Page 21 of These Secret Years

I laugh.

As though I’m not already destroyed.

I’m sitting on the edge of the king-sized bed in the corner room looking through the windows at the trees swaying slightly in the wind. The bright green of new growth against the electric blue of the sky is almost too much. Too optimistic for a summer I’ve dreaded.

Next week, I’ll go home, try to find a summer job, listen to my mother complain about how hard her life is, and debate whether or not I want to go through the ordeal of seeing my father. And in four weeks, I’ll be back here. Continuing to pay my debt.

The door latch clicks, turns, and I stand. Adrian isn’t a particularly handsome man. He’s plain. Unremarkable. He has a receding hairline and straight blond hair he wears slicked back. His eyes are brown. He has pale, white skin and thin lips the same color as the rest of his face. What makes him stand out isn’t any of his features. It’s the way he carries himself. He exudes wealth, influence, and dominance from the Patek watch to the Armani pants he wears casually at home on a weekend. His shirts are almost exclusively silk. The one he’s wearing today is gray and matches his pants exactly.

He clocks the tattoo immediately.

He holds out a hand as he approaches. “Let’s see.”

I hold up my arm, the tattoo displayed for him.

He examines it closely, as though he’s most concerned about the quality of the lines than the fact that it’s marred my skin. “Mediocre work,” he says, proving me correct.

“I like it.”

“No one ever praised your eye for art, darling. What’s next?” he asks. “A sleeve? More piercings? Where will you put them?”

Wherever I want. “We’ll see.”

He sighs, letting go of my arm to take a look at the rest of me. The instant his fingertip makes contact with my breastbone, my body breaks out in chills. Not from pleasure or excitement. His hand is cold, and his touch has become repellant. As he traces a line down the center of me, I shift my gaze to the trees again.

His fingers move to my side, bumping over one rib at a time. “I miss your sweet baby fat.”

I inhale deeply. Exhale. I say nothing.

I was sixteen when I met Adrian. A fresh sixteen. He flattered me and paid such special attention to me. At first, I thought it was because I’d played so well in the competition he was judging, and I do think that was part of it.

It’s my fault anyway for introducing myself to him. The conductor for the largest symphony orchestra in Michigan? Of course I wanted to meet him. I wanted him to know my name and remember me. I wanted his fucking business card.

I got a dinner invitation and my first ever private violin lessons instead.

He moves around me now, using the palm of his hand to touch every inch of my upper body. He brushes my callus—the rough skin beneath my left jaw where my violin rests. Some people call it a violin hickey. Adrian doesn’t. He likes it rough and raised. It proves to him I’m still playing as much as I ever did. He checks my fingertips, too, to make sure they’re still tough and thick.

And then he kneels.

Both his hands wrap smoothly around my ass cheeks as he presses his nose to my groin and breathes deeply.

This may as well be choreographed. A ritual. The tip of his nose moves over my limp dick, and he breathes the other side in as his hands move down the backs of my legs then up the front as he smells his fill.

The first several times he did this, I was hard. My body wasn’t used to being seen or touched naked. My nervous system reacted with excitement, although I wouldn’t call it arousal. It took me a while to realize it wasn’t, though. It took me until that night in the woods with the future quarterback of the college football team to realize what actual arousal felt like.

That night nine months ago feels like it happened a decade ago.

As Adrian lifts my dick from my sac and licks broadly at the tip, I put my hands on his shoulders and shut my eyes.

I try not to feel the fine silk of his shirt. I try imagining the firm muscles of Knight’s chest. The way he whimpered at one press of my lips on his.

I do have a girlfriend. I do fuck her when the need to come or forget becomes too urgent. And I do get off with her. But when I’m alone, it’s always, always Knight I’m imagining because that was still the hottest moment of my life.

My dick, of course, is sensitive, and Adrian is no amateur. It isn’t long before I’m erect, and he’s moaning around my length as he takes me deeper and deeper.

I wish I were the one on my knees. I want to be the one with a cock trying to force its way into my throat. I’d love the chance to try swallowing that massive dick of Knight’s again. With as many times as I’ve visualized it, I think I could do better.

I mean, maybe any dick would do, but Knight’s was nice. Appropriate for someone of his size. Long. Meaty. Thick.