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“How’s Doc doing?” I asked.
“Not great,” Lincoln said softly. “He finally seems to be accepting it.”
My heart broke for the old man who’d been Pelican Bay’s veterinarian for decades. He’d only recently officially announced his retirement. I was one of the few people who knew why the man had really given up his practice. Although he was not officially Lincoln’s patient, Lincoln had respected Doc Cleary’s privacy and had never mentioned anything to me about the man or his situation. It had been Doc Cleary himself who’d told me why he’d really retired. He’d come in looking for books on a certain topic and when I’d offered to help, the old man who’d seemingly aged by a decade overnight had been overcome with emotion and I’d given him the shoulder he’d metaphorically needed to lean on in that moment. It was only with the man’s permission that Lincoln gave me updates on what was happening.
We fell into a comfortable silence, but I suspected Lincoln had figured out why we were there.
“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I began. I’d said the same words to him the night that Arthur Tomlinson had come after me in the library and unwittingly outed the most shameful secret that I’d hoped Lincoln would never find out about. Lincoln had interrupted me when I’d started to explain because he’d known I wasn’t ready to deal with any of it.
I was ready now.
“When I got to Minneapolis, everything was so much harder than I thought it would be. I got a job as a janitor at a place that helped people with developmental disabilities. It didn’t pay much but it was enough to get me a shitty apartment in an even shittier neighborhood. I know now that I was suffering from PTSD, but I didn’t know it then. I thought I could just forget everything that had happened in The Tower.” I began stroking Nacho’s head more fervently as the memories began to bombard me.
“I met him at the bus stop. I thought he was hitting on me at first and I kind of lost my shit. The guy, Ben, felt bad for upsetting me and told me why he’d chatted me up in the first place.”
I forced myself to focus on my breathing as I continued. “He said I had the right look for gay porn and that I could make a lot of money. He apologized but gave me his card and told me to check out his website. Turned out he wasn’t even gay. He had a girlfriend who was an equal partner in the business. He’d been introduced to porn through her but ended up making a lot more doing gay porn.”
I felt like I was talking a million miles a minute, so I stopped both to catch my breath and to look at Lincoln because I’d forgotten how important it was that I look people in the eye when I was talking to them. It was another one of those pesky habits I hadn’t even realized I’d used to hide behind.
“Anyway, he apologized and gave me the card. I saw him a few times after that when we caught the same bus, but he never bothered me or anything. He’d just say hello and that was it. I hadn’t even considered his offer but then I lost my job, and I couldn’t find another one. I knew my parents wouldn’t help me out and I wouldn’t have asked them anyway. But I was in danger of losing my apartment and the thought of living on the streets…”
“I get it,” Lincoln said softly with a nod.
There was absolutely no condemnation in his voice. No judgment. It made it easier to continue.
“I’d thrown Ben’s card away the night I’d met him, but I remembered the name of the website. When I got the first of what would be many eviction notices to come, I looked up the website. I couldn’t even bear to look at any of the content. I just needed the phone number. I called him and told him my situation but that I had several hard limits. He never asked why I had them and I never offered to explain. It was a business arrangement and nothing more.”
I shook my head and shifted my eyes to the stream. “I threw up right after I agreed to meet him the next day at his studio. I’d told him no one could fuck me or touch my dick. I pretty much threw up so many roadblocks that I made it impossible for him to even do anything for me. It wasn’t like I could just sit there and watch other people getting it on,” I said with a harsh laugh.
“He was really nice about explaining that there were certain things his customers would want to see,” I continued softly. I could feel the tears threatening to fall. “Fuck, Lincoln, I just have to say this really fast, okay? I know it probably won’t make sense—”
“It doesn’t need to, sweetheart,” Lincoln offered. I was glad that he didn’t touch me because I knew that would make everything worse.
“He had this idea that we’d pretend to be real-life boyfriends who liked posting our sex videos online. The first video was really simple. He explained that he just wanted to make teaser videos to drive traffic to his website. They’d be a couple minutes and he didn’t need to fuck me. I wasn’t planning on doing more than one video because I was sure I’d be able to find a job. Anyway, the first video was mostly this role-playing stuff. I honestly don’t remember much of it or any of the other videos because he offered to give me some drugs that would relax me. I didn’t want to remember it,” I admitted.
“I found a few more jobs here and there but the more I had to interact with other people, the more anxious I’d get. I’d been cutting myself since they’d locked me in that closet in The Tower. I started doing it again after the first video. Then I was doing it every time I’d lose a job or start a new one. It eventually became a daily thing. Every time I got an eviction notice, I called Ben. He started giving me two different kinds of pills to get through each video. One to relax me so I wouldn’t really be aware of what was happening and then another one to get me hard. He told me what to say, how to move, what kind of sounds to make. But the more videos we made, the more popular they became, and the so-called fans wanted more and more. I agreed to perform oral sex on Ben, and I let him come on me wherever he wanted, but I swear to God, Lincoln, I never let him fuck me. He used toys but—”
That was all I got out before Lincoln suddenly pulled me against him and kissed me hard. He’d somehow managed to balance Chips in one hand even as he’d grabbed me because the puppy was still fast asleep. Nacho was on his feet and whining, though. Between his behavior and Lincoln’s kiss, I realized I’d been creeping toward a full-on panic attack without knowing it. I expected Lincoln to ask me not to tell him any more or to at least see some hint of disgust on his part, but his dark eyes held mine in the same way they always did when I needed his strength.
“I know I was your first, sweetheart, but it wouldn’t matter if I hadn’t been. For the record, you were my first too.”
I gasped at that. I’d just assumed he’d bottomed before. “Oh God, why didn’t you tell me that? Did I hurt you—”
Another hard kiss shut me up.
“Tell me the rest,” Lincoln ordered gently.
I found myself smiling in response. Something inside of me seemed to fall away. The knot that I’d been carrying around from the moment I’d dragged my battered body out of that athletic shed and walked my bike home only to find that my own personal hell hadn’t even begun yet seemed to unravel.
“No,” I said simply. I couldn’t seem to wipe the smile from my face. All the anxiety and fear I’d been holding on to from the moment I’d decided it was time to tell Lincoln my last secret seemed to shrivel up until there was nothing but ashes that blew away with the next light breeze that washed over us.
“No?” Lincoln asked with a smile of his own.
I shifted my eyes to the stream for a moment. Nacho had settled down again. I gave him a pat before looking back at Lincoln. “No. I’m cold and I don’t think this flimsy blanket is going to keep me warm enough,” I said as I eased Chips from Lincoln’s hand and placed him next to Nacho. “Time for daddy duty, buddy,” I said to the dog. He licked his son and then curled his body around the puppy.
“He knows us too well,” Lincoln murmured as he leaned in to kiss me.
I chuckled. “At least he finally stopped trying to bite you on the ass,” I reminded him. Since Nacho had moved into the house and, more specifically, our bedroom, it’d taken him a while to figure out that I wasn’t in need of protection from the things Lincoln did to me in bed.
