Wednesday TJ stopped me in the barn aisle outside Ginger's stall and asked me if it was okay that he took Friday off.
"Sure. We'll live without you for a couple days. Doin' something special?"
He started to give me a nod, but broke into a foolish grin instead. "Yeah... Fuck, I might as well tell you." He glanced away for a minute, then back at me. "I'm going to see Del."
I stared at him for a second. "Del? Amarillo Del?"
TJ nodded. "We've kept in touch, and he's only about three hours away this weekend, so I'm gonna go see him."
I'd begun to smile as he spoke. "No kidding. Well. What about Gabriel?"
"What about him? I don't know what's going on with him. I think he likes me, but so far we're just pals. He hasn't so much as grabbed my ass yet."
"Huh. Well, give Del my regards, and drive safe." I hugged him close for a minute, enjoying the feel of his long, lean body. I'm not sure I'll ever get over my thing for TJ. Actually I'm not real sure I wanna get over my thing for TJ.
When I spotted him Monday afternoon he was leaning against Barney, one elbow draped across his back, the other hand holding a stethoscope to Barney's now invisible ribs. He had the same dreamy smile on his face that he'd had that next morning in the hotel in Amarillo, and I thought Gabriel better get with the program, or TJ would be moving to Looosiana.
I strolled over to him. "So, fucking Del put a smile on your face, huh?"
His eyebrows shot up. "I didn't fuck Del - he fucked me."
It was my turn for the eyebrows. "He topped you?"
"Yeah. Why? What'd he do to you?"
"He didn't do anything to me, but he bottomed for Vincent."
"He did? We're talking about the same guy, right? Big guy, fat dick, black Stetson? I figured him for a total top."
"Yeah, yeah, that's him. I thought he would be too, but not that night he was with us. He was in fuck-me mode from the minute he hit the bed." I gave him a suggestive look. "You're just so fuckable he couldn't resist."
He chuckled, but I could see him mentally adjusting his take on Del.
When I got home a few nights later, both Vincent and Matt were subdued as they greeted me. In response to my questioning look, Vincent nodded at the little desk in the corner of the kitchen. On top of the pile of bills and catalogs was a notice from the district attorney's office informing Vincent and Matt that their presence was required at the trial of Raymond Mitchell a month from now. I blew out a breath. We'd known this was coming, but in the five months since Ray's arrest we'd managed to keep it at the back of our minds.
Matt and Vincent had been questioned extensively in Dallas before being released, but the trial would mean coming face to face with Ray, and answering endless questions of a very personal nature in front of a courtroom of strangers.
Matt was chopping potatoes with a great big knife that I knew Vincent kept sharpened to a razor's edge, but his eyes were staring unfocused at the countertop just beyond the cutting board. I walked to him and put my hand gently on his shoulder. When he stopped slicing to look at me, I took the knife from his hand, set it on the counter, and wrapped my arms around him. He slumped against me with a sigh so deep it was almost a moan.
"It'll be okay, Matty. Vincent and I'll be right there with you the whole time. You'll be safe."
He nodded against my shoulder, and when he spoke, his breath was warm on my neck. "I know. It's just that it's been so good here and I'm kinda scared. They can't . . . they can't take me away, can they?"
I hugged him tighter for a second, and then gripped his arms as I held him away from me so that I could look into his face. His frightened, apprehensive expression reminded me so much of the first time I'd seen him that it almost made me sick. "No, honey. You just have to answer their questions. That's all, I promise you."
He stared at me for a moment before swallowing hard and exhaling. I gave him a kiss, which he returned, and I let him go back to the potatoes, making sure he was actually looking at them before I turned away. Vincent had been listening from the stove and gave me a little smile when I came to him. He didn't look as bad as Matt, but he certainly didn't look happy.
"You okay, baby?" I asked him softly as I cupped his cheek. He nodded glumly and kissed my palm before turning back to the skillet of pork chops he was browning. We ate a mostly silent meal, cleaned up, and went into the den. Matt sat down, stood up, changed chairs, looked out the window, and finally left the room. I could hear the murmur of his voice just before he came back in to tell us he was going over to Adam's for a while.
After he left, we flipped through the channels a couple times before turning the TV off. Vincent lay back and let his eyes wander over the ceiling as I watched him, wondering what I could do to make it easier. When he reached for me a little bit later, I went to him eagerly, needing comfort myself by then. I hated that this was intruding on our lives again, and I knew the next month would be hard on all of us.
We lay there for a long time, just holding each other and listening to the sounds of the house settling for the night. Matt came home around midnight and went straight up to his room. Hopefully, Adam had been able to provide whatever Matt had needed this evening.
Things were a little better in the morning as we got used to the idea. I knew we could get through this - it just sucked to have to relive the hurt all over again.
The following Thursday I was saddling Barney for a trail ride when TJ called my cell. His voice was strained as he spoke curtly to me.
"I need Gabriel. Have him bring two kill shots."
'Kill shots' are what we called a hypodermic loaded with enough barbiturate to euthanize a horse. Only a vet can purchase the drugs, and we used them very infrequently, but a stable the size of ours always had a few on hand for emergencies.
I didn't bother to ask what he'd found - it had to be really bad if he needed to put two horses down.
"Where are you?"
"Out Twin Oaks off 28. He'll see the rig from the road. Tell him to hurry."
Gabriel locked onto my eyes as I told him about TJ's call, and he was out of the yard three minutes later in a cloud of dust. I went back to work, but my mind was on the two of them dealing with God knows what in some cesspool of a stable.
I'd been watching for the rig, and when it pulled in a couple hours later, I walked out to meet them. TJ was whitefaced with a tight jaw and haunted eyes, and he was breathing shallowly like he was trying not to cry. Gabriel silently helped him unload two horses that were in pretty bad shape. I had a couple stable boys take them away with instructions to have Sam inspect them immediately.
TJ closed the door on the trailer, turned his back on us, and walked away toward the hay barn. As I started to follow him, Gabriel laid his hand on my arm. "Let me. Please."
We looked at each other for a long moment. I almost pushed him aside, but then I remembered them sitting on that bale of hay reading together a couple weeks ago, sharing the lunch Gabriel had made for the two of them. "Okay, but you take good care of him, you hear me?"
He nodded and hurried after TJ, who had disappeared into the big barn. I watched him go with a heavy heart. It's bad enough to see suffering, mistreated animals, but it's even worse to have to kill them yourself. Knowing you're putting them out of their misery is small comfort as you depress the plunger on the syringe and watch the light go out of their eyes.
I gave them a few minutes before walking quietly into the barn. As I came around the corner of a big stack of orchard grass bales, I saw TJ silhouetted in the open back door. His hands were braced against the door frame on either side, and his head was hanging down on his chest. Gabriel was standing behind him and slightly to the side, talking softly as TJ shook his head slowly back and forth.
When Gabriel reached a hand out to TJ's shoulder and TJ shrugged it off, I almost went to them. I just wasn't sure that Gabriel was able to give what TJ needed right now, but then Gabriel grasped TJ by the arm and turned him around. Their eyes met for a moment, Gabriel lay his other hand along TJ's cheek, TJ's face crumbled, and they came together in a rough embrace. TJ began to cry - long, keening sobs that raised the hair on my arms - and I turned away. About an hour later, I noticed that Gabriel's truck was gone.
On the way home, I stopped by their place. Gabriel answered the door in sweats and a tshirt - the first time I'd seen him in something other than jeans - and he looked good. I hugged him briefly and asked about TJ.
"I don't know. He went to his room when we got home."
"And you didn't go after him?"
He looked a little uncomfortable. "No . . . figured he might need to be alone."
"Goddamnit, what he needs is a warm body wrapped around him. He needs comfort, Gabriel, not solitude." I pushed past him and walked down the hall until I could see into TJ's room. He was lying on the bed on his side with his knees pulled up and his arms wrapped around his chest like he was cold. As I watched a tremor moved through him.
I yanked Gabriel a few feet down the hall. "One of us is gonna get naked, strip him, and climb into that bed. You or me?" I asked him angrily.
He stared at me for a moment. "God, Sean, all I've ever done is trade blow jobs a few times. I don't know what the hell to do with him."
"I'm not asking you to fuck him, for Christ's sake! He needs to be held. You can figure that out, can't you?"
When he just stared at me, I pulled my shirt loose from my pants and started thumbing buttons open as I went back to TJ's door. As I was about to walk in, I glanced back at Gabriel. He was looking past me at TJ with an expression I thought I recognized, so I turned and tugged his t-shirt over his head. He didn't resist, and as soon as his arms were free, he dragged his sweats off, stepping out of them as he walked to the bed in just his socks. He hesitated for a moment, and then reached for TJ, rolling him onto his back as he undressed him.
I came into the room and pulled the covers back as Gabriel climbed in and pulled an unresisting TJ to him. As I pulled the sheet up over them, TJ looked up at me with red eyes.
"I didn't have any choice, Sean, I had to put them down." His voice cracked in anguish, and I felt an answering wrench in my chest.
"I know you didn't, baby. It's okay. Gabriel's here, it'll be okay."
I kissed his forehead as his eyes closed, and watched as he turned in Gabriel's arms to bury his face against Gabriel's chest. When I left them Gabriel was murmuring softly as he ran his hand the length of TJ's back in slow sweeps.
I phoned Vincent from the kitchen, and he showed up an hour later with Matt and dinner from Corleone's. I told them what I knew about this afternoon, and then went down the hall to TJ's room. Gabriel was sitting up against the headboard with TJ leaning against him and they were talking.
"Hey," I said, stepping into the room. "Vincent brought lasagna. You hungry?"
They both nodded, and I left the room to give them a little privacy while they got dressed. When TJ came into the kitchen, he looked a lot better when I'd last seen him, smiling when Matt and Vincent greeted him with warm hugs. I walked over to Gabriel and pulled him to me. He heaved a big sigh and hugged me tightly before leaning back so he could look at me.
"Thanks. I don't know what the fuck was the matter with me in the hall there. I just froze when you said I had to get in bed with him. I know you didn't mean for sex, but it just caught me by surprise, I guess."
"It's okay. He looks a lot better, so you did good."
"Yeah, we talked about it and he knows it was the only thing to do."
"Doesn't make it any easier."
Matt had gotten plates and forks out while we were talking, so we loaded up and went into the big family room at the back of the house. The entire back wall was windows that looked out over the meadows of Stonegate. It was almost dark, and the lights of the pool lit the backyard with a soft blue glow. We ate while TJ told us what he'd found.
He'd been unable to get two of the four horses to their feet - always a bad sign - and he'd done the right thing in euthanizing them. His voice was steady as he talked, and I knew he'd be all right. The first one is always really hard. Not that you ever get used to killing a defenseless animal, but the first one can be a career breaker.
After supper, we cleaned up the kitchen, and left them together on the couch with coffee and chocolate ‚clairs, Vincent's Italian cure-all.
The next day I was unsaddling Maddie's latest acquisition, a flighty Arabian she'd picked up at the Scottsdale sale a few weeks ago, when TJ found me. "Got a minute?"
"Sure. Just let me get done here." After I got the horse put away, TJ and I wandered to my office. "You okay?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I've never had to kill something before. It just really . . . Well, anyway, I'm sorry."
I looked at him. "What the hell're you sorry for? I'd think you were weird if it didn't mess you up a little."
He nodded again. "Yeah, I guess. Was it your idea for Gabriel to . . .?" His voice trailed away.
"No, his." I watched as he processed this. "Why?" I asked him.
"Just curious." He shrugged it off. "What I really wanted to talk to you about is the shoeing. I can't keep up with all the horses you have now and still have enough time to study."
"No problem, I'll give Danny a call."
TJ went back to work and I dialed Danny's cell. I hadn't spoken to him in the few weeks since our little rendezvous in the pantry, and found that my heartbeat had picked up a little as I waited for him to answer.
"Danny here."
"Hey, bud, can you fit us back into your rounds?"
"Sean? Somethin' happen to TJ?"
"Nah, he's just too busy with school."
"Yeah, sure. When you want me to start?"
"Next week?"
"You got it. See you Tuesday."
After we hung up, I let myself think about the feel of his fat cock in my hand. I was smiling stupidly and about to stick my hand down my jeans when the phone rang. Katie's exuberant voice bubbled into my ear.
"Sean!" She reminded me of a younger, less foul mouthed Amanda, all irrepressible enthusiasm.
"Katie!" I replied. She laughed.
"I'm coming over for the weekend, and just called to let you know."
"Okay, come ahead. We're as ready as we're gonna get."
This was the first weekend she'd be staying with us since she'd signed up as Adam's student, and the timing couldn't have been better. She'd keep our minds off the trial if anything could.
She showed up the next afternoon, pulling into the yard in a whirl of music and dust. I was riding Calvin from the arena to the stallion barn, and he flung a foot at her car when she cut it too close for his liking. By the time I slid off him, she was right there.
"God, what a gorgeous horse. Is he the one you rode in the GPs? He can really jump, huh? Is he hard to ride?"
I laughed and ignored all but the last question. "He can be a handful, yeah, but he's an amazing jumper."
She helped me untack Calvin, and put his blanket and hood on. Matt showed up then and they went for a trail ride on Zena and Chex. Katie knew how to pony a horse, so I put Ginger on a long lead, and they set off at a jog. Ginger was just about up to a weight Sam was comfortable with before we started riding her, and had turned into a bright, flashy chestnut. Those four white stockings and wide blaze down her face made her a real beauty. I really wanted to own her, but hadn't been able to talk TJ into selling.
That evening after dinner, we adjourned to the den with coffee and desert. Vincent and I had decided that gym shorts and t-shirts constituted acceptable evening wear when Katie was in residence, and we were sitting at either end of the couch with our feet in each other's crotches when she and Matt came in. They settled on the floor in front of the fireplace with Matt's laptop and a bowl of popcorn.
It was all very domestic, and I smiled at Vincent when he wiggled his toes under my balls. We spent a pleasant evening just hanging out. Vincent and I read for a while, but I finally put my book down after smacking myself in the nose with it when I nodded off.
I awoke a couple hours later to the feel of Vincent's tongue lapping at my balls. He'd tugged them out the leg of my shorts, and was on his belly between my legs with my dick in his hand and my nuts in his mouth. I guess the ban on fucking in the den when Katie was in the house had been called off for the evening. I closed my eyes again and let him suck me off, jerking silently into his throat as I came.
When he was sure I was finished, he hauled my shorts down, kicked off his own, and began to hump my thigh as I worked his nipples. When his strokes shortened, I pulled him down to kiss me, shoving my tongue into his mouth as he ground his cock into my leg. I slid one hand around to his ass, just pressing a fingertip into his hole as he began to shoot. He broke the kiss and grunted into my neck as he drained his balls onto my belly.
"You know," he said conversationally when his breathing had evened out, "I get hard ten times a day just thinking about you."
I smiled. "I know - me, too. Do you suppose it'll still be like that when we're sixty?"
"Sixty," he repeated despondently. "Fuck. Are we really gonna get that old?"
"Jesus, I hope so. Don't you wanna grow old with me?"
He snorted. "You know the answer to that." He was silent for a moment as he rested his head on my shoulder before continuing. "Getting the trial notice shook me up more than I thought it would. That day . . . I stayed sane knowing you'd be home soon. That if I could hang on just a little longer, you'd be there to hold me. I've never wanted anything more in my entire life than to feel your arms around me."
Vincent had never spoken like this about the attack, and I barely breathed while I held him tight to me, waiting for him to continue.
"At first I was afraid you'd come home while they were still here. I would have lost my mind if they'd hurt you." He closed his eyes and huffed out a breath. "But when I realized they'd left, I just concentrated on you. I thought about the way you kissed me goodbye that morning. I don't know if you remember, but you were being silly and I finally had to grab you to get a kiss; then I thought you were gonna suck my tongue out. It took the entire drive to work for my dick to go down."
I had forgotten that entirely. Funny what your mind hangs onto.
"Then, when I heard you come into the room, I got scared. I didn't know . . . Sometimes when a woman is raped, her husband or boyfriend can't stand to touch her again. It's like she's dirty or something, even though it wasn't her fault. I didn't know if maybe you'd feel that way about me."
I couldn't take any more. I rolled him off me and pushed my way to a sitting position, struggling to get where I could look him in the face.
"Jesus, Vincent, I can't believe you thought that! My god, all I could think was to get you loose and cover up those horrible burns. I was desperate to hold you, but I didn't know how badly you were hurt. I never felt like that. Never."
I had his face in my hands by this time, staring into his eyes so that he could see the truth in mine. "I wished that I'd called you to come have dinner with me, or that we had plans that night - anything so that you weren't home by yourself. It wouldn't have happened if I had . . ."
"Don't you dare blame yourself," he interrupted me. "I did enough of that for both of us. That was part of my problem afterwards. I got the idea in my head that if I hadn't moved in here, it wouldn't have happened, and I wouldn't have put you through all that shit. But I finally decided that nothing would have changed it. Ray still would have found me somehow, and I'm not sure I would have made it through without you."
He reached up to hold my wrists loosely as we looked at each other for a few moments. Finally, he leaned forward to kiss me. "Ready for bed, babe?"
I nodded, and we went upstairs. I watched him as we brushed our teeth and peed. He glanced at me now and then, and we smiled at each other each time. A relationship turns on moments like those, and I held Vincent extra close that night, more aware than ever how important he was to me.
Katie spent Saturday riding an increasingly difficult selection of horses, learning to cope with their quirks and physical differences. One needed encouragement over big fences; the next required a firm grip on the reins. Turned out she was better on the strong horses, not unlike Adam and I.
We had a scary moment when one of Maddy's jumpers ducked out at the last minute, sending Katie flying into the rails. Luckily, the whole thing came down in a jumble, and she was just banged up. I got to her first, kneeling down next to her as she struggled to her knees.
"Fuck!" she exclaimed. "That hurt!" Maybe she was more like Amanda than I'd thought.
She had a big knot on her arm and a couple scrapes, but she was unharmed otherwise, and demanded to get back on the horse. Adam tossed her into the saddle, and she gathered up the reins with a do or die expression on her face as we rebuilt the jump. After circling once, she aimed the horse at the fence using her spurs and whip, and cleared it with no problem, grinning as she cantered up to us.
"Girl's got balls," Adam muttered to me.
That evening before dinner, I noticed her grimacing as she raised her arm to get plates out of the cupboard. "You okay?"
"Yeah, just bruised, I think. I didn't look yet." With that, she hauled her t-shirt over her head and turned around. The upper left side of her small back was purple and blue with little red sunbursts of broken blood vessels here and there. I was still goggling at it when Matt, Vincent, and Adam walked in from the patio. Katie didn't seem at all bothered standing there in her lacy pink bra with four men staring at her.
"Jesus Christ!" Matt said.
"Is it bad?" she asked, twisting her head to try and see it. Adam went to her and probed gently at her shoulder blade and ribs. Katie frowned, but kept quiet until he was finished. She walked over to the mirror and examined it for a moment, then shrugged.
"Not as bad as the time I came off into the arena fence at home. I thought my leg was broken." She tugged her t-shirt back on, and we all got to work making dinner.
Adam went home after supper, and later that evening I went up to our room to change. As I walked by Matt's open door, I glanced in to see him and Katie sitting cross legged on the bed kissing. Matt had boxer briefs on, and Katie was in her usual oversized t- shirt and panties.
I watched for a moment, trying to decide what to do. I sure as hell didn't want Katie seduced on my watch, but I was pretty sure Matt wouldn't do that. Then I suddenly remembered what my hormones were like at eighteen and stepped in to the room. They broke the kiss and looked at me. Matt looked faintly embarrassed, and I could see his half-hard cock lying along his leg, nicely outlined by the snug fabric of his underwear.
My own dick gave an answering lurch as Katie gave me a sunny smile.
"What are you guys doing?" I asked.
"Practicing," Katie replied. "There's a guy at school I like, and I wanna be able to kiss good when he kisses me for the first time."
"So you're practicing on Matt?" I asked skeptically. Matt kissed pretty good as far as I was concerned, and I wondered idly what Katie thought of him.
"Yeah. I figure if I can get him hard, a straight boy'll be a piece of cake." She glanced at his lap and giggled. "I'm making progress."
Matt hung his head in defeat at her explanation, and then started to laugh. I bit the inside of my cheek hard, and throttled back an urge to tear at my hair and lock her in her room until her mother could come get her. I was so out of my comfort zone talking to a teenaged girl I barely knew about hard dicks, that words failed me. I could feel a hot flush working its way up my neck, and struggled to suppress it as Katie looked closely at me.
"Sean, are you blushing? I'm seventeen, for God's sake, not seven. I know all about dicks and how they work. I've never actually seen one in person, but my girlfriends and I look at them all the time on the internet, and anyway, I turn eighteen next week. Then I'll be legal!"
At that point, I just held up my hand to silence her and left the room. I figured by the time the summer was over, Katie would have talked Matt into showing her his dick hard or otherwise - but I really didn't want to think about it just then. I changed my clothes and went back downstairs.
Vincent took one look at my face and demanded to know what happened. I told him the whole story, and then asked him if he thought we should forbid Matt and Katie to be alone together, but even as I uttered the words I knew it was a stupid idea. Vincent pointed out that having Katie experiment upstairs with (mostly) gay Matt was a hell of a lot safer for her than turning her loose in the back seat of some horny straight kid's car to figure it out. I agreed with that, although what Paula might think about the whole thing made me somewhat uncomfortable.
Sunday morning everyone was lazy, and it was almost ten before we all made it down to the kitchen. Vincent was buried in the newspaper while he nursed a cup of coffee, and I was leaning on his shoulder yawning and scratching my chest. We were wearing sweat pants and tshirts, and I was eyeing the unrestrained mound in Vincent's lap and trying to decide if I should drag him back upstairs when Matt and Katie wandered in.
They were still in their sleepwear as they poured juice and started breakfast. The sight of Katie's nipples poking into the fabric of her t-shirt caught my attention. Matt didn't seem to notice at all, or else he'd seen them often enough that the novelty had worn off. Vincent, after a long up and down when she first came into the kitchen, hadn't looked up from the funnies.
I watched the sway of her breasts as she moved around the room and tried to decide if I was attracted to her even a little. She was very cute and had a great little body, but try as I might, I couldn't get so much as a twitch out of my dick. Vincent shifted under my arm just then, and I glanced down in time to see him root around in his crotch. As he tugged the heavy shape of his soft cock into a more comfortable position, my body responded almost immediately. I chuckled to myself and kissed the back of his neck before going to help the kids get breakfast on the table.
We all went to the stable for a while in the early afternoon. Matt and Katie rode for a couple hours while Vincent helped me set up a computer in the smaller office next to mine. TJ and Gabriel needed a place to work on Foundation business, so we moved some furniture around and got them ready to go Monday morning.
We ate a late lunch across the street at the deli, and then Katie headed home. She kissed Matt goodbye on the mouth, and I thought she was going to do the same to me, but she planted it on my cheek instead. She hugged Vincent, but didn't kiss him, and then she was gone. Matt watched until she was out of sight, and then turned to me with a smile.
"I really like Katie. I told her all about my life before I came here, stuff I never even told you."
"And what did she think?"
"That they oughta hang Ray up by his balls and leave him for the crows."
"Jesus. Her words or yours?"
"Hers."
I revised my impression of sweet, virginal Katie another few degrees, and we went home.