Looking for Love
Part 9 - Q & A
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Part 9 – Q&A
/…Life
is trial by fire…/
Don woke up and automatically checked the clock.
his body enumerated its various pains. As
he blinked sleep from his eyes, he noticed that in a neat pile next to the bed
were his clothes, car keys, wallet and cell phone.
chair.
Will shrugged. “I
took them from the locker at the club last night after I got you into my
car. It was rather unprofessional of me
but …” he shrugged again.
His wallet, his ID.
Now no one was going to know he was at The Chamber.
Don slowly reached to pick up his phone.
“If you want,” Will sighed.
“I’m not going to keep you here against your will any longer.
unless you’re willing to go to the ER.”
Don shuddered at the idea of explaining himself, and trying
to get them not to report an assault on a federal agent.
voicemail and listened to the few messages that waited him.
He hung up and pressed the next speed dial.
picked up at the house.
“Hi Dad,” Don said quickly.
“I can’t make it to supper tonight.
Work stuff. Talk to you
soon.” He hung up and met Will’s
eyes. Will nodded, acknowledging Don’s
acceptance of his further help.
A particular message from Don’s battered body finally made
itself heard in his brain. Don
grimaced. “Will, I’ve kind of got to …
go.” He gestured towards the bathroom.
bladder that was full.
Will stood up and helped Don to his feet.
before. But the bottoms of his feet were
much more tender. The ways Channing had
forced him to stand had all deeply bruised different parts of his feet, so now
they were a mass of throbbing pain. Don’s
grip tight on Will, they walked carefully towards the bathroom.
“Do you need to …” Will began.
“Just piss,” Don said quickly, embarrassed.
toilet and kindly closed his eyes. Don
pulled his battered cock out through the fly on his pajamas and gritted his
teeth at the severe burning pain that urinating caused.
himself away.
“Bed,” he gasped to Will.
Will turned him around and helped him back into the bedroom.
and the utter humiliation of the situation.
Will tugged the blanket back over his body and handed Don a
TV remote. He straightened up.
...” Will pointed to a TV against the
far wall. “I’ll be right in the next
room if you need me.”
“Will, I …” Don said then trailed off, having no idea how to
express his gratitude to this complete stranger for his incredible
kindness. He only could say, “Thank
you.”
Will’s lips quirked and he nodded and left the room.
Don flipped around TV channels for the next hour but he
wasn’t really watching anything. Rather,
he was thinking about his pathetic situation and somewhere, deep underneath the
self-loathing, anger began to grow – anger at himself, yes, but also anger at
Channing and The Chamber. He didn’t look
too closely at the feeling, fearing it would vanish if he acknowledged it.
After a while, Don put the remote down.
more about this man who had saved his reputation, not to mention his life.
Will appeared in the doorframe, his finger marking his place
inside a book. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Don said.
“I just wanted to ask you some questions.”
Looking a little uncomfortable, Will sat down in his
chair. “Only if I can ask you a question
for each of yours.”
Don frowned then decided it was a fair trade.
reading. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester.
the vague feeling it was Science Fiction.
Definitely needed to know more about this man.
Don went first. “What
kind of name is Stevens?”
“You mean,” Will said, “Why don’t I have a name like Park or
Kim?”
Don nodded.
“My mom is first generation Korean but my dad is white.
tall, from him.” Will cleared his
throat. “My turn.
“Max, the bartender at Titan.”
“I’m gonna kill him,” Will growled.
of info to someone so vulnerable.”
Don thought about protesting the word ‘vulnerable’ but it
was a pretty apt description. Instead he
asked, “You said you’d been in my place when you were younger – at a BDSM
club. What did you mean?”
Will sighed but looked like he’d been expecting the question.
drugs. Heavy into drugs.
and said that I could earn drugs by ‘working’ there.
members wanted. So that’s what I
did.” He looked away from Don, his eyes
and voice distant. “I became basically a
prostitute, a drug whore. I’m a switch –
means I enjoy both Dom and sub – so I did both, many times for many men.”
Don stared at him, horrified.
man as a drug-using prostitute. What a
long road from there to the DEA …
Will looked back at Don, his eyes shuttered, like he
expected judgment from Don. Don banished
the horror from his face and let his sympathy show.
other people’s choices. Will examined
his face then relaxed minutely. Will asked
his next question. “Why did you go to The
Chamber?”
It was Don’s turn to look away.
needed.”
Before Will could comment, Don quickly asked, “How did you
get from that club to the DEA?”
Will took a moment to find a bookmark and set his book down.
“My friend, the one who saved my life, who got me out of the club and off of
drugs, he was an EMT. It seemed like a
worthwhile thing to do so I got the training.
But I quickly got tired of dealing with the aftermath of drug use so I
decided to go into the DEA to try and fight it.
Been a frustrating job but occasionally I feel like I make a difference
in someone’s life.”
Will then asked, “What did you need that you thought you
might find at The Chamber?”
Don sighed. “To
feel. To feel … anything.”
Will nodded, his eyes understanding.
Don asked, “How did you get into the DEA with that past?”
“You’d be surprised what the pasts of some agents are.
insight into the things we’ll deal with.
I was also very lucky that my club treated me right and I somehow got
out of there without any STDs. It was a
good club, but I wasn’t exactly there for fun – a fact that I always managed to
keep from other club members so my dealer wouldn’t cut me off ...
chose me for this particular undercover assignment, though he didn’t tell
anyone else why. No one else knows.”
Will’s turn. “How did
you ‘discover’ that you’re bisexual?”
“I was seduced by two male coworkers.”
hours with nothing to entertain you.”
“I see,” Will said, amused.
Don fired back with, “How did you decide you were gay?”
Will shrugged. “Known
all my life, as soon as I knew enough to put a word to it.
the reasons I became a drug addict. But
in the last few years we’ve reached a tentative truce.
I would do, I’ve done and I’m still alive and in a pretty okay place right
now.”
Will tilted his head.
“What about you, your family know you’re bi?”
Don laughed bitterly.
His brother was far too aware of the fact.
to my dad she always suspected it. So
when I made my big reveal to my dad, he wasn’t surprised at all.
“I’ll say,” Will said with more than a trace of envy.
Don looked for a safer question.
“In LA. I’ve worked
for the DEA all over the country but always pushed to get transferred back
here. My parents still live around here,
in
It was Will’s turn but instead of immediately asking a
question, Will stared at Don for a long moment, his eyes pinning Don in place.
me? What made things so terrible?
to?”
Don flushed. “I bet
you make a great interrogator.”
Will waited.
“My brother,” Don said at last.
Will sucked in his breath.
“Yeah. My baby
brother now has the sort of relationship I’ve always wanted with a man that I
may have even loved.”
“Ouch.” Will
winced. “Both you and your brother are
gay? Or bi?
“It’s kinda new for him too.”
Will laughed dryly.
“Been an eventful year for your family.
What are the odds of both of you … ”
“I’m sure that Charlie could tell you the exact odds.”
can’t say it’s all very surprising, Charlie has always gotten everything I’ve
wanted. Now he has Colby too.”
“Must be hard to be the brother of such a prodigy,” Will
said, his voice neutral.
Don covered his face with his uninjured hand.
childhood resentments – my mother went with him to college, can you believe that?
– he goes and does something like this.
I’d do anything for him, give up anything for him, and God, does he
Will was silent for a long moment as Don struggled to regain
his composure. Finally Will said
quietly, “It’s your turn for a question.”
Don mumbled, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Yeah. Three sisters,
all younger than me. I’m close with one,
talk regularly with another, and the third pretends I don’t exist.
“Oh,” Don said. Maybe
he was lucky with his family after all.
Will asked, “Does anyone you work with know you’re bi?”
“Only the two co-workers that seduced me,” Don said
wryly. “What about you?”
“Before I moved back to LA, no one I worked with knew.
comfortable with them. They all know and
don’t seem to have a problem with it.”
Will grinned. “In fact, they get
a kick out of trying to set me up with guys, usually poor bewildered straight
guys.”
Don smiled a little in response.
Will shook his head. “I
think that’s enough for me for now, unless there’s something else you want to
ask me?”
“Not at the moment,” Don said, his eyelids drooping.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Will said, standing up.
Don almost protested at being treated like an invalid, but
then he realized that was exactly he was.
And it was only due to Will that he wasn’t much worse.
When Will returned with a bowl of miso soup, Don took it
meekly and sipped the hot brothy soup with his swollen lips.
top then applied more salve to his burns and welts and put fresh bandages on
the worst of his knife slashes and his wrist wounds.
broken fingers, swathing most of his left hand into a large white lump.
“You’re gonna have to get that set,” Will said.
doctor.”
“I know,” Don said.
He gave Will back the empty bowl.
Will set it aside and gestured for Don to lay down.
the welts and slashes down across Don’s hips and down his legs.
Will tugged on Don’s hip and Don turned over, his eyes still
closed. Will’s gentle fingers soothed
the welts and cuts over his ass and down his legs.
Don’s swollen, blood-encrusted ankles.
Then, even more gentle, he applied the cooling cortisone gel to Don’s
torn anus. Don bit his lip but a whimper
still escaped.
Carefully, Will pulled the pajama bottoms back up and helped
him back into the pajama top.
Letting Don lay down again, Will tugged the sheet and
blankets up to Don’s chin. Don painfully
rolled onto his right side, the side that hurt the least of all four
options. As Will gathered up his
supplies and walked to the door, Don said softly, “You would have made a good
doctor.”
Will paused for a long moment then only said, “Sleep
now.”
Don obediently slept.