Black Widow - 61. Chapter 61

 

September 14, 2003

Escorial, CA

Will

 

We’d been hanging out in the pool area with Gathan, Klip, and the other hockey players. It seemed like when you got a group together, at least one person would get wasted and make an ass out of themselves, but tonight was like the big exception. Everyone got pleasantly buzzed and seemed fine stopping there. I decided that part of that was because they were in this veritable palace and were on their best behavior, and the other reason was because they had their first practice tomorrow. We’d horsed around in the pool, played Marco Polo, volleyball, and done other stupid shit. That was fun, but probably wouldn’t have been worth staying up for if I wouldn’t have gotten to see Dillon in a bathing suit. He had a really nice body, one that was fit but normal. He wasn’t ripped like some guys - he wasn’t super-muscular like Zach - and he wasn’t like some big huggable cushion like Robbie had been. At the same time, he was. He had good muscle tone that bulged out in sexy places, like his pecs and his biceps, while the rest of the time it was largely hidden by his smooth skin. He had just enough padding to hide his abs, but not so much that he looked beefy.

After a while, everyone had gotten tired of the pool, so now we were sitting around on the patio in the pool area. We were all drinking, but no one had smoked cigarettes or weed, since smoking wasn’t allowed indoors. I didn’t know if Dillon did either one of those things. I listened as the conversation veered off to hockey, and more specifically, their hockey team, and while I loved to watch them play, I got bored hearing them talk about it. I looked at Dillon just as he yawned, and that made me chuckle. The more I got to know him, the cuter he was.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, as I stood up. “You guys have a good time.”

“Happy Birthday,” Gathan said again, and gave me a hug.

“One of the best ones I’ve had,” I said, because I’d had such a good time with all of them, especially Dillon. Klip gave me a hug too, and I shook hands with the rest of the guys.

“I’m going to crash too,” Dillon said. I left the pool area and paused to wait for him. He walked out, closing the door behind him, and when he saw me, he smiled big. “This time you were waiting for me.”

“Busted,” I said, chuckling. “You got enough energy to see a few important things?”

“Sure,” he said. “I was just getting bored listening to them talk about how good they were on the ice.”

“You’re lucky Matt isn’t here anymore,” I said, since he was a pretty big grandstander. I had to stop and explain who Matt and Wade were, even as I led him through the tunnel to the gym.

“Dude, this is un-fucking-believable,” he said, as he took in the tunnel and then the gym.

“Real estate is really expensive in the Bay Area, so Grand built this annex so our staff members would have a place to stay,” I explained. “He linked the two buildings with the tunnel, and put this gym in at the same time.”

“This is the bomb,” he said, even as he sat on one of the machines and started doing curls, bulging his biceps out in an incredibly sexy way.

“Keeps me in shape,” I said, which was true, even though that wasn’t the only thing I did to stay fit. “There’s a sauna and a steam room too.” His eyes bulged as I showed him how they worked. “Want to steam?”

“Sure,” he said. We went into the shower area to rinse off, and that earned me my first look at Dillon’s body. He had such a cute little ass, and a nice dick, at least when it was limp, but the hottest thing about him was his pubic hair, which was more red than blond, and looked like a beautiful golden halo around his dick. I looked down, horrified, to see that I was well on my way to getting hard, so I hurriedly grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist. He followed me into the steam room with a knowing smirk, but at least the heat and the steam hid my red face. I was kind of wondering if he’d sit on the top shelf so I could peek back and perve on him, but instead he sat next to me on the middle shelf. “This is awesome.”

We didn’t say anything while the steam sprayed out, we just relaxed and enjoyed the heat and the moisture. When it stopped, that seemed like a good time to start up a conversation. “A good way to unwind after a workout, or before I go to bed if I’m stressed out,” I told him.

“That why you’re in here now? You stressed?”

“Not even,” I said. “I just thought this would be a fun thing to show you.”

“I love it,” he said. We stayed in there until we got hot, then got out and headed to the showers.

“You can grab your suit and shower in my room if you want to,” I offered, since that’s what I was going to do.

“You sure?” he asked, worried that he was imposing.

“Yeah,” I said, making is sound like ‘of course’. “I’ll show you how the aromatherapy shit works. That way you can use it in your own shower.”

“Cool. I didn’t have time to figure that out before dinner,” he agreed. I led him back through the tunnel and down the halls, chuckling at how nervous he was strolling through this virtual palace wearing nothing but a towel.

“I had a really nice time this evening. Thanks for making me feel so at home. I was kind of freaked out about coming here after Klip talked about how awesome it was,” he said.

“Yeah, that happens,” I said, acknowledging that Escorial was a pretty impressive place. “I’m glad you got used to it. You’ll enjoy being here more that way.”

“Sure is different than my house,” he said.

“What’s home like?” I asked. I had never asked Klip about his family, not that we had a chance to have that many conversations anyway.

“My dad works at the University of Oregon in their finance office, and my mom’s a Realtor,” he explained. “I mean, we have a nice enough house, and all three of us have our own rooms, but it’s not like this.”

“Sounds cool,” since it sounded pretty normal. “What are your parents like?”

“My mom is this outgoing person, which you probably would have guessed since she’s in real estate. She does pretty well at it. My dad is just the opposite. He’s all quiet and reserved,” he said. “I’ve got another brother, Liam, who’s in between Klip and me in age.”

“What’s he do?” I asked.

“He goes to school at Oregon State,” he said. “He’s majoring in biology.”

“Sounds like fun,” I said with a grimace to show him that it didn’t sound like fun at all.

“No shit,” he agreed.

“What about you? What are you going to major in?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I’m only going to college because my parents are making me go.”

“Really?” I asked, totally stunned. “Not going to college was never an option for me.”

He shrugged. “Klip got looks and brains, Liam got brains, and I got looks.”

“Yes you did,” I said, smiling at him. He gave me a cocky look, since he knew he was hot. “So are you a total slacker?” I asked, expecting him to deny it.

“Pretty much,” he said. “Got in lots of trouble in high school for skipping class.”

“What did you do when you skipped?” I asked.

“Usually went surfing,” he said. “You probably don’t do that.”

“I skip school a lot, but I keep up with my work, so it’s not a big deal,” I said. I opened my door and gestured for him to follow me inside. “This is home.”

“Nice digs,” he said. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing at my rug.

“That’s a fake bearskin rug. Stef put one in my room in Malibu, and I liked it so much he got me another one for this room,” I explained.

“You have a big fucking room,” he said, as he checked it out.

“When I moved up here, Stef and Grand gave me one of the bigger rooms,” I said. “My uncle used to use it, but he moved out.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Italy,” I said, even though Ace spent a lot of time in Almaden as well. “Here’s the bathroom.”

“Dude, this is incredible,” he said, even as he looked around. It was a lot bigger than the guest bathrooms here at Escorial.

“Makes getting up in the morning a little easier,” I joked. I flipped a switch to turn on the heated floors and explained what they were.

“So warm,” he said, drawing attention to his feet. Even his feet were cute.

“Here, I’ll show you how the shower works,” I said, leading him through the glass door.

“You go first,” he insisted. I made to argue with him, but then changed my mind and decided to take a risk.

“It’s big enough for both of us, if you don’t mind,” I suggested.

He shrugged. “Fire it up.” I turned on the water, getting it warm, then shucked off my towel, while he did the same thing. I had to try hard not to look at his body.

“What fragrance do you want?” I asked.

“You pick,” he said. I chose eucalyptus because it seemed non-threatening. I shampooed my hair, using that as an excuse to close my eyes and not stare at him. It was probably not possible for me to finish this shower with him without having a raging hard on. I was kind of worried about that, but he’d been giving off some pretty big signs that he was interested in me. I guess this was the time to find out if he was.

I rinsed out my hair and opened my eyes, then turned to look at him as he finished lathering up his own hair. He stood under the water, leaning slightly forward to let the water run off his head over his face, which gave me an amazing view of his cute little ass. He turned around; his eyes closed, and leaned his head back to wash the shampoo off his head and down his back. I stood there frozen, watching him, because he was a vision of beauty. I’d seen pretty much all of him before this, but his dick was hard, and it was really nice. I guessed it was about seven inches but on the thicker side. It actually reminded me a lot of Tony’s dick, at least as far as size went. Only Tony had these veins on his dick that made it seem kind of like an inflamed monster, while Dillon’s cock was smooth and sleek, with almost no variation to its straight form.

I was conscious that his eyes were on me, and I felt myself blushing before I even looked up at him. I was so busted, there was no way I was going to be able to bullshit my way out of this one. “Like what you see?” he asked, with a shit-eating grin. I glanced down at my own dick, which was hard as a rock.

“Obviously,” I said, smiling at him.

“Dude, you’re fucking hung like a horse,” he said.

“You’re not exactly small,” I said. I moved closer to him, wondering if he’d pull away from me, only if anything, he moved in to meet me. Then our lips met, tentatively at first, then more intensely, as the passion built up at an incredibly fast pace. I felt his hand on my dick, even as I grabbed his, and it was one of the weirder sensations I’d experienced. It was like our lips were dancing together in such an awesome way that the other activity, like us stroking each other’s cock, was almost a sideshow. And then the sideshow took over as I felt my orgasm rising, then exploding all over his hand, even as I panted into his mouth.

After I was done, I spun him around, lodging my still-hard cock in his crack, and jacked him off while I nuzzled his neck. He came in almost no time at all, making these incredibly sexy whimpering noises. When we were done, we looked at each other a bit sheepishly, finished rinsing off, and grabbed clean towels, all without saying anything.

“I should probably let you get to sleep,” he said. I hadn’t really expected weirdness from him after sex, but I was used to that with other guys I’d been with, so I knew how to handle it.

“Stay,” I ordered. “At least for a while.” I decided the bed may be a bit too forward, so I led him over to the bearskin rug, flipped on the fire, and we lay down on the fake piece of animal skin on our sides, just looking at each other.

“That was fun,” he said, smiling nervously.

“Dude, that was awesome,” I said enthusiastically.

“Klip told me you were a lot of fun,” he admitted.

“How does he know?” I asked. “I haven’t fucked him.”

He laughed at that. “Good luck with that. He’s straight as an arrow.” I wasn’t sure that was true, since I was pretty sure Klip had hooked up with Wade, but I didn’t say anything about that.

“I’d rather have you,” I said honestly. I leaned in and kissed him again.

“I’m glad,” he said.

“So how’d you get your black eye?” I asked. It was the first time I’d said anything about it, but all the other guys had given him shit about it.

“Got into a fight,” he said, which was the same response he’d given everyone else.

“I figured that out, especially since that’s what you told everyone else,” I said. I just stared at him, challenging him to take the chance and tell me the story.

“You done much with other guys?” he asked. I blinked in confusion, because that wasn’t related to our prior conversation at all.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve known I was gay since I was pretty young, and in this family, that’s not a big deal.”

“Makes sense,” he said, chuckling.

“I think being out, so people know I’m into guys, made it easier for me to hook up with people,” I explained. “They pretty much knew I’d be up for playing around if they wanted to take a walk on the wild side.”

“I can see that,” he said, mulling that over. “I guess it’s like having a sign out in front of your business.”

“You make me sound like a whore,” I joked.

“Dude, you don’t need money, so I wouldn’t have suspected that at all,” he joked.

“What about you?”

“I had a girlfriend and a boyfriend,” he said sadly.

“Dude, you’ve got all the bases covered,” I joked.

“I had,” he said, emphasizing the past tense. “The guy I messed around with was my best friend, only he blew me off when he went away to school.”

“I’m sorry,” I said sympathetically. “That’s tough to deal with.”

“No shit,” he agreed. “My girlfriend found out about us, and that’s how I got this,” he said, pointing at his black eye.

“She hit you?” I asked, stunned.

“No, her brother did,” he said. “He’s pretty huge. I was lucky he did it when I had a bunch of friends around who could pull him off me.”

 

September 15, 2003

Tribeca, NY

JJ

 

“Hey there,” Carullo said pleasantly as he walked into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” I said evenly. We’d both escaped back to our rooms on Saturday night after dinner, and then he’d vanished on Sunday. I gave myself props for not acting totally irritated with him, even though I was.

“I went to New Jersey to see my mom yesterday,” he told me.

“I’m sure she enjoyed seeing you,” I said. What I wanted to do was rip him up and down for creating this bullshit situation with me and Luka, and then running away and hiding to avoid the problem. “You probably won’t see much of me this week.”

“Why?” he asked, and looked concerned, which would have been sweet if I thought he’d actually miss me if I weren’t around.

“It’s fashion week, and that’s a big deal,” I said. His oblique look was almost enough to exhaust my patience with him. How could he possibly not know how important this was? Did he live in a hole somewhere? “They have these big events twice a year. This kicks off the Spring fashion shows.”

“Kicks them off? What happens after this?”

“They have a show in London, Milan, and then Paris. Paris is always last. New York and Paris are usually the best,” I asserted.

“Are you going to all of them?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll make all of them, but I’ll probably get to Paris. I talked to Stef about going, and he seemed pretty excited about it, so maybe he’ll go with me.”

“You guys would probably have a blast there,” he said, trying to be nice and upbeat. “I gotta go. Don’t wanna be late to work.”

“Have a good day,” I said. He looked at me briefly, like he wanted to say something, then he hurried out the door, running away from me yet again. I rolled my eyes at his idiocy.

I was up early, at least for me, because I had to go to school this morning. I’d gotten approval to be out this week for the fashion show, but evidently it was absolutely vital that I appear this morning and turn in the report I’d been up last night working on. These people clearly had no sense of priorities, but I went along with their stupid rules, just like I’d done with the Figure Skating Association. So I went to school, got that done, and was just about to leave when I ran into Mary-Kate Olsen.

“JJ!” she said in her enthusiastic way and gave me a big hug. I didn’t really have all that many friends here in New York, or at least not many that were my age, but Mary-Kate and her sister Ashley were two of the few people I spent time with.

“MK!” I said back, mimicking her tone. “Why aren’t you at the park?” She and her sister were into the fashion scene, so I’d expected them to be at Bryant Park, where the show was being held.

“Had to meet with one of my former teachers,” she said. “I needed some advice for this movie we’re working on.”

“You’re doing a movie?” I asked, even though I probably should have known about it.

“New York Minute,” she said casually.

“Is that one of those cheesy twin movies you guys make?” I asked, giving her shit.

“That’s exactly what it is,” she said. “Pays the bills.”

“Let’s hope,” I joked.

“So why are you here, and not already at the show?” she asked.

“I had to turn some shit in,” I said grumpily.

“Ashley’s already there,” she said, then pretended to pout. “Didn’t even wait for me.”

“Bitch,” I joked. “You need a ride?”

“Beats taking a cab,” she said, agreeing.

“Or the subway,” I said, making both of us grimace. I led her up to the Maybach, where the driver was there to open the door for her.

“You travel in style,” she said, enjoying the beautiful car that was my personal cocoon here in New York.

“I do everything with style,” I joked, sort of.

“You do, you certainly do,” she agreed, which was sweet and validating. “Want to see what we’re working on?”

“Sure,” I said, which was unnecessary since she was already pulling out a folder with some sketches.

“Here’s our new line,” she said, showing me some drawings.

“Peasant blouses,” I mused.

“It’s not high fashion, but it’s supposed to be more affordable,” she said, being slightly defensive.

“Makes sense,” I said. “You think this Bohemian look is going to be the next thing?”

“I do,” she confirmed, “at least for the newer, hipper people. We’re thinking of younger people who live in the cities or ’burbs.”

I looked at the sketches carefully, which seemed to make her nervous, but after a bit, she seemed to get that I was just thinking about things. “I think your colors are too bright.”

“You don’t like the contrast between the peasant look and the bright cheerful colors?” she asked, also explaining their rationale.

“I’m not a big fan of the peasant look,” I said with a grin, joking about my own snobby wardrobe and getting a chuckle from her. “Seriously though, I’m just not sure if the bright look will appeal to the people you want to sell these to.”

“You don’t think they would appreciate some joyful color in their clothes to go with the peasant?” She was almost implying that the bright colors would make people happy about their shitty lives. I internally rolled my eyes. And people thought I was a snob.

“Look out the window,” I said, gesturing at the people, the common masses. “See many bright colors?” We looked out at them, and dark colors were overwhelmingly predominant.

“So you think we should change everything to black and grey?” she asked, frustrated.

“No,” I said patiently. “I’m not trying to criticize your idea, which seems pretty good overall.”

“I get that,” she relented. “I mean, I did show you these, which means I’m basically asking for your feedback.”

“Then I’ll give it to you. I think you should consider muting the tones. For example, this purple could work if it was a shade lighter, or what may even work better is to go darker and then fade it out.”

“Fading,” she mused. “That’s a pretty interesting idea.”

“I’m not exactly the expert on your target market,” I joked. “I’m not a former Disney princess.”

“No, you’re a former ice prince,” she said. “That’s just as bad.”

“Probably,” I grumbled. We got to Bryant Park, where things were pretty much organized chaos, and after that I was just absorbed into the flow of the show. I went to a bunch of shows, a dinner party, and then finally I was able to drag my tired ass back to the condo. I looked at my watch while I was in the elevator and noted that it was almost midnight. I sighed, thinking that the next few nights would probably run even later.

The condo was dark beyond the entry light, so when I peeked down the hall and noticed that Carullo’s door was open and his light was on, it cast a bright spotlight onto the otherwise darkened corridor. It sounded like he was doing something in there, like moving stuff around, but I ignored that and went into my bedroom and put all my shit down. I’d started out with my satchel bag, and then accumulated a bunch of gift bags throughout the day, so it was a relief to shed myself of all that crap. I thought about going to bed, but I was too curious about Carullo’s activity to not at least see what was going on.

I walked out of my room and down the hallway and peered into his room. He was wearing gym shorts and a tank top, both of which looked incredibly tacky after all the cool clothes I’d seen today, but also looked incredibly sexy on him. He was busy putting things into boxes. “Hey,” I said.

“You’re back!” he said. He came over and gave me a friendly kiss and a hug. “Long day?”

“You have no idea,” I complained. “Probably going to be like this all week.”

“Bummer,” he said. “Good thing you like it.”

“Good thing,” I agreed. “What are you doing?”

“I, uh, I got transferred,” he said nervously.

“Transferred?” I didn’t even know that was an option.

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “Our whole group is moving up to the headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut.”

“Where’s that?” Connecticut was close. Shit, people commuted from there into the city every day.

“It’s a little over 100 miles away, near Hartford,” he said. “Can’t really commute there from here. Trains don’t go there, and traffic is a bitch.” I could see his point on that.

“When did you find out about this?” I asked.

“There was a rumor a couple of weeks ago, but they confirmed it today,” he said.

“They told you today you have to move, and you have to pack up that fast?” I asked, thinking that was a little insane.

“No, we’re going to be going up there in about a month,” he said. “They’re going to bus us up there starting in a couple of weeks, then after a month we’re supposed to be in Bristol.”

“You’re so anxious to leave that you’re already packing?” I asked him, letting him see how annoyed I was. He knew me well enough to know that the annoyance hid how upset I was.

“No, but I was waiting up for you, and I decided to do something constructive,” he said.

“You were waiting up to tell me about this,” I concluded, more to work that through in my mind.

“Yeah, to tell you that, and to, uh…” he said, and then seemed to lose his resolve. “Never mind.”

“What?” I demanded, unwilling to put up with him dicking me around by leaving me in suspense. I briefly compared myself to my father, who hated secrets, and wondered if I was becoming more like him. That made my bad mood even worse.

“I wanted to ask you a favor,” he said, and stared at me boldly as he did. It was all I could do to restrain myself from offering an incredibly caustic and snarky reply, but if I did that, he’d just shut down on me, and I was too curious about what he wanted to let that happen.

“What do you need?” I asked calmly and evenly.

“I talked to Luka today,” he said.

“How is he doing?” I asked, pretending that I gave a shit.

“He’s pissed off at me, probably as bad as you are,” he grumbled.

“Maybe,” I said, but smiled slightly to make it a joke.

“You saw him at his job. He’s a waiter. But he’s also really into the fashion scene,” he said.

“I didn’t run into him today,” I said. Luka was a really handsome guy. I would have recognized him.

“No, but you probably will,” he said. “He’s supposed to be showing some of his designs.” I had no idea he was a designer, but then again, half the city seemed to think they were either in the fashion industry or show business. The fact that he was going to get the opportunity to show off his stuff was different, because if he totally sucked he wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity.

“When?” I asked curiously.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “So I know you’re mad at me, but I want to ask you not to take it out on him.”

“You care about him that much?” I asked him acidly.

“He’s a friend, like I said,” he replied. “So yeah, I care about him, and I want him to do well, and I don’t want my bullshit to piss you off enough to slaughter his career.”

“You think I’m that petty?” I demanded, acting all outraged, when I was, in fact, that petty.

“No, but I didn’t want you to be surprised, and I knew if I gave you some time to think about it, you’d treat him fairly,” he said, which was just so much wishful thinking.

“If anything, I should feel sorry for him for getting his emotions played with, just like you played with mine,” I snapped.

“You should,” he said sadly.

“If his stuff sucks, I’m not holding back,” I said firmly, “but I won’t go out of my way to sabotage him.”

“What if it’s good?” he asked hopefully.

“Then I’ll say it’s good,” I said. “Look, I put up with a lot of shit in the skating world, getting crap scores when I should have done better, and I also saw that happen to a lot of other talented people. I’m not going to shoot someone down unless I hate them, and I don’t hate Luka.”

He nodded. “Thanks.” I grimaced at how much he was annoying me, then stormed off to the solitude of my room, where I cried yet again over someone I’d been into who had totally blown me off.