Mike's Saga 4

Mike’s Saga 4

Mike shifted his backpack on his shoulder and inserted his keycard into the front door lock. It was a safe building; he’d have to give Josh that. The doors were always securely locked, the halls were well lit, and the closed circuit cameras were visible in all the corners. Hell, it was a nice apartment also, fully furnished in a bland but comfortable way. 

Friday night and he was going to be home alone again. Friday night had always been formal dinner. He’d groused about it then, the insistence on a jacket and tie, all the silver and china to hand wash, one of the boys drafted into servant mode, but he missed it now. He missed the easy companionship without having to really try; he even missed Sheldon and his incessant needling. Mike could go out, but it seemed like so much effort to go troll the bars and for what? He could pick up a man for the night. Maybe he could even pick up a dominant, but could he submit. Milton wouldn't even play with Mike because he failed to submit. Did he still want to submit?

Josh had made Mike submit. God, Mike had felt his ass for nearly a week, and he never wanted to think about his precious orbs again. The Epsom salts had helped, but they'd still turned an ugly purple. Josh could be vicious, and Mike had thanked that man after the worst thrashing he'd ever felt. He'd kissed Josh's boots and then been delighted by the crumbs of comfort. He was one fucked up boy.

Mike opened his apartment door and tossed his bag onto the small kitchen table. The apartment hadn't miraculously changed; it was still the same sterile environment as this morning. Cold coffee sat in the coffee maker, and the damn print of some blue bird looked down a him with an eye that looked bored and jaundiced. Mike flopped down on the sofa and flipped on the TV. He'd watched more TV in two weeks than he did in the average year. The noise of some inane game show filled the room. Mike should get up; he should make dinner. It wouldn't be hard; he could nuke something. Mace had brought him weeks worth of prepared meals, all frozen in tidy individual servings and ready for the microwave. They sold them at the cafe for five bucks each, and his freezer was overflowing with them. He could go out. Miles, one in the parade of people checking on Mike, had invited him to stop by The Whispering Horsemen. Miles had looked good, his long braid nearly touching his hip, his smile bright, natural, and without a doubt genuine. Miles had added a new set of holes in his ears, and the dream catcher earrings that swirled as he moved had seemed somehow appropriate.

Something was buzzing. Oh, yeah, the outside door. Mike went into the kitchen and banged on the intercom button; he wasn't expecting anyone.

"It's Gabe. I live next door. We met in the hall. I can’t find my key, and it’s raining."

"Come on up." Mike buzzed him inside. He heard the footsteps in the hall a moment later and the sound of something being dropped and frantic scurrying as if a family of mice had just found a Christmas feast.

"Shit!" 

There was banging now and something being tossed.

"No keycard?" Mike asked, peeking his head out the door.

"I know I put it in here. I tried the building manager. Her message says she's out for the weekend. There was another number for a true emergency. Is a lost key a true emergency?"

"Inconvenient for sure.” Mike opened his door the rest of the way and grabbed Gabe’s wrist. “Quit freaking out. I’ll call someone.”

“Fuck it! I can’t believe I lost it. I’m such an idiot.”

Mike was inclined to agree on the idiot part, but kept his mouth shut. This was the third time since he’d lived here that Gabe had lost or forgotten his key, and from the detritus strewn all over the hall from his futile key search, the boy needed a keeper. 

“Ugh!” Gabe raked his hands through his disheveled sandy hair.

“You’re not fit to be out on your own,” Mike said with a half grin. “Don’t worry. I was that bad once. It’s not terminal; you will grow up.”

“Asshole!” Gabe snarled and turned away.

“Kid,” Mike tried to pitch his voice to a more soothing level. “I’m not doing this very well. I was trying to make a joke. Trust me here when I say my life takes the cake for unmitigated disasters. I had it all given to me, and I threw it back in their faces.” Mike swallowed hard and jerked himself back to the current problem. Keys were easy; love life, well, he wasn’t opening an advice shop or writing a self-help column: How to fuck your life over in three easy minutes. “I’ll call Josh. I think he’ll have a key.”

At least he had a key to the front door. He’d been over a couple of times, and Mike had never needed to buzz him up. He’d been looming in the hall, looking forbidding and reassuring all at once. Mike missed it. He missed someone ordering him to put his laundry away and not just leave it in the basket; he missed the reliability of some heat in his ass when he got snarky or snappish or just plain withdrawn. Mike had watched Josh’s welts fade off his ass, and, God, he missed them. He’d jacked off, one hand on his cock, one hand searching for the sorest spot.

Fuck it! Eight years and he still couldn’t wrap his mind totally around what had happened. Yeah, he was sexually submissive. He got off with a sore ass and stern orders in bed. That was easy; that was common; that was the part Tilden had been so damn awful at. Tilden didn’t even strongly prefer to top. He’d ask. Mike was a bottom; he wanted bruises and bites as trophies the next morning. He could play the top; it was fun with Austin. God, he’d fucked it up with Austin. He loved Austin with his thick hair way beyond Milton’s approved length, the splash of color that so readily rose to his cheeks, the lips that begged for a kiss. Mike had made Milton clean up his disaster; he’d hardly been able to raise his eyes to Austin. Austin had stood next to Sheldon, trying so hard to be brave and kind and understanding. He should have ripped Mike a new one. Instead, he was calm and concerned. Austin had been the steady one as Mike had stumbled through an apology.

“Josh?” Mike hadn’t realized his fingers had been punching the keys until he heard Josh’s voice, deep and uncompromising.

“Boy, what do you need?”

Mike took a deep breath as the dominance penetrated his skin and destroyed his fortifications of toothpicks and tissue paper. Mike should hiss and spit that he wasn’t Josh’s boy, but all he wanted to do was sink to his knees and be back inside his family circle. He’d even kiss Josh’s boots. He’d kiss Josh’s boots everyday.

“Boy, I asked you a question.”

“My neighbor locked himself out, and the building manager’s away.”

“I can let him in, boy. Jer and I were on the way to dinner. Be ready. You can have dinner with us. Decent clothes.” Josh was blunt and demanding with no chance for Mike to interrupt or object. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Mike answered, “Yes, sir,” swallowing the words into a mumble as he realized Gabe was within hearing distant.

“Enunciate. Be proud, boy!” Josh growled, loud enough that Gabe had to hear the voice.

“I’ll see you shortly,” Mike clicked off the phone before Josh had a chance to even more pointedly advertise Mike’s submissive status. “He’s going to let you in,” Mike said, turning toward Gabe and trying to act casual.

“Who was that?” Gabe’s eyes were wide and glittering with surprise or maybe a touch of arousal. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that Gabe was gay and leaned submissive. The political button on his backpack was a giveaway, and he just felt submissive. It wasn’t the disorganization or the blasted lost keys; that was being young and on his own for the first time. Back in the dark ages when Mike had been stumbling through college with his on again off again study habits, Milton had tried to explain it. It hadn’t been understandable then; all Mike had wanted was for someone more in charge to kick his ass in line, and Tilden had obliged with a strict schedule. Mike had thought he’d forgotten Milton’s mystifying advice, but now it came back to him.

“Being the world’s most disorganized student is not a symptom of submissiveness. It’s a symptom of being young and lazy and knowing you have someone to get your back. Tilden will punish you, and he will get your studies back in order, and this will work for today, but it won’t work forever. Someday you won’t be a young college student; you’ll be in the adult world with adult responsibilities. Your submission will have to take on its true form, and you’ll have to learn to manage the divide between being a fully capable and independent adult outside of our home and a submissive and obedient boy inside your relationship. Playing at kneeling is not going to be enough nor is pretending to be a distracted little brat. I know being taken care of has its appeals, and I won’t begrudge you that comfort, but you are not Luke. Someday you will chafe at the care taking and demand responsibility for your own life in the outside world. You need to begin to lay the groundwork in your relationship now, or you will have misery later.”

Mike hadn’t listened. He’d blown the whole talk off as one of Milton’s interminable lectures. Tilden had organized Mike’s schoolwork and punished his ass, and Mike had thought it was enough. Now he didn’t have schoolwork, and he didn’t need reminded when to go to bed or when to get up in the morning. He’d never managed the divide—capable adult yet willing submissive. He’d bristled at regulations at home; he wasn’t an idiot kid after all, but without obedience to rules, sometimes arbitrary rules, there was no submission. Tilden had backed away, given Mike his freedom as he grew older and wiser, and Mike had hung himself with the rope.

“Mike?” Gabe’s voice was tentative and sounded impossibly young and unsure.

“Sorry, I was thinking of something else. That was Joshua Martin, an old friend of mine. He did the renovations on this building and owns a piece of it.”

“OK.”

It wasn’t OK, not really. Gabe had obviously heard most of both sides of the conversation. He’d heard the reference to boy, and Mike was dodging and denying. Mike was a Green Mountain Boy; he was supposed to help young submissives, not deny his own identity.

“His bark is worse than his bite,” Mike said with a pasted on smile.

Gabe nodded, licked his lips, and lowered his eyes to the carpet.

God, did that boy know he screamed submissive? Josh would know instantly. He was an overwhelming dominant, and he wouldn’t be camouflaging it in front of Mike, not when he came on that strong on the phone.

“Do you want a Coke or something while we wait?” Small talk, that was safe.

“Yeah, please.”

Mike opened two cans, handing one to Gabe. The soda was the perfect prop, an icon of American normalcy. Neither of them spoke; they swilled soda and waited for the man with the key.