Billy's Bones (23 page)

“What did it feel like in the dream? Did you feel anger? Fear?”

“I was terrified.”

“If it is a real memory, perhaps it’s something you witnessed but couldn’t prevent. It might have been an accident. For that matter, we don’t even know if the boy died or was rescued. Not from what you’ve told me.”

“I don’t know,” Kevin said, shaking his head. “I just saw him down there.”

“How old do you think you were in the dream?”

“I’m not sure. It felt like I was a kid.”

Tom was growing fearful—fearful that Mr. Derocher might have been even more of a monster than he’d already proven to be. He refused to believe Kevin had hurt or killed another boy. But what if he’d witnessed something? Had his father abused other boys? Abusers often did have multiple victims. But would Mr. Derocher have gone so far as to commit
murder
?

Until Kevin remembered more—assuming there was anything to remember, and this wasn’t some kind of horrible hallucination—there didn’t seem to be any way to answer these questions.

“Look, we need to get you sorted out first. If, God forbid, this is a real crime that you’re remembering, it happened a very long time ago. Delving into it can wait until you’re strong enough to deal with it, perhaps in Sue’s office….”

Kevin raised his hand again, accidentally bumping into the plastic tray that straddled his legs and wincing. “Can you take this fucking thing out of here? I don’t want to eat this shit.”

Tom stood up and removed the tray from Kevin’s bed, setting it on the floor. When he straightened up again, he found Kevin watching him intently.

“You win, counselor.”

Tom found that comment unsettling. “What do you mean?”

Kevin sat back and closed his eyes as if he were completely exhausted. “I mean, you can do whatever you have to now: play me songs, grill me about my childhood, make me go back to counseling, whatever you need.” He opened his eyes, and Tom could see the pain reflected deep within them. “I need to know if this is all in my head, or if there really is a well somewhere….” He glanced at the young man sleeping in the other bed and stopped, perhaps not trusting the guy wasn’t faking it and listening to the conversation. But Tom knew what he’d been about to say:

…with a dead boy in it.

Twenty-One

B
Y
THE
time Mark did his assessment, Kevin was perfectly calm and rational. So Mark signed the paperwork to release him. He did insist that Kevin set up an appointment with someone outside the hospital, and Kevin promised to call Sue.

A short time later, Tom was driving home with Kevin in the passenger seat.

“Did you really mean that?” Tom asked him after they’d put Berlin behind them. “About me doing whatever it takes?”

Kevin looked out the window at the passing countryside. “Be gentle.”

“I want to talk to your mother.”

Kevin turned to him and gave him a sour look. “Christ! You don’t waste any time going for the fucking jugular, do you?”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I said I’d let you have time, and then I immediately—”

“Why do you want to talk to her?”

Tom took a deep breath. “You know what’s at stake here,” he explained. “There’s a chance you might be remembering fragments of something that really happened. If you did know a boy with black hair and brown eyes when you were young, maybe she’ll know who he was.”

Kevin looked away and thought that over for a long time before saying, “Fine. But not today.”

“No, of course not.”

“I’ll decide when.”

“All right.”

S
HADOW
was so ecstatic to see the “fun daddy”—as Tom was convinced the dog viewed Kevin—back at home that he nearly knocked over half the stacked boxes in the living room as he tore around, wagging his massive Tail of Destruction. Tom made a mental note to finally get all the boxes either unpacked or put in the basement by the end of the week.

For a few days, neither of the two men had a strong desire to talk about Kevin’s breakdown. They just wanted things to be normal and pleasant for a while. They went to work, they came home to each other and Shadow, they made dinner—though Tom was beginning to insist they occasionally eat something other than cheeseburgers—and they spent their evenings in the hot tub or just hanging out and chatting.

There were days when Kevin didn’t like to be touched, but more and more often he would hold Tom’s hand or reach out to give him gentle caresses. One night, as they were lying in bed together, both naked of course, Kevin spent several minutes running his hand softly along Tom’s side and hip in a light, erotic caress that left both of them hard and wanting more. But Kevin wasn’t ready to do more, and Tom accepted it when he stopped and said he wanted to go to sleep. Tom slipped out of the bed after a few minutes of lying there in the dark frustrated and went into the bathroom to quietly masturbate.

When he returned to the bed, Kevin asked him, “Were you just jerking off?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry I’m so fucked up that I couldn’t….”

Tom found Kevin’s hand in the darkness and brought it to his lips for a gentle kiss. “I love you, Kevin. And I think you’re incredibly sexy. So if I get so worked up that I sometimes have to… relieve the pressure… I don’t see why either of us should feel upset or apologetic about that.”

“I don’t want you to be frustrated.”

“Whatever frustration I was feeling is gone now. It felt great, and I assure you my thoughts about you a few minutes ago were extremely complimentary.”

Kevin laughed at that. “Well, that’s good to know. Did you have me up on trapeze or wearing a leather harness?”

“I would never put any article of clothing on you! You’re perfect just as you are. And no—no trapeze. Just cuddling and caressing and making out… and I confess the idea of being fucked by you is appealing.”

“I’m still….” Kevin hesitated and then went on. “I’m still hard from touching you. I think I’d be cool with you watching me. I mean, I think I’d like it. Do you want to do that?”

Tom felt a jolt of sexual excitement shoot straight to his cock and cause it to grow stiff again, even after his orgasm just a few minutes ago. “Yes. I’d love to watch you.”

He knew he wouldn’t be able to touch Kevin or himself and that would be frustrating, but that was completely overridden by how much he longed to see Kevin in the throes of an orgasm.

“Turn on the light,” Kevin said as he pushed the blankets down below his hips. Tom obeyed and immediately felt a surge of arousal as the light fell across Kevin’s naked body and Kevin’s hands reached for his erection.

Tom had masturbated with other men before, but he’d never just watched as a man masturbated. He hadn’t expected it to feel so… intimate. It was surreal. He would have thought the fact that he wasn’t masturbating too would make him feel removed from it, the way a member of the audience at a play felt removed from the actors on the stage. But it wasn’t like that at all. Instead he felt as if he’d been invited into something incredibly intimate. He was watching another man pleasure himself, watching Kevin do something intensely private.

And it was fucking hot.

Kevin wasn’t performing for him, as Tom had anticipated. He was simply masturbating the way he would if he were alone, surprisingly unself-conscious. And Tom was taking mental notes. He saw how Kevin liked to play with his nipples a bit, liked to caress the taut muscles of his abdomen, and enjoyed caressing his inner thighs. He watched how fast Kevin liked to stroke and how he enjoyed alternating quick, short strokes with long, languorous ones.

Someday
, Tom thought,
I’m going to make you feel incredible!

When Kevin came, it sprayed all over his stomach and chest and even splashed against his neck.

“Wow,” Tom said with a soft chuckle, “that was amazing!” His own cock was rock hard again, and he was beginning to think he might need another trip to the bathroom before he’d be able to sleep.

Kevin gasped and looked up at him through heavily lidded eyes. “Kiss me,” he breathed.

Tom bent down and kissed him on the mouth, allowing Kevin to draw it out as long as he wanted. To his surprise, Kevin slipped his tongue into his mouth and kissed him deeper than they’d ever kissed before.

At last Kevin allowed him to come up for air, and Tom said with a lecherous smile, “You’ve got me all worked up again. I may need to leave for a few minutes.”

“No,” Kevin said. “Don’t leave. I want to watch you now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

So Tom masturbated for Kevin. It felt a little uncomfortable for all of a minute or two, but with Kevin running his fingers along Tom’s naked body in featherlight caresses and the scent of semen still in the air, Tom quickly got so turned on he got past his shyness. He couldn’t come nearly as forcefully as Kevin—not after having just done it less than twenty minutes ago—but it was immensely satisfying. They hadn’t quite had sex… but they almost had. And it felt wonderful.

Kevin kissed him again after it was over and told him, “I love you, Tom.”

As much as Tom had grown used to the affectionately teasing nickname “counselor,” it felt so much nicer to hear those words with his own name attached. “I love you too, Kevin.”

K
EVIN
called Sue and arranged for a session with her, as he’d promised. But once he and Tom got there, it quickly became apparent he wasn’t quite as ready to plunge ahead as he’d told Tom he was on the way home from the hospital.

“You won’t listen to the song?” Sue asked him. She had her arms crossed and her right ring finger was tapping impatiently against her upper arm.

“I’m sorry,” Kevin replied. “I know I said I would. I just… I can’t right now. Every time I think about it, I start getting cold sweats.”

“You realize, of course, that the most likely reason you’re getting cold sweats is because the song is linked to a particularly powerful memory—one you’re afraid to remember.”

“I know.”

“And this memory may have something to do with the boy you keep dreaming about.” Kevin had been having more nightmares about the boy, waking up screaming in the middle of the night. But so far there was nothing coherent, just images of the boy calling out to him for help.

Kevin’s leg was going a mile a minute again as he said, “Look, I know you don’t like me, and you think I’m the worst thing that ever happened to Tom—”

“I’ve known Tom for over a decade, Kevin. You are not even
close
to being the worst person he’s ever dated.”

Tom snorted at that, recalling the last guy he’d introduced Sue to. It hadn’t been pretty. Seeing him laugh appeared to ease Kevin’s tension a bit, and he smiled.

“As far as whether I like you or not,” Sue continued, “I suppose I do. But I’m not here to be your friend. I’m your therapist. Which means that sometimes I need to push you, where a friend might back off to preserve the friendship.”

Kevin sighed. “Okay, I understand all that. What I’m getting at is, I’m not being difficult on purpose. There’s just something about that song…. Even thinking about what might happen if I listen to it and it turns out to be the right one…. I guess it’s not very manly of me, but it scares the shit out of me.”

For once, Sue’s voice was gentle. “I don’t care much for manliness, Kevin. I care about what people feel—what
you
feel. And trying to be manly isn’t going to help you get through this. Psychological problems need to be handled differently than financial problems or repair work around the house. They can’t be solved by remaining cool and collected, or by being strong. They can only be solved by allowing ourselves to feel, even if those feelings are unpleasant.”

“This is a little more than just ‘unpleasant’,” Kevin murmured.

“I know. So we’ll let it go for now.” Sue went to pour herself another cup of coffee. “Can you tell me anything more about these nightmares you’ve been having?”

Kevin described them again, but he couldn’t remember any more detail than he’d given her earlier.

Sue took her seat again and looked down into her coffee cup for a long time before asking, “Have you ever been hypnotized?”

“No.”

“It’s not usually as dramatic as you see in films. A hypnotized person can’t be forced to do anything he really doesn’t want to do—”

“You mean there are people who
want
to cluck like chickens on stage in front of an audience?” Kevin asked.

“Yes, in fact. Those people accept the suggestions given them by the hypnotist because they want permission to act foolish or outlandish, while having the excuse that they weren’t in control of themselves. Many people drink for the same reason.”

Kevin looked over at Tom and raised an eyebrow at him, an irritating smirk on his handsome face.

“I didn’t get drunk that night so I could behave like an idiot without being blamed for it,” Tom said defensively. “I got drunk because I
was
an idiot. It’s a completely different category of stupidity.”