House Rules: The Jack Gordon Story (3 page)

“You’re
a prick,” he muttered as he made his way down the hall to his room. “I hate
you,” he said to the closed door as he flopped on the bed and tried to calm his
pounding heart.

He
was a twitchy mess, truth be told, now that basketball season had ended.
Cruising through classwork, gliding through days staring at girls, imagining
what he wanted to do with them, to them, there was not a day that he was not a
walking, talking hard-on. He was actually going to hit college a virgin. Lame.

He
shut his eyes and saw it again, the secretary’s bare, firm ass, his father’s
fingers dug deep into her flesh, her breathy sighs of satisfaction as she
rolled her hips, straddling him. Jack clenched his fists, could feel her skin,
using the few times he’d actually gotten his hands on real girl flesh as
inspiration.

“Jack,”
she would caress his name with her full, red lips. He would kiss her, kiss her
hard, make her whimper and want more as they….

“Shit!”
he muttered, unzipping his jeans and grabbing his erection for the third time
that day. He laid back, stroked himself slow then faster. His skin heated and
his breathing quickened. He grunted, nearly sitting up with the force of the
climax, covering his shirt with a sticky mess. Again.  Sleep descended fast.

After
a brief nap he changed his shirt, pulled on shorts and running shoes, and
grabbed his basketball. Mo was shopping with their grandma, getting a haircut,
and going out to dinner, just the girls. He needed a serious physical outlet if
he wasn’t going to spend his entire day jacking off.

He
climbed behind the wheel of the old Ford F150 and gunned the engine, not even
sure where he was headed, but knowing it had to be the fuck away from there.

* * * *

“Dude,
you have got to close the deal with Laura.”

Jack
ignored his friend in favor of blowing past him and placing a beautiful layup
into the net. He threw the ball at the other boy’s face. “C’mon,
dude
,
you aren’t even trying. Play like you give a shit.”

Brandis
caught it, faked left, ran right, and dunked, just like the showoff he was.
“Whatever.” Jack said, dribbling around his friend and feinting left before
doing his long lob into the nylon.

“Nice
one. Now let me show you how a man does it.” Brandis tossed the ball up from
half court, getting nothing but net.

“Fuck
you.” Jack muttered, grabbing the ball and heaving to the other end, making his
own string music.

Brandis
whistled, and the next few minutes they gave up actually playing and instead
just had a one-upmanship session, seeing how far they could hurl the ball and
still hit the basket. Jack won, which was fair since Brandis had schooled him
last time.

After
about an hour they sat on the grass, breathing heavily, gulping water, the
silence between them comfortable until Brandis opened his fool mouth about the
girl again.

“So…
you get in those panties yet?” He shot Jack a sidelong glance.

“None
of your business.” Jack lay back on the grass, trying hard not to think about
her and her skin, hair, lips, the heft of her breast in his hand, the sensation
of the hard peak of her nipple in his mouth. “Fuck.” He rolled onto his side,
embarrassed at the way his body kept reacting.

“I
didn’t think so. You still harboring a cherry, aren’t you, big talker?”

Jack
ignored him, focused on willing his cock softer so he could stand up again.

“We
gotta fix that,” Brandis said, slapping his hip.

“Gonna
start working for my old man.” Jack hoped to take the conversation off its
current track. “Saturday. At a job site.” He got to his feet, nervous energy
increasing his need to move around.

“Huh,”
Brandis said. “Sounds…interesting.”

“It
will be fine. I won’t work with him exactly. Just for the company. Make my own
damn money for a change. That’s good. I guess.”

“So…that
means you get to see the secretary?” Brandis raised an eyebrow at him.

Jack
felt his face flush. He’d told Brandis about catching his father fucking the
girl in the office that day. Now he sort of regretted it—wished he’d kept it
for himself, to remember and masturbate to as much as he wanted. “No, I mean.
She isn’t on the job sites, I guess.”

But
he didn’t really know. The thought of being in her space made his stupid,
rookie dick hard all over again.

* * * *

That
night, after eating a meal his grandma had brought for them, he looked at his
father. The man sat, beer in hand, staring at the tube.

“Dad,”
he said, hating how weak his voice sounded. Absolutely, completely despising
how much he needed someone to guide him, to advise him. But needing it enough
he was forced to reach out to this asshole for it.

“Huh,”
the man grunted without looking at him.

“Will
I need to, um, come in to the office first Saturday? I mean, fill out paperwork
or something before going to the, uh, job site?”

His
old man shot him a look full of understanding. A smile spread over his face,
startling Jack and making him uncomfortable. Then he looked away, sipping beer
and glaring at the TV again. “I know you were there. I know what you saw, you
pervert.”

Jack
blinked, his heart thudding his chest. His knees shook. His mouth was instantly
bone dry. “Um, what?” But he knew, and he hated the old bastard even more for
being such a shithead about it. Calling him the pervert for watching? Jesus, he
wasn’t the one who’d been married for god’s sake, making the secretary fuck him
on a Sunday in the dark office.

“Oh
Jackie boy. You have a lot to learn. A lot. To. Learn. But it’s okay. She is a
sweet piece of tail. You’d have to be blind or a homo not to want to see her
again.”

Jack
stood, unwilling to hear any more bullshit fall from his father’s lips. “No,
no, sit, listen. I’ll tell you what you want to hear. I know you’re whacking
off five or six times a day. I’ve been there, I get it.”

Jack’s
cheeks flushed. His fingers curled into fists as fury made his vision dim. God,
he wanted to pound the fucker’s face again.

“Women,”
he said, still keeping his gaze trained on the television, “are good for three
things.” A silence descended. Jack ground his jaw, determined not to be the
good pupil and ask the obvious question in the room. The man turned slowly and
stared at him.

Jack
kept his face neutral, raised an eyebrow as if to ask “Oh? And what is that,
wise father?”

The
man pointed the beer bottle at him. “Cleaning. Cooking. Fucking. In that order.
Don’t try and make them any more than that, my boy. That…” he gulped back the
last of the bottle and pondered it as if it held the secrets of the universe.
“That is where I went wrong.”

Jack’s
rage forced him forward. “Don’t talk about my mother,” he ground out, wishing
he had killed his father when given the chance.

John
Gordon seemed to startle out of a daze, looked at Jack who stood looming over
him. “Oh back off, boy. Don’t be so dramatic. Emotion is something you have to
keep under control. All the time, especially when it comes to women. Let them
be emotional, but keep yours,” he put a finger on Jack’s chest, “in here.”

Jack
stepped away out of his reach, unwilling to feel the man’s touch anywhere on
his body. His father shrugged, held up three fingers. “Cleaning. Cooking.
Fucking. Save the conversation for your friends at the titty bar. Now go make
yourself useful and get me another beer.”

Jack
blinked, unsure if the bizarre conversation was ending. His father narrowed his
eyes at him and belched, then spoke again. “Don’t you have homework or
something?”

In
a daze, still trying to absorb how utterly fucked up his life was, Jack got the
beer, opened it, and hawked a huge wad of spit into it before walking back into
the TV room and handing it over. “Thanks, Dad. Great advice. I’ll keep it in
mind.”

“Keep
your dirty boy paws off Mindy.”

Jack
stopped, turned, and stared at his father.

“I
mean it, you little shit. She’s mine. Mindy, the office girl—don’t go near
her.”

Jack
shook his head, walked out, and thought for the millionth time that he would be
lucky to escape his teen years either not a virgin or not in jail for
patricide.

Chapter Three

Every
single muscle and molecule of Jack’s body ached when he moved even the
slightest bit. Both of his thumbs were black and bruised and one was sans a
fingernail. His chapped hands were raw and full of splinters.  No matter how
many times he washed his hair it still felt full of drywall dust, and his eyes
were gritty from it.

For
the last six weeks, he had spent entire weekends and three afternoons a week
learning just how much he didn’t know about the basics of building a house. The
crew reveled in his ignorance. Went out of their way to encourage his fuck-ups.
Threatened every day to “tell Daddy.”

Until
two days ago when he’d snapped, put his fist through a perfectly good piece of
freshly hung, mudded, and sanded drywall right before flattening the worst of
the assholes on the job site with the same dust-covered knuckles. They’d backed
off after that, giving him a small measure of grudging respect.

True
to his word, John Gordon paid him the going hourly wage and Jack’s bank account
was swollen with cash. But he didn’t spend it. He resisted the urge to take
Laura or any other girl out on a real date as he got his feet under him and
established himself as not the pussy kid whose father was their shithead boss.

He
felt good about going to the job site for the first time since he started, but
goddamn, he was sore. He rolled onto his back, noting he’d managed to nap for
an hour. He still needed to get to the office and grab his latest paycheck
before heading out to a party.

He
half stumbled, half crawled to the bathroom for a shower, emerged, dressed, and
stopped in the doorway of his sister’s room. She was engrossed in a book as
usual, twirling a strand of her long, black hair around her finger, focused and
ignoring the world around her.

“Hey
Mo-ster.”

She
looked up, smiled, and ran into his arms. Taking a deep breath of her, he smiled,
then tossed her back on her bed. “Going out tonight. You okay?”

She
nodded, rolling her eyes, an affectation that bugged him but one he figured he
was stuck with. “Daddy said he would be home by five.” Jack took a breath,
nearly ready to stay home. “I’m fine. Go on. I’m just going to read all night.”

He
hesitated, glanced at his watch. “Go on, Jack. Seriously. I’ll call Grandma if
Daddy’s late again.”

“All
right. But we’ll pick up the Monopoly game tomorrow morning. I’m still winning,
I think.”

She
stuck her tongue out at him, rolled to her side, and reopened the book. Jack
smiled, grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter, and headed out, his mind
only half on the stop before the party. The party where he had every intention
of moving the lovely Laura beyond her half-hearted protests and getting right
into her panties, leaving his annoying virginity behind. He had several condoms
already tucked into his wallet in preparation.

He
shifted in his seat as his eager body rose to the occasion a little early, but
the pleasant pain of the zipper’s bite ramped up his libido in a perverse way.
He drove downtown to the Keystone Construction building, parked, and used his
key at the back entry.

He
whistled as he climbed the steps up to the top floor of the five-story
structure and entered the main complex of offices where his father presided,
along with the financial manager. They had a nicely outfitted conference room
with a large window overlooking downtown Ann Arbor, used to impress high-end
clients.

A
small kitchenette was at the back next to the copy room. There was a beat-up
table, four butt-sprung chairs, a sink, coffeemaker that rarely got a break,
and a full-size fridge.