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  What a fucked-up idea that was when we’d considered living together after I’d worked for Phillip for three years.

  This firm had given me a great living, especially since Phillip and I had been friends since grade school, and thought that we could change the world with our buildings. They were going to be eco-friendly, and we would install the latest techno gadgets, on and inside our buildings, that would make this planet a better place. Unlike some of the corporations in Seattle, who tore down buildings with no thoughts for the middle class, the poor, the elderly and the future, we were on a mission to save the planet, but at the same time we were trying to save ourselves from being overrun by men bent on destroying the planet and everything in it, and it appeared they’d won out.

  Those men had more money and they bought what a small firm like ours couldn’t—half of Seattle.

  I strolled into Phillip’s office and expected to be chewed out, but instead he sat behind his desk with his feet up, wearing a broad smile. I plopped in the chair in front of his enormous wooden desk. “I know. I fell asleep and forgot to call and tell you that I couldn’t make it last night,” I said.

  That was an excuse, and he recognized it for what it was—an old-fashioned lie. There was no way in hell I would sit and have dinner with Phillip and his new lover, or should I say his old lover and now partner.

  “It’s not like we’re committed to each other,” Phillip said, giving me an excuse as if I needed one.

  I’d thought our living together and a real relationship would be much more. I wanted a bond with him where I would know that I would come home and find a man waiting for me, maybe naked, food cooked, a glass of wine waiting for me after a long day, but I’d known deep inside that Phillip wasn’t the type, and neither were the men I’d been dating after Phillip and I said our goodbyes.

  After the last incident between us, I decided that maybe we should go our separate ways, or maybe it was Phillip who made that suggestion. It was a trying time, and I had been walking in a fog for days if not weeks, and I didn’t know who suggested what.

  Major fucking bad idea to even fuck each other after breaking up, I learned. Phillip couldn’t give up his ways, and I didn’t love him the way I thought I should, especially when our dog, Cosmo, had gotten sick, and Phil took it to the vet, had an affair with the veterinarian, and let the vet convince him to put our dog to sleep.

  After that, Phillip sent me to New York to work on a project for him, at the same time he was having that affair behind my back, and when I returned, I kept asking for my baby and he kept telling me, he was doing fine at the vet. “The vet was taking good care of him,” I think Phillip had said.

  The vet had taken good care of my precious Cosmo.

  I’d forgiven Phillip for many things since we’d known each other, except for our dog. I couldn’t find it in my heart to forgive that. Although I knew Cosmo had gotten old and had been sick, but Phil should have waited until I returned, so I could say my goodbyes to him.

  I couldn’t blame Phillip, but I could clock the vet, which I did when I found out. The vet sported that black eye for a week. I hit him, not because he put Cosmo to sleep, but because I didn’t like him. I didn’t blame Phil, because he was my boss and had been my friend and lover. That was my way of sending a message to Phil that I knew what had happened.

  After that incident with my dog and the vet, Phil and I were over. The whole affair was done with.

  It had been a mutual agreement that Phil would pack his clothes and leave. When he moved out, that turned out to be the best thing that we could have done. However, now working alongside Phillip, he’d managed to put a strain on our partnership when he bought the vet a larger posher apartment than the one we’d lived in.

  After I’d gotten over the cheating, the separation, and my dog, things were going great at the firm. We no longer argued since we didn’t spend our time fucking and fighting over little things like dogs, men, and whose turn it was to cook or order out.

  However something clicked inside of me one day. He’d called me into his office just as he did today, and we’d argued about something insignificant, and in the middle of that argument about how to design a particular skyscraper, he’d crossed his legs, placed them on the desk, and showed me the soles of his shoes, dismissing me and wanting me to kiss his shoes. I’d been the submissive and bottom in our previous relationship, but no more.

  We worked together, that was all, and I’d deserved the right for him to listen to me.

  My temper suddenly got the best of me, and I sauntered around to Phil’s desk, pushed his legs off of it, pulled him up out of his chair, bent him over it in a quick second, and unzipped his pants. I had one hand on his back as I placed a condom over my cock, pulled his pants down below his knees, spit on my hands and found his tight ring of muscles, and rammed the head of my cock into his hole, and fucked him good without lube.

  I’d been his submissive then, and he’d let someone else make him theirs.

  He never forgave me for that, even as he said later that he’d enjoyed every minute of it. That was when he knew that I’d found out about the vet he was fucking, and my dog Cosmo’s demise at the hand of his lover.

  Sitting and waiting for Phillip to say something, he glanced over at me when I suddenly took the lead and spoke. “I’m glad you asked to see me. To tell you the truth, Phillip, I think we should renegotiate our partnership here in the firm.”

  “I thought I gave you enough money to keep you from going someplace else, and with all your patents, you probably could open your own architectural design firm, but I want you near. We’re trying to change the world remember?”

  “Change the world, yeah, you and me.” I tightened my mouth. “I know you, Phillip, you want to make sure I don’t give you competition.”

  “When I retire, it’s all yours. Don’t you want to see you’re name in the Seattle skyline? Dorian Hart, Leading Architect of the world. Think about it. I’m thirty-five and it’s been my dream to retire early. I’ll sell my business to you, everything, and all the clients that go with it. In five years, when you’re thirty-five, you’ll be set for life.” I glanced across at Phillip. I knew there was a catch and he wasn’t doing this for my sake.

  “That doctor of yours, Dr. Kevorkian, must have made you a proposition you couldn’t resist. What did he offer you, one of his cheap plots in a pet cemetery? One next to Cosmo? Or is he giving you drugs to fuck him?”

  “Be serious, Dorian, none of that. We may tie the knot.”

  I rolled my eyes and aimed them at Phillip. I needed him to see that I didn’t give a damn about him and that pet doctor, who was one cat from losing his license, and then Phillip would be left with bills he didn’t expect.

  “Like straight couples?” He shook his head yes. “You must be fucking kidding me. Weren’t you the one who said that you would never think of doing something that ridiculous when I proposed to you?”

  Phillip narrowed his eyes confused.

  I wasn’t jealous. That had long disappeared and the anger too. I thought Phillip had made a mistake with his doctor and would regret it later. I’d been operating on instincts, and these days, a healthy distrust of men like his pretentious doctor.

  “We were teenagers and I didn’t think you were serious,” Phil rationalized.

  “I wasn’t, but I wanted it, and I thought someday it would be with you. We came close, didn’t we? I thought it was something I needed with you until I found out... Never mind.” I didn’t like to live in the past, at least out loud, but in my mind I’d never left. “Then what are you two retired men going to do? Cruise the bathhouses looking for twinks to fuck and suck cock?” I taunted.

  “Not when I have you.”

  I raised my middle finger at him. “Fuck you, Phillip.”

  “Be serious, Dorian. I need to talk to you. Let’s not discuss painful subjects until I’ve told you why I asked you to come to my office.” I waited. “I know this is short notice, but I need you to d
o something for me.”

  “I knew this was coming. You never fail, Phillip, in all the years I’ve known you. You like to wait until the last minute to ask a favor of me. What is it you want me to do that you don’t want to face?”

  “You’re better at this than I am, Dorian,” Phillip continued, resting his hands behind his head, trying to appear calm and relaxed. But, I knew Phillip. He’d never relaxed in his life, until I came to this company, and decided to move in with him. Now he didn’t have me any longer and I could see the tension in his eyes, and the lines playing around the corners of his once-smooth face. However, even now with a small beard he had an amazing complexion, and the laugh lines hadn’t taken a toll on that handsome face.

  Maybe his vet was giving him problems, but then that wasn’t my concern anymore, and I’d tired of being his confidant and fool.

  “Better at what? Saving your ass?” I groaned out a curse under my breath. “Fuck you, Phillip.” He acted as if he didn’t hear me, but then he always pretended he didn’t hear things he didn’t want to, like the time I’d packed my clothes and said that I was leaving. He claimed the next day that he thought I’d said I was going out of town to a conference.

  “To be honest, yes. I admit you’ve saved me more times than I care to confess to you, and you know how I hate saying I’m sorry, and I hate parties,” Phillip stated, rising and strutting around the chair I was sitting in. He stood behind me, placed his hands on my shoulders, then kneaded his fingers into them slowly, then he rubbed his large hands up and down each arm. I closed my eyes and let him work his magic.

  “Does this sudden massage have to do with a party?”

  He didn’t respond, he kept rubbing my shoulders as I leaned my neck to the right and then the left. I felt relaxed to the point where I almost fell asleep. Unlike when he got me ready for sex.

  “Feels good doesn’t it?” He leaned over and questioned softly near my ear.

  “Yes. Don’t stop.” I placed my palms over his hands. I’d been tired lately with all the work Phillip had turned over to me, so he could spend more time with his new boyfriend. “You, Phillip Walker, hate parties? A one-man wrecking crew, who’s known to have turned the lights out at any gay bar you enter, and take the most handsome bottom or top home, and keep him there for days doing who knows what. Oh, I know how you don’t like to party,” I said sarcastically and rolled my eyes, then peered up at him when he looked down at me.

  “Will you do this favor for me, Dore?” I hated when he called me Dore. “Dorian, stop with the ‘walk down memory lane’ shit. I’ve put that behind me.”

  “You haven’t said what it is you want me to do?” I blurted.

  Phillip took in a breath, then walked away from me, and sat back in his chair behind his desk. I thought that was a strange reaction to my question. Maybe he’d walked away because he thought he should keep some distance between us after he’d said what I had to do for him. Maybe he thought I’d hit him, or worse, pull down his pants and fuck him again without lube.

  “I need you to go to a benefit tonight.”

  “No fucking way,” I groaned. I answered that before I’d even thought about it. It must have been a reflex. “I’m tired with all that shit you had me doing for you while you laid up with the vet who got a climax every time he put someone’s puppy to sleep.”

  “Come on, Dorian. You know you’re just being mean because you’re still angry about Cosmo.”

  “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I told you I’d send you to counseling.”

  “You should send your boyfriend, he needs it more than I do.”

  “Let’s not talk about him. I’ll buy you another dog.”

  “No. Let’s not, and I don’t want another dog from you,” I said, fidgeting with my hands, not wanting to reveal how hurt I still am.

  I met Phillip’s eyes. “It’s Saturday evening already, and now I have to go to a benefit? I just came back from a fucking trip to England, where I had to give a presentation to clients. I still haven’t gotten over the jet lag. It’s brutal. Why don’t you take what’s his name? That blond Viking dog killer.” My voice sounded bitter as ever.

  “Eric,” Phillip uttered.

  “I don’t have a date, Phillip, and you know how I hate going anywhere alone. There are no friends I can call at the last minute to go with me. You’ve seen to that. What the fuck am I going to do sitting at one of those fucking stuffy parties with your arrogant friends. You know I can’t stand them with their airs. And by the way, you can tell your society friends that they can stop setting me up with every twink, gay, or straight guy they know, because you and I are just friends now. Tell them to back off. And I’m making it official, don’t come to my apartment when Eric can’t be bothered with you. I’ve put in too much community service to add you to the list.”

  Phillip had no expression when I stared at him. He just stared back at me, then a wide smile broke across his face.

  “I was hoping you’d see that we were friends, and I didn’t have to tell you that anymore. See you’re better at this than I am. Now will you go? You owe this to me after hurting my feelings.” Phillip never listened, nor did he take no for an answer.

  I stood. “Me, hurt your feelings? That’ll be the day. Fuck you, Phillip, and yes I’ll go, but next time I need more notice, or I’m finished with you and your company.”

  “Our company.”

  “Fuck you. What is it I have to do? I hope I just have go there, show my face, and when everyone asks where you are, I can say you’re under the fucking weather.”

  “Just say I’m sick, and leave out the word fucking if you don’t mind. Some of my friends’ wives and husbands aren’t used to that kind of talk.”

  “Yeah, well, they’d better get used to it. They’re married to men, aren’t they? Now if that’s all...”

  “That’s not all,” Phillip admitted. I turned around and gazed at Phillip’s amber eyes which used to mesmerize me, and once held my attention, but now, not so much.

  “What did you say?”

  “There’s more. Why don’t you sit?” That didn’t sound right, but I wasn’t about to sit.

  I tucked my hands in my pockets to keep from rushing over to Phillip’s desk and strangling him. There was more than one occasion that I’d felt that way, and I hoped this wouldn’t be another one.

  “Tonight’s benefit is an auction.”

  “Oh, that’s rich.” I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask me to be one of the stooges standing on stage, nervous and having someone bidding fifty dollars on me at a million-dollar auction.

  “And you have to bid on someone.”

  I let out a breath of relief. I didn’t need that pressure. “Tell me it’s not a woman?”

  “It’s not a woman. They’re all men who will be auctioned off for a good cause, of course.”

  “Tell me he’s not bald and over fifty.” I moaned and closed my eyes when a long silence clouded the room.

  “My bad,” Phillip whined as he hunched his shoulders and angled his head to the left. That was his tell that it was just as I suspected.

  “Oh shit. No way,” I said, sucking in a deep breath ready to turn and walk out, and let Phillip take care of his own shit.

  “All you have to do is bid on him and win. Then you take him to dinner, and hopefully not to bed.”

  “You’re fucking right I’m not going to bed with anyone. I’m not going to bed with one of our prospective clients. That’s why you didn’t want to go, so you’re sending me out to do your dirty work.”

  “It’s just to stroke his ego.”

  “I bet he was hoping something else would get stroked,” I grunted. “If this client of yours puts a hand on me without my permission, and it’s not to tell me to watch my step, you will read about the outcome in the local papers tomorrow, so do you still want me there?”

  Phillip narrowed his gaze, then tightened his mouth in a smile as if he didn’t believe that I would do anything to h
arm another individual, and he was right, but I had to let him know that there would be no funny business.

  I had scruples and I didn’t want anyone getting the wrong impression of me. Besides, I had my name to protect.

  “Here are the tickets,” Phillip chuckled, handing them to me after reaching inside his desk drawer. When I wasn’t eager about picking the tickets up, he placed them on his desk, then pushed them near me. “You can take Kristen with you if you need someone to hide behind. She thinks you’re hot anyway.”

  “I don’t need to go with Kristen. I can tell that client of yours to go take a hike and suck his own cock if it comes to that.”

  “It won’t. The man is straight.” That’s all I needed, to spend my night with a man who needed his ego stroked and he was straight.

  Well, this loser will discover that the world isn’t like that. You can’t buy your way into things. Who the fuck was I fooling? That was exactly the way the world moved. If you had enough money you could buy anything—except love. You couldn’t make a person love you. You could make him adore you, and lie to you, but not love you.

  You had to earn love or fall into it, and so far, I’d never fallen enough where I would want to say, “I love you.” Even with Phillip, I never said that word—love.

  “Fuck you, Phillip, for doing this to me on this of all nights. I bet you’ll be fucking some twink with your significant other, Eric, and I’ll be fighting off some over-the-hill Daddy and my jet lag.”

  “One man’s Daddy is another man’s...”

  I turned on my heels and headed for the door before he could complete his sentence. When I reached for the doorknob, I turned around to face him.

  “Spare me, Phillip. And don’t think I’m fooled with that straight man shit.” And I strolled out of his office, slamming the door behind me, clutching the tickets in my hand.

  Chapter 4

  Jeremy

  Max left me in the dressing room to collect my thoughts and my courage to walk out on that stage. I remembered the last time I’d been this nervous and felt like a piece of meat. I’d found this gay nightspot in Europe, couldn’t remember the country, but I did remember getting my cock sucked through an opening in the back of that club.