Safe in His Arms (7 page)

“No!” Casey jumped to his feet and glared at the stranger, shouting out his anger. “I’m not a hot commodity that you can just pass around whenever you feel like it! I’m a person with thoughts and feelings and if I say no, then no means no!”

Paul didn’t even blink in the face of his tirade. He smiled as if it were cute. Casey’s temper boiled. He shoved his hands on his hips and was ready to let loose at the jerkwad again, when Lon’s beefy arms came around him, and he felt the big guy press a kiss into his hair.

“Casey, love, he’s only yanking your chain. I’ve already told him that I’m not sharing you, and Paul knows he’ll have both of his kneecaps broken if he trespasses on my property. So calm down and go and grab a beer or Coke from the fridge, okay?”

Jerkwad smiled at him without anger or mockery and stuck out a hand. “I’m Paul, by the way. Lon doesn’t always understand what manners are, so I have to introduce myself.”

Casey took a few seconds to weigh up the sincerity of the guy. Finally he put out his hand too. “I’m Casey. Pleased to meet you, Jerkwad.”

Lon choked behind him and quickly turned the laughter into a cough, hacking out a couple more just for show. Jerkwad didn’t lose his smile. He grinned wider and shook hands. “So, do you live around here?”

Casey remained snug in Lon’s embrace and answered pleasantly enough. “A couple of rows over. I’m staying with my grandmother.”

“Cool. Tell Lon to bring you down to the pub one night when he comes to see the lads. Lon’s sex life is pretty much talked about as pitiful, so seeing you will make the lads shut up. They’ll take one gander at a hot boy toy like you and be pissing their pants in jealousy.”

Lon moved around Casey, entered the van, and opened the fridge to fetch more beer. “Shut up, Paul. It’s your sex life we all pity. I thought nothing could be lower than you sleeping with Tommy Krantz, but now I hear you’re pursuing a
relationship
with a married man? Low, man, low. Casey? Do ya want a beer or Coke?”

Casey opted for Coke as Paul slumped on his chair and muttered darkly, “Yeah, I guess you could say that Tommy Krantz was lowering the standard a tad too much.”

Lon and Paul talked about different guys they’d fucked or been fucked by—although Casey noticed that the “fucked” total for Lon was a lot higher than the “fucked by” total. He sat back on the recliner and watched Lon, wondering how old he really was. Thirty? Thirty-five? Was that too old for him? Was Casey too young for Lon? Did numbers really matter?

“Do you remember that teacher we had at school, Lon? Mr. Haggert or something? The hot one who taught Phys Ed?”

“Fuck, yes. That man was total boner material. I saw him pissing one day, and he had a fucking bull on him.”

“That’s him. I swear that his twin brother came into a club once. He was the first to fuck me, and I swear I only let him because he looked so much like Mr. Haggert.” The confessions were getting a bit saucy, making Casey think that it wasn’t the first lot of beers these guys had consumed. They must have started a little earlier in the afternoon to be this pissed already.

Lon choked on his beer. “You did? How old were you?”

“I dunno. Eighteen I must’ve been if I was in a club. The year after high school, anyway. Why? How old were you the first time you gave your arse to someone?”

Lon ditched his beer bottle into the bin and grabbed another. “I was twenty-five before I bottomed for the first time. It’s not really high on my list of things to do. I always preferred the top.”

“Really? Even when you were young, you could find guys who wanted to bottom for you?”

“I’ve always been a bear, Paul. I was born fuckin’ big and I was huge even at sixteen.”

“True. It took me three years at the gym before anyone took me seriously. But still. Twenty-five before you took it? Fuck. Who was it?”

“The worst thing is I can’t even remember the guy’s name. He was cute, and I was drunk.”

That seemed to be a rather sad story to Casey. Your first time should be someone special, or at least someone who’s going to take time with you. Paul turned to Casey and tried to include him in his conversation. “So who was your first time, Casey? How old were you?”

Casey opened his mouth to tell Paul to fuck off, but unfortunately the truth came out first. “My father. I was fourteen.”

It wasn’t like time was frozen, because Casey could still hear someone’s TV playing in the background, and there was the sound of traffic on the nearby road. But the people inside the tiny space made by the canvas were all doing really good impressions of statues. Casey was horrified by what he had admitted, but Lon and Paul were simply horrified. Full stop. Paul’s jaw fell open.

“You’re shitting me?”

“No.” Casey was still reeling from his confession, but he put on a brave face and shrugged. “You could probably find the video of it if you looked hard enough. I hear that it’s still doing the rounds on the web somewhere. Hundreds of sick men probably jerk off to the sounds of my agonized screams every day. I just heard on the TV an hour ago that a whole bunch of men have been arrested over child pornography, and all I could think of was how many of them had seen my father’s videos?”

Lon’s face was snow white. “Is that why you came tearing around here?”

“Yep. Sorry. And sorry for putting a downer on your party. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Nobody wants to hear fucking sad stories like that.”

“Sad is not the word I would use,” Lon replied.

Casey shrugged and drank a little more of his Coke. Paul was still staring at him in disbelief. “You’re not shitting, are you? Fucking hell. I hope someone found a bullet for that guy. Fuck, I know he’s your father and all, but that shit’s just not on. You should be putting rabid animals like that down.”

Casey hadn’t talked about his experiences much to people other than the authorities and his counselor. Most people who knew had found out through the grapevine and had been oozing with sympathy, telling Casey that what he went through must’ve been awful.
Yes, thank you very much for that. I lived it. I don’t have to be reminded at how awful it was.
It was funny to have someone react with anger at his father instead of sympathy for him.

“Unfortunately the prick’s in jail,” Casey told Paul. “They keep all the pedophiles separate from Gen Pop—that’s the general population in the jail. Gen Pop may hurt the pedophiles, you know? And we can’t have all those puny pedophiles being hurt by someone bigger and badder than they are. So dearest Dad gets to spend his days with other like-minded guys and they probably sit there all day and reminisce about their crimes.”

“That’s totally fucked,” Paul said.

“Yeah, well, welcome to my world,” was all Casey could reply.

Lon was frowning at him. “You had that done to you and you’re still gay? You don’t have a problem with gay sex or anal?”

For the first time in his life, Casey was able to quote back to someone the things he’d been taught in therapy. Things that Margaret had repeated over and over, and even had him write down at one stage. In that moment he forgave Margaret for any of the other crap she gave him, simply because he was able to look Lon in the eye and say calmly, “I was raped, Lon. It wasn’t my choice or my decision. I was forcibly held down and had things done to me against my will. Having gay sex with a man of my choice has nothing to do with what that man did to me. They’re two separate things. I refuse to give that power of choice away. I choose who I’m with and I choose what I do. I’m gay and I know that in my soul. He didn’t change me. He didn’t make me someone different. He just used my body in a way he thought would hurt me the most so that I’d do what he wanted. Well, guess what? I’m not giving any more power to him. If I want to suck dick, then I do. If I want to spread my legs, then I do. It’s all about me and I do it without thinking about some fucking arsehole who I hope is moldering in some slimy jail.”

A look appeared on Lon’s face that Casey thought might have been respect. Paul was nodding in agreement at Casey’s speech and raised his beer bottle. He saluted him, saying, “Amen to that.”

Casey smiled at him, desperately trying to deflect the attention away from himself. “Amen? So, you’re a good Catholic boy are you, Paul? You who has nasty gay sex with a married man? Shame on you.”

Paul burst out laughing. “Don’tcha know? All is forgiven. I can do whatever I like as long as I rock up to confession and tell the priest everything. I’m his favorite customer. He really enjoys every second of my confessions too—and they take a fucking long time to tell.”

Time passed after that while Lon and Paul drank several more liters of barley and hops products.

Casey smiled in amusement and laughed as their stories became even more outrageous. Finally they were so slurred he couldn’t understand half of them. Paul spread out on the recliner and passed out, his mouth wide open and his breath coming in snorts and fits. Lon was weaving on his feet and smiled at Casey in a loopy manner.

“Pretty boy. I like kissing you, pretty boy. Come ’ere ’n’ kiss me.”

Making out with a blind-drunk guy was not exactly high on his list of priorities, but Casey played along. “Okay, then. Let’s go in the caravan.”

Lon willingly followed him in and stripped off his shirt before attempting his shorts. He nearly ended up going through the van’s window as he tried to balance on one foot, so Casey helped him out of his clothes, appreciating the monster cock he revealed but not initiating any sexual contact.

“Here you go. Get into bed and I’ll be there in two secs, okay?” Casey lied to a wobbly Lon.

As he expected, Lon was asleep before he’d even laid his head on the pillow. Casey took a moment to cover him with the sheet before creeping out the door. He found a clean beach towel, which he draped over Paul, and carefully made his way across the uneven floor and out the annex. He zipped the door closed and sighed. He felt… freer, somehow. As if confessing his deepest secrets had cleansed him. He’d told. They’d expressed horror. They’d moved on. He was not a leper or someone who was so damaged that they couldn’t bear to be friends with anymore. He was just… Casey. The cute twink they laughingly fought over. A new friend to drink with. Accepted.

He returned home, assured his grandmother he was fine, and settled down on his couch to try and get some sleep.

Chapter 5

L
ON
WOKE
with a groan and a raging hangover. He crawled out of bed, squinted at the digital numbers on the microwave, and almost vomited when the clock told him he was going to have to get moving or be late. He fumbled around to find the pack of painkillers he had, kicking his toe on the edge of the stove and cursing a blue streak while he wondered why a man of his size ever thought he could live in a tiny box.

“Aawww, fuck. My head!”

Paul’s voice from outside the van made Lon remember the previous night. He’d been drinking with Paul and having a great time when Casey had come in. Casey….

He looked around frantically but couldn’t see the guy. He contemplated the tiny gap between the mattress and the van wall and decided that even if he had rolled on Casey during the night and squished him, he still wouldn’t fit down that hole.

“Argh! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Paul was still cursing outside, and Lon decided that a good friend would go out and offer some painkillers. With a grin Lon slammed the pack back in the drawer and put the kettle on instead. Finally he opened the door of the van to find that Paul had rolled off the recliner and was on all fours, his head plastered to the floor as if it hurt too much to lift. It probably did.

Paul spotted Lon. “Fuck! Tell me again why you didn’t put a toilet in?”

“’Cause then I’d have to clean it. The only toilet I could have would be one that you have to empty yourself, and fucked if I’m doing that.”

Another groan rumbled out of poor Paul. “How far is it to the toilet block?”

Lon grinned. “I can make it in twenty-two steps if I hurry. It’s actually a shorter distance to the toilets than it is to cross the hotel’s floor at the Local.”

Paul contemplated it for a minute. “You wouldn’t have a bucket, would ya?”

“Piss off. Get your lazy arse up. You promised to drive me to visit my brother today, remember? Well, it’s after eleven, and we need to leave by twelve to make it during visiting hours.”

Lon relented and tossed Paul the packet of painkillers while he made Vegemite on toast and coffee for breakfast, so Paul managed to get showered, dressed, and in the car by the required time. They made it by the skin of their teeth.

Acacia Prison was located a good hour out of the city, and Lon lived on the other side of the metropolitan area. Once through the traffic, the highway took them up the notorious Greenmount Hill, where many trucks had discovered to their detriment that their brakes were not in top condition on the way down. Past Greenmount it was mostly bush and state forest, thus a relatively cruisey drive. Occasionally you would get stuck behind a truck or caravan trying to make it up the next section of hill, but there were frequent overtaking lanes through that section of road to compensate.