West

THE KEYHOLDER

SHANNON WEST

The Keyholder

Copyright © 2014

Published by Dark Hollows Press

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The Keyholder

Copyright © 2014 Shannon West

ISBN 10: 1940756731

ISBN 13: 978-1-940756-73-8

Publication Date: July 2014

All cover art and logo copyright © 2014 by Dark Hollows Press

Cover design by
3 Rusted Spoons

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

Cody McCall woke up feeling like he’d been hit by a bus—and dragged along behind it. What on earth could have happened to him?

In addition to every bone in his body aching, he could never remember being so thirsty. Gently, he coaxed his tongue down off the roof of his mouth where it had been apparently super-glued. He tried to swallow—big mistake. Had he tried to eat broken glass? He knew he’d been drunk—make that super drunk, epically drunk, more-drunk-than-anyone-had-ever-been-in-the-history-of-the-world drunk—but he wouldn’t have tried to hurt himself, no matter how depressed he’d been. Would he?

Moaning, he managed to pry one eye, then slammed it shut at the sudden influx of sunlight.

“Aahhkk.”

Had that sound come from him? It sounded like the noise his cat made coughing up a hairball, and it would have alarmed him if he hadn’t had so many other things to worry about at the moment. Like the fact that he had to pee like a fucking racehorse and that for some reason he couldn’t seem to be able to move his arms.

Panic-stricken, he used muscles in his face that he’d maybe never used before to get his eyes all the way open, blinking rapidly at the blinding light blasting him from the window across from his bed. He looked down at himself.

His arms weren’t paralyzed, thank Jesus, just tethered to the bed rails by leather straps. He let that idea drive for a moment and take a quick spin around his brain. He was strapped to the damn bed. He kicked out his legs, which were still blessedly free, and rattled the bed rails by moving his arms agitatedly back and forth.

“Better be good, Cody, or Nurse Ratchet will come back in here and strap your legs down too.”

Cody turned his head in the direction of the deep voice and relief flooded him as he saw Jake Rogers, his best friend and his partner in the Fulton County Police Department, sitting on a chair by the bed. He thought he must be dreaming because Jake was back in Atlanta, and Cody was still down in Florida on vacation. Wasn’t he?

“Jake, thank God,” he tried to say, though it came out more like. “Aakk. Aa-Aakkk.” Yep, definitely broken glass, chased down by a little drain cleaner.

Clearing his throat, he tried again. “J-aakke.” He jerked his head toward the pitcher of water on the nightstand beside him. “Wa-water.”

Jake Rogers unfolded himself from the chair by the bed and stood to gaze down at him. He looked like he hadn’t slept in way too many hours. Without saying a word, he poured water into a plastic glass, stuck in a straw and held the straw to Cody’s lips. Cody sucked down the blessed liquid, wincing at the burn even the cool water caused his throat.

“Wha-what happened?” He looked up at his best friend and saw a virtual stranger looking down at him. Jake’s eyes were cold and hard, without the twinkle Cody was used to seeing. He’d never noticed before how blue those eyes could be—frigid, arctic blue.

“You don’t remember?” Jake’s voice, like his demeanor, was hard and cold. Cody could almost imagine frost forming on the walls behind him.

“No,” he said, shaking his head then wishing he hadn’t. The muscles in his neck were sore. If only he could put a hand up to touch his throat.

“Damn these straps! Why are they on me, Jake? Let me out of them.”

Jake shook his head. “I can’t. Not until the Psych doctors come in to talk to you.”

“Look, damn it, I’m dying to piss.”

“Then go ahead. You have a catheter.”

“A what?” Cody craned his neck to look down at himself, but he was covered by a sheet. “Wait a minute. Psych doctors? What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that the psychiatrists want to speak to you about why you tried to kill yourself yesterday.” Jake stared directly into his eyes. “I’d kind of like an answer to that question myself.”

“No, I-I never tried to kill myself. That’s crazy. You have to believe me, Jake.”

Jake’s gaze remained unflinching and gimlet-eyed. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with anger. “You tried to hang yourself, Cody. The rope around your neck was pretty unequivocal.”

“But-but I didn’t. I was…oh, God this is so embarrassing. I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I was trying to-to get off.”

A short, heavy silence followed the words. Then Jake shook his head like he hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”

“Get off. I was trying to
come
, damn it. I-I’ve been having a little trouble since…since Ben left. I read about this on the internet and I tried it and it worked. It freakin’ worked! But then yesterday I guess I tied the knot wrong or something. Anyway, I couldn’t get out of it like before. I banged on the wall a few times.” Cody drew in a ragged breath. “I didn’t think anyone heard me. I-I guess I passed out.”

Jake was staring at him, tilting his head to the side like he’d just confessed to being a Hare Krishna. Finally he shook his head. “You tried what, exactly?”

“Um, auto-eroticism. That’s what it’s called.”

“Not possible.”

“Huh? Oh yeah it is. It worked for me the very first time I tried it.”

“No,” Jake said slowly. “I mean it’s not possible that I’ve known you all this time and not figured out what an absolute idiot you are.”

“What? No, listen. You get a rope or a towel or something and put it around your neck while you jerk off and…”

“I’m familiar with the term,” Jake broke in with a wave of his hand. “And the comment stands. You’re a fucking idiot.”

Cody squirmed uncomfortably and tried to swallow again. This must be how it felt to have your throat cut. “It’s embarrassing enough to talk about my personal business without you calling me names.”

Jake had been his partner on the force for just over five years, and he was Cody’s best friend. But sometimes he still felt as if he didn’t even really know him. Jake kept his private life very private. All Cody even knew about him was that he was thirty-one, single, had a mother who lived in California, where Jake was from originally. He owned his own home in the suburbs of Atlanta, near Cody’s apartment building. He wasn’t dating anyone seriously, and he was ex-military. He hated sushi and loved classical music. He was a huge Braves fan, but wouldn’t watch football. Oh yeah, and he was probably the best looking man Cody had ever seen.

They’d been partners from the time they both graduated from the Academy. It was kind of odd to realize he didn’t know much more than that after all this time, really, but Jake wasn’t the kind who encouraged confidences. He was brave and loyal and steady and Cody trusted him with his life, and that had always been enough to know.

Cody, on the other hand, was Jake’s opposite in so many ways, and not just physically. Jake was tall, but elegantly slim, almost graceful, though he would have hated being called that. He was darkly handsome, and even though he shaved every day, by afternoon, he had a sexy five o’clock shadow that made him look a bit sinister, even dangerous. Cody had dark hair too, but he was shorter, with an average build, even though he worked out every day almost religiously. Many gay men did, to keep themselves looking attractive, and that, of course, was another major difference between them. Jake was straight—so far as Cody knew, that is, because he
never
talked about his love life, though he’d always been very accepting of the fact that Cody was gay.

Cody squirmed under his unflinching gaze. “What in the world are you doing here, anyway, Jake?”

“You had my name listed on a card in your billfold as your emergency contact. The hospital called me.”

“I did? And you came all the way down to Florida?” Jake simply fixed that cold gaze on him again. Cody had been in Panama City Beach for only a couple of days before this happened, having come down to use up a little of his vacation time before he lost it. He’d been lonely and depressed after Ben, his boyfriend of two years, had picked up and left him for a guy he’d met in a bar. It wasn’t so much that he missed Ben—things hadn’t been great between them for a while, really. It was the rejection, Cody supposed, coming right after his thirtieth birthday. It had hit him pretty hard. He had begun to wonder if he was losing his appeal. Maybe no one would find him attractive anymore, and he’d be one of those lonely guys trolling the internet for dates.

The more he thought about it, the more he drank and the more depressed he became. One night, after drinking way too much tequila, he’d found some pills Ben had left behind in a kitchen cabinet. They were from when his father died, after the poor guy had suffered through a lingering illness. He’d been in a nursing home for a few weeks before his death, and Ben had spent a lot of time helping his mom care for him. The doctor had given Ben these pills to help him cope—antidepressants.

Well, Cody was depressed. And these pills had seemed to really help Ben shake off his own funk. He hadn’t had to take them long, and there was almost half a bottle left. Cody shook one out of the bottle and downed it with Jose Cuervo cheering him on.

It hadn’t seemed to do much of anything for him, and the drinking and the depression continued. He’d come into work seriously hung over a few times, and Jake had given him the evil eye and finally told him that if he didn’t stop drinking so much he would personally beat the shit out of him. After that, Cody slowed down considerably on the drinking. But he continued the pills, hoping they would finally do some good.

They didn’t. Oh, he felt okay, but he couldn’t seem to get it up with any kind of dependability. At first he tried porn sites, and that worked for a while, but after a few times, even that didn’t give him good results. He find a site with guys going at it in ways he’d never even thought about—even sites where men were suspended in sex swings or tied up in intricate patterns. Those sites gave him strange butterflies in his stomach, but after the initial hard, lasting maybe a couple of minutes, his cock would wilt and just lie there on his thigh, sullen and uninterested.

There was one refill left on the prescription bottle, so when the pills ran out, Cody called in a refill. Maybe it just took longer for them to work on some people than on others. In the meantime, on one of his late night searches for porn he ran across a website devoted to autoeroticism. It had opened up a whole new world for him.

Before he could say anything else, the door opened to admit a man wearing a lab coat with a stethoscope looped around his neck. A woman in a nurse’s uniform followed him in.

“Mr…uh?” He glanced down at his clipboard. “Mr. McCall? My name is Dr. Petersen. I was in the ER when the paramedics brought you in. Do you remember me?”