"Where did you get those? Those look fresh. You said that Cole didn't . . ."
"No, it wasn't Cole. It's OK, it doesn't hurt much."
Tab had called the bank and asked Ben Semple if he was interested in a nooner at the apartment.
"Always," Ben had answered. "I'll be there in ten."
Ben was already stripping his shirt off as he entered his apartment, and that's when Tab had seen the welts on his back.
"God, Ben. They're on your butt and the backs of your thighs too," Tab exclaimed further as Ben stripped completely down. "This was kinky sex. Who did it, if not Cole?"
"It was Avery Shern, OK? Senator Avery Shern. So, it's just going to be OK . . . OK?"
"No, it's not OK. Does he do this often? He fucked you too, didn't he?"
"You asked before. I told you that I sometimes took cock. That's what Shern wants, so that's what Shern gets."
"Here, lay down over here on your belly. Now I know why you have the large bottle of salve that's in your medicine chest. Let me put some more on—"
"I came because you said you wanted to fuck." Ben's voice was defiant, irritated. "I didn't come to discuss my sex life with others."
"And so we will. But why do you let him do this?"
"This is his town. We've been over this before. And he's after my little brother, if you must know. He's barely legal and already Avery Shern is sniffing around him."
"So, you're trying to divert him from your younger brother. You think that's going to work?"
Ben was on his belly on the mat in front of the French windows overlooking the marina, and Tab, naked now himself, was rubbing salve on his thighs and back. Ben sighed.
"No, not if my brother stays here," Ben responded after a moment of contemplation. "But I'm thinking of trying to get my brother away from here. Maybe move him south for college—his grades aren't too good, but he's a fine athlete."
"But he might come back to Shernhaven now and again, right?"
"Right. Oh god that feels good."
Tab had straddled Ben's hips loosely with his knees and was rubbing his hard cock up and down across Ben's hole between his butt cheeks while he was applying more salve to the man's back.
"You really think you're going to keep Avery Shern from a Semple man he wants?"
"I suppose not. But Demonte's barely eighteen. I can keep him away from Shern for a while longer at least. Oh, shit. Oh, holy shit. Shit, shit, shit!"
While rubbing salve on Ben's butt cheeks, Tab had spread them, positioned his cock at Ben's opening, pushed inside, and each of his thrusts was being answered with a "shit" from Ben.
There was no more talking for the next fifteen minutes. Just heavy breathing, moans, and grunts. Tab ran his hand under Ben's belly and pulled him up onto his hands and knees. As Tab fucked Ben doggy style, he ran his hand below Ben's belly and latched onto his cock and jacked him off to a mutual ejaculation.
* * * *
"So, you really are going?"
"Yep, by the time you get off at the bank this evening, I'll be gone."
"I'm going to miss you."
"You don't have to miss me. You could come with me?"
"I don't see how I can. Shernhaven is all I've known."
Tab moved to a more comfortable position, rolling onto his side while rolling Ben Semple with him, maintaining the purchase of his softening cock inside Ben. This placed them both overlooking the masts of sailboats in the Shernhaven harbor marina through the French windows.
"I think that's your problem—why you've said you feel antsy and dissatisfied with so much in life. I think you've been enslaved by Shernhaven and by your boss, Trevor Cole, too. And, even by Avery Shern."
"Well if they could see you fucking me like this, they'd certainly be angry," Ben responded. "Cole knows what Shern does to me now and again—but he can't say anything. It doesn't mean he isn't angry about it."
"I can imagine. I've heard he can be violent."
"Oh, I don't know. I've never seen it."
"That's because you've given him all he wants from you. You've played his slave."
"That's the second time you've used that word. That's a pretty explosive word to use with me."
"And I didn't do it lightly. I think something or someone needs to get your attention. As long as you stay here in Shernhaven, you are going to be a slave to it and to the entitled families who act like they own the town. You don't think that letting Shern chain you to a wall, beat you, and then fuck you is treating you like a slave?"
"My family's been here almost since the founding. We have a street named after us here. How many other black families in Massachusetts can say as much?"
"And all the good it's done you. Your family is respected, yes. Because it knows its place and keeps its place here. You know, sometimes I think our behavior is genetic—that we inherit our proclivities. You said your family operated Hernando's, the gay bar, with its extra services, even before it was Hernando's—when it was named Henry's. Did it offer the same services then?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Some of my brothers and cousins still do that there."