The Senator's Son Chapter 6
===== The normal disclaimers apply. You are also reminded that this is a work of fiction. =====
"I love you, David," Pedro said as we lay in the bed, both still breathing heavily from the experiences of the moments past. "Thank you for earlier," he said, referring to what had happened with his uncle Gonzalo.
"No worries. You're family, ya know. Family defends family as best they can," I stated.
"I know. I just wish you hadn't had to meet him," he confessed.
"Why?"
"Because he's a dark spot in my history that I don't like to revisit unless I have to," he said honestly.
"That makes sense, but a very wise woman once told me that it wasn't good for one's health to leave things bottled up like that."
"Channeling Abu?" he asked, jokingly.
"Back to the topic at hand," I said, steering the conversation back to the original topic. "If you ever want to tell me, you know you can."
"I know Dave. And I love and appreciate you for that."
"Cool," I said in a moment. I got up to get a quick shower before returning to find Pedro asleep already. I got a damn washcloth from the bathroom and ran it over his perfect body, cleaning up from our encounter. He flinched a couple of times, but gave no indication that he was waking up.
I dried him off with a second cloth that I'd brought from the bathroom, and moved in to hold him as tightly as I could without smothering him. `This is really nice,' I thought as I, myself, drifted off to the land of dreams and slumber.
"Good morning, Dave," Pedro said as he kissed me on my chest. "Time to get up."
"If you keep doing that, you're gonna get me up alright," I said through a sleepy haze.
"And that would be bad, how?" he said as he began playing with my nipples.
I couldn't help but shoot to attention at his actions. "God, Pedro. I'm awake," I said between moans and grunts.
"Good. Get up. Breakfast is ready," he said as pulled himself off of me. He walked out of the bedroom. He turned once to look at me and smile evilly.
I got up, put on some shorts and a t-shirt, and walked into the next room. "I'm glad I put clothes on," I said as I saw Maribel, Joya, and Maria sitting in the kitchen.
"Damn. What did you go and do that for?" Maribel said as Joya began to chuckle.
"MAMA!" Maria exclaimed in disgust. "I'm sorry David. My mother is a pervert."
"Where do you think she learned it from?" Pedro said from the kitchen.
"You are going to die for that, Pedro Morales?" She said. All laughed at her embarrassment. "I'm gonna get all of you."
I walked into the kitchen to find Pedro slaving away at the stove. I walked up behind him and put my hands around his waist. "That was a horrible way to wake me up," I said jokingly.
"It got you up though, didn't it?" he countered.
"Yeah. You'll be getting it back down later, though," I asserted.
"Grrr..." he said, making the sound of a tiger. "You OK that they're over?" he asked, concerned about the reaction I would have, since this was still technically my apartment.
"Hell no, I don't have a problem. They're fun," I said.
"I'm glad," he said. "They really like you. You impressed them last night."
"Cool. So something positive did come out of it," I said, smiling.
"Now go back in there. Let me finish breakfast," he instructed, turning to shoo me from the kitchen.
"Alright baby. Let me get a cup of coffee," I said, grabbing a mug from the cupboard and helping myself. "What are we having?"
"You'll see," he said, turning to again shoo me from the kitchen.
I walked back into the living room. Maria sat in my recliner as Maribel and Joya sat on the couch. "Come sit by us," Maribel said, patting a place on the couch they'd made between the two of them. Maria looked at me as if to say `be very afraid.'
"So we wanted to say thank you for last night. Gonzalo has gotten on everyone's nerves for years, but no one has had the guts to stand up to him," Maribel explained.
"That is until your hunky self came over," Joya said, squeezing the muscles in my arms.
"It's no big deal," I said to them.
"Yes it is. It showed us how much you love Pedro," Maribel explained, becoming more sedate and serious than I'd seen her. "And that makes you nuestro sobrino, too." (Our nephew.)
"Breakfast, ladies," Pedro said, brining two serving plates to the table.
"It smells good," Joya said as she walked to the table. Maribel and Maria echoed the sentiments as they grabbed plates and forks from where Pedro had put them on the table.
"I'd marry you for the cooking alone if you weren't my first cousin," Maria said.
"Now you know why I like him so much," I joked. Pedro winked, knowing that he did so much more for me that I was willing to joke about.
The trio of ladies, Pedro, and I devoured the tasty meal. Pedro and the girls chatted as I picked up and took the dishes into the kitchen. For most of the morning, the ladies visited with us. "Well we are going to go," Maria announced after a couple of hours of looking bored as everything. Maribel and Joya looked sad by the reaction, but decided to leave the two of us alone.
"I love them," Pedro said as he walked back in from seeing them off.
"I know. They are cool people."
"Yeps," he said, walking into the bedroom from where I'd sat to watch TV. "Hey. What do we have to do today?"
"Nothing that I know of. We don't have class."
"Let's go get something for lunch and then go to the park. It's a lovely day," he said as he walked back into the room, pulling a purple t-shirt over his head.
"That sounds fun, papi. I need a shower, though. Want to join me?" I said with a wink.
"Oh, Mr. Jansen!" he said as he kissed me on the forehead. "You're such a bad boy."
"But you know you love it," I said as I reached up to kiss him on the lips.
"Oh yeah," he said as our kiss broke. "Seriously, though. Go get a shower, and get dressed. We'll walk to the store and then go to the park."
"Alright, papi," I said as I stood and went to get a shower.
Grabbing my boxers and t-shirt, I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
I showered quickly, not wanting to miss a minute of the day with Pedro. I toweled off and got dressed. Pedro was waiting for me as I walked back into the living room.
"Looking good, sexy," he said as I came into the room. "I might not ought to let you out of the house you're looking so fine."
"You're so cheesy, Pedro," I responded.
"But at least I have a big...umm...sense of humor," he winked.
"What's gotten into you, today?"
"Nothing yet. You probably will later, though," he said snappingly.
I chucked at his comment, "Get your coat; let's go."
"Alright," he said. I was already standing on the stoop as he walked out of the apartment. "Which direction are we going in?"
"Let's go to the Western. It's closer," I suggested as we began walking to the grocery store.
We walked out of the complex and headed up the hill toward the store. The eight block walk wasn't that strenuous, just a nice aerobic workout that I desperately needed.
"This is such a nice afternoon," he commented, looking at the perfectly clear sky that was overhead. He loved to be outside when the weather was nice, no matter the temperature. We got to the store a few blocks later and went inside to get some things for our picnic. Wine, bread, some sandwich meats, and two kinds of cheeses topped our shopping list. We breezed through the checkout and made out way back toward the apartment. Since the wind was causing it to feel colder than it was, we decided to drive to the park, rather than walk.
We walked down the street, talking to each other as normal. I began to get an eerie feeling about something, and noticed that two men were walking toward us. I glanced around, and there were two men following us. I nudged Pedro, who'd noticed the same oddities about the situation.
"Go into the next alley," someone said from behind. The men in front of us opened their coats enough for both of us to see the guns they had strapped to themselves.
Pedro and I complied with their order. Once there, they gagged both of us and bound our hands behind our backs. We were told to sit on the ground as another figured appeared before us.
"Pick him up," the shadow said to the men. Two of them picked Pedro up from where he was. The man balled his fist and began punching Pedro. The other men picked me and up held me, keeping me from defending my lover.
"You're gonna get it faggot," he said as he punched and punched Pedro in the gut and in the face. The beating left him appearing weak. The two men held him up, and the shadowy creature kneed Pedro in the balls, causing him to moan in pain through the gag.
"Y ahora para ti," the person said as he came toward me. "For making my nephew gay, you're gonna pay dearly." I tried to break free from the grip of the men, but Gonzalo hit me in the stomach before I could. "Yeah. You are going to pay dearly."
He walked around for a moment, as if deciding how he was `going to deal with me.' He walked to me without saying anything. He unbuttoned my pants and pulled the zipper down. He motioned for the two men to turn me around.
"Now you are going to feel what a real man is made of," he said, pulling my pants down. The cold air cause my ass hole to pucker as he unzipped his pants and put a condom on. "Now if you relax, and take this like a good little faggot, I will spare him," he said, forcing me to look at Pedro. Pedro looked so frail, being held up by the two men. "All you have to do is be a good fag." He kicked the inside of my ankles, forcing my legs apart. For Pedro's sake, I tried to relax a bit.
"I said relax, Pedro used to," he said as he tried to enter my asshole. Pedro lifted his head to see what was going on. He screamed through the gag he still wore. He tried to break free of the men, but they were stronger than he was. He began to cry and sink to the ground. Gonzalo laughed and forced himself into my ass. The worse pain I'd ever felt in my life swept over my body. "When Pedro was a boy, I used to go into his room after my parents went to sleep and have my way with him."
I sobbed as he told me of his unconscionable acts with Pedro. How could he have done that to a helpless child? The physical pain became unbearable. I blacked out as he moved himself in and out of my body.
"David!" Pedro said sobbing as I came out of my haze. "David Jansen! Wake up!"
"Son, we'll take it form here," a woman told him as they tried to move him out of the way. "What's his name?" she asked.
"David," Pedro answered.
"David. I'm Joanna. We're here to help." With that, she did a couple of tests as I lay in the alleyway, half naked. "Can you say anything to me?"
"I want Pedro," I said.
"He's right here. He's gonna ride to the hospital with us. OK?"
"Yeah."
A moment later, two men brought a gurney into the alley, lifted me onto it, and then hoisted me into the ambulance.
"Pedro," I said as he climbed in behind me.
"Yeah baby," he said, coming to take my arm.
"I'm so sorry."
"You have nothing to apologize for, Dave," he said as he took my hand. His left eye was swollen, so I knew that he would shortly have a black eye.
"Are you OK?" I asked Pedro.
"Yeah. I'm fine. I just got a couple of bruises."
"I'm so sorry, Pedro," I again said, beginning to sob.
"Stop apologizing, David."
We arrived quickly at the hospital. The paramedics unloaded the gurney from the truck and hauled me into a trauma area. A flurry of doctors and nurses, including my sister in law's mother Teresa (or Dr. T, as I called her), came to my aide.
"You're gonna be OK, David," Teresa said as she walked beside the gurney. Pedro walked with me, as far as they would let him in. Teresa promised that she would get him back as soon as she could. "Now David. We're gonna need to do some tests," she said as she walked beside me. "Some of them are probably gonna be painful. We've also got the police on their way in. I called Jay."
"Oh shit," I said as I began to squall. "Oh God!"
"Don't worry, David," she said in a moment.
"He's gonna hate me. Maya and Daddy are gonna hate me," I cried as they continued to wheel me down the hall.
"They're not gonna hate you. You didn't do anything wrong."
"Oh God!" I felt myself losing my breath as I tried to figure out in my mind how to tell them what had happened. I didn't even know how to think this through myself. I cried until I went numb. It seemed to be the only way to feel good at that moment. My body ached not only from the blows I'd been dealt, but from the pain I'd begun to feel around my asshole from Gonzalo's penetration.
"David! Snap out of it," Teresa said as she tried to get me calm down. "David! Talk to me buddy. You're OK. You're gonna be OK."
As I calmed down, I noticed that I'd been put in a room. "Oh God, Dr. T!" I screamed. She stopped giving the nurses their instructions and came back over to the bed I'd been placed in from the gurney.
"What is it? Are you OK?"
"This is the room," I said, looking at her.
"Yeah. It's the room," she said for a moment before realizing what I'd meant by the comment. "Oh God. The room. Are you sure?"
"Yeah," I said as I began to not only live through this nightmare, but the only other one in my life: Josh's death.
As the nurses ran the tests, I remember being in Pedro's position. I remember not being able to come back and see Josh as he lay in this very room dying, because of the nonsense of us "not being family, technically." It wasn't until Rose showed her ass that they let me see him. "I love you, David," were the last words that Josh uttered before taking his last breath.
And now, I lay in this room, I couldn't help but feel his presence with me.
"Dr. T," I said in a moment, "it hurts so bad." I was complaining like a little child. He had reduced me to no more than a small child. Teresa instructed one of the nurses to get me something. The finished their necessary tests, and I was permitted to lay there in silence for a few minutes.
"God Josh. I love him so much, but I wish you were here," I called to no one in particular. Even though he was gone, I felt a warmth spread over me.
A calmness that I'd only experienced with him. I screamed loudly as if expelling the demons then cried softly from the pain.
Teresa came in shaking in a moment, "Oh God! David, what was that?"
"Just the pain," I lied.
"We'll get you something for that. I thought I was going to have restrain Pedro after you belted that one. I'll bring him back in a minute," she stated after taking a moment to calm herself.
"I'm sorry, Dr. T," I said.
"For what?"
"For screaming."
"Oh. I thought you were about apologize for being in here, for which I was about to threaten you strongly," she stated, cracking a smile to try to cheer me up a little bit. "Here, take this."
"Yes ma'am," I said, swallowing the pills and then some water.
"You feeling well enough for me to bring Pedro back?" she asked before leaving the room.
"Yes. Please."
"OK," she said, giving me a glance before walking out of the room.
In a moment, I heard Pedro coming, almost jogging, down the hall. "Baby!" he said as he came over to me. He had a look in his face as if he wanted to kiss me, but stopped.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I didn't know if I could or should kiss you," he said, pulling a chair beside me.
"You can on the cheek," I said, looking in his direction.
"You OK?" he asked as he sat back down from kissing me on the forehead.
"I'm gonna be. I love you Pedro," I said, offering my hand. He took it and held it for a moment.
"I love you too, baby," he said calmly as he pulled my hand and kissed it. For a little while, we sat there in silence. Neither of us knew what to say to the other. I had so much I wanted to tell him, but I couldn't get it started.
The police came in a few minutes later, followed by my brother. The cops asked me questions, quite clinically. Jay, on the other hand, asked me questions in such a way that I could answer them calmly, much to the assistance of the police officers now assigned to write up both Pedro's and my statements.
"Thank God they're gone," I said as the police officers left the room.
"They're just trying to help, David," my brother said calmly.
"I know it, Jay. I just would really like to only be around people I know," I said.
"I understand," he said in a moment.
"Hey, I'm gonna go get some coffee," Pedro announced after sitting in uncomfortable silence for a minute. "Anybody want anything?" he said, turning to my brother.
"No thanks, man," my brother responded. Pedro kissed my forehead and walked out of the room, looking at me before leaving. I smiled at him, as best I could.
"This is the room, isn't it?" Jay said after looking around.
"Yeah. It's hard to believe it's been as long as it has," I added.
"I know it. It's why I left Birmingham," he said. "I couldn't face that shit down here, anymore. I still have a hard time with it."
"I can imagine. I thought I was going to die myself when they brought me in this room," I said.
"That's what Teresa said. Have you told him?"
"Not yet."
"He needs to know," Jay said, looking out the window. He was trying to hide the fact that he was getting teary about the whole conversation about Josh. "I know you love Pedro, but he needs to know what Josh was to you. Otherwise, you're not gonna be able to let go of Josh and truly totally love Pedro."
"I know, Jay," I said.
"When Teresa called me, I relived the events of that day over in my head. I remember being the first one on the scene and seeing his car. I remember when he bought that car. He was so excited," Jay added, recalling when Josh had bought his first car. It was beat up piece of shit, but he loved it because it was his.
"I know it. I remember it smelled so bad, like cat piss. It was his baby, though. Damn the bastard that did that to him. I wish I could kill him myself."
"Calm down, David," Jay said, taking the seat Pedro had occupied before he left. "It'll be OK."
I could no longer hold in the tears. They flowed as a river that had just broken a dam. "It'll all be OK," Jay said, taking me into an embrace.
"Hey guys," Pedro said as he walked back into the room. Three coffees were loaded into a caddy that he'd gotten from the hospital's cafeteria. "I brought you some coffee, Jay. Teresa said to get you one too, David. She said it might help your nerves."
He handed Jay a cup, which he took without hesitation. He handed me a cup before taking his cup out of the caddy and placing it on the table in the room. I tried to hold the cup still, but I was shaking still so bad that Pedro took it from my hand before I burned myself. He set his on the table, opting to help me take a sip of mine.
"Thank you," I told him.
"Anytime, baby," he said, smiling. It was so nice to have him here.
"I love you," I uttered, extending my hand.
He gladly accepted, "Y te quiero mas."
"Y'all are gettin' sappy," Jay said, cracking a smile. "By the way, I called Maya."
"And I've called Abu. She and Maria are on their way," Pedro added.
"And Maya was speaking incomprehensibly," Jay added. "She and Daddy are probably almost here themselves."
They cracked jokes for a few minutes, but then it hit. "Where is my baby?"
I could hear the words miles away if necessary as loud as she was.
Teresa said just as loud, "Calm down. He's OK. He's right in there."
I heard my mother step quickly down the hard floored corridor toward the room. "David. Are you OK?" she said, coming over to the bed and hugging me as best she could, given my position.
"I'm fine, Maya. Hi Daddy."
"Hi, David," he said, standing in the door, a stressed look on his face.
"OK guys," Teresa said, as she came in, "we've got to run a few tests. I'm gonna ask that y'all to go to the waiting room for a few minutes."
The group grumbled, but complied with the doctor's request. "Now that they're gone, I need to talk to you for a few minutes."
"OK?" I said confused.
"I have some good news, some bad news, and some advice" she said, pulling up a chair as I lay in the bed.
"You're physically fine. Thankfully he didn't do any major damage. You're gonna be in pain for a few days, but other than that, you're good," she explained. "I'm gonna give you something for that, though."
"And the bad news?" I asked.
"It's gonna take a long time for you to get over this, emotionally. You're gonna need to see a counselor and you're gonna need to get some stuff off your chest. And my advice to you is this: tell Pedro what happened to Josh.
He needs to know where you're coming from. You need to tell him. Keeping all this inside will kill you, David," she explained.
I felt myself unable to hold back the tears I had only a little while before I'd gotten control over. "I know, Dr. T. I just don't know where to start with a lot of stuff."
"Start here. Tell him about this room. Tell him its secrets. Tell him what made you scream earlier, since it wasn't just the pain," she said.
"Yes ma'am."
"Now I love you as if you were my family," she said, standing to kiss me on the forehead, "I'm gonna send just him back."
"OK," I responded. She shut the door.
"This is just great," I said to myself. "How do I do this?" The warmth I'd felt earlier again enveloped me. I closed my eyes for the last few minutes of peace.
"Dr. T said for me to come back in here for a little while," Pedro said as he quietly opened the door and stepped in.
I began to sob almost uncontrollably. Pedro rushed to the side of my bed. "Are you OK, baby?"
"Yeah. I've got to tell you a few things. Before I start, I need you to promise that you won't think I'm crazy. I need you to promise that what you learn will not effect what you think about me," I started, with my eyes closed so that I wouldn't have to see his facial expressions.
"You know I would never think you're crazy, baby," he promised.
"I need to tell you why I screamed earlier," I said quite dryly.
"OK."
"This is the room," I started, wiping tears from my eyes. "This is the room where Josh died."
"Oh goodness," he said, taking my hand.
"This is the room where I heard him say his last words, which were to tell me that he loved me. When I realized that, I started to get doubly upset after what happened earlier. It was where I saw Antony threaten to kill a man he didn't know," I went on.
I turned my head to look at him. I realized that I needed to see his reaction. The tears kept me from seeing him clearly, but well enough to see his reactions to my words. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he said.
"Yes. I do. I've got a million other things going on in my head. This is something that I've needed to clear out for a while. It's something that you've needed to know for a while about why I click," I stated as sterilely as I knew how.
"OK," he said, gripping my hands slightly tighter, but not too tightly.
"It was the night of the sixth anniversary of our first date," I started. "He was coming home from work and from shopping. He was stopped at the red light at Fifteenth Street and University. When his light turned green, he was going through normally. Then this fucker comes over the hill and hits his car. A guy named Roger Carhill called 911. Jay was the closest officer, so he responded to the call. When he saw the car, he knew right away it was Josh's and called me." I stopped the storytelling for a moment and focused on Pedro. He was sitting, still holding my hand, and crying. I could have stopped at this point, but he begged with his eyes to know what else happened. "I sometimes think he was more upset than I was. He loved Josh as much as he loved me. They would play basketball together when they got a chance."
I got off track for a moment, but quickly found my place. "When I got down there, I saw Josh being taken from the car. He looked so bad. He looked lifeless at that point. I called his mom and rode with him to the hospital.
I looked at him as he lay there. I couldn't believe that I was in that situation. I couldn't believe that I was going with him to the hospital because someone had just hit him. Jay didn't tell me right then that the guy was drunk. I would have found him and strangled him."
I stopped the story for a moment, feeling the angry of that moment and my anger toward Gonzalo building up inside me. "When Jay was surveying the scene of the crime, he found a small box. It was a ring that Josh had bought for me and had engraved. He was on his way home that evening from picking it up. About two months after he died, I was going through his drawers and found a letter. It was what he'd planned to say to me that night." I felt myself beginning to choke up again.
"He was going to propose to me," I stated finally. "He was going to take the plunge with me, starting that night. That letter caused me to virtually go into hiding for a few days. I just sat at the apartment crying. Jamie and Kyle are the reasons why I came out a week after finding it. They joked, saying they'd started smelling something come from my apartment." I tried joking, but found nothing could change my racing mind from thinking of either of the days.
Pedro said nothing for a little while, opting to hold my hand and squeeze every few minutes.
"OK," Teresa said in her bubbly voice, "there's nothing more we can do for you here, tonight. I've given your mom a prescription for you, and she and your dad have gone to have it filled. Also, my beautiful granddaughter is waiting to see you." I smiled, thanking God that I had one more chance to see the girl who'd come to occupy a very special place in my heart. Teresa finished with some instructions for Pedro about how to deal with me over the following days.
"Man. I get to help you shower," he said, winking at me and trying to lighten the mood. Teresa laughed and called for the nurses to help me get discharged.
I was wheeled into the waiting area after my discharge to an awaiting crowd. Not only my family, but some of my fathers `supporters' had assembled in the lobby. I said hi to the family, but the sight of all the people I didn't know overwhelmed me a bit. It was my mother who came to the rescue, though, by moving them all out of my way. The media had already begun assembling outside the hospital. I ignored the lights and flashes of cameras as Pedro rolled me to my parent's car. A hospital employee took the chair back into the emergency room, and the family got into the car.
"So guys," my dad said, "I think it would be wise if y'all came to Oneonta tonight."
"We don't have any clothes, Daddy," I said, half protesting.
"We're gonna stop at y'all's place and pick up several days' worth of stuff," he said. He'd never been one of those people who insisted on people doing what he wanted, so his insistence surprised me a little. It made me see, though, what the people who'd voted for him saw, though.
"Are you sure, it's OK?" Pedro said.
"Yes. It's fine. Y'all need a safe place, and what place is better than the home of a US Senator?" he asked.
"And besides, if that man finds y'all again, there's no telling what he might do to you," Maya pointed out.
Pedro agreed to go up there, but called Abu first to let them know where he'd be for the evening. We got to the apartment, and Pedro and Maya went inside to gather some things. I felt myself drowsing, and fell asleep before they got back to the car. I slept for the entire trip to Oneonta.
When we got to the house, I barely woke, despite the brightness of the lights that illuminated my parents' house. I pulled my consciousness together for a few minutes, though and stood from the car. It was the first walking I'd done since the run-in with Gonzalo, and I wasn't doing that well with hit. Pedro tried at first to let me use him as a crutch, but that wasn't working too well either. Pedro scooped me into his big masculine arms. He carried me into the house and up the stairs to my bedroom. Maya raced in front of him and pulled down the covers. He placed me in the bed, and I fell quickly back to sleep.
"I love you, David," were the last words I heard before drifting off into my netherworld.
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