Ladies' Man - 11. Chapter 11a - Epilogue Part 1

Clem woke early. He always did, because twenty years of farm work in some capacity or other, even as a very small boy, had trained his body clock to be up and able before the sun was fully over the horizon, regardless of how tired he really was. Clem rolled onto his side and watched Ashlee sleeping, one hand curled over his chest, the other flung out across the mattress. His boyfriend was a messy sleeper, constantly shifting, rolling over and stealing the covers. It had taken Clem a little while to work out that if he wrapped the slender man in his arms, Ashlee would sleep soundly for most of the night. Now Ashlee made a little muttering noise, a sure sign he was dreaming, and Clem found his sleeping partner’s questing fingers searching for him. He held Ashlee’s hand in his own, marvelled at the tones of their tan and olive skin, so similar in colour and so different in their texture, then pulled the other man close. Ashlee murmured happily, and snuggled into Clem’s chest, and the big farmer held him tight.

“Mmm… mornin’, Sugar.”

“Hey you,” Clem brushed a strand of Ashlee’s silky hair away from his face, and was rewarded with a soft kiss, “you sleep OK?”

“Nervous,” Ashlee bit his lower lip, “big day today.”

“Don’t I know it,” Clem took a deep breath. “I should get up, we got stuff to do.”

“Uh-uh,” Ashlee clung to his chest, suddenly tense and strong as steel. “I ain’t getting’ out of this bed for the last time with morning wood,” he grinned salaciously, “an’ neither are you.”

“Is that so?” Clem rumbled, rolling onto his back, pulling Ashlee with him.

His partner straddled his hips and, already hard and full of pent up tension and desire, Clem rubbed his length in the furrow between Ashlee’s pert butt cheeks. He groaned, whimpering, and Clem could think of few better sights than Ashlee above him, hands in his hair, his whole body taught and tense and he bit the soft skin of his own bicep to keep from groaning. Clem found a tube of lube and pressed his hand between them, stroking Ashlee’s erection and the soft skin of his taint before tapping at his entrance. Ashlee opened up for him, and two minutes of stroking later, Clem groaned in pleasure as he slid deep into the familiar and welcome heat of his lover.

“Ohh, Sugar…”

“Damn… I could do this all day,” Clem grunted, thrusting his hips upwards.

“I ain’t gonna let you though,” Ashlee purred. He placed his hands on Clem’s hip bones and pressed him against the bed, “stay.”

“Yer such a tease…”

“Uh-huh. Stay.”

Clem loved and hated, in equal parts, being made to lie on his back, motionless while Ashlee rode him. It was a perfect blend of frustrating and infinitely pleasurable, watching the young man slide up and down on the long length of his hard cock, his own erection bobbing and slapping against his taut abdomen. Ashlee panted and whimpered, driving the pleasure between them, and Clem wanted nothing more than to reach out and wrap his hand around him and take back some control – but now was not the time.

Everyone said they were good together, from Madison at the diner to Riley at Four Corners Farm. At some point in the last three years, there was no one who hadn’t said that they were anything other than perfect for each other. Clem wondered if any of them knew quite how perfectly they suited each other in bed, trading power like kisses, and Ashlee always seemed to know exactly when Clem needed him to be soft and supple, and easily bent to his will. Likewise there were times when Clem wanted to be reminded that he had fallen deeply in love with a man who was one part vanilla toffee and two parts firecracker, and he relinquished control with a groan, gripping onto the headboard with white knuckles as Ashlee pushed them both closer to the edge.

“Babe!”

“Yes…” Clem hissed between his teeth, meeting Ashlee’s bright eyes, watching his muscles tense up as his orgasm overtook him. Ashlee moaned his name; his body going still as his erection jerked and splattered them both with his orgasm. Clem grabbed his hips, thick fingers digging into the firm flesh of his ass, and he emptied himself into his lover at the same moment Ashlee curled down to kiss him. With foreheads touching they blinked at each other, smiling gently, until the world came back into focus and Clem could hear again over the thunderous sound of his heartbeat.

“Well that was a pretty good way to say goodbye to this bed,” Ashlee grinned.

“I feel sorry for the poor guy who gets it next. I think we probably did some pretty permanent damage to it during the summer.”

Ashlee arched one perfect eyebrow.

“And whose fault was that?”

Clem kneaded his fabulous ass with one hand, and felt the memory stir at his libido.

“Well if you insist on wearin’ those damn tiny speedos…”

Ashlee wiggled against him.

“Again?”

Clem rolled the beautiful young man over and knelt above him with a triumphant grin. Ashlee purred back, becoming boneless and soft in his arms as Clem began to fuck him again. Clem smirked to himself: getting up in the morning was so much fun.

*

Their first morning together had set the tone for so many others, because Ashlee had rolled over, blinked one eye open, and then pulled the rather nervous and overly awake Clem down for a kiss hotter than fresh pancakes. They went for a shower after Ashlee had given him the most wonderful blowjob ever, and had sex again under the hot water before cuddling up on the sofa with bacon and pop-tarts. And ever since, Clem hadn’t wanted to let him go.

Had it not been for the fact that Ashlee had been as equally and obviously as into the relationship as he was, Clem would have spent a lot more time worrying about whether or not he was coming on too strong. But after Ashlee had opened the door to his apartment in a silk shirt and very skimpy all-lace panties, holding up skinny jeans in one hand and a layered frothy skirt in the other, asking for his opinion, Clem had known that the beautiful young man was just as open and invested as he was. Ashlee had worn the pretty skirt and a crisp edged denim jacket with flat metal studs on the collar, to the tailgate party, where he had confused everyone, and driven Clem half out of his skull with lust.

Madison had once again been extremely jealous.

“You must have the nicest wardrobe!” She had pulled Ashlee away from his boyfriend with a grin and gasp, “Clem, I have to borrow him!”

“Um…” Clem hadn’t been able to get the words out fast enough, and two minutes later was sipping a beer on the tailgate of his big Ford truck, resigning himself to the fact his friends were probably saying all sorts of things about him to his new boyfriend. Grayson had hopped up and joined him.

“We are but tools for their amusement, huh?” He gestured with his own long necked brown glass bottle to where Ashlee, Sukie, and Madison stood together in a loose circle, laughing happily and talking about things Clem wasn’t sure he would understand even with a dictionary. “How you doin’ friend?”

“I keep wonderin’ how I got this lucky,” Clem admitted, feeling only faintly guilty for talking about Ashlee to someone as the young man’s bright eyes flashed across at him. “Does it ever go away?”

“God, I hope not,” Grayson smiled knowingly. “Me an’ Sukie been together since junior year, an’ she’s still findin’ ways ta surprise me.”

“I don’t ever want him to leave.”

Grayson looked between them, and clapped Clem on the shoulder with a big hand.

“From the looks tha’ boy is givin’ ya, I don’t think he ever will.”

Clem looked levelly across at his new friend, and clinked their drinks together with a grin. He liked Grayson, and the other man seemed honest, open, friendly, and completely accepting of Clem and Ashlee both. Clem didn’t think he could have found a better ally.

“So how did you end up in Lockhart? Didn’t you guys say you lived in Shereveport?”

“S’all because of Sukie really.” Grayson shrugged, “she comes from horse people, an’ when she heard of opportunities opening up for English ridin’ out here, she wanted ta come. I can do construction anywhere, so it seemed like a grand idea,” he laughed, “looks like I was right too.”

“Construction?” Clem asked. “You’d better not be stealin’ all my fence fixin’ jobs.”

“Think bigger, friend,” Grayson slapped his shoulder. “I can help you build a house one day, or a barn if you need it.”

“Huh…” Clem arched a surprised eyebrow.

“Which don’t mean I can’t help you put up a corral fence if ya needed a hand. Uh-oh…”

“What?” Clem glanced across to where Grayson was looking, because Sukie was striding towards them with her hips swaying from side to side. Ashlee wasn’t far behind.

“I know that look, she’s gonna make me step on her toes…”

“Hey Sugar,” Ashlee took Clem’s hand with a grin, “c’mon.”

“Is this a good idea?” Clem allowed himself to be pulled from the truck without any real protest, because Ashlee’s touch sent shivers up his spine. The beautiful young man smiled.

“Well, someone’s gotta teach you how to dance!”

Clem had never been a good dancer, still wasn’t, but it was fun to watch Ashlee swirl around him, and catch the pretty young man to place kisses wherever he could.

After the party, Clem saw Sukie and Grayson around a lot more often, and Ashlee and Madison became fast friends, and it became not unusual for Clem to get simultaneous texts from both her and his boyfriend to let him know there would be lunch, pie, and kisses available at the diner. Clem got used to dropping all his tools in the middle of the day in order to high-tail into town and spend a blissful hour with the man he loved in good company. Every day off he had, Clem drove the thirty-two miles into downtown Austin, and he and Ashlee would eat out at cute diners and fancy restaurants, drinking in neighbourhood bars in the afternoon when Ashlee didn’t have work, sharing onion rings and peanuts. Ashlee seemed to know every decent place in town, regardless of the specific clientele they catered for, and when Clem’s birthday rolled around he found himself and all his friends in one of Austin’s better warehouses, whooping and hollering for a roller derby team Clem had previously never even heard of. They’d gone for dinner afterwards, and Clem realised that he’d never had a sit down meal with most of the people in his life, because they’d all been too busy making out in the back of trucks and drawing Sharpie moustaches on David when he passed out before midnight.

Clem had passed Nathan Cole and his shiny Chevy Silverado on the street a day later, and it had taken him a whole minute to recognise the man with whom he’d once occupied a bed. By the time spring rolled around and the lambs were being born, Clem couldn’t even remember how his life had been before Ashlee was in it.

*

Ashlee closed the lid of the box and pressed his hands over the cardboard flaps with a satisfied smile.

“Is that the last of it?”

Clem scooped up his fallen John Deere ball cap and set the brim over his eyes. This one was newish, because the last had developed a tear where Wilson had used it as a chew toy, and Clem had admonished the spaniel by not letting him ride up front in the truck for a whole week. He stared around at the empty room which had once contained the little bits of his life.

“Yeah, I think so. All the furniture belongs to Riley, so…” He took a deep breath, and Ashlee made a concerned noise in the back of his throat. “No, it’s alright. I’m OK.”

Ashlee had cried when he’d handed over the keys to his apartment, and Clem didn’t blame him. Ashlee had lived in his place for not quite a year before he and Clem had met, and all over the apartment were the signs of the two of them together: Clem’s clothes lying a in a heap at the bottom of Ashlee’s wardrobe, his good boots parked by the door, a toothbrush and a razor lying next to the pink handled razor Ashlee used – apparently it had moisturizing properties, something which Clem still didn’t fully understand. Ashlee was big on photographs, and they had spent a whole afternoon packing up all the photo frames, remembering the days and dates each picture had been taken on. Clem’s favourite was one he’d snapped of Ashlee one morning on his way out of the bathroom, with nothing but a long towel around his waist and a surprised smile. The young man had fought him for the camera until he had discovered Clem wasn’t in the least ticklish, and the big farm hand had instead pinned him to the bed and screwed him until they were both newly sweaty and in need of more showers. Ashlee said that all the pictures with Clem in were his favourites, but Clem knew the one he kept by his bed was the one he loved the most. It had been taken in the summer, one long and sunny afternoon when there had been nothing to do but listen to the crickets singing down by the riverbank. Ashlee had taken it, sneakily Clem thought, because there he was, sat on the back of his truck, boots hanging in the hot dead air. He wasn’t posing, just smiling gently, content and happy. Enough people had told him, that now Clem knew he smiled like that nearly all the time.

Clem didn’t cry as he hefted the last box of stuff onto his shoulder, and stepped over the threshold to his house for the last time as the man who lived there, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t upset. Only after he set the box down in the back of the truck, did he turn and wrap his arms tightly around Ashlee, pulling his boyfriend against his chest. Ashlee stroked the back of his neck softly, and kissed his shoulder.

“Excited?” Clem grunted in agreement. “Bit sad though too?” Clem nodded silently and pressed his face into the curve of Ashlee’s collarbone “We had some good times, eh Sugar?”

“Yeah we did.”

It had come as a surprise to Clem that Ashlee was willing to spend more than his fair share of time out at Four Corners Farm. It wasn’t that Clem didn’t like the city, but his job required his presence outside of the normal nine to five hours most other people worked, and it was harder for him to get away just for the evening, especially in the spring and summer when there was so much work to be done. Clem was unable to count the number of nights in the last three years that they had spent together on the couch, laughing at the television, reading books, cooking, eating, and having sometimes wild and often awesomely romantic sex in the big bed and everywhere else as well. Even though Clem was pleased with the circumstances under which he was leaving, it still hurt to think of departing the home he had lived in for the past six years. And even though the time worked out pretty equally, there was a lot more of Ashlee at the farm than there had ever been of Nathan Cole.

Ashlee’s car sat next to Clem’s big and dusty truck, looking sleek and out of place. His lover had traded in the Volkswagen Beetle for a Fiat, but the car was still a soft top, still cornflower blue, and still adorably well suited to Ashlee. Currently both car and truck were as full as they could be with everything the two young men owned.

“I can’t believe that’s everything we’ve got.”

“I still can’t believe that neither of us actually owns any furniture,” Clem sighed, one eyebrow raised. It had come as a surprise to him that Ashlee’s place had come furnished, and the only furniture he owned himself was a small three drawer dresser and the foldable wardrobe. They had enough cookware to keep a moderately skilled chef happy for life, but were facing the slightly irksome proposition of spending the night without a bed.

“We’ll manage somehow, Sugar. What else is there left to do?”

“I gotta go to the house, hand over my keys. You wanna come?”

“I’d better,” Ashlee slipped his hand into Clem’s own, “don’t want you gettin’ accused of bein’ rude again do we?”

The first time Ashlee had turned up early to the farm in the evening, Clem had stepped into the kitchen to ask Mrs Riley if it was alright if he missed out on dinner. She had been horrified to find that he had left his new boyfriend standing on the porch, un-introduced, and hadn’t thought to invite him in for dinner as well. Truly admonished, that night Clem had sat in his usual seat with Ashlee next to him, the young man the absolute centre of attention for everyone at the dinner table, and though he had correctly assumed Old Man Riley would say something borderline offensive, he was immediately impressed with the way Ashlee took it in his stride. From that day on, Ashlee had a standing invitation for dinner at the Riley house, whenever he wanted.

Clem took off his boots on the porch for what felt like the last time and knocked on the doorframe as he entered the main house. He was reminded of the first day he had arrived, six years before, and though Riley hadn’t at that point decided to hire the twenty-one year old hand, he had introduced Clem to his wife and family, and asked him to park his truck and bags out front while he went to work. By the end of the day, Clem had been given a job for life, but he wasn’t staying that long.

“Mrs Riley?”

“Clem,” she beamed, “is this it?”

“Yes ma’am,” Clem smiled ruefully. A little part of him, the same part, strangely enough, that missed his parents, wanted to hold onto his key, run back to his house and put all his stuff back again, exactly where it had been before; but he resisted. “Thank you for having me for this long.”

“Oh Clem,” to his surprise, Mrs Riley took the key, and then hugged him hard. “Thank you. We’re gonna miss you, so will the farm, and you’ve been nothin’ but wonderful these last six years.” She wiped her cheek and took a deep breath, “but we gotta let each other go. There’s a big wide world out there, and now you two boys have got a piece of it for yourselves.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re a son of Four Corners, Clem; you’d best not be a stranger. Either of you,” she looked past Clem to where Ashlee stood, thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his only pair of bootleg blue jeans – and they’d been bought from a women’s fashion store – and smiled. “Take care of him for us, won’t you Ashlee?”

“Yes ma’am. And you can bet we’ll be back on a Sunday for your fried chicken too.”

“Good,” she hugged the slender man, “I’ll hold you to that. Congratulations boys.”

They thanked her again, and with his pockets feeling strangely empty, they walked back to where their respective vehicles sat, waiting for them. Ashlee clicked his fancy remote key and the soft top started to fold itself up automatically.

“Jealous?” he grinned at Clem. Ashlee had been proud as anything when he had bought it, his first ever car that was actually brand new when he got it, and though Clem had liked the Beetle well enough, anything that made his boyfriend happy was good with him. It had been Ashlee’s got-a-promotion present to himself after he had surprised everyone except Clem by going a different route. Instead of trying in vain to become a writer for the magazine like most personal assistant’s did and end up taking a big pay cut in the process, Ashlee had applied for and attained the vacant spot for Head of Marketing and Publicity at the magazine; a job which came with its very own corner office, a work schedule which did not involve him organising anyone’s life but his own, and a much fatter pay cheque.

“Nah, though I will miss watching you struggle to put it down though.”

“Mean!”

Clem checked they weren’t being watched from the house, and grabbed Ashlee’s butt with one big hand, making the other man yelp in surprise and a little bit of indignation and pleasure.

“Yer shirt would ride up when you did it,” he explained with a drawl. “It’s always worth watchin’ that.”

Ashlee spun as he walked, took two steps backwards and flapped up the hem of his t-shirt with a knowing grin. Despite the fact they had already spent more time screwing around than they should have, Clem could feel his libido stirring again. He growled it down, and swung himself up into his comparatively enormous truck.

“We jus’ gotta get the trailer, and it’s time to hit the road.”