Chapter 9
Inside of the playroom was years of built up dust and cobwebs. The cage door hung open like it was reaching out to be useful again, the armoire shut as tight as Jack’s heart had been since they had last seen one another. The whole room was like a screaming metaphor of the life…no the existence Jack had been living since his lover had gotten sick. Well he was dusting off his heart and ready to start living again and he thought it was time that the playroom did as well.
“What the hell is this place?” Rebel looked around in disgust and a little trepidation but Jack just pulled him farther inside.
“This is my playroom. It hasn’t been used in a long time but that’s about to change.” Jack took off his uniform shirt and hung it on a peg by the door. “Go upstairs and get some buckets of soap and water, the broom and mop and some sponges from the utility closet in the laundry room.”
Rebel stared at him incredulously. “I didn’t come here to clean your basement I came here to talk.”
Jack just laughed and turned him around pointing towards the door and patted his sore ass. “We will talk a lot later. For now we will clean.”
Jack wondered for a moment if Rebel wouldn’t just get up the stairs and take off but it wasn’t ten minutes before his boy was back with the things Jack had requested and he was happy to see that Rebel’s shirt was also off, a thin wife beater the only thing covering his chest.
“Let’s get started,” He said then drew Rebel to him and kissed him sweetly before taking the broom and starting on the ceiling and corners taking down cobwebs.
They worked for a little over three hours but when they were finished the place sparkled like the first day Martin had seen it. Every one of the bars of the cage shined like new. As they had cleaned he caught Rebel looking at things with curiosity on his face and other times with a little dread mixed in but he never slowed and he squatted down to rinse the sponges out for the last time and said, “Do me a favor next time and don’t wait so long to clean the place huh?”
Jack leaned the mop against the wall and grinned. “That is a deal.”
While he laughed Rebel stood up, looked around them and asked, “So what exactly is all this stuff?”
For this Jack knew he had to get serious. “Well I told you this is the playroom but for me that is the wrong word. The things done in here aren’t really play. They are much more like work and I take the time in here very seriously.”
“So you fuck in here?” Rebel shrugged as he asked but he searched Jack’s face for more than a short answer.
“Fucking can be part of it but it’s not always and even when it happens it is more of a reward for work done well or if only I get off it is because my pleasure is what counts.”
Smirking he replied, “Really? Seems a little one sided doesn’t it?”
“When you are a sub the Dom’s pleasure is yours as well. A true sub gets his pleasure making his Dom happy. His ultimate high is in his submission. Obey and be rewarded or just obey and that is your reward, the feeling of making your Master happy.”
“And guys get off on this?”
Jack took Rebel’s hand and started to lead him out of the room and up the stairs before he answered, “It’s not just to get off it’s to help people be who they are but yes they do and I know you will too.”
The bathroom was their first stop and Rebel stood in front of the tub as Jack started the water, Jack took off his shirt and threw it in the hamper then sat on the toilet lid. “Get your clothes off and get in.”
He could tell Rebel wanted to ask questions or not do what Jack had told him to but in the end he did. He stripped down slowly and once again Jack took in every line of him licking over his lips as he stared, purposely making Rebel self-conscious.
He stepped in just as slow and sunk down into the water and without looking at Jack, said, “The scar is from my stepfather. One of them. My mother is religious, but not in the good sense. She uses it to judge and hate people. The men she found to marry followed her lead in that. When I was 12 and just discovering myself, Steve caught me jerking off in my room. He beat me for an hour and I was in a coma for a month.”
Despite the water being hot Rebel was shivering and he had to go to him, had to hold him and tell him that no one would ever hurt him again, at least not in that way but he had to do it the right way so he got up and walked over to the tub then went to his knees and grabbed the washcloth and the soap.
As he lathered the washcloth he said, “You didn’t deserve that. I would never hurt you like that.”
A sardonic laugh came from his boy but his eyes closed as he felt the washcloth over his skin. “Maybe not but maybe you are just another guy who wants to fuck me and forget me or maybe you just want to hit me when you’re pissed.”
“Is that what you think the spanking was? Did it feel like that?”
Rebel opened his mouth to speak then closed it again. It was a full minute before he shook his head and said, “No. It didn’t feel like that at all.”
Jack held back the smile that threatened. “I want to hear all about the things that happened to you. I want to know everything about you. I want to be inside of you and I don’t just mean sexually. I want to be in here,” he said as he put the washcloth down and laid his hand over Rebel’s heart, “and here,” he pointed to Rebel’s head. I want to be everything to you and I want you to trust me to help you get past all that pain and sorrow you have been living on for so long.”
Rebel bit his bottom lip hard enough to make white then red teeth marks there before he spoke. “There is nothing left for me to give. It’s all been taken away over the years. I don’t think I can be the person you want.”
Jack smiled and turned his face, waiting until Rebel finally looked up into his eyes before he spoke and when he did Rebel’s tears fell.
He said, “You already are the person I want.”
oooOooo
He hadn’t been bathed since he was a child and even then he’d had to wear his underwear because his mother said to be naked was sinful but Jack’s hands on him, so soothing and loving that he relaxed in spite of himself. Jack’s words brought other feelings, some that scared the living shit out of him but that he had longed to hear all of his life even if he hadn’t realized it until he heard them.
There was no way he was good enough for this man, this perfect good man. Being his boyfriend would be impossible enough but to be a sub was laughable. As much as he had loved the closeness he felt after the spanking and he had to admit the spanking itself, it couldn’t last. The good feelings and even the bad that were somehow eased in the man’s presence couldn’t last. He would do something to fuck it up and break the man’s good heart and he didn’t deserve that.
“Let me in Rebel. What are you thinking right now? What are you feeling?”
This guy didn’t quit. He had to keep pushing and Rebel didn’t like to be pushed ever, by anyone but still he heard himself saying, “I’m thinking that this is never going to last. No one in my life cared about me except someone who is dead now.”
Jack set the washcloth aside and pushed Rebel back until he was leaning against the end of the tub. He took the plastic cup he had there and filled it then poured it easily over Rebel’s head. He did this a couple more times, not speaking and Rebel thought for a second he had pissed Jack off with his statement but as soon as Jack got his hair wet enough he filled his palm with shampoo and started lathering Rebel’s hair with it, massaging his scalp firmly but not rough.
“So you think if I care about you that I’ll stop. You think that if I get a few good fucks from you that I’ll toss you to the side right?”
Shrugging Rebel said, “Pretty much yeah.”
Jack chuckled. “Well you don’t know me. I was with my husband for 16 years and since he died you are the first one that I’ve been with. When we had sex it was the first time for me since before Martin died. Do I sound like a guy who gives up easily?”
“I’m not Martin,” Rebel whispered as Jack picked the cup back up to rinse his hair and Jack set it back down.
“I know that. I’m not trying to turn you into anyone but a happier version of the beautiful man who is sitting in my tub.”
Rebel looked up into those midnight blue orbs and felt something inside of him break. There were no lies there and no humor just sincerity and he didn’t think he’d ever seen that before except from his aunt but there it was and it broke something that he knew he wouldn’t miss once it was washed away like the dust from the basement out of his hair.
He didn’t say anything more while he rinsed Rebel off and for that Rebel was grateful because he just didn’t think he could take any more of the truth and feelings shit. Not all at once.
“Stand up let’s get you dried off.”
Rebel did and as the water ran off of him he suddenly felt very tired again. Jack wrapped him up in a big thick towel and then wrapped his arms around him as he led him out of the bathroom. Rebel said, “I don’t think I can handle the room right now.”
Jack chuckled and whispered in his ear, “Not tonight baby. Tonight you sleep and we will start your new life tomorrow.” Rebel just nodded and let himself be put in bed and Jack tucked him in tightly. “I’ll be back in just a couple of minutes after I shower all this dirt off.” Again all he could do was nod weakly. He didn’t remember ever being so tired.
He woke in the middle of the night, his eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. Once they were up he looked around and remembered where he was even before he felt the arms wrapped around him and the chest on his back moving back and forth shallowly. He wanted to turn and see Jack, study him unnoticed but he was afraid to move so he just lie there feeling the warmth surrounding him, the man so close to him and so secure. This man who seemed to want him so much. Wanted him. Want.
“Stop questioning it and just go with it. Short lives we lead believe me,” Aunt Candace said sitting on the floor across from him. She was smiling warmly and looking at him, that twinkle in her eye making him smile at last.
“It’s not that easy for me you know that.”
The man behind him moved and Aunt Candace faded away as Jack asked, “Did you say something?”
Turning around finally Rebel saw the shadowed face of the man and smiled. “No, nothing. Go back to sleep.”
Jack kissed his neck. “I don’t want to.” He trailed more kisses up to his chin and rubbed their stubble together as he chuckled. “I want to look at you.”
Rebel couldn’t help but smile. Jack was in a playful mood and it seemed so out of character for the stern solid sheriff. “Look at me? Why I’m nothing special.”
Growling Jack moved under the blanket and started kissing Rebel’s skin over his chest and down his stomach then moved his hand under Rebel’s ass and squeezed. Rebel screamed and laughed at the same time. “Fuck! That still hurts.”
“That was a gentle one too,” Jack said chuckling and laughing louder when Rebel’s eyes got big. “Wait until I take a paddle to you.”
“A paddle? Like the old days at school getting paddled, paddled?”
“Yep.”
Jack was having too good a time teasing him and his cheer was contagious. Rebel sat up and pulled Jack up to him, bringing their mouths together in a tender kiss. “So you really tie guys up and stuff. I mean for real like you like that shit?”
Jack pushed him down and straddled his hips, taking Rebel’s cock into his hand, the humor gone from his eyes. “Yeah I like that shit but no not guys. I’ve only topped one man like that.”
Rebel wanted the fun back, it was more comfortable but he couldn’t help but ask, “What are you going to do to me? I need to know how this is going to work.”
Stroking him slow Jack smiled. “I will work with you, do what we call scenes and between scenes we will work on other things. We have our lives but when we come together we are Master and sub and you will obey me and work to please me. I in turn help you find your submission and show you how to rid yourself of all of the bad things in your past and use the pain and anger and turn it into determination to be happy.”
Rebel laughed and that wasn’t easy with the way Jack’s hand was wrapped so nicely around his cock and especially the way Jack’s thumb rubbed over his slit every couple of seconds. “I don’t do obeying so good.”
Jack laughed then and said, “You will. There are consequences if you don’t.”
The more Jack stroked him the less important his questions seemed. Jack, for being a cop, was really good with his hands. “You...you…you know I’m not staying?”
Again that sure smile as Jack said, “I may try to talk you in to staying. I believe I can convince you.”
With the orgasm speeding toward his cock he couldn’t speak the protests that were being washed away in its wake. He was finding it harder and harder to tell the man no about anything. When he’d left that morning and Rebel heard the door closing his chest felt tight. All he had wanted to do was to run after him but the thought scared the piss out of him so his next instinct kicked in and he wanted to go out and find a fight or someone to fuck or just plain run.
Now he was here, in the man’s home getting the best hand job he’d ever had and coming over Jack’s big fist. Jack’s eyes never left him as he came and as much as that intimidated him it was also fucking hot. It made his actions earlier in the day make him feel like a bratty child.
As soon as he could catch his breath he said, “I’m sorry.”
Jack moved in next to him and kissed him tenderly on the side of the mouth, well the side of the frown. “For what baby?”
He didn’t expect that name to come from those soft lips. “The way I acted. The way I am.”
Laughing so hard he shook the bed a little Jack said, “Never apologize for the way you are. The way you act…if it disagrees with how I know you can be and what I want to see from you then we’ll take it up in the playroom or we will talk about it. Nothing is too much or too little that we can’t hash it out.”
Rebel leaned up on his elbows and shook his head. “I like the optimism I really find it cute but there is shit in my head that no spanking is going to fix.”
“I have many more tricks in my bag besides spanking dear boy,” Jack said, the gleam in his eyes making the worry push aside once again. The man had that way about him, able to chase the demons with just a smile or a look and Rebel found he was letting himself relax for the first time in his 26 years. Jack leaned over and kissed him and he couldn’t even remember what he was worried about anymore.
oooOooo
For as long as it took him and Martin to move forward in their relationship, that was how fast he wanted it to move with Rebel. Martin and he had been cautious even though they know they were in love within the first few hours they were together, but both were afraid of moving too fast and had wasted precious time in Jack’s opinion. Fuck it had been a year before they had sex beyond hand jobs and a couple rounds of head. The minute after Martin found out the cancer was going to take him, that there was no stopping it, that was the minute Jack became angry that they had wasted all of that time being careful. He no longer cared to protect his heart because that was a waste of fucking time and he refused to do it with Rebel.
Jack didn’t see what good it would be to wait and wonder when Rebel’s lips felt so good against his, his body fit into his so perfectly when they held one another and his voice sounded so hot when he was ready to be fucked.
“Jack I want you so bad.”
His boy pleaded so sweetly with all of himself, his eyes looked into his begging, his hands clutched at Jack’s back and ass and his breath came in hard pants as their kissing intensified. His cock was as rigid as the statue of George Shikel, the founding father of the town, and throbbed against Rebel’s belly so he pushed a little to give Rebel a taste of what he was about to get inside of him.
“Are you going to take me down to the room?”
As Rebel asked Jack smiled wickedly and answered, “In time yes, but for now it’s just there waiting, building up your anticipation.”
Rebel devoured his mouth again and grabbed his hair. Jack grabbed his hips and moved over him, brushing their cocks together and extracting a hitching groan from Rebel that made him nearly squirt precum from his cock. “I’m going to fuck you so good baby. So good…”
Just then the phone rang. It was two quick rings, the signal that the call was from work and important. He gave Rebel a quick apologetic look before he grabbed the phone. Patsy was on the other end, “Sheriff I tried your cell, there has been a break in at the MacAbby place.”
Jack frowned and asked, “How the fuck would anyone know that? They only come up in the summers who called it in?”
Smacking her juicy fruit gum she said, “No one, Carl was up that way on horseback doing his neighborhood watch thing earlier today and heard the noise. By the time he made it over there the vandals were gone. He secured the place and rode off with Lonnie and Henry then just made it in a few minutes ago.”
Jack groaned as he hung up and put his face next to Rebel’s then kissed his neck. “I have to go to work.”
Rebel whined, “Do you really have to?”
Damn he’d always loved his job but at that moment he was ready to quit and never put his badge on again. “I don’t want to go. I want to be here making you moan and scream,” Jack kissed over his squared jaw and chin then right on his full lips, “all night but we will have to wait just a little while.”
Rebel smiled and said, “I’ll be waiting…unless you don’t want me here alone?”
“Why wouldn’t I? You already were,” Jack said as he got out of bed and headed to the closet for his clean uniform shirt and jeans. “Besides I’m going to try to convince you to move in with me when you’re ready.”
“What if I’m never ready?”
“I don’t believe in never.”
He hurried out of the door so he could hurry back already figuring it would be a simple case of kids cruising the back roads from St. Martin and happening upon it. Hopefully nothing big got trashed or nothing sentimental and insurance would cover it all. The worst part about it was the drive. It was far back in the woods and he was just glad it hadn’t dumped snow yet or there would be no way to get to it until spring. He wound his way through the narrow road and once there he parked back in the trees.
This was for two reasons. If the marauders had come back he could surprise them and if not he didn’t want to disturb any tracks from their vehicle. Just because Carl had ridden his horse in the chances were slim that the vandals had. He soon changed his mind about that as he walked towards the house with his flashlight on. There were no tire tracks. Not a one and that was nearly impossible. No one could have walked or hiked it from one of the main roads. Well they could have but it would be a hard trek for someone to just go to the house to tear it up and leave.
He went in back of the house to the generator shed that most of the places this far out had. No lines came out that far and once he found it he went in and started up the generator quickly. It didn’t take much; Ron MacAbby was at the cabin less than a month earlier hunting. Once he was out of the shed he looked around the house. There was no snow or mud to catch any prints in but he checked closely anyway in case he got lucky. He went to the back door first and saw that that was where the vandal or vandals had broken in. The door was kicked in and Jack squatted down with his light. The print on the door right under the knob wasn’t really clear but it looked to be black soled.
Like boots. Like biker boots.
He pushed the thought out of his head, There was no way he had the time…well he could have but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t just get a hair up his ass to go destroy someone’s property.
He had been angry with Jack. Very angry and he took out his anger and frustration in violent ways sometimes. He beat two men to a bloody pulp for God’s sake.
“Stop it Jack. He wouldn’t do that. He didn’t even know about this place,” Martin said sitting on the back step as Jack traced his finger over the print.
“Candace knew them. She knew Mrs. MacAbby pretty well actually. She may have visited when Rebel was with her sometime.”
Jack turned to see Martin looking up at the sky as he said, “It would make it easier wouldn’t it? It would make it so much easier.”
“Make what easier?”
Martin met his eyes. “Easier to go back to being just with my memory and the lonely house than taking Rebel down into that playroom and starting all over again. Easier than trusting that giving your heart won’t end like it did with me. Easier.”
Jack turned off the flashlight and sat next to the memory of Martin’s still healthy body. “I really thought you were going to fade out of visiting me once I moved on.”
The smile he loved that lit up his whole face came over Martin’s mouth and Jack laughed. Martin said, “Tells you what?”
“That I haven’t moved on yet. I know. I don’t know why I didn’t take him to the playroom. It was ours. The straps on the bench still smelled like your cologne. It was where I made you come for the first time without touching you.”
Grinning wide Martin said, “Yeah that was something. Calling me those names, telling me how my ass felt when you fucked it while I was tied down, and the way you breathed in my ear. It was crazy. It’s also over and in our house right now is a beautiful man waiting and ready to be yours.”
“Unless he was the one who did this then I have to put him in jail and not the make believe one in the basement.”
He got up and let the apparition fade out before he opened the door and went in. The kitchen was the first area he came to and it was trashed. The MacAbby’s hadn’t kept much food in the place as in keeping with good protection from bears, only canned goods and some canisters of rice and beans that would keep over the winter if they had indeed stayed in the canisters. At the moment they were spread over the floor. The chairs were broken up and the table was overturned, the window was broken and he suddenly got scared. Not for his safety but for what else he would find.
As he walked into the living room and saw the sofa shredded and the small television, that of course didn’t have cable or satellite attached with the remoteness, was broken. He sat on the arm of the couch and looked around bereft. It was too clear Rebel had done this but when his eye caught the wrench next to the TV stand he felt like he would vomit.
It was a pink handled wrench…the same one he’d seen Rebel using on his bike. He picked it up and his hand clenched around it. “Fuck.”
He went to the car after locking up the house and threw the wrench in the back seat. He looked around the yard for any other clues that Rebel had been there but he saw no tire tracks. What he did see made him crouch down and run his fingers over the soil. There was a horseshoe print and he recognized it. It wasn’t Carl’s horse. It was Lonnie’s; the shoes were stamped with Lonnie’s stepfather, the blacksmith’s number 11. He knew they had been out together but Patsy had said Carl found it and road off to tell the others who before going into town to report it. There was no cell service out this far.
He got up and went in to town and headed toward his house.