The Pastel Cowboy - 13. Fuck Me, Part 1

They were lying on Zach’s bed facing each other, still fully clothed. Bruce was trying to act calm and cool, but it was more than obvious he was so nervous he’d likely shit his pants if Zach touched him. Zach was biding his time, though, waiting for Bruce to work up the nerve to kiss him because they both knew once that started nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to stop the inevitable. Only, Bruce wasn’t certain what was inevitable and Zach wasn’t about to push the issue. He had all the time in the world. He’d been there and now it was Bruce’s turn.

Zach looked back at the past few months and tried to imagine being a virgin, again, simply speculating on what it meant to be gay. He wasn’t all that certain, now, after those few weeks with Steven and then falling in love with Jeremy, who he’d probably never see, ever again, no matter what Sara thought she could do to change her grandfather’s mind. He’d been nothing more than a fancy hustler, believing Steven it was okay to sell your body, but, now, lying here with Bruce, instead of Jeremy, it had proven otherwise. Uncle David called him a whore and he was a filthy whore who was willing to be nearly killed just to have another guy’s dick spewing cum down his throat.

And, right at that moment, he wanted Bruce’s dick in his mouth feeling it swell and jerk as an orgasm shuddered through Bruce’s body. He wanted Bruce’s cum splattering onto his tongue filling his mouth until it dribbled out of the corners, just like it did when Jeremy sucked his dick and didn’t swallow fast enough. He loved licking his cum off Jeremy’s face, kissing his lover and tasting himself in that young mouth. He wanted Jeremy, but that was not to be.

Zach felt Bruce’s fingers on his face lightly touching his skin. The moment was approaching. It was just around the corner. Bruce’s wonderful lips would soon be pressed against his. Their tongues would be making love in their mouths swirling saliva across tender nerve endings. Bruce’s tongue was much longer than his, he’d noticed that in the men’s room at the bookstore, long enough to go down his throat just where he wanted Bruce’s dick when it erupted for the first time in another boy’s mouth.

His own dick would have to behave itself when Bruce went down on him because Bruce was going to go down on him. Bruce was going to taste cum today, so much cum it would dribble out of the corners of his mouth and Zach would lick it off his chin. They would kiss afterwards and Zach was going to taste his cum in Bruce’s mouth. This was going to be so perfect, an orgasmic explosion of hot, youthful sex.

The knock on the bedroom door startled both of them.

“Fuck! Now what?” Zach said as he sat up and saw the outline of Bruce’s very hard dick in his khakis. Oh, man, not now, he thought. “This better be important.”

“I can wait,” Bruce whispered.

“Don’t do anything with this until I get back,” Zach said, patting Bruce’s erection.

“Stop that or you’ll make me come right now,” Bruce said.

“I’d like to make you come right now,” Zach said as another knock could be heard at the door. “This better be very, very important.”

When he opened it, Zach saw a very disheveled Uncle David standing at the door. It looked like he hadn’t shaved yet or maybe in a couple days. His clothes were wrinkled like he’d slept in them for a week. It was a pretty good imitation of a street person, a mentally deranged street person knocking at doors looking for Emily who’d left his mind so many, many years ago.

“Yes?” Zach asked.

“Sorry to bother you,” Uncle David said, “but I need to talk to you. Are you busy?”

“Well, you know, me and Bruce haven’t seen each other in a while.”

“Oh, you’re entertaining someone.”

“Well, not exactly entertaining. It was getting to be a bit more than that. What do you need? Can’t this wait?”

“No, I need to talk right now before it’s too late. Please, can you come with me?”

Uncle David suddenly turned and walked away. Zach then knew he had been messing with his medications, again, trying to get his libido back on track, trying to be sexually responsive to Paul, who didn’t seem to be home at the moment.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Zach said. “Keep thinking good thoughts.”

“I’ll think of you,” Bruce said. “You’d better go see what he wants.”

“Yeah.”

Uncle David was gone from the hall so Zach had to look for him. He found him out on the balcony looking down twenty-five stories to the sweet gums along the street below. Zach wondered if this was a suicide attempt and if he was going to have to do something to stop his uncle from making a high dive into an imaginary swimming pool.

“You’re my favorite nephew,” Uncle David said. “I want you to know that. I want you to know I’m sorry for all the things I said to you recently. You’re young and young people make mistakes, it’s how you learn to be adults. You’ve had it worse than most and I haven’t been the best person to help you as I should’ve.”

“David, please, get away from the railing,” Zach said. “Come over here and sit on the bench next to me.”

Uncle David quickly turned and stared at Zach with cloudy eyes. He turned back and stared off toward the waterfront.

“When I was your age,” Uncle David said, “the summer before I went to Clermont, I took a freighter across the Pacific to Japan. Vietnam was going hot and heavy and one of my best friends, the boy I loved, the boy who taught me so much about loving another man, had gone into the Army to fight in the war. He didn’t come back. Well, he did, but it was a closed casket service. There wasn’t much of him in there. When you’re blown to bits there aren’t very many big pieces to pick up and send home. Personally, I think it was just his dog tags in the casket. Do you think they pick up the pieces if they’re too small or do they just leave them as carrion for the vultures or whatever eats the dead in Vietnam?”

“I don’t know,” Zach said. “Did you come back by boat?”

“No, I flew to Australia and met another boy, a soldier on R & R from Vietnam. He was older than me, a second lieutenant. He’d seen men die. He cried when we slept together. He held me like someone might hold a baby. We didn’t have sex, but I think he would’ve fucked me if I offered. On the last morning, a few hours before he was to report for his flight back to the war, I woke up with him stroking my morning hard-on. He was hard, too, but didn’t want me to touch him. I came and he was fragged three months later. He was only wounded, but lost his left leg. He wrote to me. I never saw him again.”

Uncle David walked over to the bench and sat down beside Zach. He stared at the railing.

“I’m sorry I introduced you to Steven. I thought I was doing something good, but obviously it didn’t work out that way. He’s dead, did you hear?”

“No, when?”

“A few weeks ago. He strangled himself with a bed sheet tied to the bed railing.”

“His aunt said that I could see him.”

“She lied, the bitch! They’re all bitches, every last one of them.”

“But, god, oh god, oh, jeez, fuck!”

Tears welled up into Zach’s eyes and he leaned his head back against the warm stone wall. He felt Uncle David’s arms enveloping him and he allowed himself to be held. He didn’t cry like a baby, almost like a baby, though.

“You were gone an awful long time,” Bruce said as Zach walked in and sat down on the bed. “I was about ready to leave, but I didn’t want to go without at least saying something. What’s wrong? You look troubled.”

“You remember Steven?”

“Oh, yeah, the guy you were seeing, the escort. Isn’t that what they call them?”

“Yeah, or hustler, whore, prostitute, they’re all the same. He committed suicide a couple weeks ago.”

“Oh, man, I’m sorry, Zach.”

Bruce enveloped Zach in a hug and held him close to his body, but Zach had already had his cry and was already beginning to put Steven behind him; or, at least, he hoped so. Steven had been taken out of his life and, now, wouldn’t be coming back. It was sad that he did what he did, but Steven had been pretty pathetic to begin with by practically starving himself to look thirteen years old so the old farts would pay big bucks imagining they actually were fucking a barely adolescent boy. A guy has to be way past the limit of sanity to do that to himself on purpose.

“You know what I want right now?” Zach asked.

“No, what?”

“I’d really appreciate it if you’d fuck me. I don’t care if you’ve never done it before. I just need to be fucked and fucked right now. No preliminaries, no foreplay, no sucking dicks to get in the mood. I need a dick up my ass and you’ve never done it, so it’s your lucky day.”

“I don’t know about this,” Bruce said breaking their embrace. He moved away and then stood up.

“I want you to fuck me, now!” Zach hissed and getting to his feet, too. He grabbed Bruce’s bicep and a brief thought flashed through his mind at the amount of muscle he was holding, the firmness of the flesh, the potential energy pent up in that body. “You’ve got to fuck me now!”

“I don’t want this, Zach,” Bruce said trying to wrench his arm away.

“You’re going to fuck me now, do you understand?” Zach said pulling at Bruce, trying to force him back to the bed.

“Don’t do this Zach,” Bruce said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Zach wasn’t listening to anything, now. “Fuck me!”

“No.”

“Fuck me! Dammit!”

“No!”

Zach pulled, harder. Bruce, knowing what to do, had Zach face down on the floor and thought, for only the briefest of moments, that he was certainly in a position to satisfy Zach’s insane request, but the thought passed and he struggle to pacify his friend without hurting him, too much anyway.

“Fuck me!”

“What the hell is going on in here?” a voice asked behind Bruce.

“He’s gone totally wacked,” Bruce said as he turned and saw Paul at the door.

“Fuck me!” Zach screamed.

“What’s going on?” David asked, coming into the room. “What’s wrong with Zach?”

“He’s gone crazy,” Bruce said. “You’ve got to do something.”

“Fuck me!”

“David, call his psychiatrist,” Paul said. “I’ll help Bruce hold him. Hurry up, David.”

“I’m going!”

“Fuck me!”

“What set this off?” Paul asked as he knelt on the floor beside Bruce.

“His friend Steven died,” Bruce said.

“Oh, yeah, that’d do it. How’d he find out.”

“I guess David told him.”

“Yeah, he’d do that.”

Zach was mumbling now, nearly oblivious to the world around him. He could hear voices talking about him, but it was as if he wasn’t in the room. He was somewhere else, somewhere quiet, peaceful. Steven was there. He felt himself floating up and then everything went black.

Conan, wearing a black, pearl buttoned Western shirt, black jeans held up with a black belt fastened with a silver buckle with “Fuck You!” in raised letters, was standing at the doorway, hands on hips daring entry into the room. Jeremy stood naked in there, his hard dick throbbing to the beat of his heart. Steven, a sheet tied around his neck, his naked little boy, anorexic body shriveled from abuse, stood at his side as Zach tried to figure out how to get past Conan to the prize Jeremy represented. He stared at the tip of Jeremy’s dick and tasted the cum spewing into his mouth from the old fart standing in front of him, his old fart dick shoved into Zach’s mouth, and Steven clapping just like an excited eight year old. His shaved genitals flopping around, grossly imitating a pre-pubescent boy. Zach vomited a vile red fluid as Conan’s boot sank into his stomach.

Zach’s eyes flashed opened and morning light slowly focused his awareness into his bedroom. He looked up at the ceiling and smelled lilac. He turned his head and saw Bruce lying beside him.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Bruce said. “I was wondering when you were going to join the party.”

“I’m sorry,” Zach whispered diverting his eyes away from his embarrassment.

“What’s there to be sorry about?” Bruce asked. “You were upset. It hasn’t been that long since you were attacked, so you overreacted to hearing about Steven’s death. You must have liked him very much.”

“I thought I loved him,” Zach said, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling.

“You fall in love too easily. I suspect you think you’re falling in love with me, too.”

“No, I just want your dick up my ass.”

“That isn’t going to happen anytime soon,” Bruce said. He sat up and dangled his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Have you been here all night?”

“No, I went home, but thought I’d better stop by to see if you’re better. You gave us quite a scare, but I guess you’ve done this before. At least Jeremy said he’s seen you go off the deep end a couple times.”

“Jeremy?”

“Yeah, he came with Sara to go to dinner and the movies.”

“But, he’s on restriction.”

“I don’t know about that. You’ll have to take that up with Sara or Jeremy. Jeremy said he’d be back today, though. So, you’d better get up and put yourself together. Maybe you can get him to fuck you.”

“The problem is getting him not to fuck me,” Zach said. He sat up and noticed his wasn’t wearing anything other than his red and white checked sleeping shorts. A strange sense of sexual euphoria swept over him as he looked at Bruce’s bare, pale neck under they boy’s dark ponytail. He was instantly hard and he scooted behind Bruce. “You’ve used that lilac stuff, again. I want you to know it turns me on.”

He lightly pressed his lips against Bruce’s smooth skin and inhaled the faint, clean scent of the boy. He was hot and was not going to be denied. This had to happen and happen fast. There no time to discuss. There was hardly time to act.

Zach ran a hand over Bruce’s muscular shoulder and down the boy’s taut bicep before slipping across the chest to probe for a firming nipple.

“I have to go to work,” Bruce whispered.

“So, I don’t have time to waste,” Zach said as he slipped around the boy and down onto the floor. His hands went up to Bruce’s belt and zipper. Before Bruce could react, Zach had his pants down around his ankles and was burrowing his face into the fly of Bruce’s boxers.

“I don’t have time for this,” Bruce whispered.

Zach found what he was seeking and wrapped his lips around the treasure much as a little boy might wrap his lips around the top of a soda bottle. One hand began pumping the rod as the other, still partially wrapped in a cast, tried to keep out of the way. Meanwhile, his mouth, lips, and tongue began to massage the length of swelling boy flesh.

“Oh, god, Zach, don’t do this, I have to go to work,” Bruce whispered, but Zach continued his ministrations and was not to be stopped or delayed.

Bruce began to lose it as his hands sank into Zach’s hair and his hips started to rhythmically thrust up towards the center of pleasure focused on the tender end of his erection. Zach sensed the end was near and swallowed taking Bruce deep into his throat just as the first explosion of ecstasy tore through Bruce’s body.

“Oh, god!” Bruce hissed as his hands involuntarily tried to force Zach’s head down over his erupting cock. His whole body shuddered as Zach smothered each detonation, accepting Bruce’s offering as a gift of their growing love for each other.

After a few minutes Zach pulled off Bruce’s softening dick leaned back on his haunches, his own erection obscenely bobbed to the rhythm of his racing heart. He looked up into Bruce’s refocusing eyes and thought of how it would be later that night with that wonderful dick sunk deep in his ass. He glanced down at his own pleasure tool and a brief remembrance of Steven crossed his mind. He took it in his hand and gave it a couple tugs. That was all he needed. A rope of his essence spewed out and splattered onto Bruce’s bare shin. Another quickly followed, before Bruce reacted enough to move out of the way.

“Jeez, Zach, watch where you’re pointing that thing. I have to wear these slacks to work.”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Zach breathed. He dropped back and sat on his ass, looking up into Bruce’s eyes. “Thanks for coming over to wake me up. We’re still on for tonight, right?”

“I don’t know, Zach, you were pretty out of it last night.”

“No repeats of that. We’ll make love tonight and then, only then, can you sink that wonderful appendage of yours into me. I want to feel you inside me. Please?”

“I don’t know Zach,” Bruce said as he stood and pulled up his khakis. He stood there a moment before leaning over to press his lips against Zach’s. They kissed for a long moment, their tongues remaining chaste behind walls of teeth.

“You’ll sleep with me, at least?”

“Sure, but what about dinner?”

“I’ll see if the chauffeur can take us somewhere.”

“I’m not sure I want to fuck you, though.”

“No, don’t fuck me, just put yourself inside and make love to me. Please?”

“We’ll see. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Zach went into the kitchen to search for nourishment. His head still felt foggy, but that was to be expected after a panic attack and unknown quantities of an unknown medicine. He wasn’t sure what was going on. Someone would tell him, if it was important for him to know. Out of the refrigerator he took a carton of nonfat milk, the pitcher of orange juice, and put them on the kitchen table. He went back to the refrigerator and stared at all the possibilities. Then he realized he had no idea what he should eat for breakfast and he knew if he thought about it too long he was going to have another panic attack, which was absolutely the wrong thing to think about because his mind seemed to like that idea.

The twitching started in his left hand, the hand holding the tub of margarine, David’s margarine. Zach and Paul used butter. Why he had the margarine in his hand, Zach had no idea, but the tub fell to the floor and Zach screamed in frustration. He didn’t want this to happen. He wanted everything to be normal, again, but his life was slowly unraveling around him.

“What the hell’s going on in here?” David asked as he hurried into the kitchen.

Zach was frozen in place as muscles shuddered across his young body driven wild by crazed neurons firing randomly. He knew he was going to fall, but big arms caught him and lowered his unruly body onto the nearest chair. He looked up and saw David try to smile. Strangely, that smile seemed to relax him.

“Here, take this,” David said, handing Zach a small white pill. “It’ll help. Go on, your psychiatrist prescribed it. I got them last night. I’ll get you a glass of milk.”

After a couple of minutes, Zach felt relief flow through him as his body began to relax. Paul had come in, too, and was sitting across from Zach. David seemed to be making something, but Zach’s mind was still confused about what he was going to have for breakfast. It was at that moment he noticed the milk and orange juice were no longer on the table.

He shut his eyes. It couldn’t have been more than a couple seconds, but when he opened them three pancakes, two fried eggs, and four strips of very crisp bacon, were arranged on a plate in front of him. Paul wasn’t in the room.

“What’s happening to me?” Zach asked.

“Eat your breakfast,” David said. “Come on, we have to take you to see your psychiatrist this morning. She thinks you might need to be admitted to the hospital, again.”

“No, not that. I can’t go to the hospital, I have classes on Monday.”

“Then, I suggest you start taking control of your situation,” David said. “When you feel yourself slipping, stop, shut your eyes, count to ten, twenty, or, if you have to, fifty, and then slow your breathing down. Don’t look at me, it’s on your instruction sheet your doctor gave you. Haven’t you been doing what she’s told you?”

“I guess not,” Zach said. He didn’t remember any instruction sheets. Controlled breathing? Counting? What was this?

He felt it and he put his fork down. He shut his eyes, but his mind wasn’t having anything to do with him taking control. His left hand began to twitch and he swallowed.

“Stop it!” Zach yelled.

“Damn it! Stop!” He yelled, again.

His fist slammed into the table and a sense of calm radiated out from the pain he was feeling in his hand. He shut his eyes and began to slowly count, trying to match his breathing to the tempo of the numbers running through his mind. He could beat this. He had to if he and Bruce were going to make love later that night. He focused on an image of Bruce’s condom covered hard-on entering him.

“I heard some yelling,” Paul said behind Zach. “Is he all right?”

“I think he’s trying get control,” David said.

“Good, I’m not really in the mood for another mental invalid around here,” Paul said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” David asked.

“You know what it means,” Paul said.

“If you’re not happy with the situation around here, you know where the door is,” David said.

“Yeah, I know where it is,” Paul said.

Zach heard footsteps fading down the hall. He opened his eyes and stared at the breakfast he wasn’t too certain he wanted, but he poured some warmed maple syrup on the pancakes and then spooned some sliced jalapenos over his eggs.

“A man after my own heartburn,” David said.

“Do you do this too?” Zach asked.

“No, I have a special pepper sauce for that.”

“I’ve tried that, but most of those have a vinegary taste that overpowers the eggs. I just want heat.”

“Try habaneros.”

“I have and nearly burnt the hell out of my mouth. Dad didn’t think I’d do it and he didn’t say anything until after the fire started. He laughed so hard and so long, I didn’t talk to him for a week.”

“Careful.”

“What?”

“You’re having a good memory of your father. I thought you hated him.”

“Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me. I guess I forgot.”

He smiled at himself and thought of that memory of his father. He’d always been the butt of practically every joke in family; yet, he remembered growing up respecting the man, even into his teen years when most of his friends had hardly anything good to say about their fathers. Then it all ended and the hate began. Maybe he was forgiving his father for his failings. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t like his father.

“So, you had a little back slide,” Doctor Cunningham said.

“Yeah, um, a friend died and I overreacted,” Zach said.

“Was he a good friend or someone very special?”

“In the beginning, I wanted him to be a good friend. You know, someone special; and, then he taught me how to have sex with older men and get paid for it. Seventeen years old, a freshman in college, and I’m learning how to be a prostitute. God! Was I a fool. My life could’ve been totally destroyed, but he went off the deep end and ended up in the nut bin. I found out yesterday he committed suicide a couple weeks ago.

“I think I’m more mad at myself for letting him try to pull me down to his level. Everything could’ve turned out so differently if I hadn’t been so malleable in his hands. I was so naïve. God, I was a fool. I thought I loved him. I would’ve died for him.

“And, now, I can see, but my mind seems to have a little problem with accepting the reality that I want to be a different person.”

“How did those pills work, they’re something new?”

“I guess Uncle David gave me two last night and I was completely out of it. This morning I almost had a meltdown because I couldn’t decide what to have for breakfast and he gave me just one. I lost track of some time, but I’m a lot better, now.”

“Well, they’re only to be taken in an emergency. You need to tell your friends and whoever you’re around to give you one if you have another episode. They’re kind of like shock therapy. They’ll knock you out so your mind can have a little rest.”

“Well, I think they work just fine. So, I should have a couple with me at all times?”

“Just for the next few weeks. Once you’re over the trauma of your friend’s death, your regular medicine should be able to do what it’s supposed to.”

“Good, because I don’t like going to lalaland.”

“How has everything else been going?”

“Well, everything is going well. Except, for the boy I’m in love with, he’s on restriction and his guardian doesn’t like me. But, I found someone who I met soon after coming here and we’re rebuilding our friendship. My uncle and his roommate slash lover are having a little fight over something. And, this morning at breakfast I had a good memory of my father. Life is just swimmingly.”

“I’d like you to tell me about the first person you had sex with.”

“Billy Zucker. Zucker the Sucker, but his nickname didn’t have anything to do with the one and only time we had oral sex. It’s just what we called him …”

Just before David turned into the parking garage at the condo, Zach saw Sara’s car parked across the street. He felt his body go taut as anger swelled within him. Jeremy had been here the night before, Sara had intended Jeremy go with them to the movie; or, was she simply going to leave him at the condo for a few hours while she went and spent some time with Darnel. Zach wasn’t certain, but he was certain Sara and Jeremy were up in the lobby waiting for someone to buzz them in.

As much as he wanted to be with Jeremy, he wasn’t about to jeopardize his future—he knew Bud was capable of doing anything to ruin his life—just to have a sixteen year old dick up his ass, as much as he wanted that very thing. Bud would say it was his fault Jeremy was breaking restriction and they’d never see each other until Jeremy no longer cared for him.

He took out his cell phone and watched the bars disappear as the car went ever deeper down into the garage. They’d get on the elevator and he wouldn’t be able to make a call until he was in the condo. He shut his eyes and started counting as soon as he noticed his left hand had started to twitch. He was going to beat this thing and Jeremy wasn’t going to ruin his life. He certainly didn’t want to end up in some dingy fruit farm with a bed sheet around his neck.

“Zach? Zach, we’re home,” Paul said. “Zach?”

“He must have felt an episode coming on,” David said. “We’ll wait for him to calm down.”

“Aw shit! When is this going to end,” Paul said.

“When I finally get over almost being murdered,” Zach said slowly with his eyes closed. “And, probably when I stop or even, begin grieving for Steven. I haven’t decided how I feel about that. Right now, at this moment, there’s a very, very good chance a sixteen year old boy who loves me too much and is on restriction is up in the lobby waiting for me. I don’t know why he’s waiting, but I suspect he’s waiting.”

“Jeremy? I told him last night we had to take you to the shrink,” Paul said. “I didn’t know he was on restriction.”

“Well, there’s always one who screws up the works,” David said.

Zach opened his eyes and saw his left hand twitch. He didn’t want to take a pill, besides the pills were up in the condo. He couldn’t get mad. He couldn’t become undecided. He had to be calm, but with Paul and David ever so subtly fighting, he might drop off the deep end at any moment.

“Look, I’m not blaming either of you,” Zach said. “Right now, I’m doing everything I can to not have to take one of those little, white pills, even though that is exactly what I probably should do. I have to call Bud McDonald and say everything I can, short of offering to suck his dick, to have the slightest chance of seeing Jeremy on a permanent basis sometime in the near future. So, I’d appreciate you two not fighting when I’m around. Thank you.”

He felt better. He looked at his left hand and saw it twitch. He kind of wished he could feel it doing that, but something in his brain must be interrupting the signals. He shut his eyes for a moment and let a brief calm spread over him. It was so close, so very close, and Zach was going to do everything to stop it from ruining his life.

After all, Bruce was going to sleep with him tonight and, if everything went the way he wanted, Bruce was going to sink that wonderful dick of his into his ass. They’d do it slow, agonizingly slow. Take a half an hour, an hour, or however long Bruce could go without coming. He was going to look up and watch the orgasm sparkle Bruce’s eyes. That look, that look of overwhelming joy when every muscle in the body is focused on ejaculating semen deep into the ass of a good bottom boy. He wanted to see Bruce experience that first time. They would kiss until sleep overwhelmed them.

“Okay, let’s go up so I can make a phone call,” Zach said opening his eyes and seeing only David sitting in the front seat. “Oh fuck! It happened again.”

“What happened?” David asked.

“Sometimes when I shut my eyes at these times things have changed when I open them. I can’t hear anything, but things change. Just like Paul leaving just now. It is just now, right?”

“It’s been a few minutes, um, well, pretty close to fifteen, twenty actually.”

“Oh, Jesus just wanted to go for a swim and look what happened!”

“What was that?”

“One of my, uh, my father’s favorite expressions. Drove Mom, or god no, don’t let it happen. Bruce is coming over tonight. I have to focus on Bruce coming over.”

“I got back as soon as I could,” Paul said as he climbed into the back seat. He offered Zach a pill and small bottle of water. “Here, I think you should take one. You look like shit. Oh, and I sent your boyfriend and his sister home. You’re right, he’s on restriction. He’s not supposed to leave the house and Sara’s been sneaking him out. Here take this.”

“I have to call Bud,” Zach said as he felt his muscles start to tighten. His hand was twitching so much Paul had to put the pill in his mouth and hold the bottle so he could sip enough water to swallow the pill.

“I’ll call Bud,” David said. “We haven’t talked in a while, but I think I can straighten him out.”

“Don’t make him more mad at me,” Zach said with his eyes closed. He felt someone pull him toward the door and he tried to relax enough to go with the flow of events.

He knew they were walking, but Zach seemed to be floating along, allowing whatever was happening to him to happen without his interference. He kept his eyes tightly closed. He suspected Paul could easily pick him up and carry him like a newly married husband carried his bride across the threshold, and that thought made him giggle, which strangely felt very refreshing.

He was tempted to open his eyes, but he knew things would look a lot different, time would have passed, and he’d be confused for a moment, allowing his mind to its best to destroy his life. He had to focus on what Bruce was going to give him. Yeah, Bruce, he had to think of Bruce.