Journey Thru Abilene Ch. 07-09

"No, don't," Wilson had answered. "Some will know you by the name and it's a catchy one—very refined."

Glade wondered what Wilson would say about that if he fully realized how scruffy some of the patrons of Rapier were or that Glade had gotten the name off a can of air freshener.

Glade normally wasn't asked to take more than one man a day or night. He was expected to serve that one man to exhaustion, though, if demanded. These weren't quickie services. The young men were engaged for as long in a twenty-four-hour stretch as the patron wanted to have them. Most of the entertaining of the men Glade was assigned to was in the private bungalows. There were rooms in the main building, but men who couldn't afford the private bungalows—some having them on an annual rent—couldn't afford the prices Wilson put on Glade's ass.

Glade wasn't that much hunkier and more refined than many of the other young men, of course. But what he was was a favorite of Stewart Wilson, who increasingly became reluctant to share Glade with others. The favoritism worked its way to obsession.

Glade didn't live in the Gentlemen's Club compound as many of the rent-boys did. Wilson established him in the penthouse of an apartment house in the nearby southern Denver suburb of Englewood, not too far from Wilson's own ranch-life spread to the south of Englewood. The main feature of the apartment house was the dedicated elevator that went up to the penthouse from the two remote parking spaces in the underground garage—one for the Chrysler Crossfire Wilson had bought for Glade and one for whatever car Wilson was driving that day. And beyond that, Wilson created another, legitimate life for Glade.

The Gentlemen's Club wasn't Wilson's only business holding. It obviously wasn't even one that most of his social set knew he owned—at least the wives of the rich families his ran with. Among his other businesses was an accounting firm down in the center of Denver. Glade was given a title there as an accountant and a small office of his own that he used irregularly to play on the Internet—and, of course, business cards and all of the other cover story he needed to be living legitimately in Denver. The name on his mailbox, on the sign on his office door, and on the business cards was Noah Worthington.

Everything was going swimmingly, even though Glade was getting a little leery of this second life of his and the increasing possessiveness of Wilson, until the barbecue invitation came up. Wilson's possessiveness wasn't as forceful as David Patton's had been, but it was possessiveness nonetheless.

The invitation had come after sex on the bed in Glade's apartment, in which Glade had given Wilson a blow job and then had been fucked in a side split while on his right side and Wilson spooned behind him fucking up into him and stroking that rosebud tattoo.

"There's something I want you to do next Saturday afternoon," Wilson said.

"At the club? I'm working that afternoon. A new patron for me?"

"No, I've told them to take you off the roster next Saturday. I want you to come to my house."

"Come to your house?"

"Yes, we have an office barbecue for the accounting office a couple of times a year and all of the new hires are invited. Your name—Noah Worthington—is on the list for Saturday's barbecue."

"Me on the list? To come to your house? You don't want me to come to your house."

"I know it's awkward. But the office HR manager made up the list and my wife's seen it now. You'll stick out more if you don't come than if you do. It's just a barbecue."

But it wasn't just a barbecue. It was going into Stewart Wilson's other world. His normal world, the one in which he was a husband and father. A father to three girls ranging down from just a bit younger than Glade—or Noah, for this day—to twelve.

Glade did what he could to act the part of new hire Noah Worthington, just an employee of one of Steward Wilson's companies—and certainly not of the Gentlemen's Club. He tried to stay in the background, but Glade had always been too much of a handsome hunk to play the wallflower. The two older daughters latched on to him and did a great job of letting him know just how all-American perfect their family was and how much they looked up to and were coddled and protected by a father who was such a good family man.

Even Mrs. Wilson seemed to be devoted, perfect wife. She certainly was a great hostess and made every effort to make Glade and the other new hires feel at home in the accounting firm "family." She was especially nice to Glade, seeing that at least one of her daughters was smitten by him. She accompanied him to the door when he departed, expressing what seemed a quite genuine hope that he "would come around more often." She didn't leave it at that. She invited him to their July 4th barbecue.

"Certainly, if I'm in town. My folks indicate they might want me to come to their place over that weekend."

"Well, we'd love to have you here, but if your family wants you, you, of course, must go there, Noah," she said. "There's nothing more important than one's family."

Left with that heavy thought under the circumstances, Glade went back to his apartment, packed a bag, trying to be careful not to take anything he hadn't come to Denver with, and drove to the accounting office. He left the Crossfire there—he'd already left the keys to the apartment on the dining room table along with a note—one that Stewart would understand when he read it but that wasn't really keyed to Stewart if anyone else read it. He took a taxi to the bus station; bought a ticket all the way to Billings, Montana; and sat on an uncomfortable seat in the waiting room, trying to clear his mind of all the guilt he felt until his bus pulled into the station.

Chapter Nine: Billings

The sun was just fighting to come up when Gordon climbed down from the bus at the beige-tiled Art Deco Greyhound bus station on 1st Avenue North in the heart of Billings, Montana. He had just awakened and even the scant sunshine that greeted him made him squint his eyes. Somewhere north of Casper, Wyoming, on Interstate 90, he had dropped the name Glade—forever, he hoped—in favor of what he hoped would be both familiar and representative of a man who had matured since Beaufort, South Carolina.

Not that Gordon thought he needed to be coming here crawling on his knees. There wasn't anything he needed to apologize for—that he knew of. But apologies were in order and, he hoped, the possibility of a reawakening of a relationship. But, upon reflection, maybe he did have something to apologize for. He was a whore when Dean Horton had first approached him—Dean had approached him because he was a male whore. But it seemed in the short couple of weeks they'd been together, their relationship became something more than that. And then, when Gordon had left Beaufort and moved west, he'd become even more of a male whore than he'd been in Beaufort. Did he even deserve another chance with Dean?—even if Dean hadn't moved on.

Of course Dean had left him in Beaufort, run out of town, and never tried to contact him after that.

He took his duffle bag—that's all he needed to carry what he'd taken away from Denver—into the men's room at the station and shaved and cleaned himself up as best he could. There was a café in the station, and he had breakfast there, spending more than an hour struggling with whether he even would leave the bus station now that he had finally reached someplace in his trip from Beaufort—someplace final. He always could say that this journey was finished and start backtracking—to Denver and Stewart, where he could live the life of luxury and try to just forget that Stewart had a nice family in an entirely different world, or back to Abilene, where his life and intentions had change dramatically, and fall back into the arms of David and into a spiral down into drugs and sex.

It was a hot and dusty walk over to Montana Avenue and then west down to Central Avenue and further west to the Marine Recruitment Office. He had put his duffle bag in a coin-operated locker at the bus station, thinking it would be more than presumptuous to show up with it at the recruitment office. Gordon stopped at another café at the corner of Montana and Central to cool off, drink a couple of more cups of coffee, and give himself one last chance to not risk disappointment.

"If you'll wait here, I'll see if the lieutenant is busy," a young Marine in a spiffy uniform said when Gordon entered the strip-mall, store-front recruitment office. He'd stood up from his desk with a recruitment folder in his hand and a smile on his face when Gordon had entered the office. The smile turned to a bit of disappointment when Gordon had asked to see Lieutenant Horton.

"Are you already in recruitment discussions with the lieutenant?" the Marine had asked.

"No. I'm just an old friend of his. You can ask him if he's willing to talk to Gordy from Beaufort."

"Just a minute please."

This might be best, Gordon thought. If Dean didn't want to see him, he'd just send the young Marine out to tell him he was too busy and there'd be no face-to-face confrontation.

But it wasn't just the young Marine who returned. First was Dean Horton, looking shocked. The young Marine brushed around him as he stood in the doorway in the corridor leading back from the reception area and slipped back behind his desk.

"Gordy," Dean managed to mutter.

"It's Gordon now," came back the answer.

"I didn't think I'd ever . . ."

"Is there someplace we can talk?" Gordon asked, nodding ever so slightly to the desk where the young Marine sat, trying studiously not to be considered to be listening to the conversation.

"Yes, of course. There's a coffee shop down the street."

"I'm swimming in coffee already," Gordon asked. "Maybe just out on the street or in your office."

"Out in front then. I don't get out of the office enough," Dean answered.

"Listen, Gordy," Dean said as soon as they'd gotten outside. "I didn't want to just leave you in Beaufort."

"I know they beat you up and put you on a plane," Gordon answered. "I didn't know that until some time after you were gone." He really wanted to point out that Dean hadn't tried to reach him afterward. Dean knew where Gordy lived. The apartment over the garage had a mail slot. But he didn't ask that. He didn't want this to be that sort of meeting.

But Dean didn't let that unspoken question hang over them. "I would have tried to get hold of you, but that boss of yours at the bar told me that if I tried, he'd know. And then it would be you they'd hurt. I couldn't do that to you."

"Oh. I never considered that would be the case."

"Look, Gordy . . ."

"I know. You've moved on. You have someone else now. I just wanted to look you up."

"You wanted to look me up because you were just passing through Billings, Montana?"

"Yes, something like that."

"No one just passes through Billings, Montana, Gordy." They both laughed, although Gordon's laugh was a bit of a nervous one.

"No, I haven't moved on, Gordy," Dean said, putting on his serious face. "I won't say I haven't fucked other men since you, but none of them have been you."

That made Gordon feel guilty as hell. It also, though, gave him a glimmer of hope. "About fucking other men, Dean . . ." He started.

But Dean laid a hand on his forearm and said, "I don't need to hear any of that—certainly not if you're coming all the way to Billings to find me means what I think it means. Does it?"

Gordon didn't have to answer that question. The look he gave Dean told the Marine lieutenant all he needed to know.

"Don't you have any luggage, Gordy?"

"Just a duffle bag. I left it at the Greyhound station."

"Then give me a minute to tell the corporal I'm taking off for the day and we'll go get your bag . . . and we'll go on home; I live close to here. I have an idea what we can do for the rest of the day."

- Fini -