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“Oh, sorry, it was Xen. He’s been textin’ me some.”
Damon winked at me then told Joel, “You made a very good friend.”
“Looky here,” he said, then passed Damon the phone. “It’s one of those there, graffiti thingamajigs.”
“It’s just called graffiti,” Damon explained. “This is beautiful.”
I got the phone next, and seeing it, it blew me away. It was a long building, five stories tall, and looked familiar, but it was the back, obviously with the fire escape. On the bricks was a man that looked very much like Xen with his hands bound with ropes and a rag gag in his mouth. He was shirtless, tattoos covering his torso, and on his legs were black pants.
Around the bound man were pictures of faces, all happy faces, of other men and even a few women. They were painted so well that I recognized a couple of them, one being Memphis, as he was the biggest face, painted near the bound man’s heart.
“Ain’t that pretty?”
“Yeah, Joel, it’s gorgeous.”
Joel took the phone back and finished his food. I got a strange feeling, like Joel was hiding something. “Joel, is there something you want to tell us?”
Damon looked at me, brows drawn and tried to signal me where I was going with my questioning.
I asked it flatly. “Joel, you know we want you to have friends and a life outside your submission to us, right?”
“Righty-roo.”
Damon scowled then smiled at him but there was very little humor in it. “Joel…is there something more going on with you and Xen?”
Good, Damon had taken the hint. Joel set his fork on his now empty plate and suddenly turned sheepish, fidgeting on the bench, unwilling to meet our eyes. “What’s the punishment for lyin’?”
Both Damon and I growled but he said, “Bad! Tell us!”
“Well, hells bells. It ain’t nothin’ bad, see. But like I tol’ y’all, Xen was just a-lookin’ at the wall in the barn. Not just a-lookin’ but like…intense, see?”
I was lost and Damon obviously was there with me. “What? Burke, what’s he talking about?”
“No clue.”
“He wants ta paint it. The wall. In the barn, ya see?”
We both sighed in relief. I thought Joel was getting too close to Xen, but it was innocent. My mind was too jaded for my own good at times. “The picture he sent; it was like a job interview?”
Joel brightened, straightened on his seat and pointed at me. “That’s it!”
“Oh! Well, we hadn’t planned a mural.”
“It might be great for business,” Damon pointed out, getting excited with Joel. “He’s famous, at least in this community, right? He designs for Slutae for fuck sake! If we take shots of his wall for the brochure, for the website or whatever we’re doing for promotion, well, that might draw a few more people to us.”
It was pretty brilliant, I had to admit. “That would be great. Joel, would Memphis okay it? I know that something like that would take time, and they have a small ranch too, so he may be needed, not to mention his work designing the stuff for Slutae.”
“I’ll ask ‘im,” he said, then jumped up from the table and started for the front door.
I stopped him. “Joel, plate, sink.”
He stopped and turned, cocking his head. “Damn, that was…rude. Sorry ‘bout that.”
Instead of only taking his plate, he took all of them, then returned for the glasses and I went into the kitchen when he’d finally finished and looked around at all the clean.
“He’s a sweet thing,” Damon whispered after he’d followed me. “But I already feel it. You don’t want to give him chores like this because of Eli.”
“Eli was a fucking slave without the Master, Damon. You know how I feel about that. An unpaid maid isn’t what I am signing up for, and I won’t allow it.”
