10. Bastian

BASTIAN

I tossed and turned all night. Nothing inside could unravel the turmoil of the last three years, what was done was done. But if I couldn’t change the past, was this my chance to change my future?

Was now my opportunity to right all the wrongs?

I was quiet while I ate my breakfast, while Lonnie and Ronnie fussed about with toast and bacon and scrambled eggs for everyone, telling a hungover Connie that throwing snowballs at people was hardly model Buddhist behavior and that after breakfast they’d be paying a visit to everyone in the choir to apologize, along with Maggie and Great Nan. Connie agreed and told them she needed to visit Benji first, then began chanting a mantra as though attempting to drown out Lonnie and Ronnie’s breakfast banter.

When they all eventually left the house, I was glad for some alone time.

I needed time to find the answers to the questions that kept me awake all night—

Like why was I really here?

How was I going to rewrite the future that lay ahead of me?

What was I going to say to Benji the next time I saw him?

Slinging my towel over my shoulder I headed for the bathroom and ran a shower. I undressed and eased myself into the shower recess, standing under the warm stream of water as I let the cascade caress my body. My skin had a tendency to be delicate, and at times the water from a shower felt like steel wool, but today was a good day.

I looked around the bathroom, through the veil of steam that clouded the space. Years ago, when Benji and I were renovating the old Bixby mansion to turn it into our BnB, the Larson house was our home. Before all the pipes and plumbing were fixed at the BnB—at least to the best of my ability—the main bathroom in the Larson home became our bathroom, while Lonnie and Ronnie used the ensuite in the master bedroom. I had showered here countless times… and on many of those occasions, I was not alone.

I grinned at the memory of Benji sneaking into the bathroom with me while his parents were busy downstairs cooking the evening meal.

With a glimmer of mischief in his eye, he’d strip off his clothes and step into the shower with me. The recess was barely big enough to fit both of us, but that was the perfect excuse to squeeze together, our bodies pressed hard against one another, getting harder by the second.

I closed my eyes now, picturing those happier times.

I remembered turning around in the shower so he could play with my ass, gliding his soaked, sudsy fingers up and down… in and out.

I groaned now as I reached around to my ass with my left hand, while my right hand slid down to my cock, stroking my thick shaft with a sigh of pleasure.

My breathing became heavy.

My dick grew longer with each stroke.

Within seconds I was erect, my fist squeezing and tugging hard at my cock.

I rubbed the tender, engorged head of my dick roughly with my palm.

My finger played with the slit, already feeling the dewy beads of precum.

Meanwhile, the fingers of my other hand slipped inside my ass crack and found my passage. I began exploring my hole, the ecstasy building, my balls tightening, until suddenly—

“Ow! Ah, ah, ah! Fuck!”

A cramp gripped my left side, pain shooting through my entire torso.

“Fuck!”

This was not uncommon these days.

“Ah, ah, ah.”

I let go of my cock, eased my fingers out of my ass and carefully I straightened myself out, slowly stretching the spasming muscle.

My erection waned instantly.

I grimaced, annoyed that I’d come so close to orgasm with no fireworks.

My body was left sore and horny still.

For a moment I thought about giving it another go, jerking myself as hard as I could just to unload my balls and drain the tension. Fuck knows I needed a good release at that moment. But the mood was dissipating by the second, and before I knew it my horniness had simmered down completely, waiting to boil over again another time.

I turned off the shower.

I toweled myself dry, returned to the bedroom and dressed in jeans and a shirt, and slid my phone into my pocket.

I walked through the quiet, still house, down the stairs and into the living room. I sat on the floor in front of the record player and sifted through Lonnie and Ronnie’s record collection, before settling on another Christmas classic— Judy Garland’s “ Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas .”

I wanted my heart to be light.

I wanted the Yuletide to be gay.

I so desperately wanted my troubles to be miles away.

I stood and glanced through the doorway into the dining room and saw that Lonnie and Ronnie hadn’t yet decorated the dining table for tomorrow’s Christmas Eve lunch. I figured instead of moping around the house, I’d put myself to good use. I knew Ronnie kept the Christmas decorations in the attic, so leaving Judy Garland singing in the living room, I went back upstairs and climbed the steep steps to the attic door.

I turned the handle and pushed the door open, expecting to see the old sheet-covered rocking chair, the stacked boxes neatly labeled as Christmas Decorations, Family Memorabilia, or The Good China , and the baby bassinet Lonnie kept in the hope that one day she could hand it down to Benji if he ever started a family of his own.

But none of those things were there anymore.

Instead, the attic floor had been cleared of clutter, leaving nothing but an elaborate black hammock suspended in the middle of the room.

“Mmm,” I pondered. “What’s that?”

I walked across the attic floor to the hammock.

It didn’t exactly look like the most comfortable contraption I’d ever seen, although the leather straps looked very sturdy and the chains leading to the clasps and pulleys screwed into the ceiling beam seemed extremely secure.

“Mmm,” I uttered again, pulling at one of the straps to test its strength.

Chains jingled and the hammock seesawed invitingly.

Looking back, testing the contraption out proved to be a terrible mistake, but my curiosity got the better of me and before I knew it I was sitting myself down in the middle of the hammock.

I did so cautiously at first, but it seemed to take my weight effortlessly, so I relaxed into it.

I lifted my feet off the floor.

I lay back and let the hammock mold itself around me.

Then suddenly—

Click!

Clack!

Whoosh!

The entire thing seemed to come alive, wrapping itself around me as it spun about, its chains clinking and its straps snapping tight.

“Woah!” I shouted, my left arm suddenly caught in the tangle and yanked to the side.

With a loud Zzz-zzz-zzz , a strap whirred through a pulley in the ceiling, hoisting my legs up.

“Oh shit!”

Desperately I tried to untangle my left arm but without warning the entire contraption pulled in another direction, flipping me over onto my stomach.

As it did so, my phone slipped from the pocket of my jeans and fell to the floor beneath me, facing up at me as I stared helplessly down at it.

“Oh fuck,” I wheezed as another strap whizzed through a pulley, snagging my left ankle and yanking my legs wide apart.

I held my breath, face down in the contraption, swinging like a pendulum after the flurry of movement. In the seconds that followed, I waited for something else to hitch or twist or jerk or jolt. But when nothing did, I realized the hammock had finished adjusting itself.

I also realized that this was not a hammock…

And that I was, for all intents and purposes, completely bound and trapped in its grip, suspended three feet above the floor and swinging slowly from left to right, legs hoisted in the air and spread wide, one arm tangled and tied, and the other unable to pull me loose and free me from this awkward pose.

I turned my head to tried and look around the attic, in search of something, anything, that might help me get out of this predicament.

Only then did I notice all the toys and devices sitting on shelves or hanging from hooks on the walls.

Handcuffs.

Ropes.

Vibrators.

Blindfolds.

Butt plugs.

Ball gags.

Anal beads.

Choker leads.

Leather whips.

Nipple clips.

An enormous strap-on dildo, black and shiny.

And—

“Is that a gimp mask?” I asked myself, eyes wide as I took it all in. “I guess this isn’t where they keep the Christmas decorations anymore.”

Quickly I realized that my only chance of escape was to try and call for help.

Below me was my phone, my eyes focusing on it as I rocked slowly back and forth above it.

Pulling my right arm out from under me, I reached toward the device, my fingers outstretched.

As I swayed back and forth, I tried to grab it, but my fingers couldn’t quite reach.

I had no hope of picking it up.

All I could try to do was hit a button as my finger passed by the screen.

I swung left and managed to tap the phone awake.

I swung right and hit recent calls.

The last person I phoned came up on the screen—Benji.

I’d phoned him yesterday to invite him to dinner.

Shit, did it have to be him?

It was almost enough to make me change my mind, to not call for help, to try to wriggle my own way free.

I shimmied my shoulders.

My legs wrestled with the straps.

But it was no use.

Benji was my only hope.

How ironic that he was the only one who could possibly save me from the web of mistrust I’d woven.

Hell, he might as well be the one to save me from this web too.

I swung left again, and my finger hit the call button.

The phone rang… and rang… and rang, until finally it went to Benji’s voicemail.

“Hi, you’ve called Benji Larson, sole owner of Benji’s BnB. If you’re looking for somewhere to stay in Mulligan’s Mill, let Benji’s BnB be your home away from home.”

I sighed, thinking to myself, I didn’t want the BnB to be my home away from home…

I just wanted it to be my home. Our home. Period.

The beep sounded.

I paused a moment, then, fighting back my humiliation, I said—

“Hey… um… Benji. It’s me, Bastian. I’m so sorry to bug you but… uh… you’re kinda the only person I could call. I’m kinda stuck and I… I need help. Do you think you could come to your parents’ house. As fast as you can. I need you.” I realized if he came looking for me, he might not hear me calling to him, and quickly added, “Oh, I’m in the attic by the way. Please hurry.”

I swung right and with a flick of my outstretched finger I ended the call, murmuring to myself again, “Please hurry.”