Page 18

18

TEARS BEHIND BARS

EDDIE

In the morning, I ate the delightful hotel breakfast while Russel watched, which strangely enough didn’t feel awkward. I got up to get some fruit from the buffet, and when I sat back down, Russel noticed me wincing.

“You’re sore.”

I popped a blueberry into my mouth. “I have no regrets.”

He chuckled, but when we got back to the room, he insisted he had to “kiss it better.”

I lay draped over the edge of the mattress, moaning into the bedding while he made love to my hole with his lips and tongue. I didn’t know if it was the effect of his saliva, but my ass felt all warm and tingly. When he cupped my cockhead in his palm, smearing the precum around, the orgasm overwhelmed me without warning.

Russel hummed as he licked me through it. He flipped me around and suckled the cum off my cock. He kissed and nuzzled my belly…and stupid me, I glanced at the clock.

“We have to go soon.”

With a sigh, he laid his head on my stomach. “Just a minute.”

I stroked his hair as we rested in silence, him on his knees by the bed, hugging my hips. He pressed one last kiss below my belly button and rose. Offering me his hand, he pulled me up.

We didn’t speak as we packed the few items we had. He loaned me a T-shirt so I wouldn’t have to wear the same shirt I’d had at the party. It smelled of his cologne. Fifteen minutes later, we were on the road away from the coast, and my fairytale was over.

When Russel stopped in the facility parking lot, I made myself look at him and smile.

He brushed a hand down the side of my face. “You don’t have to pretend for me, you know.”

My smile fell, but it was with relief. I leaned into his touch, and he gave me a simple kiss.

“I’ll wait here. Take however long you need.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Spending time with my mother was always a gamble. I never knew what I was getting myself into. I remembered that, even as a kid, I always tried to gauge her mood when she entered the room so I would be prepared for what was coming. She would love on me one day, reprimand me for some random missteps the next, or be cold and detached for no reason that I could identify. The tight sensation in my stomach was familiar.

It took a while to make it through all the security points, and when I arrived at the visiting room, she was already there. Her face lit up when she saw me. Today would be about motherly love, then. The realization didn’t help my nausea. God, when was the last time I’d been genuinely glad to see her?

“Hello, darling! You look good today. Is that a tan? How have you been?”

“Hi, Mom. I’m great. I was on the coast yesterday, so maybe I caught a little sun.”

“Coast? Does that mean you finally got yourself a car? Don’t tell me you took a bus to the beach.”

Like that would have been a capital offense. The beaches my mother had frequented didn’t have any bus stops nearby.

“No. A friend took me.”

“A friend.” She grinned. I hated how perceptive she was. Why was I sharing anything with her? Right. It was the point of these visits—to salvage my relationship with my mom while she was locked up. “And would that be a male friend?”

“Yes.”

She clapped loudly, and a female warden threw an irritated look our way. Mom leaned closer to whisper conspiratorially, “Do you have a boyfriend, Benedict?”

“It’s early days. How are you?”

She waved my question off. “We’re not talking about me. I want to hear about your boyfriend. Tell me everything.”

Oh Lord.

It hadn’t even taken a minute, and I was already thrashing around in a trap. “I don’t want to jinx anything. I’ll tell you about him next time.”

“Oh c’mon! Nothing ever happens in here. You have to give me something. Where did you meet? What does he do?”

I searched my brain for any benign facts about Russel. If I took too long to answer, she’d get suspicious. “We met at a restaurant downtown.” That was close enough to the truth. “He works in communication too. And… he’s a little older than me, and we’ve only been seeing each other for a few weeks, but I like him a lot.”

She was frowning, though, scanning my face with unnerving intensity. I hated it when she did that.

“What?” I prompted.

“I know you, Benedict. What’s going on?”

Dammit. I wouldn’t tell her that I worked with Russel. No way. “He’s a vampire.”

Her eyes grew big. “Oh my God! I would never have guessed my straitlaced, anxious little boy would grow up to date a vampire.”

I let out a nervous chuckle. “Well, I wouldn’t have guessed either.”

“You’re being careful, aren’t you?”

“Careful about what? He can’t get me pregnant, you know.”

Her lips tightened. “Smartass. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t. What should I be careful about?”

“For all you know, he could be using you just for blood.”

She could play my insecurities like an instrument. But after yesterday and this morning, did I still believe Russel only wanted me for my blood? Uniquely tasting blood, according to him. “Thank you for the boost of confidence,” I muttered.

“You should date someone like Uly. Someone of your own class.”

I laughed bitterly. What class did the penniless child of an incarcerated felon belong to? “He dumped me when you got arrested, remember?”

She ignored the jab. “What kind of relationship can you have with someone who literally feeds from you?”

“He drove me here,” I challenged. “He’s waiting outside.”

Her face hardened. “Then he must be serious about you if he stooped so low as to give you a ride to prison.”

I was so happy yesterday and this morning with Russel. He fucking doted on me, and I let myself hope for some kind of future where I could have a man like him care for me. Even love me.

Five minutes with her, and she ruined everything.

“Mom, I don’t want to argue again. I thought you’d want me to be happy.”

Lifting her chin haughtily, she looked around. “Happiness becomes a strange concept when you’re in here. Prison provides you with a unique perspective.”

“Does the unique perspective have to do anything with dating vampires?”

“You’re being rude again.”

Don’t contradict her. Don’t push her.

But I never learned because I let the anger take hold of me. I was so angry it gave me energy.

“Really, Mom? You keep saying these things about how your opinions have changed and how you’ve gained perspective and wisdom, but you never specify what opinions. Where’s the wisdom? About what?”

She glared at me. “You can’t understand.”

“Try me. Tell me the great truths about life that you’ve learned here. I’m listening.”

“You’re not. You want to humiliate me.”

“No, Mom. I’ve never wanted anything like that. And if you really knew me, you’d see that. I’m just hoping that one day, I will notice some sign that you actually care about me. And don’t give me the usual bullshit about wanting what’s best for me. I want you to care about who I am on the inside, about what I feel and what I think. You used to be interested in my grades, my reputation, my style, my classy boyfriend, and the people I hung out with in college, and silly me, I thought that meant you cared. But do you give a shit about me as an actual person?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m your mother.”

“You care whether I take the bus when I go to the beach, but did you ask about my day there? I could tell you about how Russel makes me feel. He ran to the grocery store at seven in the morning so he could make me breakfast before I got up, even though he didn’t even know how to cook eggs. He listens to me, asks me questions, and remembers every word I say. And even though he’s more than thirty years older than me, he respects the hell out of me at work, and not once have I heard him say anything the least bit condescending.”

Squinting, she tilted her head to the side. Her previous irritation vanished, replaced by cold curiosity. “At work? You work with him?”

Fuck.

The couple of seconds I needed to regroup after my blunder was enough for her.

She cackled, but there was no humor in her laugh. “Benedict, sometimes I believe you’re a changeling because I couldn’t possibly have produced a child filled with such pure naivete. An older vampire you work with has been feeding from you for a couple of weeks, and you’re building a picket fence. When he dumps you and Anthony Fowles fires you, come visit me again. Maybe then you’ll appreciate some of your mother’s wisdom.”

No matter how hard I’d tried to prepare, I had always been helpless against her cruelty.

My eyes burned, but I didn’t let the tears fall, not until I was walking down the hall. The impassive faces of the prison guards created an appropriate audience for my humiliation. She was right about one thing—I was naive as fuck. I had hoped to feel a smidgen of my mother’s love, but my mother was Julia Perkins.

The bathroom for visitors smelled of chlorine. I washed my face, but I still looked like shit. I tried to paste on a smile so Russel wouldn’t notice anything, but of course, he saw through me.

As soon as I entered the car, he put his sunglasses aside and opened his arms to hug me over the console. Did he think I was unhappy because my mother was in prison?

“Eddie, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t have the strength to fight it. My tears soaked his collar.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after a few minutes.

I shook my head.

“Okay.”

He kissed my forehead and petted my hair.

I wanted him to love me. I needed him to love me.

Was I naive? Weak and pathetic, starved for genuine affection because my mother didn’t show me an ounce of it? And now I clung to a creature who saw me as food.

Did a chocolate chip muffin think it was love when I sniffed it before eating it? Since when did inanimate objects carry emotion?

What the hell was I thinking?

I huffed out a broken laugh. Russel cupped my cheek and lifted my face. His warm, copper eyes seemed to be looking into my skull, but I didn’t want him to see the ugly stuff in there.

“God, Eddie. How can I help?”

“It’s okay. It’ll pass.”

He kissed below my left eye, then my right, and leaned his forehead against mine.

“Whatever happened in there, you don’t deserve to feel like this.”

I inhaled, my chest expanding.

I didn’t deserve this. No. Even if she were right, I didn’t deserve her scorn and cruelty.

“Thank you.”

Another kiss, this time on my nose. “I’m grateful you let me come with you.”

I kissed him back. I tasted the salt from my own tears, but I didn’t care. What Russel was giving me in the prison parking lot did feel like love, and I basked in it for as long as I could.

When he drove back to the city, he held my hand. He took me back to his place, and I didn’t say a word of protest.

As soon as the door to his apartment closed behind us, I offered him my throat. He bit me, gulped down mouthfuls of my blood, and I soaked up every little sign of affection I got in return.