Shawn's Law (17 page)

To understand the full impact of that single act on my life, you had to be there. But there were only two of us in that room—one with his mouth occupied, and one screaming into his pillow.

Hey, I’ve never once described myself as refined or elegant.

I came in copious amounts.

I was still recovering from that experience when Harley’s fingers pressed against my hole. I was so spaced out in la-la land, that he could’ve been trying to put the end of a vacuum cleaner in my rear, and I would not have murmured a single complaint. Okay, I probably would’ve, but you know what I mean. Harley’s wet, slippery finger was inside me, and I simply sighed with pleasure and urged him on. He came prepared, thank goodness, and brought his own condom. The only one in my house had blue hair glued to it and had burst in a not-so-good way over my lounge. The scent of strawberries clued me into what he was about to do, and I tried to remember every trick I’d ever learned to bottoming.

Relax. Push down. Trust your partner. Don’t force it. Take your time. Relax.

“Oh, fuck, Shawn. You look so good, I don’t know if I’m going to last.”

Oh, yes—and compliments help. My erection was renewing when I felt his dick touch my sensitive skin. I breathed hard through my nose, hoping Harley would go slow, but you never knew the first time you were with a guy. He could be slapping my side any second and telling me to bark like the bitch I was.

It could happen.

But it didn’t. Harley pushed in, and for a moment, I didn’t think I could take it. I felt pressure, but Harley had lube and I had fierce determination. “Breathe, baby,” Harley coached me.

One guy (who shall remain nameless) had taught me a few tricks, in my younger days. I closed my eyes and concentrated on relaxing those muscles. I felt him slip in another inch. He-who-shall-not-have-a-name had shown me that pushing back with my inner muscles actually helped him to slip inside. It was a neat trick and it certainly worked for us, until he decided that he really wasn’t gay and galloped off to get engaged to the female of our species. Yes. The man who taught me to bottom like a champ now gets none of the good stuff.

The good stuff was now happening between Harley and me. I was filled and it was great. Like an itch you don’t know you have until it gets scratched. I had been missing this for years and never knew it.

“Babe?” Harley panted behind me. “You okay?”

“Yes. Fucking fantastic.”

He chuckled. “Hey. You just said the fuck word. You must be feeling good.”

“Yes. Now fucking fuck me before I fucking bitch-slap you.” Yeah. You could say I was feeling really good.

Harley began to move, that ancient dance that we all know instinctively. And Harley was the Dancing Queen. I gripped my pillow and allowed him to lead me wherever he wanted to go. It was a good hard ride, one that I knew I would be feeling the next day. I puffed and tried to remember how to breathe.

He was also the Queen of Eloquence.

“Oh, that’s it, baby. Are you loving my cock? I’m gonna ride this hole of yours until it’s screaming for me. Yeah, baby. Do you like it hard? I’m gonna slam myself inside you until you never want me out again. Yeah. You’re beautiful. I love your arse. I love your hole. Do you like that too?”

Wasn’t my moaning and squealing enough to show him I loved it?

“Shawn? Are you going to be able to come again?”

I blinked myopically, since my glasses were not on my face. It didn’t help with my comprehension. Come? He meant that I actually had to
do
something?

“Argh.”

Harley’s large hands smoothed over my back and cupped my bum again. He seemed to do that a lot, which confused me. What didn’t confuse me was the great feeling I was getting from him thrusting inside me. He chuckled. “It’s all right, babe. I’ll take care of it for you.”

Oh, good. He’ll take care of whatever he’s talking about so I can—

“Argh.” I cried out when he wrapped his hand hotly around my dick and began moving it in counterpoint to his thrusts. Now I remembered what I was meant to be doing. I was meant to be— “Argh.”

“That’s it, babe. I’m nearly there. Can you come again?”

It turned out I could. So could he. A match made in heaven, one might say. He slammed into me again and again, wrenching cries of pleasure from me as he gave me something I’d never received before—absolute paradise.

I came just as his rhythm became frantic and he suddenly jerked to stillness. He pumped his load inside my body and I groaned in ecstasy. He rubbed his hand in circular patterns across my back as we both wallowed in the waves of joy. He panted above me, which told me more than words ever could. Then he slowly disengaged, prolonging the pleasure and making me groan again—this time with disappointment that it was over.

We both collapsed, exhausted and unable to move, apart from breathing.

When I could talk again, I turned to Harley and asked, “Well? Was it shriveled?”

He laughed and slapped me firmly. I jerked, and a red mark immediately appeared on my bum cheek—at least that’s what he told me. “Not even a little bit. Although I would recommend regular exercise to keep it in tip-top condition.” Then he gathered me in his bronzed arms and whispered in my ear. “Go to sleep now, baby. I’m just gonna hold you all night, and we’ll talk in the morning, ’kay?”

It was perfect.

T
HE
NEXT
morning I slept in. Something I hadn’t done for years. I woke feeling absolutely wonderful, which I showed by the huge smile on my face. Then I rolled over and looked at the clock.

“Flup. Mum!”

I bounced out of bed and tripped over my shoes, which sent me careening into the wardrobe door, banging my elbow.

“Crud! Ow. Mum?”

I looked for my clothes and then realized the reason I couldn’t see any was because I didn’t have my glasses on. I fumbled for my glasses and jammed my finger in the half-opened drawer of the bedside table.

“Sugarcakes. Clothes. Clothes would be good in this situation,” I muttered to myself. “If the police are called, it looks a little better that you have some clothes on, not naked and just crawled out of bed, well screwed by your boyfriend.… Salami and rye. Boyfriend! Harley?”

I pulled on some shorts without bothering to put on briefs. I figured if Harley could, then so could I—although it was a little breezy. I stuck my head out of my bedroom and looked toward Mum’s room. The door was wide open, and I could see her unmade bed. “Great. Now I’ve lost two people. Harley? Mum?”

I wandered through the house and then out the back, where the sound of Mum’s voice carried slightly in the wind. “Just gently, so it doesn’t—you know—hurt them. That’s good. Now we use—what’s this called again?”

“A watering can.” Harley’s voice was gentle as he answered her.

“Yes. That’s it. We use this to gently water them in.”

Mum was getting to the point where naming everyday objects was sometimes beyond her memory, but she could recite old recipes word for word. And vegetable gardening was her passion. Who do you think taught me? In the years I had been looking after her, the gardening was something we bonded over. Even on the bad days, when she didn’t even recognize me, we could still go out to the garden and do something. The only trick I had learned was to label everything. Sometimes we would seed the ground, and the following day she wouldn’t remember, and she’d seed it again.

Our backyard was full of plants, trees, and vines. I had ripped up all of the lawn and put in large raised garden beds, since my mother’s physical condition would worsen, and she wouldn’t be able to bend down. Most of the plants were edible, or at least their fruit was. The others were flowering plants that brought the bees in for pollination. It was a real jungle.

I peeped around the edge of the screen supporting a grapevine and saw Harley kneeling beside freshly turned soil, patting it down gently. My mother was stashed on a plastic chair in the shade, with her injured leg propped up on the nearest garden bed. She was directing Harley’s efforts.

“That’s it, boy. Fill up that—what’s it called?”

“A watering can.”

“Yes, one of them. And put two scoops of that yellow stuff in for fertilizer.”

I watched with a smile as Harley carefully measured out two scoops and added it to the water. I showed myself.

“Hi, everyone. Whatcha doing?”

Harley turned with a smile as broad as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “Hey. Your mum’s teaching me how to plant turnips, radishes, and beetroot.”

“Great.” I grinned. “More turnips. Just what we needed. Lucky it’s such a versatile vegetable.”

My boyfriend’s smile turned naughty. “Lucky for me, it’s not the only thing in this garden that’s versatile.”

“What? What do you mean?” I still claim my wit was damaged severely when my mother dropped me on my head when I was a baby. She claims she only dropped me three times, but I’m sure it was more.

Harley stood and brushed a kiss against my forehead as he walked past. “Think about it, babe.” Then he squeezed my bum and went on to water the seeds as if he hadn’t felt me up in front of my mother.

Versati—

“Harley,” I gasped, astonished. He laughed at me.

“And I love my beet
roots
as well.”

I was horrified. “You can’t say those sorts of things with my mother listening in.”

“Why not? Doesn’t she like beetroot?”

I ended up going beet red and thanked the Lord that my mother had no idea what we were talking about. She bossed Harley around and had him water in more seeds before she allowed him to rest. With Harley in charge of Mum, and Mum in charge of Harley, I retreated to the house and allowed myself another leisurely shower. I had semen encrusted on my stomach and thighs, so it was a necessary cleansing activity, even though my conscience pricked at me that it was wasting water when Perth was in a drought.

It was nice to be able to shave and dress without keeping an ear and eye on my parent, waiting for the crash or bang of whatever she was breaking to filter through the door to me. I wandered out to the kitchen and decided that it was too late for breakfast and even too late for brunch. It would have to be an early lunch. The gardeners were still hard at work when I snipped capsicum, miniature eggplant, and tomatoes off their bushes. I yanked a few spring onions up, pulled a handful of basil leaves off their branches, and used the scissors on the garlic chives. Back inside, I sliced the vegetables and sprinkled them liberally with herbs, olive oil, and chopped spring onions, then shoved them into the George Foreman grill Lisa gave me.

Some eggs on toast, a couple of pieces of bacon zapped in the microwave, and the meal was ready. We chatted while we demolished the offerings.

“Is Lisa coming over today?” Harley asked.

“No,” I replied, lifting another mouthful of runny egg to my mouth. “She came over yesterday.”

“Oh,” Harley grumped. “I was hoping I could take you to meet my dad today.”

“At his house? Mum can come to that.”

“No. He runs a stall at the Subiaco Markets. Your mother probably won’t be able to walk with her leg.”

My heart stopped beating as all the blood drained from my face. I tried to swallow, but a big lump had formed in my throat.

“Shawn? What’s wrong? Don’t you want to meet my dad?”

I forced the lump down so I could reply. “Not while he supports Satan.”

“What?” I could see Harley’s shock and confusion.

“I refuse to step one single foot inside the boundary of the City of Subiaco. They are vile and money-grubbing whores. And if your dad works at the markets, then he’s supporting their deeds, and I have no wish to associate myself with such a person. You will never get me to go inside the Council boundary of Subiaco. I prefer to drive twenty kilometers out of my way so I don’t have to go within their lines.”

I could see Harley’s expression—I’d seen it many times before. It was a cross between
are you for real?
and
just what mental hospital have you escaped from?
It was a strange thing to hate—a whole town council. But they had done me wrong and I was determined not to let them earn another red cent from me while I still had blood in my body.

“Let me get this straight. You don’t like the City of Subiaco?”

I shook my head vehemently.

“So you won’t go anywhere near it? Just the suburb of Subiaco, or the whole council?”

“The whole council—so, all the suburbs of Subiaco, Shenton Park, and Jolimont. From Hart Lane to Salvado Road. From the railway line, to Thomas Street, then Winthrop Avenue to the river. I can recite the whole boundary if you want? I know all the roads and refuse to cross them.”

“Or have anything to do with people who work there?”

“That’s right. And if you insist on supporting your father’s business, I may have to think about my relationship with you.”

“What!” Harley’s voice resounded around the walls of the house as he shouted his disbelief at me. It was true I had made a vow not to have anything to do with anyone who had anything to do with Subiaco, but if Harley was stubborn about it, I would probably cave. I looked into his pale eyes and told myself that I would definitely cave.

With Harley still staring at me like I’d lost my mind, I calmly scraped my plate and asked my mother if she was finished. She shook her head and went on picking at the meal. I grimaced and mentally reminded myself to force her to drink a Sustagen milkshake later in the day. Her appetite was waning, and she was losing weight.

“Shawn? Can you at least tell me what you have against Subiaco before you dump me?”

I sighed. “It is not just one thing. It was a whole bunch of things that they were stubborn about. I guess it started when we began visiting a specialist doctor for Mum over that way.” I had especially picked the doctor with the Subiaco address. Subi is the posh suburb where the best and richest doctors have clinics. “The first time I took Mum there, I had to park on the street. I paid for a parking ticket, but the doctor was running behind and we were late back to the car. I received a sixty-five dollar fine.”