was like being in a haze. All I remember is Preppy and the hurt in my heart, not the pain of my body or how it felt. Almost as if I was a spectator watching it all happen.
It burned as he penetrated me. There is no other pretty way to put it. But when he pushed past the tight nerves and further into me I was able to relax to the point where I felt nothing but full and a strange zing of pleasure that made my pussy clench.
“Ahhhhh, that’s my fucking wife. You like me in your ass don’t you?” Preppy asked. He pulled back and I cried out the loss of him but when he pushed back in I saw stars.
We both groaned and I pushed back against him needing to feel more. Preppy took the hint and started to move. Grabbing my hips and digging his fingers into my flesh he pumped furiously like the madman he was. Bringing me higher and higher into some realm of pleasure I’d never experienced before.
“You’re mine. Your pussy is mine. This ass is all fucking mine,” Preppy chanted as he thrust harder and harder. My eyes began to water, my throat closed up. The balance of pleasure and pain shifting from one to the other with each push and pull. A tightness started inside me and I clenched my teeth, pushing harder and harder back against Preppy, meeting him thrust for thrust until his hands were on my shoulders pulling me against him and grunting.
There was no longer any rhyme or reason to our pace. It was wild and furious and erratic and when he reached between us and inserted a finger into my pussy I screamed out as my orgasm burst from my lower belly, sending sparks of pleasure through my entire body. My sex clenched around emptiness and my ass tightened around Preppy’s cock until he was screaming with his own release, pushing deep inside as his warmth flooded me, spilling out around us and dripping down the backs of my thighs.
He pulled out and again we both collapsed. This time my body ached from the extreme bliss rolling through it. I felt both satisfied and energized.
When we were finally able to gather our wits about us, I noticed Preppy looking over at me. “What?” I asked, feeling the blush spread on my cheeks.
“I died,” he whispered, rubbing his thumb over my lips.
“I know,” I whispered back, turning to face him.
He pointed to his own chest. “But this is just a bag of bones.” He pointed to me then flattened his palm over my heart. “This. This is my life. YOU are my life. You and Bo.”
I looked up at him as tears formed in my eyes. I held his face in my hands and lightly kissed his lips. “And you and Bo are mine.”
“Why?” he asked. I searched his eyes and there was no sarcasm, no waiting to drop the punch-line on me. It was an honest question.
“Because, Samuel Clearwater. You’re everything.” I mimicked his own movements by rubbing my thumb against his cheek. “Because you are the light in all of my dark,” I said, reciting a line from the letter he’d written me.
Preppy pulled me close, resting his head against mine.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until Preppy leaned in and surprised me by licking a tear off my cheek. “What?” he asked, with a wicked smile. “You licked my tears, it’s only fair that I lick yours.”
I never thought I could love anyone as much as I loved Samuel Clearwater. But as we laughed together, our voices were carried off with the breeze high above Logan’s Beach, and we held onto one another like we were never letting go.
We never did.
CHAPTER TEN
Preppy
We’d talked and lingered on the water tower for hours. The sun was just starting to rise when I helped Dre get dressed and we headed for home.
We weren’t even halfway up the porch when Kevin swung open the door looking frazzled.
“What’s going on?” I asked, ascending the steps. I squeezed Dre’s hand, sensing that whatever news Kevin was about to deliver wasn’t going to be good.
“Bo!” Kevin shouted. His eyes bulged from his head. “He’s gone!”
****
Kevin ran to all the neighbors’ houses while Dre frantically searched the house again from top to bottom. I ran straight for the woods. When I saw the train coming down the tracks a million scenarios of what could have happened to him ran through my mind. What if he was hurt? What if someone was hurting him? I picked up a rock and chucked it onto the track screaming, “Booooooo!” over and over again at the top of my lungs as the train passed.
I was about to turn back to the house and check the woods one more time when there was a tug on the back of my shirt. I spun around to find Bo looking up at me with a worried look on his face. “Bo!” I screamed, raising my hands in the air in a mock hallelujah.
Bo cowered and my celebration ended.
I knelt down and pulled his hands away from his face. “I’m never going to hit you, Bo. You don’t have to worry about that, okay?”
Bo nodded as I pulled him into me and wrapped him in a hug.
“But you can’t run off like this. Never again, okay? Mommy’s really, really worried about you and she’s going crazy right now. What were you doing out here all by yourself?” I asked.
I pulled back and Bo signed. Follow me.
“Where?” I asked.
Follow me. Please.
He didn’t wait for an answer, just tugged on my hand and dragged me a few feet into the woods where the brush was so thick I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of me. Bo maneuvered through it with ease like he’d done it a thousand times.
He probably has.
Just as I was about to tell him that a hike in the woods probably wasn’t the best idea while Dre was probably going ape shit back at the house, Bo pushed back a curtain of branches over a huge tree stump in the ground with a big hole on the side where the wood had rotted out. Bo climbed through and waved for me to follow. I crouched down and crawled on the leaves following him into a five by five space in the trunk. Inside of it was a dirty Dallas Cowboys blanket. Coloring books that were stained and looked as if they’d been retrieved from the trash along with broken crayons.
“This is where you were?” I asked but it wasn’t really a question. I was sure that’s where Bo had run off to and where he’d probably ran off to for years when he was being abused by his cunt of a mother and the step daddy I wished was still alive so I could put another bullet in him and kill him all over again.
Yes.
I looked around at the little fort he’d created and my heart sank. I tried not to let it show on my face that I was breaking down inside, but when I saw the little pile of weapons stacked along the wall beside his blanket I damn near lost it. Butter knives, one half of a pair of scissors, a small gardening shovel, and a hand axe were stacked neatly. Nobody defended him, so Bo had decided he needed to defend himself.
“Bo,” I said, picking up the axe and inspecting it. “This place is a cool fort. Is this where you came when you lived with your old mommy? When you wanted to feel safe?”
Yes.
“You’re so super smart for making all this. You’re like a super hero and this is your lair. Move over batman,” I said. Bo smiled brightly. I cleared my throat. “But, buddy, do you understand that you live with Mommy and me now? You don’t need to come here anymore. You certainly don’t need this,” I said, setting down the axe, which had a surprisingly sharp blade.
Bo stared at me without saying or signing a thing. He hung his head and his shoulders drooped.
“I was just like you when I was a kid. Do you know that when I was your age that I had the same thing? A special place to go when things at home weren’t so good?”
Bo perked up.
“I mean, it wasn’t as cool as this. Just an abandoned dog house behind our trailer, but I did the same thing as you. I kept things in there I could use to hurt anyone who tried to hurt me because I didn’t have anyone to do that for me,” I started. “But you know what? You do have people who would protect you no matter what. You have Mommy and you have me. And nobody will ever hurt you. I would NEVER let anyone hurt you. Do you understand that, Bo?”
/> I saw Bo thinking and remembered how I felt at his age. Alone and abandoned. How I would feel if I suddenly found myself with a family who actually gave a shit and then I realized something. “Are you afraid that Mommy and Daddy will leave you or make you leave?”
Bo reluctantly nodded.
“Well, let me tell you something. This thing here?” I asked, motioning between Bo and me. “It’s permanent. Even if you wanted to you can’t change it. You’re my son. And in our family a son is a permanent thing. Forever and ever you’ll be stuck with us. We’ll always be here for you. Your place is with us.”
I like forever, Bo signed, but he still looked skeptical. How do I convince a six-year-old of my intentions when he’d been fucked over his entire life? And then it hit me.
“Okay, now I want to show you something but you can’t tell Mommy, okay?”
Bo squinted like he already didn’t think that was a good idea.
Smart kid.
I laughed. “No, it’s nothing bad, I promise. But I planned on showing her later on tonight as a surprise, but since you’re one of the men of the house now I figured I’d show you first. Would that be okay with you?”
Yes. Yes, he signed twice.
“Now did you know that these,” I pointed to the tattoos on my arms and hands, “are forever. These drawings will always be on me.” I pulled up my shirt and Bo eyed the white bandage covering one of the worst scarred areas on my abs. “They don’t wash off so they will never ever go away. They’re with me forever.”
I peeled back the tape and revealed the new tattoo underneath. Scars, vines, and hearts linked together two names. Bo & Dre. It was King’s best work ever.
“Remember how we were writing your name this week? Do you see your name?” I asked.
Bo enthusiastically pointed to his name. I smiled brighter instead of wincing when he jabbed the fresh ink with his little index finger.
“Yep, my man. That’s it.” I replaced the bandage and lowered my shirt. “And it’s there forever. So you’re not going anywhere, just like that tattoo isn’t going anywhere. You got it?”
Bo’s eyes widened when the realization set in. He launched himself at me, wrapping his arms around me tightly. I kissed the top of his head. “Now let’s get you home.”
Together we crawled out of his hideaway/weapon’s storage unit. I brushed the dirt from my pants and grabbed Bo’s hand. With his other hand he signed, pressing the tips of his fingers on the corner of his mouth and then again on his temple.
Home.
****
When I brought Bo back to the house, Dre ran out to meet us. She wasted no time reaching for him, lifting him up she hugged him so tight I was pretty sure she was cutting off his circulation. I almost wanted to laugh when he looked at me wide-eyed over her shoulder but I managed to contain myself. “Don’t ever do that again, okay?” she asked, looking him over. “Promise me, Bo. Don’t you ever leave without one of us, okay? We love you and if anything ever...” Dre stopped. “Just promise me.”
Bo nodded and signed, ‘I’m sorry,’ to her followed by ‘I promise.’
“Where did you go?” Dre asked. That’s when he looked to me like he didn’t know if he should tell her what he’d been up to. I didn’t want him to feel ashamed or embarrassed.
I pulled a bouquet of wild flowers I’d been hiding behind my back and handed them to her. “He went to pick you flowers,” I said. “Don’t be too hard on him. He wanted it to be a surprise. Right, buddy?”
“Awe, thank you, Bo,” Dre said, holding up the bouquet to her nose and inhaling deeply. “They’re beautiful, but you have to take someone with you next time,” she said. “Now go inside and wash up. I put your step stool next to the sink.”
Bo darted in through the sliding glass door as Dre and I looked on. He appeared again, this time through the kitchen window. Standing on the stool he washed his hands as he was told. He waved when he saw us looking, splattering soapy water from his hands onto the window.
“So what was he really doing?” Dre asked, using the flowers to cover her mouth as she spoke.
I waved back at Bo and gave him a thumbs up as he dried his hands.
“Organizing his arsenal.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dre
After the scare with Bo, Preppy and I both decided he needed to feel more of a sense of permanence with us.
He was ours, the adoption was legal and binding, but the three of us still had different last names.
That’s why, on a sunny Friday morning, I brought Bo to the clerk’s office with me and waited for forty minutes. The goal was to leave the building with the same last name.
The Clearwater family was about to become an official party of three.
“THIRTY-FOUR,” a gravelly female voice called out. “THIRTY-FOUR.”
I stood up and waved my ticket at Bo. “Come on, buddy. It’s our turn.” I grabbed his hand and led him to the counter.
“I need two name change forms, please,” I announced to the bored looking woman behind the glass partition.
“Two?” she asked, looking at me above the rim of her reading glasses.
“Yes,” I said. “One for me and one for him.” Bo stood on his tiptoes and smiled at her.
“Hey,” she said, dryly. She tapped some keys on her keyboard while staring at Bo. “What are the reasons for the name changes? Divorce, marriage, adoption, emancipation...”
“Marriage for me. Adoption for him.”
“Do you have your certificate of legal adoption finalization form and your marriage license?” she droned.
I passed her Bo’s forms but realized I’d forgotten to bring the marriage license. It was fake, but they didn’t have to know that. “Crap, I forgot the marriage license, can you please look it up for me?”
“You’re going to have to fill out these forms before I can do that.” She passed me a pink and yellow form, the kind that makes a duplicate underneath while you write. “You can use the pencils in the corner over there,” she said, pointing to the far wall with an empty table and several chairs. All of which were occupied by people filling out the same kind of forms I now had in my hands. “Or you can fill it out on the computer over there.” She pointed to the older model PC on the other side of the room. “When you’re done, take another number.”
“Oh, but I just...”
“Number THIRTY-FIVE!” she called.
“Come on, Bo,” I said, opting for the computer since there was no one there I sat down and propped Bo up on my lap.
The form I needed pulled right up when I clicked NAME CHANGE APPLICATION. It was a relatively simple form but the computer hated me. “See? We can do this, right?” I asked. Bo nodded, but was fixated with a patch of mold growing on the ceiling tile above us.
Current last name was the first field I had to fill out. I entered CAPULET and pressed enter instead of TAB. A new screen pulled up with everything in the county public records that had to do with the last name Capulet popped up, including the transfer of the deed from Mirna’s house. “Shit,” I swore. Bo looked up at me and flashed me a knowing smile. “I mean shoot. Shoot,” I corrected, mussing his hair.
I closed all the tabs I didn’t need and went back to the form. I’d only gotten to the second line to fill in my new last name and I’d already hit the enter key again instead of the tab key after typing Clearwater. “GGGGrrrr,” I growled at the computer as a dozen or so tabs popped up on the screen again, covering my form.
Bo bared his teeth and folded his hands against his chest like paws. “You make a great little lion,” I told him.
I closed out the tabs that were mostly address change forms. People moving from Logan’s Beach to Clearwater, Florida.
I was about to close out the last tab when something caught my eye. It wasn’t an address change form. It was a lawsuit.
Nancy Clearwater Bateman vs. Mutual Life of Nassau.
Mutual Life of Nassau was a well-known life insurance company with a catchy
jingle in their commercials that was hard to forget. I scanned the document quickly and basically came to understand that Nancy was suing Mutual Life for failing to pay on policy number #456479874840, but it didn’t give any information on the policy itself. Mutual Life had countered that Nancy had made a late payment on the policy and there was a lot of back and forth statements and paperwork filed between the two parties. I drummed my foot against the desk, knowing in my heart what was coming when I closed the tab, revealing the next document, the resolution of