Austin's Diary Day 2

Day 2

I should probably tell the rest of yesterday first. It was distinctly inglorious. I hid in my room until dinner. Gordon was still here. I could just see the fender of his car out my window in its polished midnight blue. I would have stayed in my room all night, but Adam cajoled me out for dinner.

"If you want it as badly as I think you do, you need to come to dinner. Pouting in your room is for children."

He said those words smiling, but they seared across my brain. Manipulative bastard!   

The dinner was torturous. I'd sunk below the level of pebble to poisonous bug in Gordon's mind. He never took his eyes off me. Even Trent and Mace's cooking tastes like paper when you're the pariah. Trust me it wasn't a good scene. I started babbling apologies, the words tumbling out of my mouth in uncontrolled spurts.

Milton was so furious that I wondered what was beyond volcanic. Maybe it was the roar of some fearsome beast, Bigfoot at dinner or some wrathful god I was supposed to know from mythology.

"Boy, be quiet. This is not the place for this discussion, and you do not have permission to speak."

Fuck! I shut up. The words whipped across me like the lash on one of Ryan's toys. I should've just walked out. I'm not wanted; I'm hated here. I wonder if I could bum a couch off one of the guys at school.

Sorry for the trailing off in the last paragraph, but Milton and Sheldon came in. Knocking is obviously not in fashion. I've tried to put this down in blow by blow details. I want it for later. That's no more silly than keeping a piece of wedding cake in the freezer for years or a first bottle of champagne. Good thing this isn't a thriller; the reader just got a free pass to skip to page five hundred. Now back to Sheldon and Milton bursting into the room. Knocking had definitely gone out of fashion, or at least it was out of fashion with the problem teenager.

"Sit up."

Milton didn't give me a chance to uncurl myself from my bed covers and my precious tablet before he yanked me into a sitting position and moved my tablet out of reach.

"So what does the master of the house want?" Stupid me. I actually said that. Sheldon, who had come in with Milton, gave me a suppressed grin and a small shake of his head. 

"This is not a game," Milton said in that quiet almost mild tone that signaled he was deadly earnest. "If you want to join our family as an adult, I will hold you to those standards, and this is not acceptable."

Had Milton been taking speech lessons from Gordon? I shrugged and kicked my feet at the edge of the bed. I was still in the sweatshirt and boxers that I’d slept in, and they were fully dressed. "Does it matter? I'm just the problem child."

"Is that who you want to stay?" Milton sat down on the bed. My heart about jumped through my throat when he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. They were men who weren't afraid to touch, but somehow this felt more intimate on my bed with most of my legs bare.

"Austin, what do you want?" I had never heard Sheldon sound so serious. "I see pain and anguish when I look at you. You live in this family. You know what we're afraid of. The idiocy this weekend I couldn't give a damn about. Milton can stop that in a heartbeat. I'm afraid of the call which tells us we have no more choices. I like you; you can be funny. Had I considered you as a partner?  Not really. I'll have to adjust; the reality has shifted if that's what you want." Sheldon stepped from his perch by the dresser and kissed my forehead. "I could get used to having a cub in the family."

What had Sheldon just said? My mind flipped several times, and I know my head snapped from Milton to Sheldon. They couldn't be saying that.

"Listen to me." Milton's voice was warm and melodious. He caught my chin, and our eyes locked. "We are offering you a place in our family as a submissive. You are seventeen. Submission at seventeen is brutal; teenage rebellion is over. The only freedom you will have is to breathe, and that is only with my permission. You will be the boy, the cub, the  bottom of the pack. You will cry, you will hate me, you will hate Sheldon, and you will hate the word submission. You will suffer; I will make you suffer, but we will also give you the challenges which we all believe you crave. You want to be a man. I'll drag you kicking, screaming, and crying into manhood. Is this what you want, boy?"

I stared at Milton, stunned. It was Sunday; he was wearing a friggin tie. They were both dressed in sweaters and ties. I'd only noticed they were dressed before, not formal, not mirroring each other--the united front.

"Kid." Sheldon smiled. Thank God! I wasn't ready for all this seriousness. It was Sunday morning. I hadn't even had breakfast. "It's an adventure, but Milton hasn't killed me yet, and I've asked for it a few times."

"Sheldon, this is not a comedy."

"You didn't try to terrify me before we started. It's not the suffer fest you're describing."

"You weren't seventeen."

"You were seventeen when you were given to Gordon."

"And it was hard. I ran away. Gordon laid more cane stripes on my backside than you want to imagine."

"And do you wish it had never happened?"

"No." Milton paused and reached over me and tousled Sheldon's hair. "Point taken. Thank you, Sheldon."

"What Milton's saying is this is no picnic, and without a doubt you'll regret this choice at times, but at the end you won’t trade it for anything."

"I don't get this. What are we debating?" I knew that was snarky, but I couldn’t come up with anything adult or intelligent.

"Well, if you say yes, Milton will knock the belligerence out of that tone. We're debating taking you as a submissive. We can't promise it will be the equal threesome of Luke, Mike, and Tilden. You will be the cub, and it might not be more than temporary training. We can't decide that now. All we can decide right now is whether you are joining us as a submissive."

"Before you make your decision, bear in mind that I will punish you as a submissive and not as a child for your idiocy on Friday,” Milton said. “It will not be pleasant. We'll be in the kitchen."

Milton and Sheldon rose in a synchronous motion and swept out the door. They were perfect together. What did they want with me? I plucked at my sweatshirt sleeve, faded and dotted with white stains from a laundry failure with a bottle of bleach; my laundry failure I should add. Luke had taken pity on me and shown me how to do the laundry. The pink underwear was OK on Tilden but not on Milton. Milton, the Volcanic--no today had been more Milton, the Terrifying, couldn't have pink underwear.

I was procrastinating. I was a champion at that. Pity you didn't get star billing on a cereal box for procrastinating. Get up. Get out of bed. Go say yes, you little fucker. I'd wanted it since my eyes drank in Milton's broad shoulders, stern lips, and dark eyes with depths that drew me like a magnet. I tangled in the sheets and stumbled out of bed, raking my fingers through my unbrushed hair that flopped against my shoulders and over my eyes. Tilden had suggested I get it cut. I guess it wouldn't be my choice now. Milton would probably hack it off himself with the garden shears. Have your haircut by Milton, the Terrifying. We guarantee military precision.

Wish me luck!