KING (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (10 page)

“Pretty Boy,” Ezra’s smoky voice calls to me
from across the lawn. I look up, wiping the tear tracks off my cheeks.

I ran away like my father, a bastardly co
ward. I need to stop calling Jamie a bastard because he isn’t one. Jamie’s the bastard creator, just ask his three abandoned children.

It’s times like these that I wish I drank.

I’m hiding out on the low stone wall that surrounds the tennis court. I chose this spot because it’s in the shadows, but there’s enough light for me to study my Queen artwork. I stole Regina’s prize when I left her passed out on my bed with Marcus caring for her. My words were a revelation to me. The second I said them, I grabbed the book and made tracks.

“Shitty birthday,
eh?” Ezra murmurs as he sits on the ledge next to me. His arm wraps around my shoulders. Ezra expels a long-suffering sigh. “Ya know, I think I might have the cornerstone on shitty birthdays.” He chuckles.

“Did your father send you?” The gentle squeeze to my shoulder is answer enough. “Listen, I don’t need therapy or fucked again tonight.”

“And here I thought I was coming to a friend. You were always such a good listener.” Ezra bumps his forehead against my shoulder and sighs again. Ezra’s sigh is like that funny noise I make in my chest, a nervous compulsion.

“It seems we both went through with our deal… with unexpected results. I bet you gave Regina the ride of her life and now you’re freaking out.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumble, hugging my sketchbook to my chest.

“May I speak of my night?”

I eagerly shake my head yes. “Please,” I beg in a weak voice, “Anything to get my mind off my own shit.”

“You’re right.
I’m gay. Not that I hide it or anything, it’s that I never say the words. See, we build these expectations up in our minds of how our future will be. We just don’t realize that we’re just one minute variable in the grand scheme of things.”

“I hear ya,” I snort.
“Queen.”

“Yup, just like that. Cort’s lodged so deep in my soul that a priest couldn’t exercise him. I love knowing that he and I are connected like that. No matter how much he hurts me, I know it hurts him too. That’s you and Regina. But then the unexpected comes along and knocks you on your
ass. An unstoppable force meeting an immoveable object can’t break the bond of soulmates, but it can fuck shit up. Mine was Katya… Ya want the truth?”

“I do.” I sniffle and try to cover the sound with a cou
gh. Ezra knowingly smiles at me.

“Cort
ez is my soulmate. I have more faith in this than I do in God. I’ve always known. Cort and I are irrefutable.” Ezra sighs again, and I can feel the agony radiating off of him. “Whitt, Regina isn’t yours,” Ezra softly says, trying to lessen the painful revelation. He firmly shakes his head no. “You’re connected, but not like that. You know it. You’re fighting it because you can feel that it’s true.”

“Marcus?”
I meekly ask if he thinks his dad is Regina’s soulmate.

“Fuck yeah,” he growls. “They’ll kill each other over and over and come back for more. It’s not pleasant. Do Cort and I look happy to you?”

“Um… no, not particularly,” I mumble and he laughs. I bask in the warm, pleasant sound of Ezra’s laughter. It reminds me of being a little kid, tagging along with Ezra and Cort. Sometimes Faith was with us, back before she was a grumpy Syn. When those three were together, it was guaranteed entertainment. The memory hurts to relive, seeing how they are cold to each other now.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife. Hell, Regina’s gonna love Jamie until the day she di
es. If it’s any consolation, Regina loves you more than Jamie. It’s not the kind of love that shreds your heart, it’s the pure kind you feel for your children.”

“Thanks a lot, asshole,” I spit, annoyed that he hit so closely to my issues. I’m a fucking headcase.

He chuckles, reading me. “Mmm… hmm… thought so. Regina sees you as a man, dummy. She just purely loves you without reservation. Does it hurt loving her?”

“No… sometimes,
” I reluctantly admit. “Regina could shit on my face and I wouldn’t care as long as she was happy. I’m sitting here pissed at myself, feeling bad for myself. I don’t belong in there.” I point at the imposing, gargantuan estate looming ahead.

“We’ll get to that later,” Ezra
reassures me.

“This isn’t a
therapy session,” I say in denial.

“Sure, we’re just two buddies shooting the shit.”
Ezra gives me another affectionate squeeze to my shoulder, telling me that we’re friends who
are
having a therapy session. “Loving Cort really hurts. That’s how you know the difference.”

“Dalton rejected me
today, and I wanted to turn into an Emo and slit my wrists. Dalton doesn’t want to live with me. Fuck,” I hiss out of frustration. “I miss him constantly. I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up next to him.”

“Ah- that is the difference. You know that Regina will be there when you need her, but y
ou don’t have to see her to feel it. This love shit requires constant ass kissing and reassurance or you feel lost.”

“You’re telling me that I see Regina as my mom, aren’t you? That I should leave her alone, move on with my life, and let her be with Marcus.”

“Your words, not mine.” I glare at Ezra to admit it. “Yeah… yeah, I am. She’s a milf, so I get your need to fuck her,” Ezra chuckles, so I decide not to kill him. “Regina’s not yours, man. You’re using her as a crutch. She’s safe and won’t hurt you. You’ve never experienced the pain of real love. Until you do, you won’t understand.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to let her go yet,” I reluctantly admit.

“You’re getting there. It’s been a fantasy you’ve had for almost twenty years. This is progress.”

“How come you’re such a good psychiatrist, but your life is in the crapper?”

“Dick,” Ezra snorts, and playfully punches me in the bicep. “I’m head-blind when it comes to myself- everyone else gets analyzed. I told you it sucks. Look at me, I’m fucking miserable. When it’s good, it’s the best feeling in the world, but when it’s bad… death would be a blessing. But that’s until you’re lying in bed with beautiful crimson hair spread across your pillow, with her breath puffing against your cheek, and there is a warm masculine body at your back. Three hands are clasped on your chest, directly over your heart. Then two wiggling twins start kicking your shins, making room on the bed. Your teenager daughter, who pretends to hate affection, starts tickling everybody’s feet. That’s the life… Until one of them ruins it by screaming bloody murder because their hair was pulled. Or your arm falls asleep from the weight of your wife.”

“It sounds like heaven,” I dreamily whisper.

“Yeah…” Ezra scoffs. “The next night you come home exhausted from work, and the bliss bubble bursts. Your wife is in a basement dungeon getting instruction on how to whip the shit out of a kid who looks like a frat boy. Your husband is holed up in his office pretending to write while dreaming of sucking your father’s cock. Your daughter snuck off, making out with some dick’s son,” Ezra teases me, and heartily laughs from his chest. “You’re pretty sure that your two-year-old daughter is going to grow up to be a terrorist with your son as her twin minion. Yeah… life’s great,” he says with heavy sarcasm.

“No sex after marriage, huh?”

“So far that
seems to sound about right,” Ezra wholeheartedly agrees.

“It was for me, too. Damned shame… just this evening I had to force copulation with my wife,” I make light of a shitty situation.
“I guess zero times two is still zero. It defies rationale that with two spouses you still go without.”

“Fucker!”
He punches me in the chest this time. My breath whooshes from my lungs. I rub the burning pain away. Ezra punches with the force of a semi compared to Dalton’s butterfly kisses.

“Seriously, when was the last time?”

“It was at Restraint- the night you were banging Dalton in the stairwell. Jesus, that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. You had me and Regina crazed.” Ezra eyes me with lusty intentions. My cock eagerly swells to accommodate anything he has in mind.

Ezra shakes out of his arousal. “
My daddy forced my husband to stay still and take it like a chick,” is said in a pissy voice filled with resentment. “Not my best moment… Katya walked in just as we were finishing up. It upset her for some reason. Then all that shit with the media and Olivia happened, and the kids have been bunking with us. No time or opportunity, I guess.”

“Have they
gone without?” I quietly ask, already knowing the answer to my question. I highly doubt they’ve stopped. Cort is addicted to Marcus as much as I’m addicted to Regina. Katya is a great girl, but she can be pretty blind. I know she’s been playing with Dexter constantly, too selfish to notice the consequences.

“Do
n’t make me punch you again,” Ezra threatens. “I talked to them earlier like I said I would.”

Ezra
’s quiet for so long that I have to coax it out of him. “And?”

“Cort went postal. He begged me
to fuck him right then and there,” Ezra whimpers. “Cortez doesn’t mean it. He never does. I told him to get this thing he has with Marcus out of his system.”

Ezra just sits for a moment, reliving what he’d just gone through. I know what he means about Cort, and I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to live through. I reach for Ezra’s hand, and gently grip it in support. He sighs and rests his head on my shoulder.

“Katya was quiet,” Ezra whispers.
“She started crying, and I thought I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. Kat admitted she was selfish, that when she found out she had sadist tendencies, it confused her. Katya knows that she’s been absorbed in the life Dexter is showing her.”

“I’m glad she admitted that,” I murmur. “You needed to hear her say it. Kat needed to hear
herself say it. Too bad you couldn’t convince Cort to say the words aloud- that he’s being a selfish prick, who doesn’t know what he wants.

“That would be the day,” Ezra dreamily murmurs. “
We discussed ground rules. I just about died when they were guessing who I was taking as a lover. Katya told me that she was fine with me being with Regina because of our painful past. Kat’s words, not mine. That made Cort ecstatic. He laughed, saying that Regina would rather kill me than screw me.”

“I’m not okay with you fucking my wife, just saying,” I snarl.
“Dealing with Marcus is… it makes me feel unhinged.”

“Not going there again… just saying. Anyway, they proved my earlier point. I love my wife, but we have a lifetime to learn about each other.
Kat doesn’t get me, not really. But Cortez…” Ezra draws in a huge gulp of air. “After a few quiet minutes, Cort said something that did kill me. He said, ‘go show our Pretty Boy what it means to be gay.’ And then he left the room. That is what I was explaining earlier. No one knows me like Cort does. Katya thought he was kidding.”

“Whoa…” I’m speechless that Kat is that blind. I’m not shocked about Cortez. He knows me almost as well as Ezra. Lifetimes-
lifelong friendships, whether they wane or not, the knowledge they possess will never fade. These guys will forever know me. It’s just as Ezra and Cort will always know Syn, even though they don’t get along right now. Katya will eventually build that with Ezra and Cortez, just as I will build that with Dalton. But not yet, it takes time to build.

“
My life’s not perfect, but I think that conversation made them realize that they aren’t the only ones in our marriage. I do exist. I have feelings and needs and wants.” The ache in Ezra’s voice pierces my heart.

“Teach me how to be gay, eh?
” I say to lighten the mood. “I’m pretty sure it’s a slot
A
sliding into a groove
B
kind of thing. You have hands, mouths, and asses- place your dick in accordingly.”

“Cort didn’t mean the function of it,” Ezra says with a smile in his voice.
“There is other stuff you don’t know about. You’ve never been in a real relationship.”

“So this wouldn’t
be about screwing? We’d be dating or some shit?”

“Yes and no,” Ezra quietly answers, confusing me more.
“How many guys have you kissed?”

“One-
don’t bother asking anything else. The answer will always be one- Dalton. My initiation handjob was my first male contact. Everything else was Dalton,” I answer truthfully, feeling like a loser. 

“Cort sure does
give good hand,” Ezra teases, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Pretty boy, how many guys do you think I’ve been with? It’s not what you think.”

“I… I honestly have no clue,” I stutter out.

“
I’ve topped Aaron as a twisted form of therapy. I’ve had an interrupted moment with Dexter. Cort and I’ve done everything. Besides that, I’ve given one nonconsensual blowjob. That’s it.”

“Oh,” I mumble, surprised.

“If you ask how many girls I’ve been with… well, you’ve got me beat. Three: Katya, Adelaide, and Regina. Those are the ones that are common knowledge.  One other that Cort keeps secret, and the girl will never admit, is Syn. I’ve touched Syn in every way when she was still Faith. We… Syn was my first threesome. This doesn’t leave here,” Ezra warns.