He tried not to moan, or enjoy disobeying his mom as badly as he was.
He couldn’t even ask Tommy what he’d stuck in him. It wasn’t too big. Had Tommy bought a sex toy? Did he just find something lying around the room, greased it and jabbed it up Brennan’s butt?
The bed shifted again as Tommy climbed back on.
“Lift your hips, slut. Look at your ass! Damn, that’s so wrong,” Tommy said quietly, keeping his voice just loud enough for Brennan to hear every word, but soft enough to prevent Maggie from overhearing.
Brennan had pushed his ass farther up, as instructed. Tommy shoved two pillows under Brennan’s hips to keep him like that, then pulled his cheeks apart. The object slipped out a little. Tommy laughed.
He pulled the object out. Brennan panted, heart racing. He felt Tommy move around again.
“Here, try this one,” Tommy said, pulling Brennan’s cheeks apart with one hand to expose his hole, then pressing some blunt, hard object at his opening.
Brennan grunted in protest, but Tommy worked whatever it was slowly through his rim until the ring of muscle was stretched around the cylinder-shaped object. He grunted again as Tommy began to force it deeper. There were ridges and Brennan whimpered slightly at the rough feel of it. Soon, it was a few inches up his ass. Leaving it there, Tommy let go and scratched lightly over Brennan’s ass with both hands.
“Gonna fuck you in so many ways, Bren,” Tommy whispered. “Gonna do whatever I want to you. You’re my
prisoner
. Let’s do role play. I broke into your house, tied you up. Stuck this handle up your ass for laughs....”
Handle? Handle to what?
“And soon? I’m gonna fuck you with my cock, too. Do your part, okay? Pretend you’re scared and fight a little. It’ll be hot. Just stay quiet, okay? Don’t want Maggie to hear what I’m doing to you, right under her nose.” He laughed again. “She’d
freak
. She really doesn’t like me, does she? Wonder why?”
Roughly, quickly, Tommy yanked the handle out. It hurt and made Brennan yelp. Then the soft warmth of Tommy’s mouth was on him, lips dragging over his cheeks, then licking through his crack. The wet, thick muscle of his tongue plunged through Brennan’s rim and Brennan quivered. Tommy hummed, licking over Brennan’s inner walls, twisting his tongue around in little pulses. The deeper Tommy went, the harder Brennan’s cock became.
Soon, though, Tommy stopped licking. He shifted so that he was draped over Brennan’s back and aligned his dick with Brennan’s ass.
“That’s plenty of prep, don’cha think?” Tommy whispered.
Brennan groaned, then bit off the sound as Tommy drove, hard, into him.
It was rough, dirty, and not at all careful. By the time Tommy came, Brennan was drenched in sweat, his whole body throbbing. His ass ached.
Chuckling, Tommy pulled out and reached between Brennan’s hips and the pillows to find his dick. He stroked it for a while, until Brennan was softly begging, rocking into each tug, ready to come. Then, Tommy let go. A second later, he forced the handle back through Brennan’s tender opening and climbed off the bed to fetch the beer he’d left on the nightstand. While he sipped it, flashing that pearly smile and magazine-worthy good looks, Brennan panted. Sweat trickled down his face, his hair plastered to his forehead and the nape of his neck, a deeply unsettled feeling overwhelming him. He didn’t really like the way the handle felt, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t hard up and desperate to come. He looked up at Tommy, who was so pleased with himself. Tommy’s body was hard, cut, and fuckable. Slowly, Tommy began to stroke his cock, letting Brennan watch.
Walking closer to the bed, Tommy asked in a hushed, dark murmur, “Should I fuck that ass again, boy? Give you my cock? Or something
else
?” Tommy’s eyebrows rose in question, the beer tipped up as he took a sip. “Hmm?” He let the bottle drop and his mouth fell open on a sigh as he flexed his hips and thighs, riding his hand, putting on a show. “Gonna be a long night,” he said, chuckling softly.
Brennan drifted out of the memory, back to the one from the night before, and watching Evan trade Alek’s cock for Luka’s, with barely a pause between.
At least it’s not just me. At least I’m not the only one. If he gets off on it, then maybe it’s not so bad that I do, too.
His most recent memory of Tommy came back, and the feel of fingers inside him, prying, the things Tommy had said, and that moment when he let go for just a second, and Brennan kicked backward, feeling something snap.
In his memory, he heard,
‘You’re my prisoner. Let’s do role play. I broke into your house, tied you up....’
“Hey, Bren. We’re here. C’mon.” Startled out of memory, Brennan looked around. Alek had the car’s back door opened, and was reaching out to touch Brennan’s shoulder to rouse him, but Brennan flinched away from the contact. Right away, Alek backed off, hands up. “Sorry. You seemed far away. You all right?”
Brennan breathed out a ragged laugh, running his hands over his short hair, curling inward. The texture of his hair felt so smooth now, the bristles of the short strands brushing his palms. He loved it. He felt cooler, freer.
“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Brennan asked. “All of it. I went along with everything. I got off on everything. Encouraged him, or at least didn’t stop him. No matter how weird or wrong it was, it felt so good, especially when there was a chance of getting caught. No wonder he....”
“No wonder he what?” Alek asked. Brennan glanced over at him. Alek had crouched down by the side of the car, his hand on the open door as he listened attentively to Brennan’s ramblings. Evan and Luka were a few feet away, standing on the sidewalk. “What did he do, Bren?”
“Got mad I didn’t want it for once,” Brennan answered. “That I was fighting back for real and not just for fun. It was always nice to stop being the good son for a little while, and do the wrong thing. Sometimes I hated how much mom depended on me to be mature and take care of her in ways no one else had to take care of their moms. But now she’s gone, and I’m not Tommy’s to fuck with anymore.”
Brennan held Alek’s gaze, smiling slightly after a moment at how fiercely protective he looked, like he’d tear Tommy apart with his bare hands and teeth if he could.
He thought, then, about how Tommy looked so perfect and ideal on the outside, but on the inside was corrupt and rotten. He’d always said how much he needed Brennan, and wanted Brennan. But did he? Or did he just like having Brennan to boss around? Tommy probably did love Brennan, but it was no sort of love Brennan wanted any part in. What Brennan had with Alek, Luka, and Evan might have been fucked up on the outside, but underneath appearances and labels, the way they loved each other was pure and honest. It was
good
. It was worth leaving everything else behind, and fighting for.
Feeling grounded and certain of his choices, Brennan took a deep breath and, finally, moved to get out of the car.
Chapter 19
Reality Check
“Sometimes I forget,” Brennan said, picking at the roll of his vegetarian sandwich, “how much I grew up, because of Mom and what she was going through. It was totally life and death for a long time, and that kind of thing changes you, no matter how young you are. Stupid shit doesn’t matter anymore, after.”
They were all in their usual seats. Brennan was across from Alek. Evan was across from Luka. They were trying to eat, though none of them had much of an appetite. Life was threatening to return to normal, in small ways, at least. Luka had a shift at the gym that night. Alek called out of work a second day but couldn’t do it a third time in a row. Evan would have to go back to work as well, and didn’t look forward to it, especially since it involved leaving Brennan alone now and then.
Before anything else happened, they needed to talk.
Really
talk. They all needed to hear and understand what had occurred between Brennan and Tommy, and Evan had his own confessions to make, though he was certain it was only a fantasy that they’d ever pass his lips.
“All my old friends,” Brennan continued, as Evan took a bite. His mouth felt almost too dry to swallow, so he took a drink of beer to wash it down. “They worry about school, or moving out of their parents’ place, or how unfair and grueling their shitty low-wage job is. They gossip about other people in town because they’re super bored and trying to feel better about their own situations. They’re teenagers, for Christ’s sake. And everything I went through with Mom, then moving away to live with some mystery twin—”
“
Hot
mystery twin,” Evan added with a smirk, just to make Brennan smile. It worked, Evan was glad to see.
“Hot, not-at-all-arrogant mystery twin,” Brennan corrected. “And they don’t even know about you two.” He glanced at Alek, then Luka.
“Hot,
old
mystery twins,” Evan said.
Alek and Luka were in no mood for jokes, though. They both gave Evan a non-amused look that basically told him wordlessly to stop interrupting.
Clearing his throat, Brennan said, “Right, the hot, old, fuddy-duddy mystery twins. I was so focused on not telling them anything about you guys, and especially about Evan, I wasn’t even prepared for how weird they were all going to act about Mom. Time has passed more for me than them, maybe. It was like we didn’t even know each other anymore. I was just this guy they used to be friends with, who went through scary shit. They didn’t know what to say, or how to be polite or not weird. They didn’t know about how weird Tommy has been acting either. Some of them were even on his side, thinking it was unfair of me to just ditch him when clearly he still loves me so much.”
“Why didn’t you tell us he’s been texting you this whole time?” Luka asked with concern. “That’s a huge red flag, Bren, especially if you never replied to any texts and he kept sending ‘em anyway.”
“Wait, what? Seriously?” Alek said, looking horrified.
Brennan shrugged and took a bite to keep from answering for another few seconds. “Like I told Luka, I chalked it up to Tommy being pathetic and lonely. The texts were just about gossip and normal stuff. It wasn’t like he was sexting me the whole time with pictures of his junk. But he knew when I’d be alone, visiting Maggie’s grave. Hailey and Tommy’s friend June went to a yoga class, and he found out through her about where I was going to be. So he showed up at the cemetery and started acting like we could just pick up where we left off.”
He told them about the rest and Evan wanted to shut it out, to close his eyes, cover his ears and deny all of what Brennan was saying. Because it was awful.
“He was always kind of a jerk, though. I never told you guys that. He thought it was hilarious to fuck me while Maggie was nearby, cause she didn’t like him at all. But as much as he wanted to get one over on her, I guess I did too, because of some of the resentment about how I’d been forced to nurse her through her illness. I felt like she owed me the ability to get a little dirty with my boyfriend on my own time. And Evan....” Brennan looked up from his sandwich, with so much remorse in his expression that it made Evan’s heart ache. “I’m
so sorry
for doing the same thing with you. I didn’t even
see it
until now.”
“Don’t apologize. It was consensual,” Evan argued. “Maybe I felt like Charlie owed me, too.”
“Was it always consensual?” Alek asked Evan directly. “Before Brennan? Before
me
?”
“What is he talking about?” Brennan demanded. “Evan, what is he talking about?”
Evan wanted to claim he didn’t know, to deny it, but the words wouldn’t come. He dropped his sandwich and fought the urge to get up and leave, to hide behind a closed door or vacate the building entirely.
“Don’t gang up on him,” Luka countered. Evan pushed his chair back, his hands braced on the table as he tracked his exit path. He could grab his keys from by the door, run downstairs to his car, drive away, maybe drive to Jimmy.
But he knew he couldn’t. Brennan needed him. Brennan had been beaten, raped, and terrified. That was real. That changed everything. That was something Evan couldn’t run from.
Alek said, “You told Jimmy you didn’t feel included before, that it hadn’t been about what you want. I was a bathroom hookup with a stranger. I knew you looked young, but I asked if you were legal. You assured me you were, but Evan... you didn’t seem to care about the age difference.”
Brennan chimed in next, “You told me you never brought people back to the house; that it was backseats and alleyways for you and we joked about it.”
“Fine!” Evan yelled. “I hooked up with older guys, okay?”
“How much older?”
Evan threw his arms outward, shaking his head, “Does it matter? Older.”
“How much older,” Alek pressed.
“Ten, twenty, thirty years older. I didn’t fucking care, honestly.”
“When did this start?”
“Stop hounding him,” Luka cut in. “This isn’t helping!”
“He needs to talk to us about this!”
“Not like this! Not with you yelling at him like you’re his dad!”
Evan leaned forward, bowing his head, hiding his face. Luka reached across the table and took Evan’s hand. “Ev, he’s just upset because he loves you and he’s been freaking out about this since you talked to Jimmy, okay? He’s scared. But if you can just talk to us a little, it’ll help us figure out how to help you, too. We need to find a way to keep Bren safe, but we need you to be safe, too. At least with Bren, we know what the problem is. Ev, we don’t know what this is unless you tell us, and do you understand what it would do to us if anything happened to you? You’ve been on edge since even before Brennan left for Monroe. What aren’t you telling us? How do we help you?”
Evan sighed. “Thirteen.”
All of the air left Alek in a rush. Evan heard that heavy exhale. Then Alek started breathing hard, shaking his head, wearing a disbelieving, tear-filled expression. “Thir-thirteen. Thirteen fucking years old. Oh my god.
Oh my god
.”
“Stop it!” Luka scolded.
“Do you even hear him?” Alek shouted at Luka. “He’s saying he was thirteen years old and was hooking up with men
thirty years older
than him.”