Chapter Eleven

Tyler

Laughing voices woke Tyler from a deep sleep. They started far away, then grew closer and closer until he realized they were right outside. He heard giggling and stiffened as he recognized Holden’s voice. He had company. Tyler gritted his teeth and turned over in bed as he heard a door slam. Great, just fucking great. It looked like he had missed his chance with the silver fox. Anger and regret warred within him. His stomach churned so much he couldn’t go back to sleep.

He slid to the edge of the bed and found his liner, rolling it up his leg. As he did, he heard voices again.

“Are you really serious?” Some guy’s voice.

Then Holden. “Sorry, man.”

The sound of feet on gravel and laughing, getting closer to Tyler’s window. “Come on, you prick tease, give me a kiss.”

Tyler bit his lip hard and reached for his stump sock, hurrying to roll it on.

“Listen, how about we do it again next week?”

The guy. “Hey, you wanted to hook up. Tonight. That was the deal.”

More feet on gravel. “Not tonight.” Holden was drunk, but his voice sounded firm enough. He meant no all right.

Tyler grabbed his prosthesis from where it leaned against the nightstand.

“Yes, tonight.”

A metallic clatter sounded, bodies colliding roughly.

Tyler stood, forcing his leg down into the cup, his heart beating hard.

“What the fuck, man?” Sounds of struggling and Tyler became panic-stricken, rocking his stump into the prosthesis, waiting to hear the pin lock.

Another metallic clang. “We both know how this goes. Stop playing hard to get. A man can only take so much teasing.”

“Hey, I didn’t fucking tease you!”

Come on, come on, lock goddamn you!Oh fuck, what was happening out there? Tyler tried to take a step forward without the prosthesis locked and almost fell.

More struggling. “Get the fuck off.”

Then a fist hitting flesh and Tyler moaned aloud and rammed his stump down, hearing that click and taking off so fast he almost fell again.

“Stop, no, stop!” Holden’s voice as Tyler raced down the hallway.

He heard Holden cry out as he yanked the door open and the scene painted itself across his retinas like some sort of nightmare.

The guy Holden had brought home had Holden semi-naked against the trunk of his car and was trying to penetrate him.

“He said no,” Tyler said, loud enough to be heard over the two mens’ struggles and Holden’s cries.

The guy, blond and built, glanced across at Tyler and fastened his jeans up with reluctance. “No one invited you to the party, man, unless you want to join in?” He looked Tyler up and down, curling his lip when he saw the prosthesis. “Maybe not.”

Tyler stalked forward. The guy threw a punch which Tyler ducked. He drove his fist into the guy’s abdomen, doubling him up before bringing up his left knee—his left knee! The one that ended in a stump!—into the would-be rapist’s face, breaking his nose in a shower of scarlet. The guy staggered back, holding his face and cursing, and Tyler followed him, jabbing him to the kidneys and putting him face down on the concrete.

“Get up,” he said. “Get up and get out of here right now or I swear I’ll finish you.”

The man crawled to his feet, shooting Tyler a look of loathing before he limped away.

Tyler watched him disappear down the dirt track towards town before he turned to Holden.

Holden cut a pathetic figure, still slumped bare-assed on the car. Tyler bent and pulled his jeans and underwear up. “Come on,” he said.

Holden tried to help him, his fingers cold and fumbling. Between them, they managed to get him fastened up, then Holden straightened and turned his face into Tyler’s shoulder.

Tyler swallowed, slinging an arm around him. “It’s okay,” he said gently. “Let’s go.” He led Holden into the house, where he closed the door and bolted it, applying the safety chain. Holden had weaved his way down to the kitchen by that point and Tyler followed him.

Holden slumped into a chair. Tyler eyed him before he ran a glass of water at the sink and handed it to him. “Here.”

Holden took it with an unsteady hand. He slopped some down his front before he drank and put the glass down.

Tyler leaned against the sink. He’d done gentle, now it was time for home truths. “What the fuck, Holden?” he demanded.

Holden lifted his head, looking at him with red eyes. “Never got a date from Grindr, Tyler?”

Tyler bit his lip before he could ask what was so wrong with him that Holden couldn’t have takenhim out tonight? “Yeah, and you really chose well.” It came out as a sneer.

Holden’s gaze turned cold. “It’s my birthday.”

Tyler gaped at him. “Well, happy birthday, you almost got raped.”

“Fuck you!” Holden cried, flushing. “Don’t you dare judge me, don’t you fucking dare!”

They stared at each other. Holden was breathing hard and his eyes were getting redder and shinier. Finally, he dropped his head and it seemed the fight was gone from him. “I’m a sex addict.”

“What?” Tyler couldn’t believe his ears.

“You heard me.”

Tyler laughed. “Hey, we’re all sex addicts. Don’t use that as an excuse for bringing some fucking rapist home on your birthday.”

Holden glared at him. “No, I mean it. I’m in therapy. Or I was.”

Tyler stared. For a moment he was speechless. It seemed Holden was serious.

Holden licked his lips. “It’s been going on for years. It’s consumed my life. I have to come every day, whether that’s jerking off or sex. Maybe two or three times. Previously, before I came here, I was out cruising every night. I’d get out of one bed and go right back out to find someone else. And the form it takes…” Holden’s voice was so low and so shaky, Tyler had to strain to hear. “I have to be humiliated. I have to be made to feel even worse than this disease already makes me feel. Like it’s my fault. I’ve had men beat me, spit on me, double me, piss on me. I’ve begged them to do that. Begged them to hurt me and use me and abuse me. Some have walked away in disgust, but most have been only too willing to give me what I want.”

Tyler stared at him in horror. He told himself that he would never sleep with Holden now. Not because so many others had been there before him and he was repulsed. That wasn’t it at all. It was more that he wouldn’t know how to even touch Holden in the right way after all he had endured.

“I want it like that. I can’t help it. I relive every episode for days and the more shame I feel, the more I end up jerking off over it.” Holden hung his head. “It’s all I deserve. All I’m worth.”

Tyler’s throat was tight with emotion. Holden started to sob. Deep, wrenching sobs the like of which Tyler had never heard before. He hovered by the sink, deeply unsettled, wanting to provide comfort and afraid to, in case Holden took it for something else.

Holden put his hands over his eyes, moaning in anguish and Tyler was galvanized into action. He moved forward, pulled Holden’s head against his chest and held him hard. Holden half pulled away before he abruptly slumped against Tyler and gripped him around the back with both arms. His shoulders shook as he wept.

“It’s okay,” Tyler said, stroking Holden’s silky hair. Holden felt thin and fragile in his arms. The irony was not lost on him that he was comforting a much older man who was crying like a baby. He held Holden until his tears started to slow, and then he lifted his head in his hands and looked down into his red eyes. Holden stared back at him with shame and misery written on every line of his face. “You’re brave to share this with me,” Tyler said in a whisper.

Holden tried a smile that came out as a grimace. “Now you can tell me how you lost your leg.”

“Sure. When you’re sober. You might fall asleep and I don’t want to have to repeat myself.”

They looked at each other for the longest time during which Tyler told himself that he didn’t want to never sleep with Holden after all. He couldn’t help his attraction. Didn’t want to help it, despite all those men who had gone there before. He stroked Holden’s cheeks lightly with both hands before he lowered his head and kissed him.

It was a bare brush of lips. He heard Holden’s shocked intake of breath and he tasted his tears, his loneliness and his anguish. He drew back to look at Holden and Holden looked back with wide eyes that told him the kiss wasn’t unwelcome. Tyler did it again. He touched Holden’s mouth with his own with the tenderness that maybe Holden had never experienced in his life, caressing it with gentle lips and feeling Holden’s hesitant response.

Once more Tyler eased back to look at Holden. This time he stepped back to lean against the sink because while he wanted so much more from the kiss—wanted to deepen it and feel Holden’s tongue touch his—this was enough for tonight, considering what he had just rescued Holden from.

“I should go,” he said.

Holden looked dazed. “Was it so bad that you need to run away?”

Tyler shook his head. “Far from it. I’m not running. I’m giving you the chance to get some sleep and ruminate on what we just did.”

“I think it’s more like you’re repulsed by what I just told you and don’t want to go where so many have before.”

“Don’t claim to know my mind,” Tyler said in a low voice. He gestured to his groin. “What does this tell you?”

Holden’s gaze focused on the erection straining Tyler’s shorts. “It tells me you should come upstairs with me right now. Or do me over this table. Your choice.”

Tyler dug his nails into his palms, striving for control. When it was put there on a plate for him, it was kind of impolite to turn it down. He swallowed and said, “How old are you today, Holden?”

Holden huffed. “Are you really going to use my age as an excuse to turn me down?”

“It’s kind of relevant. Answer the question.”

“Fifty,” Holden said. “How old are you?”

It was all Tyler could do not to gape. “Twenty-eight.”

“Great,” Holden said. “Just fucking great.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I’ve always liked a younger man, just so you know. Leo was fifteen years younger than me. I’ve never managed twenty-two years though. You should run a mile.” He stumbled past Tyler, going out into the hallway.

Tyler sighed because despite everything, he still wanted Holden and he wished he didn’t. He followed Holden and watched him climb the stairs unsteadily, holding onto the rail for dear life. He wanted to follow him. He wanted to undress Holden in a darkened room and lose himself in his body. Instead, he stood and let Holden walk away, before he let himself out the door and closed it behind him.

◆◆◆

Holden

Lurching unsteadily across the room and falling twice, Holden managed to strip his clothes off before he threw himself down on the bed. He replayed the kiss and the way Tyler’s grey eyes darkened and made an attempt at masturbation because it was his birthday damn it, and he hadn’t even got off. His cock was harder than hard but he couldn’t come. Maybe this was a sign of things to come. At fifty, things were clearly slowing down. Soon he wouldn’t need to worry about sex addiction because he wouldn’t have the capacity nor the desire. He closed his eyes and drifted away with tears still staining his cheeks.