Stonegate Stables - 16. Chapter 16

The first few were just bad dreams. I'd wake up to the sound of Vincent muttering to himself or whimpering a little. The touch of my hand running down his arm would quiet him and he'd fall back into a sound sleep.

One night I awoke to an empty bed and went quietly down to find him curled into a chair in the library. He was staring out the window with one arm crossed up over his chest holding onto his shoulder. After watching him for a few moments, I left him alone, going back to bed to lie there sleepless until he came up a couple hours later, backing into me and pulling my arms around him, then pressing the knuckles of my hand to his mouth. He was breathing a little fast like you do when you're frightened. I held him close and tried to will away the awful feeling that we had a lot more to go through before we were over the attack.

He wasn't eating well either, and looked gaunt and tired. Wade called me one day after a business lunch at Corleone's and asked me what the hell was wrong with Vincent. I just said he was having trouble sleeping but nothing serious. I guess I thought if I didn't acknowledge that something more was wrong, it might go away.

The next GP was September 9th in Ohio and we had a pretty good time. The change of scenery seemed to be good for Vincent; he didn't have any bad dreams while we were there.

I did well, taking Donna to a 3rd, and managed to get Calvin around cleanly for 2nd, but people were on to me now, and were watching Cal's rise in the points standings with a wary eye. They could see I was in good form; hungry for another win, and it sharpened everyone up a little.

The following two events were back to back in California. It was with an anxious and heavy heart that I said goodbye to Vincent the second Thursday in September and flew off to sunny So Cal without him. Amanda had all sorts of parties planned and wanted me to stay between events. Vincent couldn't take that much time away from the restaurants, so he planned to come out for the 2nd weekend, and then we'd fly home together.

Despite Vincent's absence, I was looking forward to riding since I'd done so well at the first one. Well, pride goeth before a fall, and this GP was a disaster. Donna took down three fences in a row and I excused myself from the ring, afraid there was something more wrong with her than just feeling lazy. Carlos looked her over thoroughly, and other than a slightly elevated temperature, she seemed fine.

Good old Calvin had a terrible day too, skittering sideways between every jump, bucking a couple times, and finally charging through a wispy vertical like he didn't even see it. One of the rails whipped around sideways when he plowed through it, whacking me in the side. The impact knocked me forward, half out of the saddle, while we were still in the air and the jolt of landing finished the job; I somersaulted forward to land flat on my back beneath Calvin's iron-shod feet. Luckily, he missed stepping directly on me, but one of his rear hooves clipped my hip as he passed over me.

I ended up with badly bruised ribs from the rail, the breath knocked out of me by the fall, and a huge, painful purple knot on my hip. I walked off the course to standing applause, but we couldn't continue, so we got a big fat DNF for our efforts. Two DNFs after winning the week before really sucked and I was in a vile mood as the medics poked and prodded me.

They finally let me go and I limped back to our barn area, grumpily assuring everyone that I would live.

I called Vincent to let him know what happened before someone else gave him the news, but after a few tries, I couldn't reach him, which pissed me off even more. Finally, I left a curt message saying I’d fallen, but wasn't badly hurt. I thought that would get his attention. I spent most of the next day in bed.

He didn't call me until late afternoon. By then I was angry, and so sore I could hardly get out of bed, but I was up and dressing for a cocktail party that Amanda had arranged. I was bitchy to him until the concern in his voice registered and I backed off a little. He made me put my right hand on the hotel bible and swear that I was all right, which I did, knowing that if the situation were reversed, I’d be frantic with worry. He didn't offer any explanation for where he'd been or what had taken him so Goddamn long to call me back, so I wasn't much happier after the call than I'd been before.

I hung out with Adam that week, very tempted to console myself with one of his better than average blow jobs, but managed to keep it to the occasional make out session, one of which had us both leaking through our trousers before yet another party. We changed and headed off arm in arm, got shit faced, and ended the night in my bed where we slept curled up together like puppies, both of us too drunk and depressed to get in trouble. He was missing Dylan and I ached for Vincent, although I could have cheerfully strangled him by now. His daily calls were very unsatisfying, which meant I was pretty fucking miserable to be around that week.

After a couple days, the worst of the pain was gone; just my ribs hurt when I laughed or coughed, so I tried hard not to do either.

Saturday morning Vincent called me and was very subdued. After a little small talk, he told me that he couldn't get free to come out after all. I got a shiver of goose bumps up my arms at the sound of his voice. I knew that it wasn't work that was preventing him from joining me. When he was finished talking, I was silent, unable to hide my disappointment. He apologized, told me he'd call me tomorrow night, and said goodbye as quickly as possible without actually hanging up on me. I just sat on the bed and stared at the wall. Every instinct I had told me to jump on a plane and get home to him, but I couldn't possibly walk out on Amanda with the GP less than 24 hours away.

I got through the cocktail party that night, although I'm sure everyone thought I was having a delayed reaction to the fall. I couldn't string three words together coherently. Adam came back to the room with me again, getting me out of my party clothes and into bed. He crawled in with me and pulled me close, nuzzling my neck and rubbing my chest softly, but I didn't sleep much. Breakfast was three cups of coffee and by the time I got out to the show grounds, I was shaky and sick. Amanda took one look at me and sat me down in the tack room, force-feeding me a sandwich from the catered luncheon in the clubhouse. I choked it down and felt better, but nothing was going to cure me except Vincent's hard body in my arms.

Carlos taped the shit out of my ribs and I took a couple Naproxen, which took care of the stabbing pains and left only the minor aches for me to contend with.

The actual jumping went better than I expected, given that I was only marginally with the program. Donna was back to her usual reliable self and came home 3rd. Calvin must have felt bad about last week because he was totally tuned into me and took me around the course fast and clean in both the GP and the jump-off. There was only one place in the jump-off course that I could cut a corner. It was really tight and I almost didn’t bother, but Cal felt so good that I took the chance, giving him only two strides with a sharp angle to get over a wide oxer. He leapt like a rabbit, twisting in the air to make up for the weird approach, and pounded between the finish cones in record time. We wound up winning the damn thing and Adam came in second.

Amanda was overjoyed at another win and I was pretty happy, too, when I wasn't thinking about whatever was the matter at home. I took it easy on the champagne this time, having one glass with Amanda, Adam, and Carlos. Then I switched to water. Vincent called that night, full of congratulations, sweet talking me a little, and he almost seemed like the man I loved again.

The flight home Monday was smooth, and soon I was pulling into our driveway. Vincent's car was there and as I opened the trunk of my Lexus to get my bag, he stepped out onto the porch.

I did a double take; his face was lined and gray like he'd been sick for a month. I just stood there by the back of the car staring at him as he came to me.

"Jesus, Vincent, what's wrong?"

He gave a shrug. "I can't sleep for shit when you're not here. I miss you too much."

He stepped close and I wrapped my arms around him. He was naturally lean and he always felt a little bony, but he seemed thinner to me now as I hugged him tight, wishing with everything I had, that we could roll back time to the day he was attacked.

I’d have left work earlier that day, or called him to come take me to dinner; anything to keep him out of the house that evening, but I couldn't do that, so I concentrated on comforting him because it made me feel better too, and we both desperately needed some comforting right now.

He had one bad dream that week, but rolled over on his own and went back to sleep.

He cheered up a little with me home and we flew off to Pennsylvania on October 12th in hopes of having a nice long weekend away from our troubles. We hooked up with Adam Friday night after yet another party, and the three of us ended up going to Adam’s room. Vincent wanted to be fucked; I could tell by the way he rubbed his ass against me as we were getting undressed, but that was something we'd done only in private, so I wasn't sure how he wanted to play this.

Once we were naked, I dropped to my knees in front of them, taking one cock in my mouth and the other in my hand. Once I'd gotten them both slippery with my mouth, I could stroke one while blowing the other. Going back and forth was interesting. Vincent is about eight inches hard and pretty thick; Adam is an inch or so smaller in both directions, so my mouth had to make adjustments each time I switched. I must have gotten it right because soon Vincent was pumping into me and moaning. Adam finally dragged me up by the ears and pulled me back onto the bed with him, rolling so that I landed on the bottom. He turned around and planted his ass over my face while Vincent straddled my legs, sucking my dick up in one big slurp. I licked Adam's balls and worked my tongue into his hole while he helpfully held my dick upright for Vincent to suck.

Before long, Vincent had me rigidly hard and I felt him move into position over my cock. I had my hands full of Adam, moaning into his ass while I slid slowly into Vincent. He was on his feet, knees bent in a deep squat, holding onto Adam's shoulders as he lowered himself. In all our years together, we’d never done it this way and I was amazed at how different it felt. Adam moved back on me a little, bending over to take Vincent's cock in his mouth and aiming his at me.

All our dicks were happy with this arrangement and we gradually built up to three first class orgasms. Adam lifted out of my mouth and came on my chest, then Vincent shot onto my belly, and finally I pushed Vincent off and blasted my load into the middle of it all. I was covered in enough sperm to re-populate Texas. Satiated, we hopped in the shower, and climbed back into bed. I made sure I was in the middle so that if Vincent had a bad dream, I could sooth him out of it before Adam woke up.

I hadn't talked to anyone about our problems yet and I was sure Vincent hadn't. I was still foolishly hoping things would smooth out on their own.

Sunday was clear and sunny with a huge noisy crowd in the stands. I packed Cal's ears so full of cotton that he probably wouldn't be able to hear me either, but I didn't want him distracted by all those people. Calvin went before Donna this time and he gave me a good ride, making it into the jump-off. Donna got four faults when she took down the top brick on a solid vertical. Aside from Calvin, only Adam's horse went clean, so Cal was assured of at least 2nd. The jump-off course had two places to shave off time, but they were pretty obvious and Adam took advantage of both of them, coming in with a really quick time. Calvin and I gave it hell, but Adam was a couple ticks of the clock quicker and we ended up taking 2nd with Donna 4th.

With two events left, the points race was heating up. Adam was leading with me in 2nd on Calvin and, on Donna, a respectable 4th. I still had a mathematical chance of winning the whole thing, but Adam had a good horse this year and he was a strong rider, so I’d have to be lucky as well as good to beat him. The three of us flew home together, snuggling up on Amanda's little jet to nap off the late night we spent celebrating with her, Adam's owner, and all their rich, crazy pals.

Life was fairly normal after we got back, but Vincent continued to sleep restlessly.

One moonlit night he was more agitated than usual and I lay there listening to him moan and mutter before propping myself up on an elbow to reach for him. He came up swinging, the knuckles of his right hand catching me in the mouth, splitting my bottom lip open and spraying blood across the sheets. A second later, his left fist crashed into the side of my face and I saw stars. I rolled away from him and off the bed, scooting backward on my butt, holding one hand to my gushing lip. He awoke with a start and looked down at me. He knelt there for a moment, breathing harshly, then crawled off the bed and came toward me with an outstretched hand.

God forgive me, I flinched away from him. I knew he hadn't hit me on purpose, but I was shaking with reaction and I just did it without thinking. He moaned then, the low awful sound of a wounded animal, and ran from the room.

I grabbed the box of tissues off the bedside table and mopped up my face a little, waiting 'til I quit shaking so badly and could think. Finally, I walked carefully downstairs to the kitchen, not looking for him, not seeing him anywhere. I put some ice in a baggie, wrapped a towel around it and slumped into a chair, holding it to my throbbing face. I don't know how long I sat there, but the sky was beginning to lighten when I turned to see him watching me from the doorway to the hall. The misery on his face hurt me worse than his fists had; I laid the ice on the table and crossed the room into his open arms. He folded me gently to him, one hand on the back of my neck, and rocked me silently as the kitchen brightened into a new day.

He walked us to the patio doors and took a careful look at my face in the light, something I hadn't done yet. His jaw muscles clenched tightly, but that was his only reaction. He led me to the den and we lay on the couch for a long time, curled together but not talking. I was scared to death by what was happening to us. The psychiatrist we'd spoken to a few times had felt that Vincent would not have any lasting emotional issues, but it seemed as though he was wrong.

I got through the day, but barely. I went to work and spent most of the time in my office staring at the wall, wondering what the hell to do. My only real hope was the shrink, but I didn't have a whole lot of faith in him at this point. When I walked in the back door that evening, Vincent was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me.

"Sean, I need to talk to you."

Is there a sentence spoken between lovers more laden with foreboding than that one? One that makes your stomach flip over backward and brings a clammy sweat to your palms? It's never good, and tonight was no exception. He stood up and came to me, holding me by the shoulders, looking into my face with haunted eyes.

"I need to leave for a while. I have to get this behind me and I think maybe I can find him." He hugged me tight.

I started to shake and the knot that had been in my stomach for weeks clenched its fist tightly.

"Nooo," I moaned. "Don't go. Not now." I pulled back and looked at him, begging him with my eyes not to do this to us. "Don't leave me. Please."

He dropped his head, staring at my chest for a long moment, and then slowly raised his face to mine.

"I have to. I'm not gonna take the chance of hurting you again."

"You're hurting me now." He looked away. It was a cruel thing to say, but I was falling apart inside, willing to try anything to keep him with me.

"I'll call you every night." He paused, steadying his voice. "I love you and I'll be back. I promise you, I'll be back, Sean."

He pushed me gently away and I followed him to the front hall where he had a bag packed and waiting. He kissed me gently and walked out the door, pulling it quietly shut behind him. I pressed my forehead to the hard wood, leaning on my spread hands and listened to the sound of Vincent's car fade away.

Then I walked carefully upstairs, buried my face in his shirt from yesterday, and curled up on his side of the bed, too numb to cry.

After an hour I got up long enough to call Jesse, then went back to bed and lay there wide awake all night, staring into the dark, empty corners of the room, which matched the feelings in my heart.