The Blinding Light (17 page)

Finally, the need to breathe became more important than the need to kiss. We broke apart, gasping slightly. Patrick burrowed his face into the curve of my shoulder and rocked harder. I clutched at his shoulders, reveling in the sensation for long, endless minutes, closing my eyes to intensify the marvel of what was happening. It was what I wanted desperately, but there are some morals and ingrained practices that are etched in stone on your psyche.

I grabbed his hips and stilled them. “Patrick, stop.”

He bucked once in my hold before realizing what I had said. Startled, he raised his head in query. “What? Don’t you want to…?”

He looked astonished and more than a little bit hurt. Could he be unsure about my arousal for him? I thought it was pretty obvious from the hardness of my erection threatening to bust my zipper. I dropped a quick peck on his mouth to reassure him without getting lost in the amazement of his lips again. “Of course I want to! Can’t you feel this?” I rotated my hips into his to emphasize my point. “But the fact is, I’m on the clock. I have never once in my life had sex while I should’ve been working and I don’t want to start today.”

Patrick clutched me even tighter to him. “I don’t care about that. I’m paying you, so it doesn’t matter what you do, does it?”

The words sunk into my subconscious, and I reacted even before I could blink. I forcefully pushed him away, retreated to the other side of the table where I could think, and pressed down on my erection, willing it away. Patrick stumbled where I had shoved him, caught his heels on the open dishwasher, and had to fling out a hand to keep from falling. I felt terrible about pushing him, but I needed to get away from the physical sensations he created in me so I could clear my head.

“Jake?” he queried in confusion. “What did I say?”

I was working hard not to let the ghosts of Darren Saunders or Old Mr. Graham overtake me. I rubbed my eyes and told myself that Patrick didn’t mean it like it sounded. That Patrick wouldn’t be so low as to think of me like that. That Patrick was too much of a gentleman to think such a thing.

“Jake?”

I whirled on him and involuntarily spat the words out. “You’re paying me so it doesn’t matter what I do? Isn’t that what you said? So you’re paying me and can tell me what to do? And I have to do it? So what is it, Prostitute Day? Today you want to fuck me so I should just take it because you’re paying me? And of course, I’m gay so it isn’t going to matter to me, is it? A little fuck up the arse will be a bonus to my work day. It doesn’t matter who the dick belongs to, does it?”

With one part of my brain I could see that Patrick looked appalled at what I was saying, but the majority of my thinking had cycled back to the past. I could see Darren Saunders with his huge leer and even bigger cock telling me to bend over and enjoy it, all because he was paying me. And behind Darren was Mr. Graham with his beady, evil eyes, telling me that his customer had requested I spend some time with him, and I would have to if I wanted to keep my job.

Patrick’s whispered words brought me back to the present. “Someone told you that?”

I blinked a couple times to clear my vision and realized with dread what I had shouted. I apologized instantly. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that. I know you didn’t mean it like that.”

Patrick shrugged off the apology and stuck with the rest. “I can’t believe that someone would expect you to….”

I shook my head at his naïveté. “Patrick, I’m a poor, gay boy. I get paid minimum wage because I don’t have any other choice. If I demand more money, then I get fired and some poor other dolt is hired. If I were a woman, I could cry sexual harassment, but no one is going to take a poor, gay guy seriously—especially a gay guy with no connections, making claims against his boss who is perceived to be straight and an upstanding citizen. It’s my word against theirs.”

“When did this happen?”

I didn’t even pretend that it hadn’t happened to me. Patrick was too smart not to see through my lies if I suddenly started backpedaling. I folded my arms across my chest, hugging myself, telling myself that it was all in the past and those men couldn’t affect me anymore. “Which time?”

“It happened more than once?” Patrick’s voice rose in pitch.

I sighed. “It happens, mate. Even Charlie hired me because he wanted some cute gay guy to flirt with the customers. It’s good for business.”

He frowned. “Charlie expects you to…?”

I tried to calm his distress. “Of course he doesn’t expect me to actually have sex with the customers, and definitely not on his time, but he expects me to flirt. A man trying to get into my pants is going to buy more beers than one who is shot down at the first suggestive remark.”

Patrick tore at the tie that was somehow still around his neck, stripping it off and throwing it on the table. “So when I suggested we…. You thought I was telling you I’d pay you for sex?”

“Yes. Sorry. I know I overreacted.”

He shook his head forcibly at me. “No way. Don’t apologize to me. In a way I was suggesting it—suggesting that I didn’t care what you did on my dime, anyway. I definitely wasn’t suggesting that I pay you for sex. But I can see what you mean. No fooling around between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. I’ve got it now.”

I relaxed when I understood he wasn’t going to push the issue. The tension between us dispelled and I saw the funny side of the situation. “Besides, man. How the hell would I explain being naked in the kitchen with you if Mrs. Martha West dropped in to check on me?”

He paled and turned to me. “Oh, God. Don’t even put that thought in my head. Tell me something? Does she look the same way as she sounds?”

I laughed. “How does she sound?”

“Like a dried up old prune who used to be in the army.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Then, yes, she does look as she sounds.” He shuddered dramatically. I pushed him out of the kitchen. “Now, piss off. I have work to do.”

My heart rate had dropped, no longer racing in arousal or fear. I would need to work on my breathing a bit and kicking Patrick out of the kitchen would be a good start.

“Oh, yes. About that….” he started. “I have something I need you to do for me today. Can you be ready in about twenty minutes?”

“Sure. Ready for what? What do you need me to do?”

“Shopping.”

I
T
TURNED
out to be shopping at the pet and gardening supply store on South Street. Patrick called a taxi to take us there, and then asked the driver to return to pick us up forty minutes later. He climbed out of the taxi with Gregor’s harness in one hand and took my elbow.

“Lead on, Oh Great One,” he mocked me. He wanted to play, did he? I was the expert in playing.

“Lead on? To where? I can see a large water feature over there that you might be interested in making a personal acquaintance with,” I teased.

His answering smile was radiant and just a little bit naughty. “Don’t despair. I’ll let you get me all wet in the shower later. There’s no need to be tripping me into a pond to get me to strip off naked.”

Fuck
. “For God’s sake, Patrick,” I whispered furiously in his direction. “A little decorum, please? You say things like that in public and they’ll be pointing and laughing at the stiffy I just struck.”

The bastard was not repentant.

It turned out to be a fun trip. We found food for Gregor—extra-large, twenty-five kilo sacks that I hoisted into our rickety trolley, as well as worming tablets and some treatment for fleas. Patrick spent ages touching all the dog toys and making them squeak and rattle, much to my embarrassment. At one stage he picked up a toy and ran his fingers all over it before turning to me and asking, “Jake, what’s this?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s a dildo. What the hell do you think it is? We’re in a bloody pet store.”

“Idiot. I mean what’s the shape meant to be? This one’s a doggie bone, and this one’s shaped like a meat steak. So what’s this?”

“It’s a sausage.”

“Oh. You’re right. It would work better as a dildo.”

I choked on my tongue, but that didn’t stop him, and the sexual innuendos began falling thick and fast while I ground my teeth and kept silent.

“Ooh. I like this dog collar. Would it fit you, do you think?

“Do you think I’d be arrested if I gave my dog a boner?

“What color are these? I think I have a serious case of blue balls over here.

“Jake, come here and feel this hairy snake.

“Look! Two fluffy balls!

“What the hell is this? It feels like a whip with a feather on the end of it.”

In exasperation I snatched the cat toy off him.

“It’s a feather you dangle for a cat to play with,” I growled.

His eyebrows went up. “I like things that dangle too. Do I get to play?”

The man is going to drive me insane!

Of course there were the blind jokes too.

“Fish. I think I should get some fish, don’t you think, Jake? Every blind man should have some fish to watch. Oh, wait…. Never mind.

“This stuff smells better than what I get from the shop. You should just chuck a couple of these in the biscuit tin and I’ll never know the difference!

“They have snakes for sale here? Cool! Can you take me? I always wanted to see one. Oh, wait…. Never mind.

“Do they have doggie sunglasses here, Jake? I want to get Gregor a pair so we can match. I’d love to see people’s reaction as they try to work out if it’s me or Gregor who is the blind one!

“Do you think I could get a rooster? I know you’re not allowed a rooster in the suburbs because they crow all the time. I could tell the Council that it’s my ‘seeing-eye rooster.’ He looks and tells me when the sun comes up.”

There was a giggle behind me, and I looked to see a teenager eavesdropping and stealing admiring looks at Patrick.
Oh, dear God. Save me!

It was another ten minutes until the taxi was due back, but I pushed Patrick toward the checkout anyway and unpacked the trolley full of goodies. Another giggly young woman served us, and Patrick flirted outrageously, asking her if she thought a pink ball or a green ball would be better for his dog and telling her he thought she smelled divine. She tittered and blushed, stammering out her answers.

Then Patrick leaned in close to her and gestured in my direction, asking the young woman, “What do you think of my friend here? He tells me he’s ugly and twenty kilos overweight. Is that true?”

The girl with the large name tag proclaiming that she was Bec and she would be very happy to help me, shot me a look from under her lashes and whispered back, “He’s not as handsome as you, but if he asked me on a date, I’d say yes in an instant.”

I hefted the twenty-five kilo bag of dog biscuits and turned away from Patrick’s smug grin. But I couldn’t help but overhear Patrick’s murmured reply, “Hmm. I’d better say yes, then. That is, if he ever asks me on a date.” I fled before I could hear anything more.

As I waited for Gregor and Patrick to join me outside the store, I checked my phone for the time.
Shit! Twenty-five minutes until 3:00 p.m.!
In twenty-five minutes I would officially be off the clock, no longer in Patrick’s employ, and no longer with anything to hold me back. Did Patrick want to pick up where we left off in the kitchen? Did he really want me? Or did he just feel embarrassed that he’d asked me to bring him off the other night? Was I a willing body, or did he really like me for who I was? Was it a one-off, or something more? Did I even care?

Shit!
I was due at Ellie’s house after work.

I stared at the minutes slowly ticking over on my phone and heard Patrick move up beside me. Gregor stood watchfully between us.

“Is the taxi here yet?” he asked.

“No.”

I stared at his handsome profile and then did something that I had never done in my entire life. Twenty-six years and I had never, ever done what I was about to do. I thumbed the contact list in my phone, and with a couple of taps, I sent my sister a message telling her some job had come up and I needed to work. Twenty-six years and I’d always put my family first—family over friendship, over education, over recreation. And now, with a glance at a man who had somehow become important in my life, I was blowing off my sister.

For sex.

You fucking horny bastard, Jake!

T
HE
MINUTES
ticked by with excruciating slowness. Once home, I labeled the dog food tins with the braille labeler and put the items on the shelf. I inspected each of the rooms in the house and made sure I had put all the items away. I had my head in the fridge, checking Patrick had enough supplies for the morning, when a sound behind me had me spinning around.

A heavy footfall, and then an electronic voice intoned, “The-time-is…three-oh-one-pee-em.”

I looked up to see Patrick pressing the button on the clock. He had a cute but leering grin as he looked at me expectantly. “Are you finished for the day, yet? Have I stopped paying for your time now?”