Millennium - 11. Chapter 11

November 12, 1999

 

It was a tired bunch of guys that piled out of the car at Kapalua. I’d bought a big villa here a couple of years ago with plans to rent it out, but I’d changed my mind. I didn’t need the money, and I liked having my own place. That way, I could keep all of our surf gear, from boards to wetsuits, safely stored for when we needed them, and I didn’t have to worry about hiding away my other possessions so they wouldn’t be accessible to renters.

“This place is tight!” Jordan said as we walked through the front door. Will and Jason had been here before, so they really didn’t give a shit. They just ran to claim the best rooms, besides mine, that is.

“I’m glad you like it,” I said. “Let me give you the tour.” I showed him the whole house, all five bedrooms, dining room, great room, and the lanai, along with the pool, probably the most striking feature. Its invisible edge gave way to the coast, making it look like one could swim from the pool straight on out into the Pacific Ocean.

“Dude, I have never seen such a sweet house. Thanks for inviting me here.”

“No problem,” I said. “Your parents were cool with you coming?’

“I’m over 18. I don’t need their sign-off to go places,” he said indignantly.

“Hey, just asking,” I said. He picked the room right next to mine, but I tried not to read anything into that. I went down and checked up on Will and Jason. They were hanging out, playing on the PlayStation system that we’d left here. There was a nice patio right outside my bedroom with a hot tub. I stripped off my clothes, grabbed my dugout and a lighter, and went outside to relax.

I let myself sink into the hot water, letting the warmth relax my muscles. I packed a bowl and took a hit, letting the smoke linger in my lungs, and then I exhaled. Two more hits from the pot I’d brought with me, the stuff we grew at Escorial, and I was really stoned and really relaxed.

“Looks nice,” Jordan said, scaring the shit out of me. He laughed. “Sorry to rattle your cage, dude.”

“No big,” I said. “I was just kicking back.”

He spotted my dugout. “I thought I smelled something magical.”

I laughed and handed it to him. “Help yourself.”

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Not at all.” This was going to require a great deal of willpower.

“Let me go get my suit on,” he said.

“Um, I, uh, I didn’t know anyone would be out here. I’m not wearing one,” I said. If it would have been daylight, I’d have been as red as the flowers surrounding the patio.

“Righteous,” he said. He cracked me up. He seemed to have a whole stable of slang words, a lot of them from the past. He kicked off his flip flops and pulled off his shirt. I’d seen him shirtless before, but it was always a pleasure. He had a body carved from the surf, thin and muscular. He turned away from me and dropped his pants, giving me a fleeting view of his cute ass. I felt my dick rising, and tried not to think about fucking him. He turned around and walked into the water, giving me a frontal view. He had two nice shaved balls and a long flaccid cock that hung over them. I tried not to stare. “So you’re gay?” he asked.

“Yeah, always have been,” I joked.

“Not me. Nothing like a hot babe to get my blood flowing,” he said wistfully as he lay back in the tub.

“To each his own,” I joked. I packed him a hit and handed it to him, along with the lighter. “I’ve fucked women before.”

“You didn’t like it?” he asked.

“Yeah, it was nice. I mean, Will’s here, so that pretty much shows I’m not a virgin.” He laughed. “I just like guys better.”

“Dude, the thought of a guy sticking his dick up my ass, there’s no fucking way. Why do guys do that?”

“For a lot of them it feels really good,” I told him. I was hard as a rock now.

“That would fucking hurt. And it would be pretty gross too.”

“You ever had a girl stick her finger up your ass?” I asked. “Like when she was blowing you.”

“Fuck no.” He looked at me. “Why?”

“There’s a gland there, your prostate. If someone plays with it, it can feel really good. Some guys can cum just by having someone play with it.”

“No shit? Really?” It was funny to watch him think about it and squirm. “You do that shit?”

“You mean fucking other guys, or being fucked by them?” I asked.

“Both.”

“If you like to fuck guys, you’re a top. If you like other guys to fuck you, you’re a bottom. If you do both, you’re versatile. I’m versatile, but I like topping better,” I told him. I was being pretty candid, probably because he was really hot and I was really stoned. “But most gay guys like to give head.”

“What about you?” he asked. “You like to give head?”

“Fuck yeah. And I’m good at it,” I told him.

“What if I said I don’t believe you,” he said, flirting.

“There’d only be one way to prove you wrong,” I said, flirting back.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. I moved forward and ran my hands up the insides of his thighs until I got to his crotch. I let my left hand play with his balls, and moved my right hand up and grabbed his dick. He was a big boy. Seven inches, but normal thickness. He scooted to the edge and used his arms to hoist himself out of the water enough to expose his cock.

I took it in my hand and studied it while I gently massaged it with my hand, then I licked the tip. He moaned. I smiled and slowly lowered my mouth onto it, making sure that I didn’t touch it until it hit the back of my throat. Then I closed my mouth around it and swallowed.

“Fuck!” he cried, and started shooting. I smiled to myself, thinking that I’d brought this kid off just by taking his dick in my mouth, but then again, he was 19, so that’s not really saying much. When he was done, I let him flop out of my mouth and he sunk back into the hot tub. He gave me a really nervous look, the same look Klip had given me.

“Dude, a mouth is a mouth. Just because I sucked your dick and you liked it doesn’t mean you’re gay,” I said.

“Sure it does,” he insisted.

“You want me to fuck you up the ass?” I asked.

“Fuck no!” he almost yelled.

“You want to fuck me up the ass?”

“No,” he said, a little less definitively.

“Wanna make out?”

“Not really,” he said.

“If a girl walked by, would you stay here and fuck me, or would you go fuck her?”

“I’d go fuck her,” he said.

“Dude, you’re not gay, you’re just horny.” He looked at me, kind of quizzically, and then smiled.

“Always,” he said with a cocky air.

“Look, Jordan, it was fun getting you off. I enjoyed it. I don’t want you to be freaked out by it or anything. You want me to blow you, I will. But I’m not gonna hit on you. I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

He seemed to think about it. “Nah, I’m cool. Besides, that felt pretty fucking good.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t even let me stick my finger up your ass,” I teased.

“That’s not happening,” he said firmly.

“Your loss,” I told him. It was pretty funny to see him think about that.

He got out of the water, giving me a look at his magnificent young body. “I’m going to bed. You can come tuck me in if you want.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said. I dried off, got ready for bed, and now that Jordan had already blown his load once, the second time he lasted a lot longer, and he liked it a lot more.

 

November 13, 1999

 

Today had been pretty stressful for me. Will had started at breakfast, started begging me to go to Jaws. Then he’d gotten Jason and Jordan convinced to go too, and I finally caved. Jaws is known for being a badass surf spot. It’s got some monster waves, especially this time of year, and it’s really dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. But Will was damn near a pro, and Jordan’s the guy that helped get him there. Jason was good too. There weren’t any real professional grounds for me to say no, so we went.

Part of it was really exhilarating. I caught a fifty-foot wave, the fucker had my ass but I carved it up and came out fine. But part of it was scary as hell, to see my son and his friends, whom I’m responsible for, braving these monster waves. It pretty much killed my buzz. I think if it had just been Will and me, I might have been better with it, but in reality, I’d probably only really enjoy Jaws when I went there myself. I talked them into taking a break for lunch, and then we hit the calmer but still lively beaches around Kapalua.

The one good thing about all that stress is that it kept me from thinking about Robbie all day. It was only now, when I was here in the hot tub with my dugout, and I was alone, that he popped back into my mind. The more I unwound, the more I thought about him. He’d be in Palm Springs, staying at a nice hotel, fucking Carson’s brains out and taking him and his mother out to dinner and shit. She’d think he was Carson’s boyfriend, and they’d act like a couple. Fuck, they didn’t have to act, they were a couple.

Right now they were probably back in their hotel room. Robbie was slowly fucking Carson, and Carson was moaning, and in between moans he’d tell Robbie that he loved him, and Robbie would tell Carson that he loved him too. And they would both be telling the truth. I dunked my head under the water to let the Jacuzzi jets drown out my thoughts and to let the water wash away my tears. When I came up, I made a solemn pledge to myself. If Robbie and I got through this and ended up together, this was his last chance. If he did this shit to me again, he was out of my life. No way would I go through this pain again. December 3, he was going to either give up his boyfriend, or move out. And if he stayed, we were committed, completely and totally.

I thought about how I’d handled this whole thing, and I had to give myself kudos for being a lot calmer than I could have been. It was quite possible for me to end up hating him, and it was quite possible for me to decide to ruin his life. I was capable of doing both. He was too nice of a guy to beat me at that game. This thing we were setting up, this plan to destroy Amphion, it would be pretty easy for me to work something like that out to nail him. Then I stopped and thought about that for a minute. What if these past two movies, these big flops, what if those were intentional? What if the same person that was gunning for me was trying to take Robbie down too? I felt the adrenaline surge through my system.

What if someone wanted to destroy me? What would they do? First of all, they’d take Robbie away from me. Then they’d take away my resources, my money. Attack my family. Take away my pride. All of these things would do it. Were Robbie’s flops a coincidence or a well-planned scheme to destroy him so he’d leave me? And if it was, who was involved in it? Who were the players in this game? I felt panic almost overtake me, but I took another hit from the dugout and forced myself to relax. I was about to give up when Jordan came out with only a towel wrapped around his waist. When he got to the hot tub he tossed it off, exposing his naked body and his hard dick. He stepped into the water and stood in front of me, his dick level with my mouth.

I smiled up at him and opened my mouth, and he pushed his dick in. This time, he was in charge. He grabbed my head and started fucking my mouth. I put my fist around the base of his dick to regulate his depth, and then I let him go. He didn’t last long. He slammed into my mouth maybe ten times, then he blew. When he did I let my fist off, taking him as deeply as I could while I swallowed his load. “Damn,” was all he said.

We sat in the hot tub, just soaking and bullshitting about our surfing day. I’d grown used to his rhythm. About 15 minutes after he’d blown, he’d be ready to go again. I looked at the clock on the wall, and it hit 14 minutes, and I felt his foot on my leg. “Someone’s horny tonight.”

“Dude, I’m always horny,” he said, making me laugh. I could remember those days. He lifted himself out of the water and I moved in and took his dick in my mouth. I went really slowly, to tease him along. He was with me, really into it, when I grabbed his ass firmly with both hands, then let go with my right hand and used it to run down his crack and across his hole. He gasped, but then tightened his cheeks, as if the pleasure was somehow bad. But I kept stroking, and eventually he loosened up and let me play with it. I just teased him with my finger, not doing any penetration.

I pulled off of him. “Do you trust me?” I asked.

“Why? What are you gonna do to me?” he asked nervously.

“Do you trust me?” I asked again. “Have I hurt you yet?”

“No. OK. I trust you dude, but don’t even think about trying to fuck me.”

I laughed. “Not even in my dreams. Now turn around.” He looked at me nervously. “Turn around,” I ordered. He turned around slowly, nervously looking over his shoulder. I spread his cheeks apart and there, in front of me, with the light of the hot tub dancing across it, was his cute little pucker. Before he could think about it, I dove in, flicking my tongue all around it. He freaked out, tried to squeeze me out, tried to push me away, but I held on tight until I heard him moan, and then relax. Now he was into it. He bent over, giving me complete access, and I tongued him like a pro.

“The finger thing,” he panted. “Is that good? Will it hurt?”

“Not if you relax,” I told him. I focused on getting as much spit on his hole as I could, then I took my index finger, licked it, and pushed gently into him. I used my left hand to play with his dick, to keep him preoccupied. I thought he’d be a pussy, that he’d make me stop, but once he decided to go for it, he let me push in all the way. I found his hard little prostate and started to play with it, finding out what he liked. Fuck, he liked everything.

“So fucking good,” he moaned. Now he was fucking his ass back into my finger, demanding his pleasure. I felt his cock in my hand harden even more, as if that was possible, and then, with only the slightest stimulation, he blew. Holy shit. He came unglued. He screamed, he howled, and he came forever. I kind of just stared at his ass, amazed. When he was done, I slowly pulled my finger out, and he collapsed into the hot tub.

“I guess this makes me a fag,” he said, almost crying.

“Dude, you are a fucking idiot,” I said. “Just because playing with part of your body got you off doesn’t mean you’re gay. Find a babe to do that. She’ll be into it when she sees how hard you cum.”

“No fucking way I’m asking a chick to stick her finger up my ass,” he said despondently.

“Alright, then do this. Buy a butt plug, or one of those small toys they make just for men’s asses. Then when you fuck her, it will hit your prostate. Can you imagine how good she’ll think you are if you cum like that for her? Dude, you’ll get a reputation.” It was fun to watch him think about it as I talked, and to watch his grin grow bigger.

“Where do I get one?” he asked.

“Online. Or at an adult bookstore. If I see one, I’ll pick it up for you,” I told him. We dried off after that and went to bed. A couple of hours later, Jordan woke me up and made me finger him again. Then in the morning, he was begging me to do it again. I’d created a monster.

 

November 14, 1999

 

I looked at the clock and it was 6:30pm. Robbie still wasn’t home yet, even though it was almost dinner time. I’d avoided calling him, and instead I’d decided to have a few drinks to relax me and ease the tension. It was not a good idea. I finally decided that I needed to eat one way or the other, so I called him.

“Hello,” he said nervously as he answered the phone.

“Hey, where are you?” I asked pleasantly.

“I’m, uh, I’m in LA.”

“Where in LA?” I asked.

“Uh, I’m at the office,” he said nervously.

“When did you get back?” I asked.

“A bit ago,” he said.

“Well, it’s almost dinner time. When are you coming home?”

“I, uh, I’m not sure I can make it home in time,” he said. I heard him cover the phone.

“Why not?” I asked. “We had a date. You breaking it?”

“It’s not like that,” he whined.

“Not how you win someone back, Robbie. Not how you win someone back,” I said in a scolding tone.

“Christ, Brad, it’s just tonight,” he whined.

“Oh, so you’re staying overnight too? Give me the address, I’ll send your things over,” I said.

“What?” he demanded.

“Give me the address. I’ll have your things shipped over. Then you won’t have to feel obligated to come back to Malibu at all.” I was drunk and I was pissed, and this was one thing I wasn’t going to deal with. I’d done that with Neil.

“Fine goddammit. I’ll come home.”

“Good. Keep that attitude and you can pack your own shit up,” I said, and hung up the phone. I went to the bar and made myself another drink. I was so pissed off, I figured drinking would help either calm me down or ease my pain. Then I realized I was hammered. I went upstairs and took a quick shower, trying to sober up, but it didn’t quite work. Robbie was just walking in the door when I came downstairs. He glared at me, about to give me shit, until he saw the look on my face.

The rage that had been building up finally broke when he shot that attitude at me. I grabbed his shirt and slammed him up against the wall, freaking him out. “I don’t give a fuck if we’re together or not together, here’s the deal. You never, ever even think about standing me up when you make plans to meet me. NEVER!” I screamed. He looked scared shitless. “Do you fucking understand me?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“Well it is. It’s bad enough you treat me like shit, toss me out like I’m yesterday’s fucking paper. The least you can do is pretend like you want to spend time with me.” Slowly, all of my constraints broke away. “You did the same thing with Neil, remember? You promised to come up to Connecticut, and then you reneged. It’s the same thing, the same fucking pattern.”

“You’re drunk, and I’m not putting up with this shit,” he finally said. “Fuck this. I’m out of here!” He headed for the garage. And then I lost it. I followed him out there, grabbed the sledgehammer from the work bench, and swung it into the windshield of his Ferrari. It stuck there like a grotesque thing, with the glass all around it shattered. “FUCK! Look what you did to my car!” he screamed.

Something about the way he reacted fueled my anger even more. If this car was so fucking important to him, let him give it up. I slammed my foot into the fender hard. I don’t know if I hurt it or not, but it sure as fuck hurt my foot. “Knock it off, goddammit!” he screamed, and started chasing me around the car. I ran in front of him, slamming my fists into the side as I went. Finally, I went to kick one of the fenders and I slipped and fell. I felt myself falling, then my head hit something, and the world went completely blurry.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck. You’re bleeding,” Robbie said. I heard him screaming for help, and then he ripped my shirt and held it to my head.

“What is it?” a voice said. It sounded like Jeanine.

“Call 911. Brad cracked his head open,” he said. I tried to look at him but he was blurry. Then there were two of him. Then he was blurry again. “Fuck.” He ripped off more of my shirt and held it against my head. “You stupid son of a bitch,” he said to me. “You fucking son of a bitch. I should let you lie here and bleed to death.” He turned to look away, and then turned back. “You messed up my car. My new fucking car! You dented the whole fucking thing!”

“People can hurt. Cars can’t,” I said, for some stupid reason.

“Shit,” he said, but a little less pissed off. “Here let’s see if we can stop this bleeding. Just lie still.” I grabbed his hand, and he tried to pull it away, but I wouldn’t let go. I really was at the edge of my sanity, and I really didn’t know why. It wasn’t like me to completely lose it like this. I hadn’t done this since I’d come back from Yosemite and found Jake in our house, and in Robbie’s room. Of course, I hadn’t been drunk then. I really needed to get a grip. Now I’d really fucked us up. I felt tears in my eyes and I was such a mess all I could do was lie there, bleeding and crying. “It’s OK, Brad, you’ll be OK,” Robbie said, soothingly now.

“Sorry. So sorry,” I managed to mumble. I was drunk and I was so groggy. He was there, but he didn’t say anything. “No?” I asked.

“What do you mean no?” he asked me back.

“Forgive me?” I pleaded. I sounded pathetic. I willed my body to pass out so at least I’d shut the fuck up.

“Yeah. It’s OK. I’ll get it fixed. You have to pay for it though,” he said. Was that a smile? I tried to smile back. The ambulance got there and they put me on a stretcher. He tried to let go of my hand but I had him in a death grip.

“I think he wants me to go with him,” Robbie said jokingly to the paramedics. They let him. I held his hand firmly all the way there. We got to the hospital and they wanted me to let him go, but I couldn’t.

“It’s OK, Brad. I’ll be here, I promise,” he said. “Just like you were for me.” I felt myself smile, and then they wheeled me off.

I guess they put stitches in my head, I don’t really know much of what they did, but I did remember that I threw up in the middle of the procedure. That really pissed them off. It seemed to take forever, and they weren’t very nice to me, but somehow I ended up all fixed up, more or less, in a room with an IV in my arm. There must be some pain medicine in the IV, but it wasn’t enough to cure my headache.

I looked up and saw Robbie. “The doctors hate me,” I told him.

“Well, you puked on them when they were stitching you up,” he said, trying not to laugh. “What do you expect?”

“I can’t do this,” I told him.

“Can’t do what?” he asked, knowing damn well what I was talking about.

“I can’t be with you like this. I can’t give you the time, the three weeks. I can’t do it. It’s killing me. It’s eating me from the inside out.”

“I think we should talk about this when you’re better,” he said.

“We can, that’s fine,” I said. “But I’ll tell you the same thing, so at least you have a preview.”

“Did you have a good weekend?” he asked, changing the subject.

“No, I didn’t. Did you?”

“I don’t know. Part of it was good, part of it was bad.”

“Explain that,” I said.

“If I tell you, it will piss you off.”

“Well,” I joked. “At least I can’t hurt you now.” He snaughed, that unique noise he made, part snort, part laugh.

“I feel like I’m stuck between two drama queens: You and Carson. When I’m with you, he plays all these sad emotional games. When I try and talk to you on the phone, he tries to say things to piss us both off. When I’m with you, you make me feel like shit, knowing how much I’m hurting you, and you tell me I have to give him up.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Carson does that to you? I thought he was this really nice guy.”

“Well, he was, he can be, but he’s really insecure now,” Robbie said.

“Doesn’t he know the story? How can he be insecure? He knows we’re together,” I said.

“I know that, he knows that, but he’s pushing,” Robbie said.

“This doesn’t make sense,” I told him. “There’s more going on here than we’re seeing.”

“Brad, please let’s not start speculating about a conspiracy theory,” he said.

“Those two movies, those movies that flopped. Who made the pitch for you to do them?” I demanded.

“Do you have to bring that up and rub my face in it?” he asked, pissed off.

“I’m just trying to figure something out. Who pushed them?”

“Well, they go through a process, starting with...”

I cut him off. “I know how it works. But when it got in front of you, and you sat there with your inner circle, who thought it was a good idea?”

“Chris Allbright thought they were good, although he wasn’t as in love with the 13^th Warrior.” He went on to list the four or five people that sounded off on the projects, and it sounded like they were ambivalent. In that situation, it would have been Robbie’s call. “I thought they were good,” he said. “Even Carson thought they were good.”

“Carson liked them?” I asked.

“Yeah, he told me I should back them,” Robbie said. Then his expression changed. “Fuck you, Brad. That’s bullshit. Just because we are in this personal situation doesn’t mean you can come up with these wild-ass theories to try and frame the kid.”

“That’s not fair, and not reasonable,” I said. The pain medicine was wearing off, making me more coherent, but in a lot more pain. “The stakes here are high, really high. They’re high for you, for me, and for my family. You go ahead and stick your head in the sand. What if I’m right? What if I am?”

“You’re not,” he said.

“What if I am?” I insisted. “Robbie, listen to me. You only have one more chance. One more chance or they’ll run you out of town on a rail. What if I’m right? At least take some precautions.”

“You think I’m that stupid?” he asked, really pissed now.

“You let me get away,” I said. “I think that was pretty stupid.” I smiled, to try and make him laugh. It didn’t work, but at least I got a smile.

“What do you want me to do? What kind of precautions should I take?”

“Just ignore any recommendations he gives you. If he likes something, it should be a negative,” I said.

“That’s really not fair,” he insisted. “You’re saying I should ignore him just because of some wild-ass fantasy theory you’ve come up with?”

“What do you have to lose? You have other people around you who are much more experienced. They haven’t let you down in the past. Trust them. This time it’s too important.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“One more thing,” I exhorted. “Promise me; swear that you won’t tell Carson I told you this.”

“Brad, don’t you think I should ask him…”

“No!” I almost yelled. “No. You can’t do this. If I’m right, this goes beyond just you, and it impacts my whole family. Promise me. This one thing you have to do for me.” I saw him hesitate.

“Fine, I promise, I swear I won’t let him know you think he’s involved in some complicated plot to ruin my life,” he said.

“Robbie, please, be serious. This is important. You’re part of this family. We need you to do this.”

“I promise, alright. If I tell him, you can tell everyone I murdered Neil,” he said quietly so no one could here.

That was about the biggest promise he could give me. “I’ll take you up on that if you do,” I said so bloodlessly that I think he finally got how important it was.

He tried to blow it off, just to change the subject. “I think this is some drug-induced thing,” he said. “You’ll wake up in the morning and you’ll feel like an idiot.”

“I already feel like an idiot,” I said. “My life is in tatters. At least save yours.”

“Your life isn’t in tatters. You just have someone causing problems behind the scenes,” he said.

“I found out he went to high school with us,” I said.

“Cary Chase? We already knew that,” he told me.

“No, Cary Chase is just the front man,” I said. “The real power behind it went to school with us too.”

“Who is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Someone who really hated me, and probably hated you too.”

“That’s easy,” he said.