?” Martin asked then, “Give him a ride to the bar so he can get his car. Its two miles and its cold outside.” Martin sat at the desk with his feet up. He’d always done that and it made Jack crazy. He hated when people put their feet on his desk.
“He’s fine…has a jacket. You saw him; he couldn’t wait to get out of here.”
If he had been real Martin would have thrown a pen playfully at him or something else in reach but since Martin was just a fabrication of his lonely imagination he turned around to see the mocking in his eyes.
“Go get him.”
Jack grabbed the keys of the cruiser off of the desk, gave Martin a dirty look before he headed for the door. Just as he got there he called over his shoulder, “If you were real you’d never say that.”
He got into the cruiser and headed down the road towards the bar, driving slow and keeping his eyes out for Rebel. He also thought about what he said to the makeshift Martin. It was completely false. As much as he tried to convince himself that Martin would never want him to be with another man it just wasn’t true. A few nights before Martin died he had held a weeping Jack tight in the hospital bed they had brought in to the house and Martin told him his dying wish.
It was after the sobs subsided some when Martin took Jack’s face into his bony hands and looked into his eyes. Jack noticed then that the clear sparkling blue was fading. There could be no bigger sign that Martin wasn’t going to be around much longer and he felt a hundred daggers stab into his heart. Martin smiled as big as he could but his lips were quivering. He knew it too and he was trying so hard to comfort Jack. That was Martin…he was dying and he was spending the last time and the last bit of strength he had to comfort his lover.
“Promise me that you will not just give up.”
Jack tried to look away but Martin held his face. “What do you mean Martin?”
“I know you sheriff. I know you down to the three little hairs you grow on your big toe and I know you will want to live alone for the rest of your life. The quiet sorrow, the lone widower. Promise me that you will find him.”
Jack choked back a sob and finally asked, “Who?”
Martin lay his head back on the hard pillow, the only kind of pillow he’d ever liked, and he stared up to the ceiling of the living room. “The man who will love you and make you whole again.”
Shutting his eyes tight he couldn’t breathe and therefore couldn’t speak. He couldn’t promise Martin the impossible and it was impossible. There was no one in the world who would ever touch him like Martin had so he had lied to the man he loved on his fucking death bed. He’d lied to him and told him that he wouldn’t turn his back on love.
That lie had bothered him time and again. Now he was looking for another man. Another man he couldn’t stop thinking about. Another man who had all of the things he wanted, submissiveness, even if he didn’t know it, enough spirit to keep him on his toes, a brain that could think fast and beauty that rivaled most.
And there he was walking in the hunch shouldered way he did, and looking like he was freezing his ass off. Jack pulled over and stopped just in front of Rebel, letting there be no chance for the man to say he hadn’t noticed the car. He rolled down the passenger side window and said, “Get in.”
Rebel stopped and let his head fall back before he exhaled, “I’m fine!”
He was so fucking stubborn Jack couldn’t help but smile. “Get in. Don’t make me arrest you.”
Finally Rebel looked in the car at him and reluctantly headed for the back seat.
“Front, you are not under arrest yet.”
Rebel smiled and got into the front seat, and as he closed the door he said, “Thanks.”
Jack nodded and took off as Rebel buckled his seat belt, giving Jack yet another flash of fantasy, wrapping a strap around his chest to keep him from moving around. He could tell by looking at the man that he would move and scream and beg while getting fucked.
“Listen I’ll give you a ride home instead of to your van. You were pretty out of it after the fight.”
Rebel shrugged one shoulder. “I do that. Black out I mean.”
There was at least fifteen minutes of drive left and he didn’t want it to be as quiet as it already was. Not really knowing what subject to broach he asked, “Besides the whole bar fiasco how do you like it here so far?”
Rebel looked over at him, his mouth hanging open for a second before he started laughing. Soon Rebel was doubled up and the laughter caught fast sending Jack into peals until his eyes watered so badly he had to pull over along the long dirt road that led to Candace Perry’s place. The light of the dash was the only thing keeping them from being in total darkness, the crescent moon and the tiny bit of light it gave was blocked out by the trees.
Finally, when he could speak, Rebel said, “This town? Well not that I’ve seen a lot of it. Pretty much you and the bar so I you can kind of imagine the opinions I’ve formed.”
That hit home. Jack had been less than welcoming. “Yeah, I guess I came off like a dick. I’m protective of my town. It became the most important thing to me after…well a few years ago.” Why he didn’t just say, “After my partner died I threw myself into work to try to take my mind off of how I wanted to die too,” but he just didn’t want to bring it up. He didn’t want the sympathy or pity and he just didn’t want Martin there at that moment.
“Well you were a dick.”
Jack nodded and pulled the car back onto the road. The rest of the drive was quiet but it wasn’t the uncomfortable silence as before and as he pulled into the yard Rebel asked, “Would you come in and have a cup of coffee with me?”
The illumination of the dash was perfect lighting for his muted eyes and creamy skin. The more he saw Rebel Marino the more beautiful he saw him to be. “I’d like that, yeah.”
The house was different than he remembered. The few times he’d been inside he remembered how colorful the place was. It had none of that color now and he found it extremely sad. While Rebel put on the coffee in the newly painted kitchen he wandered through the living and dining rooms and frowned at the tan color of the walls and white trim. If there was something no one could accuse Candace Perry of being it was dull and she would have screamed to see her house like this.
“Depressing right?”
Jack turned and Rebel handed him a steaming cup of strong coffee. “Well, it’s different.”
Rebel gestured over to the plastic covered sofa and pulled the sheet off so they could sit. “I know it sucks but the realtors I spoke to said it wouldn’t sell if people couldn’t imagine their own things in it. I don’t know a lot of people who would dig the whole 60’s experience in their home.”
There it was…reason number 219 why he shouldn’t even consider getting involved with Rebel. He wasn’t staying. He’d sell the house and he would be gone. Even Martin would have put it in investment terms, calling it a bad risk. “I guess I can see that but I am going to miss the way your aunt had it.”
Rebel chuckled. “I was taking the stuff down and I actually heard her yelling at me. I swear she was over my shoulder making sure each thing went carefully into a box surrounded by biodegradable packing materials.”
Jack almost spit out his coffee before he got it swallowed down. “She was tough on the town council! She said if we didn’t get recycle bins in the parking lot by the store she was going to bring in hoards of tree huggers…her words…and picket the town until they did.”
Rebel bit his lip then said, “I think I saw those when I passed by on my way in.”
Rebel’s smile was so fucking amazing, so wide and open and so unlike the man himself. He was anything but open. There was something so guarded about him and yet to Jack he was an open book and Jack wanted to read every page.
oooOooo
Their proximity to one another sent a million different signals to Rebel’s brain and one very strong one to his cock. The sheriff was hot, that went without saying but there was something else about it. Maybe it was the fucking badge. He had a commanding aura about him.
He smiled at the thought. Only in his Aunt’s house would he think of someone’s aura.
“What’s so funny?”
Rebel couldn’t tell him what he was thinking even though he was sure he would enjoy it as well. Instead he covered like he did everything. “I was just thinking about when we first met. Who would have thought huh?”
“That we’d be drinking coffee together?” Rebel could see that there was something more he wanted to say but he wasn’t one to push.
“Yeah.”
“I never had coffee with a cop before. Wish I had a donut or two to offer you. You guys are supposed to like them right?”
The man’s face turned slack for just a second before a wide smile grew onto his face. “Cocky shit.”
“Thanks, I try.”
Jack got up and said, “Listen I should go. It’s getting pretty late. Thank you for the coffee.”
Rebel got up and took the man’s cup. “Well thank you for believing me about…well about what happened.”
Jack smiled and winked at him. “I just know Travis is all.”
“Still. Thank you.”
Rebel followed Jack out into the kitchen and set the cups in the sink while Jack opened the back door. He went up behind to say goodbye just as Jack turned around to do the same. As he did their faces came close, so close he could feel the sheriff’s breath on his lips. They both smiled shyly.
“Kiss him you idiot!” Aunt Candace said from somewhere in his head.
“Well…goodnight. Thank you for the ride.”
“Sure. I can come by in the morning to give you a ride to the van.”
Fuck the man smelled good. “That would be great.”
Meeting his eyes was like someone shot a bolt of electricity to his groin. So much was there, heat, loneliness, sadness, and a pure and wounded soul. Jack turned and started walking to the car but looked back once to give Rebel a little wave. Rebel waved back and stood in the doorway until Jack’s tail lights were out of sight.
“That was just stupid. That man wants you it’s as clear as the nose on your face.”
Rebel leaned his forehead on the door. “It doesn’t matter.”