Lek’s Diary

"But I guess I shouldn't be so revealing," I said, suddenly not sure of the vibes I had thought I got off this man. What if it was all in my hysterical fantasies—like in the wet dream of the other night? "I hadn't told you before that I'd lived here with a man. I hadn't thought that maybe you didn't . . . and didn't approve of . . ."

"I've seen the photographs of you and an older man. You have them around here on several tables. I figured it out. Don't worry. You two look happy in the photos."

"We were," I said, with a low voice.

"He must have given you everything you needed," Andy said, the edge of natural gruffness in his voice tempered.

"Yes, yes, he did," I answered.

But had he? Had Tim giving me everything I needed? He was an attentive but a pretty tame lover. Were my recent fantasies telling me I wanted more than that?

"He gave me everything I had a right to have from him," I answered, hedging now for some reason I couldn't explain.

Andy smiled, put a hand on my forearm, and said, "You should have everything you need."

It was only after Andy went back to work that I realized that, from my explanation of Tim's death, Andy realized the full extent of the gay relationship we'd had—what positions we took, how I let Tim dominate me as he liked. And yet he hadn't shown the slightest hint of revulsion. Could it be that I'd also revealed that what Tim gave me was a little tame?

"I keep wondering if there is anything in that house that would give a clue to why they did what they did," I said as Andy was getting up to return to work, the stiff rustle of his white coveralls arresting my attention, taking my eyes to the square-cut top with the curly chest hair cascading over it and the deep cut at the sides, showing hard, tanned skin down to his waist, as well as more tattooing.

"I've thought of that too." he answered. "Not much I've found, there isn't."

"Not much? You found something?"

"Well, their tables had photographs on them—of the two of them—very similar to the photos you have here of you and your . . . your other."

"Ah," was all I could think to say.

He pressed on. "There weren't any papers in the desk. There's little furniture, but other than not having taken care of maintenance in the house, it wasn't really cluttered. And nothing really in terms of personal affects that would tell you anything about the women—other than the photos, and they pretty much spelled out what the women were to each other. The lack of maintenance puzzles the estate agent too. There is a tidy sum in the estate; it was like the women didn't care that there was water draining down into the downstairs walls from leaks in the bathroom."

"Strange and mysterious," I said.

"Yes, it is. And perplexing."

"It's almost like they were afraid to let workmen in the house. But, I guess it's not really our place to delve into their lives in death when we didn't do it while they were alive," I said.

"No, I guess not," Andy answered. "It's bad to take too much for granted . . . or to rush anyone into deciding what they want."

He didn't sound too convinced, though. And, more important, he seemed to waver there, as if he wanted to make some parting gesture, some personal connection. But the moment passed and he just thanked me for the lunch—and for the sandwiches for Joe and Mitchell out there, the good-looking guys who were doing the grunt work. And then he left me, to bask in the glow of having had him at my table for lunch. Knowing what that meant to me—how it affected me—but content to let it build apace . . . or not. I went to the refrigerator to see what sort of different lunch I could put together for the workman the next day.

And then I was going to have to make a trip upstairs and indulge in a fantasy.

* * * *

"I found something. And I brought it." That sounded intriguing, but all of my senses were already occupied with Andy's hand that was gripping my forearm at the kitchen table and showed no sign of withdrawing anytime soon. I reveled at the electricity that touch sent through my body. I don't think that I had been as aroused as that by anything Tim had done during our entire relationship.

That Andy's hands were calloused, throwing me out of the academic context I lived in, gave me a guilty thrill. Tim's hands had always been so smooth skinned—an academic's hands. It was like Andy and I were doing something illicit—deliciously taboo—when we were just sitting at the kitchen table and talking.

"Mitchell found it behind a radiator in a bedroom and brought it to me." And then, when I couldn't do more than look at Andy with want in my eyes, willing his hand to move elsewhere, he continued. "One of them was keeping a diary. One of them, Lek her name is, was Thai. Here illegally, it seems. I read the last month of entries before I brought it over. But I want you to read them too."

"Me?"

"Yes. It explains a lot. But it also says some things that I think you need to read. And with me here. Here, I'll open it to where it begins."

"Oh, she's speaking of being in hiding," I said after reading the passages his finger was on—not the fingers of the hand gripping my arm, though. That was still there. "She talks of having been brought from Thailand by a U.S. serviceman who promised to marry her. But didn't. Who was abusive instead. Oh, Inger, the other woman worked as a social services caseworker. I'd never known that. Always wondered what she did—and why she always looked so beaten down when she dragged home."

"Yes. And look there. The Thai woman wasn't here legally if there wasn't a marriage. And she says the guy threatened to kill her if he could find her."

I turned the pages and read random passages. "So, Inger wasn't just hiding Lek. They started up a relationship—an intimate relationship. Lek speaks of how guilty she thought when that started. And then about how the guilty feelings had just eaten up time they could have had together. Well, we're not surprised about that, are we?"

"Or shocked by it, either, I'll wager," Andy said, his voice low and hoarse. His hand had moved from my forearm down to my knee, the grip just as strong, the electricity current that ran through my body even stronger. "Neither am I," he said. "I fully understand their need. The need of anyone who is lonely and is capable of a love like they developed for each other. I particularly understand the Thai woman's regret of waiting so long to acknowledge what she wanted, what she needed."

"But I wonder what made them snap?" I asked. "I didn't hear any fighting through those walls, and God knows I get it from the townhouse on the other side of me. The arrangement seemed to have been working. Do you suppose this bastard tracked Lek down?"

"There are indications he might have been getting close, yes. But look here further along. I think this is what did it."

"Ah. Inger. A diagnoses of terminal cancer. And quickly approaching. I see." And I did, in fact, see. I saw how hopeless their situation had become.

"Do you see it all, though, I wonder," Andy said in a deep voice.

"What is it I should see?"

"Their devotion to each other, yes. But also how fleeting life is, how lonely it can be if you don't seize it, how long it took them to acknowledge what they wanted, needed. How you have to take what pleasures you can get out of life where and when you can get them."

"Yes, I see that."

"Do you really? The pity is that they couldn't see past Inger's condition as a reason to end it all then. They could have continued to the last—and then something could have been done to allow Lek to live on. Just like you have to live on after your own lover's death. Do you see that?"

"Yes," I answered in a low voice.

"They let the situation defeat them without fighting for themselves to the end. You don't really want to give in to it like they did, do you?"

"No." It almost came out as a sob.

"You've invited me into your house because you're lonely, haven't you?"

"Yes, I guess so."

"But not just that. It's because you want something—need something."

"Yes." I had hesitated in answering and when I did, it was with a moan. He had moved his hand again. He was leaning his face in close to mine, his eyes searching mine—seeing what he wanted to see.

"I have my hand on your crotch now. You are hard."

"Yes. Yes."

"You're not moving away from me, or asking me to leave. You want me. You want me on top of you, inside you, fucking you."

"Yes. Yes. Can't you hear me? I'm saying yes."

"How do you want it—how do you really need it? My guess is that your lover gave it to you soft. Was soft good enough for you?"

"Hard, rough, no prisoners. I want to feel it. I want you to rough me up with your hands. And I want you to keep your boots on. I want to know that it's a rough man fucking me." Each syllable came out of me in a gasp. It was how I wanted it. How I had missed getting it.

He laughed. It was a deep, cruel laugh, and it caused me to shudder in anticipation.

He fucked me upstairs, on my own bed. He showed concern that I wouldn't want to do that—in the bed that Tim and I had shared. And, although the sensitivity he showed within his rough, construction-worker exterior was part of what had drawn me to him, I wanted him to fuck me in the same bed. And I told him that. And I also told him I didn't want him to take any prisoners. I wanted him to fuck me hard, take me roughly, fully. Tim had always been so gentle, felicitous. I appreciated that at the time, but I wanted something different now. Life was too short not to have it all. Lek and Inger had taught me that.

It was clear he was doing this for me. He was solicitous until I let him know that's not the way I wanted it—that I knew this wasn't the way he was doing it with the other workers.

"I don't think you have any idea—" he started to say.

But then I told him about my experience before Tim—that I had been fucked hard, roughly, brutally by construction workers beyond the beaded curtains separating a barroom and the corridor to the bathrooms once when I was in college. That Tim never fucked me that way, and I know knew it hadn't been enough. I only knew now, being with a big man in heavy construction, shit-kicker heavy construction boots and all, that this was how I wanted it.

"How hard do you want it?," he asked in a gravelly voice, as everything off but those construction boots he rolled over on top of me on the bed, his arms wrapped around my neck, his hard dick throbbing up my belly, and came out of a deep kiss.

"Hard. I want it hard," I answered. "Rough. Total. I want to know I've been fucked. It's been too fuckin' long."

He crushed me to the bed, his body heavier and chunkier than Tim's. He was thicker, longer than Tim. He spread my thighs open with his knees and positioned his sheathed cock at my hole. I panted hard as the thick bulb breached the rim and held there, briefly, as, panicked, I fought to open to it, knowing he wouldn't let me—because of how I'd said I wanted it. His expression was lustful now, slightly cruel. I had given permission for whatever he wanted.

I pushed up with my pelvis, wanting the thrust to be straight and as accommodating as possible, and, with a mutter of "You're a little slut for it, aren't you?" and a guttural laugh, he raised himself a bit on his knees to allow me to raise my butt. Neither one of us was acting like the people we were in leading up to this, and I think our earlier interaction was truer—but this was true for what I wanted and needed, and I think Andy was melding to that.

With a thrust, he forced himself inside me before I was completely open to him, letting me know he was going to stretch me to the limit, pound me forever, cause me to scream out in pain mixed with passion, until passion won out, I joined him in the rhythm, and begged him never to stop. And then, when he did in a mutual explosion, begged him to start again, which, with a laugh, he obliged. So utterly different from anything Tim had ever given me, had ever done inside me. And I was so hungry for it.

He filled me, he stretched me, he hit all of the spots. I managed to turn him on his back and saddle myself on his cock, and ride, ride, ride. He had a vigor that far surpassed anything I'd remembered before.

He lifted me off his cock and tossed me to the floor beyond the foot of the bed and sat on the end of the bed, cock in hand, still wearing his construction boots.

"Crawl to me on your belly," he growled, and I slithered to him, kissing the snake tattoo on his calf and moving my tongue down to his boot tops.

He bent me over the foot of the bed, his right leg bent and his booted foot on the bed, while he grabbed my wrists in one hand and pushed my arms painfully up my back. Thrusting up hard inside me, he began to pump again. Mewing my want, I tongued down his snake tattoo back onto the top of his boot and came for him in great gobs of pent-up cum.

We went back up on the bed, Andy on his back, and me riding him until he too had a gushing ejaculation. When we were spent, he rolled me off him and, while his hands explored my bruised and satisfied body, said, "You were a little slut for it." I could almost hear the awe and surprise in his voice.

"Yes, sorry," I answered.

"Don't be sorry. You know, Joe . . . and Mitchell too would like—"

"Yes, oh God, yes, please."