Matchmaker 07: July

He was a gentle lover, but he'd seriously worked me over last night, teasing me into orgasm with is tongue before sliding into me soft and gentle to start, then fucking the shit out of me to finish me off, kissing me to within an inch of my life as he came. We'd used a condom, but he and I were going to discuss doing without tonight. My smile spread. Fuck that. Doing without this morning.

He was already hard, his morning wood pressing against my ass cheek. I squirmed around in his arms. In Killarney we were staying in hotel proper, instead of a B&B. That wasn't why I hadn't slept with him until last night, but here I didn't feel like I had to worry about the headboard banging into the wall disturbing the other guests, and last night, if the bed had actually had a headboard, it would have been banging.

His eyes fluttered open as I settled in facing him, and he smiled. "Morning, beautiful."

He was an accomplished flirt, and I enjoyed his gentle teasing. "Morning yourself," I breathed, as our lips caressed.

"Are you okay this morning?" he whispered as our lips slowly parted.

"A little sore, but in the best possible way."

A flicker of a smile danced on his lips. "That wasn't what I meant."

"I know," I said. I couldn't stop smiling this morning. "What about you?"

"Not sore, and very okay."

"We need to talk," I said, forcing the smile from my face. I watched as his smile slowly faded.

"Okay. About what?"

"You."

"What about me?"

"Are you clean?"

"I bathed yesterday morning, even though it wasn't Saturday."

"I'm serious, Brent."

He held my gaze a moment. "Yes," he said, his voice solemn.

"Do you trust me?"

His lips caressed mine again. "Yes," he whispered, dragging a finger, feather light, down my cheek.

A faint smiled danced over my lips. "Since I'm clean too, and on the pill, we don't need the rubbers, do we?"

His lips twitched. "I don't know. Maybe we should try it and see how it goes before we make a final decision."

I slowly reached down and gripped his manhood with my hand. "I think that's a great idea."

I walked with what I felt was a stiff legged gait as we toured St. Mary's Cathedral. I wasn't Catholic, but it still felt like a sin to be walking through this magnificent church with my womanhood still tingling from the pounding I'd received less than two hours ago. It'd been a few months since I was last with a man. It was clear I was a little out of practice, but I was so worked up this morning we'd gone at it hammer and tongs right out of the gates. Lesson learned. Since he was bigger than most, I needed a little warm up first. Despite my tenderness, I couldn't stop smiling, having tasted Heaven this morning even before entering this incredible church.

I was positively in awe of the building with its soaring stone arches and elaborate wooden ceiling. I glanced at Brent and smiled. I'd noticed the first day he wasn't as taken with the architecture as I was, and he preferred experiencing Ireland through its food, pubs, and music, but here, even he looked around with almost slack-jawed wonder.

"Amazing, isn't it?" I whispered. It seemed disrespectful to speak in a normal voice, such was the power of the place.

"Yeah," he murmured. "They don't make them like this anymore, that's for sure."

I nodded and leaned in, liking how his arm went inside mine to take my hand and hold me close. We finished walking through the church and strolled around the outside, taking it in all in. I did a little quick reading on my phone and discovered the cathedral was started three years before Texas became a state and completed about five years before the American Civil War.

When I read that fact to Brent, he simply shook his head in amazement. "I can't get over how old this country is," he said softly.

I nodded in understanding, feeling very small and insignificant standing next to the majestic building. Hand in hand, we left the church grounds, slowly walking toward Ross Castle. We rarely drove, the narrow, crowded streets making walking easier. Ross Castle was just coming into sight when his phone rang. He pulled the device from his pocket, frowning at the screen before swiping to answer.

"Hello?"

I could only hear his half of the conversation, but it was clear something had happened, his eyes and face hardening as we slowed to a stop. "Nobody was hurt?" He listened again. "You have another place she can stay?" Another pause, the longest of all, as he listened. "Yeah, okay. Send me the bill and I'll take care of it." Another short pause. "Yes, I'll talk to her. Thanks for letting me know." He hung up. "Dammit."

"What?"

"My fucking mother," he growled. "She lives in this shitty rented trailer in Dobbin because she kept getting thrown out of everyplace else. I rent the trailer and send the money directly to the guy who owns it, because if I didn't, she'd spend it on booze instead of paying the rent. Anyway, some asshole she's been seeing drove his truck into the side of the trailer and knocked it off its piers. Sounds like he tore it all to shit. Ripped out some of the plumbing, tore up the air conditioning, the works. When Harry, the owner, demanded the guy pay for it, he apparently told him to 'fuck off,' and that 'he wasn't paying for shit because it wasn't his trailer and he wasn't living there.'" Brent sighed. "I hate my fucking life."

"Did this just happen?"

He nodded. "Yeah. A couple of hours ago."

I did some quick mental math. "It's four in the morning there!"

He nodded again. "Yeah, I know. Harry said they were both drunk and belligerent."

I didn't know what to say. Brent didn't like to talk about his family, and I didn't press, but over the last few days I'd picked up that Brent was a 'fixer.' He was always trying to fix someone's problems, even when it didn't really concern him. I'd divined from some of his comments he'd had a string of bad relationships because he seemed to be drawn to troubled women, women who saw him as their knight in shining armor and used him, making one bad decision after another, and leaving Brent to pick up the pieces in their wake.

I hated people like that. I didn't mind helping people, but they had to want to help themselves first. Brent was a good man, but it was clear his past had shaped him to think he had to do everything, fix every problem he encountered himself. Not surprisingly, I supposed, and while it made him kind and sympathetic, it also allowed people to take advantage of him. Like his mother.

"So, you're paying to repair the trailer?"

"Yeah. If it can be repaired. Otherwise I'm buying a new trailer." My lips thinned as he glanced at me. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You know when a woman say's 'nothing' like that, it's definitely something."

"You're letting this guy take advantage of you, you know that, right?"

"What can I do? If the trailer's totaled, have her turned out on the street?"

I paused. I didn't have a good answer for that, but it didn't change my opinion of the matter. "Isn't the trailer insured?"

He snorted. "If you saw the shit hole she's living in, you'd know the answer to that."

"And why's that your problem?" I asked, my eyes narrowing slightly. It was really none of my concern what he did, but I liked Brent and hated to see him being taken advantage of like this.

"She's my mom," he said as if that explained everything.

"If you can afford it, why don't you buy her a place?"

"I tried that. I bought her a little house, but she's was so damned ornery, I finally ran out of people willing to take care of the place for her, and the neighbors were complaining. The final straw was her throwing a booze bottle at a cop who'd showed up in response to another complaint. After I got her out of jail, I moved her out into the sticks into a rented trailer where nobody gives a shit about anything."

I let the matter drop. If my mom were in trouble, I'd try to help too. He dialed and waited.

"Mom, it's Brent." He paused as he rolled his eyes. "Yes, well, I don't give a shit if the throttle got stuck or not, you need to tell that asshole to get lost." He listened. "Well, maybe if you'd crawl out of the damned bottle, shit like this wouldn't happen." Another pause. "I talked to Harry and we're going to work something out." Pause. "No, I'm not paying to fix his truck! Forget it!" He paused again, the muscles in his jaws working. "No, you listen to me. Harry is going to move you into another trailer, but he said if something like this happens again, you're out on your ass, you got that?" He was quiet a moment. "No! Goddammit, Mom, I'm serious this time! You can't keep doing this shit! There's no place else for you to go, understand? This is it! You're at the bottom! If you screw this up, there's nothing more I can do to help you! You'll be out on the streets! Why can't you understand that?" he asked, his voice loud and hard before he was quiet, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his phone. "You know what? Fine! Fuck it! Do what you want," he snarled before he ended the call.

For a moment I thought he was going to throw his phone. I waited for a moment before asking, "You okay?"

He seemed to wilt. "Yeah," he replied softly. "She pisses me off so much. She has no idea how close to the edge she is. I was serious when I said she had no place else to go. Dobbin isn't very big, and she's been thrown out of every other place for shit like this, and since she won't leave..."

"Why?"

"Because she's stubborn, and because Dobbin is home for her. She was born there, and by God, she's going to die there." He shook his head. "I could hear some guy in the background bitching about how hot it was and the fact there was no beer in the 'fridge. Never mind the house they were in is busted all to shit."

"I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do."

He sighed and took my arm to start me walking again. "Nothing you can do. Not much I can do, either. When the sun comes up, with no air conditioning, the heat will get to her and she'll come around..." I nodded slowly. Houston in July, with no air conditioning, had to be miserable. "I'd like to go a month, just one month, where I didn't have to deal with some shit like this."

He looked beaten, all the life gone from his eyes, and my heart went out to him. "I'm sorry for you." I didn't know what else to say.

He nodded. "If it's not Mom, it's a girlfriend. I'm so sick of it all."

"You have a girlfriend?" I asked, my sympathy rapidly drying up.

He looked at me, his mouth hard. "Not anymore, not for the past four months or so. I came home one day, and some biker dude was helping her pack her stuff. Seems they had... history. Anyway, a couple months later she came crawling back after he'd beaten the shit out of her. Again."

"Did you take her back?"

"I didn't 'take her back,' not like you mean." He paused with a sigh. "When she left the first time, I told her we were done, but when she showed up, I let her stay with me a few days since she had nowhere else to go."

"A few days?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Four or five I think."

"Then you threw her out?"

He smiled, but there was no humor in it. "No. She left. Probably went back to the asshole that beat her. Again."

"And if she comes back to you again?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I wasn't going to let her come back the first time, but when a woman's crying and all black and blue from having the shit beat out of her, she's hard to turn away."

I nodded. "I understand, but she made her decision. Twice. You should wash your hands of it."

"Easier said than done."

"Don't you get tired of being plan B?"

"What was I supposed to do? Turn her away? What if one your friends showed up on your doorstep after someone beat the shit out of her?"

"The first time? I'd help her, but if she goes back to the asshole who beat her, that's on her. Don't come crying to me and expect me to help the next time."

"You'd have turned her away?"

"All I'm saying is, she made her decision. You can't adopt every lost kitten that shows up at your doorstep."

"That didn't answer the question. Would you have turned her away?" he asked, his voice hard.

I thought about it. It'd be easy for me to say yes, when the woman wasn't standing on my doorstep. "No, probably not," I murmured.

"Yeah. I tried to get her to go to the cops, but she wouldn't, then one day I came home and there was a note thanking me for helping her."

"So how do you know she went back to the guy?"

"Call it a hunch. If she didn't have any place else to go when she came to me, where else would she go?"

"Yeah, you're probably right."

He nodded. "Story of my life. That's the second time something like that's happened. Apparently I attract the crazies."

I bit my tongue so I wouldn't tell him what I was thinking, that he didn't attract the crazies, that he was attracted to them. If he were to ask me, I'd tell him I thought he was trying to save his mom over and over again.

"So, you haven't been with a woman since the biker chick?"

"Not in a relationship, no."

"But you've...?"

He sighed. "A couple of times, but they didn't mean anything. She got what she wanted, and I got what I wanted."

"But you'd like to settle into a relationship?"

"If I can find the right woman, yeah. It was nice coming home to Amber, biker chick as you called her." He looked away. "While it lasted."

"Did you love her?"

"No, not really, but we were companionable," he murmured, refusing to look at me.

"Wasn't she happy?"

He shrugged but still couldn't meet my eyes. "She said she was."

"So, why'd she leave?"

He shrugged again. "Beats the hell out of me. I wasn't in a very talkative mood as she was packing her shit." I could sense he had more to say so I said nothing. "When she came back, I asked her, and she said she loved him, and he loved her." His lips thinned. "Maybe I should start beating the shit out of women so they know I care," he growled, but I could tell it was his pain and frustration talking.

"It's none of my business, and feel free to tell me so, but did you sleep with her?"

"When she came back all beat up?" I nodded. "She tried once, but no. She made her choice."

I nodded again. At least he had some pride and backbone. "And that's where Brooklyn comes in? You're trying to find the right woman?"

He smiled, but like before, there was no humor in it. "Yeah. I obviously need help. My woman picker is all fucked up."

I nodded but didn't say anything. On that, we could agree.

Easton and I were standing in the rain under an umbrella watching a herding dog demonstration. The black, white, and tan pooch raced around, guiding the small herd of sheep to where the handler wanted them. The handler was using nothing more than whistles and hand gestures to guide the dog as another man spoke into a microphone, explaining what was going on. It was an amazing thing to see, and I wasn't sure who was more delighted, me or Easton.

It'd been a week since I'd gotten mom settled. As I predicted, when the summer sun turned the trailer into an oven, she was much more agreeable to moving out of the damaged trailer into another one Harry had for rent.

Not surprising, the trailer she'd been living in had been totaled. Harry and I had talked it around, and I agreed to purchase a replacement for the one she was living in, pay to have it set up, and he'd move Mom into it once it was ready. He had to do the leg work, but I'd purchase the home, and once that was done, I'd turn the title over to him and begin paying him rent, just like in the past. I could almost hear Harry salivating over the deal, and I knew he'd get it done as soon as possible. I talked to my accountant and set a price limit. Thirty-five thousand would by a pretty nice used mobile home, something much better than she'd been living in, plus another five for delivery and setup.

I could certainly afford it. Forty grand was a spit in the ocean compared to what I spent on fuel, maintenance, and repairs in a month for my fleet of thumper trucks, and now I could forget about it, at least until Mom fucked up again.

With that crises behind me, I could focus on Easton. She'd cooled a little toward me as I worked through the details of getting Mom squared away, but she was starting to warm up again. She'd said she didn't begrudge the time I was spending on the phone, but her words didn't always match her attitude.

She'd also taken a keen interest in my past love life. We'd talked about Amber, Biker Chick as Easton called her, and Mandy, the woman up to her ass in debt but couldn't seem to grasp the concept that just because she could charge something didn't mean she could afford it, not to mention Lynn, who I discovered was a cam girl.

Easton seemed fascinated with my past failures. I tried to make light of them, cracking wise and making her laugh, but inside it still hurt. I didn't try to adopt them as 'lost kittens,' as she put it. I'd liked each of the women, enjoyed their company, and it wasn't until later I found out about their issues. Each time I'd tried to help them get square, but Amber, Mandy, and Lynn couldn't seem to understand their actions were to blame for the situation they were in and the world wasn't out to get them.

Amber hurt me the most. I knew she was coming out of a bad relationship, but then, so was I, so who was I to hold that against her? Unlike Mandy and Lynn, she was living with me, and I'd actually cared for her even if I didn't love her, but Mandy and Lynn had hurt too.

I'd bailed Mandy out of debt, only to find she'd had more than three times the debt she'd told me about. Once I had her stable, so she wasn't behind on her rent and about to lose her car, I'd offered to help her with her remaining debt by paying fifty cents for every dollar she paid. I could have easily paid off the rest of what she owed, but I wanted to help her learn how to manage her money. After only a couple of months, the cracks started to appear in our relationship as she accused me of trying to control her. The resulting strain had led to our eventual breakup.

Lynn was the worst. Some of the guys at work started looking at me funny, and I didn't know why until one of them pulled me aside and clued me in. If she'd been honest with me, I probably wouldn't have objected, much, to her being a cam girl, but finding out she was boning men in real life while streaming it for others to watch was a deal breaker. Thank God she was smart enough to require them to wear a condom.

I'd logged in and watched one of her shows. She'd always been a flirt, and now I knew why. She craved the attention. She wasn't fucking anyone that night, but she was working her audience for a show scheduled next week.

When I saw her the next night, the first words out of my mouth were 'Did you stream us fucking'?

She'd tried to pretend she didn't know what I was talking about, but she knew she'd been busted. What was amazing to me was she couldn't understand why I was upset. It was her job, after all, our three shows had been her highest rated ever, and her fans were begging for more. In her mind, since she had men panting for her all the time, I should be thankful she was fucking me. In that moment, I'd come as close to hitting a woman as I ever had. What I found truly unbelievable was that she was most upset that I refused to fuck her, at least once more, after she'd primed her audience to see me banging her. I considered suing her ass off, but she didn't have enough to make it worthwhile, and I decided it wasn't worth it... especially since it was a live stream and it wasn't still out there for people to see.

There'd been other women in my life, but those were my three 'relationships,' and my three most spectacular failures. As I regaled her with my stories, she'd shaken her head in amazement as she laughed with me. I hated to admit it, but I was kind of waiting for the next shoe to drop with Easton. She seemed very normal and levelheaded, and I was certainly attracted to her, but Amber, Mandy, and Lynn had seemed normal, whatever that was, in the beginning too.