Loose End

"So, do they have classes in lighthouses here?"

I looked up from where I was scanning the brochure for a lighthouse off the coast at the mouth of Plymouth Bay where one could vacation for a night or more. But I had photos and layouts of other lighthouses surrounding me at the library table, as well. He looked vaguely familiar, like I'd seen him around the college once or twice earlier—but just recently. And I think I noted him following me with his eyes before out on the campus. I was an architect student at MassArt—the Massachusetts College of Art and Design—in Boston.

"Part of a class," I answered. "I'm in architecture. We're studying lighthouses now, and there's one over by Plymouth Bay where I can stay for a week and study a lighthouse up close."

"Neat," he said and sat down across the table from me. He'd already taken a laptop out of a case and set it down on the table. He looked too old to be a student. He looked more like a lawyer, and he looked like he was something beyond thirty and must have had a good job because his clothes, sports jacket, tailored slacks, and a well-cut dress shirt looked like money. He wasn't overly muscular; he was slim. But he looked like he spent time keeping in shape. He probably had his hair trimmed every week.

I was drawn to older men, usually older than he was, but, like I did with all men these days, I assessed him as a sex partner and found him attractive. Not that I was looking for anyone. I was all set up—maybe more than I had intended to be. Bob was possessive, and he could be intense. He certainly was secretive about me, although I could readily understand why.

In fact, I wasn't looking at the lighthouse brochure just because my class was studying them at the moment. Bob had suggested—sort of more than suggested—that he wanted me to disappear for a while because the press was nosing around too much and it was a touchy time. The election was coming up.

The lighthouse idea had occurred to me because it would be so isolated. Or maybe Bob had suggested that as well. I couldn't remember which. The Duxbury Lighthouse wasn't in Plymouth Bay—it was off the mouth of the bay. It was barely within sight of the coast, and it was out there, isolated, in the water. I'd be dropped there, on my own, for however long it was rented for me. I could call into the coast if I needed something or wanted to get off, but I'd otherwise be as good as disappeared. Bob had said he'd be happy to cover the cost. He obviously wanted me out of the way for a while.

I thought the guy who sat down across from me might say something else, but he got busy staring into his laptop and furiously keying away from time to time in spurts. It was like he was having a conversation with someone somewhere other than here. We were in the college library and I was studying for a class on lighthouse design. I suppose I'd have been irritated if he'd said more initially, but since he didn't, I wanted him to. I was about to go for lunch but thought it would be rude if I packed up just as he sat down. And, besides, he was good to look at.

"I guess I look a little old to be taking classes here," he said, giving me a smile, when he looked up from his laptop and saw that I was looking at him. "I'm a lawyer," he said.

Called it, I thought.

"And my Boston firm has gotten into a series of cases concerning dynamic media. None of us knew what that was, and MassArt has an introductory class in it, so I'm auditing that."

"Makes sense," I said, shuffling round in the papers I had spread out on the tabletop. I didn't want to seem too eager to talk to him.

"You know anything about dynamic media?" he asked. "I'm lost with it at the moment," he continued. "Your lighthouse there looks more interesting. Can I look at that brochure?"

"Sure," I said, handing it over. "Well, I took that introductory course."

"Which one?"

"The introductory course here on dynamic media."

"Oh, right. And you understood it all?"

"Well, most of it."

We both heard the "Shush" and looked around at the same time to see the admonishing librarian. I looked at him and he looked at me and we smiled conspiratorially. It was sort of an ice breaker. We both were naughty boys—together. I can't say I would mind being really naughty with him—together—if I didn't already have a man to be naughty with, which I did. Although my man came with complications.

"I'm Scott. Scott Pawley," he said in a voice "shushed" enough that the librarian didn't look up again. He gave me a sunny smile. He gave the brochure a scan and typed something into his laptop. Then he handed it back and mouthed a "Thanks."

"I'm Drew," I said.

"I'm about to knock off for lunch," he said, again in sotto voce, "I'd pay for yours if you'd answer some question on the dynamic media thing. My firm would pick up the tab. They didn't tell me how I could get the information they need."

"Sure, why not? I'm hungry too," I said as I started gathering up my papers.

* * * *

An hour and a half later, lawyer Scott from the library and I were standing in an embrace beside the bed in his Columbus Avenue apartment near the Boston Back Bay Metro Station. We'd gotten each other naked. His body was harder and more in shape than I had thought it would be, and his erection was arresting. He was holding our cocks together and frotting them as we kissed and I dug my fingers into his shoulder blades.

It hadn't been hard for him to get me into this position. I'd liked the look of him from the start and I was a randy guy. I was a little pissed at Bob at that moment too, of him vacillating between being possessive and not wanting me to be seen with him in public. I made my way by selling my body. I was owned at the moment by a man in his fifties who was busy, busy, busy and took me for granted. Scott had said he lived near enough to MassArt that we could buy something and take it back to his apartment to discuss dynamic media in private.

When he'd taken out his wallet to dig out a credit card to pay the bill for lunch, he had two fifties out and put them in front of me on the table. "Will that cover it?" he asked, and by then we both knew what he was asking.

He didn't really want to discuss dynamic media, and neither did I. He had smooth moves and was a good kisser. His apartment spoke as much of money as his clothes had done. I like nice things. I liked him. I liked his money. I liked his kisses, and I liked his hands gliding on my naked body.

He turned me to the bed and I got the hint that he wanted me kneeling on his bed, so I went down on my knees on the edge of the bed and, with a moan, lowered my chest to the bedspread. I turned my face toward the solid wall of glass overlooking the South End urban scape and extended my arms out from my body in a submissive "take me" stance.

"Be good to me," I begged.

I moaned as he tongued my hole and sucked my cock and balls, and then I cried out and clutched up bunches of the bedspread with my fists as, after I'd heard the snap of the condom being smoothed out, he mounted and entered and entered and entered me and began to pump. He reached under me and brushed the hand away I'd wrapped around my cock as he doggie fucked me, and I sighed my satisfaction as he handed my cock himself and did the honors for me. He paid attention to me in ways that Bob didn't anymore. He took me all the way.

Lights were coming on in the city, as we sat side by side, naked, on a sofa in his living room and drank glasses of what he told me was very good scotch. I wasn't sophisticated enough to know good scotch from just drinkable. "You were worth it," he said, reminding me he'd paid for me and I had just been his rent-boy for a short time. "When can I see you again? Soon, I hope. We didn't really get to talk about dynamic media, and I want to do you again."

"Do you really want to learn about dynamic media?" I asked.

"I really want to fuck you again," he said, and we both laughed.

"Maybe not until Monday," I said. "I have a paper to write and Bob is in Boston this weekend. He'll be in Washington for meetings at the beginning of the week."

"So, you live with a man?"

"Yes. Does that bother you?"

"No, not at all. Not as long as I'm as good or better than he is in bed with you."

"You're younger than he is."

"And is that good?"

"It isn't bad. And you fucked me twice."

"And that's . . .?"

"Better," I said, flashing him a smile.

"Just because I did it twice?"

"No, not really," I answered. I saw no reason not to be honest. "You did it better both times."

"And he pays you well?"

"Quite well."

"And what do you do for him for the money? Do you give him head?"

"Sometimes."

"Before or after anal sex?"

"Yes."

"I like it afterward."

"Do you?" I could take a hint. I was a little surprised that it came out as growled demand, but that aroused me.

"Go on your knees to me. Suck my cock."

I was a true submissive. Being commanded turned me on. Somehow Scott knew exactly what would motivate me to do what he wanted. In that he was better than State Senator Robert Bromley was. Bob could get so much more from me if he just commanded it. But he was a politician. He was still wheeling and dealing even when I was riding his cock.

I went down on my knees, placed my hands on Scott's knees, and pulled them apart. He lay back in the sofa, turning his face up to the ceiling, and moaning, as I took his cock in my mouth.

"You make me happy but hold me off for fifteen minutes, there will be another fifty in it for you," he murmured. Luckily, there was a clock on the nearby credenza where we both could see it. He picked up his glass of scotch and swilled and sipped on it as I gave him expert, prolonged edging head.

Three hours previously I hadn't known he existed. Now he knew me so well. And he knew me biblically. Before I left him that day, he knew me biblically again.

* * * *

It was times like this that I believed Bob had rented this apartment on Centre Street, in Roxbury, a dozen blocks from MassArt, solely because the building had a back lobby, with a freight elevator, that provided private entry through the apartment's kitchen. It was a very nice apartment, especially since I wasn't paying for it. But it served as much as the state senator's secret hidey hole for whatever he was doing that he didn't want the public to know about as it was a way to keep me under his control and at his beck and call—or at least he assumed it did.

There were two bedrooms, but one of them he kept for doing the nefarious part of his business and for storing records and such for transactions he didn't want to acknowledge publicly. I had a single bed in this room and half of the closet and bureau drawers. The other bedroom, the bigger bedroom, with a bathroom attached, was just for his use, whenever he used the apartment, and this was where he lay on top of me when he chose to do so. And, as I'd learned, this was where I'd entertain his friends and business partners who were inclined to fuck young men.

He had a "pretend" family elsewhere for public show, although I'm not sure Robert Bromley's wife was as amenable to the living arrangements as I was. His public family didn't live in Boston, though, and most of his business, as a Massachusetts state senator who was running for the U.S. Senate, was here in Boston, the state capital. So, an average of four nights of the week he was here, in the apartment, in the master bedroom, on top of me. He fucked me every night when he was in residence, and sometimes in the afternoon too, when the adrenaline of the fight for position coursed through his veins.

He was in his fifties, well-groomed and manicured, handsome, and just a bit jowly and padded. He was the consummate Crest-smile politician who had gone to Harvard as a fourth-generation legacy student, pledged his father's and grandfather's off-campus fraternity, and played on the football team. He was brash and manly and virile and hung. When he fucked it was all about him, but I liked older men and I liked to be controlled and even slapped around a bit, and he left me humming after he'd manhandled and fucked me—every single time.

I also liked having nice things and saving the rent money while I was paying my way through college. I took tricks on the side to make my way, but Bromley didn't need to know that. The time he had to spend with me was pretty regimented and scheduled.

If I didn't take tricks on the side perhaps I'd resent that he occasionally gave me to an associate for one-time use, but I reasoned with myself that that was part of paying the rent.

The day after I'd met and been fucked by the lawyer, Scott Pawley, was one of those days—a day when the use of the apartment was explained and that Bob gifted me to one of his associates—actually two of them—and stayed around to watch me be mauled and laid.

Of high use that afternoon was the freight elevator at the back of the apartment house and the door from the back foyer on my floor into the apartment kitchen. This wasn't a meeting for public knowledge. Senator Bromley was the first to arrive. He'd called ahead to tell me to tidy up the apartment, to check the beer and snacks supplies, and to be there to serve an impromptu meeting he was calling. If I had a class, he wanted me to cut it. I was needed to be there to keep the guys he was meeting served—and, as it turned out, serviced.

There were five of them who arrived, one at a time, all of them surreptitiously looking around them as if they didn't want to be caught here meeting with the rest, and all of them coming up the back and through the kitchen.

They met around the dining table and spoke in low, conspiratorial tones, breaking off when I came around with snack replenishments, fresh beer, and, as needed, packs of cigarettes and cigars. They all were jittery, except for Bob and some bulky, coarse-looking, man in an ill-fitting suit, who spoke broken English in some sort of Slavic accent. I recognized two of them as men who had business dealings with the senator, but I also knew those dealings weren't aboveboard, so I pretended I had never seen either of them before—even, when standing near the table to exchange a full bowl of peanuts for an empty one, one of them grabbed one of my butt cheeks and squeezed. I stood there, letting him feel me up, until he was satisfied. I knew Bob would want me to do that.

One of the guys was just one of Bob's bodyguards, one who was a nasty piece of work. I knew that he was the one Bob went to for dirty work, but I pretended I didn't know that. I instinctively knew that a guy could know too much of the senator's business for his own good.

Despite the low tones they were conversing in, I got the gist that they were talking about the senator's election campaign for the U.S. Senate and where the needed second influx of money was going to come from and how it would be cleaned. Beyond that, I didn't want to know anything and I closed my ears to the talk.

When the smoke over the dining table had gotten thick enough to cut with a butter knife, they started to leave—via the back—until they were down to Bob, the crude Slavic-accent guy, and the businessman who had felt me up at the table. I was in the kitchen, setting the bowls and glasses up to be washed when the others were gone, when Bob came in.

"Leave that for now, Drew," he said. "I need you in the bedroom."

"In the bedroom?" I said.

"Yes. I need you to give these two guys still here some sugar. It's important to my business—to you having this apartment."

"I understand," I said, not looking at him. There wasn't anything to say, really. He paid the bills and made no secret what I responsibilities in that were. He'd picked me up from an escort agency to begin with. I put the washcloth over the faucet in the sink, turned, and walked through the living room, where the two men were still in quiet conversation, and to the master bedroom. Bob's bodyguard was in the living room too, but he stayed there, standing by the front door.

In the bedroom I stripped down and laid down on my back, facing the open door into the living room, naked. The two men were talking, but they were both looking at me through the open door. Bob went to them, the three spoke to each other, and then they rose and walked toward the bedroom. They started working on buttons, belts, and zippers as they walked.

So, it was going to be a gang bang, not multiple private visitations.

The Slav, relatively short, stocky, hairy, and beer-can-dick hung softened me up. He liked his meat well-done—tenderized. He seemed to think I needed to be subdued, although I wasn't giving him any opposition. He slapped me around a bit and prodded and squeezed. He made like he might fist me while he was working on opening me up to his particularly thick, if not particularly long, dick, but he didn't do that. Bob liked to slap me around a bit too, and I wasn't averse to it, so we did all right. He was heavy and trapped my body under his in a missionary, and when he got around to fucking me, he did a good, complete job of it. I kind of liked being done by a thug.

The businessman, stripped down and waiting nearby for his turn, looked a little embarrassed at the physical mastering the Slav was displaying and I was taking, but he did stay around for his turn, which was taken in a straightforward doggie, me bent over the bed and him hovering over me and, probably excited from watching how the Slav took me, not taking long before he had ejaculated.

Throughout, Bob sat in a chair, fully dressed other than his fly open and his erection out being stroked, and smoked and watched.

After they left, he took his turn, fucking me vigorously, obviously keyed up from watching the other two cover me.

I missed two classes that afternoon, and, without too much difficulty, I shoved what I'd heard from the clandestine meeting to the back of my mind.

I probably would have forgotten all about the meeting and the little I knew of what they discussed if I hadn't been followed—and then stopped on the steps to the library at MassArt—the following morning. It wasn't as if that was the only smoke-filled shady meeting Bob had conducted in the apartment.

I had noticed that a black guy in a black suit and with the stature, gait, and serious expression of a Marine fell in step not far behind me half way between my apartment and the school and kept pace with me. He didn't look like someone who was a student at any of the universities in this area of town nor did he look like he was just out for a stroll.

He wasn't just out for a stroll.

He called out my name as I reached the stairs up to the library and I thought, "Oh shit." Bob had told me that he was worried that the press was beginning to realize that he had something on the side and he was afraid they'd figure out it was me, with it being worse for a politician that it was fully a guy thing than if he'd had a mistress. That's what had brought up the "take a vacation until the election" idea that had led to the brochure on the isolated Duxbury Lighthouse.

The black guy in the black suit didn't look like press, though.

"Yes, that's me," I said.

He wasn't press. He produced a black leather somethingorother that displayed a very official-looking card with his photo on it. "Ron Brown, Federal Bureau of Investigation. We'd like to make an appointment with you down at the federal building—to have a little chat about Robert Bromley."

"Who?" I asked.

"Robert Bromley, the state senator who's running for the U.S. Senate. We believe you know him. We'd like to talk to you about knowing him."

"I'm sorry. I've heard the name, yes . . . but . . . I'm sorry. I'm late to a class. And I really don't know anything about . . . I have to get to class."

He put his hand on my arm, and I looked down at it and then up into his face, with confusion and a bit of "How dare you."