Sexy Gay Stories - Volume One - three m/m short stories by Michael Bracken, Heidi Champa, Mary Borselino Read Free Book Online Page A

client’s presence.
    I’d felt it that first time, when I’d been sitting behind my desk, thumbing through a stack of unopened mail. He’d knocked on my door and then pushed into my office without waiting for my response. He dressed well, but simply: form-fitting teal polo shirt over crisply pressed khaki pants and highly polished penny loafers without socks. Unlike the hulking muscles I’d developed wrestling bail jumpers and repossessing cars from irate owners delinquent on payments, he had the sculpted look of a young man who exercised as if his body were a work of art. If we had met in a bar, I would have offered him a drink, or two. Instead, he hired me to follow the man he lived with, a tenured English professor at the university.
    As we concluded our business, and a retainer consisting of enough dead presidents to pay my outstanding debts had moved from his wallet to my desk drawer, my client had stood and offered me his hand. I stood, and when I took his hand in mine, he smiled and wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. Then he thanked me, and a moment later I found myself alone in my office, the tightening at my crotch so painful that I considered relieving the pressure myself.
    I felt that way now as I listened to the messages on my answering machine. I returned a call from a woman who thought her neighbour was poisoning her cat, and I talked her out of hiring a private detective by convincing her to keep her pussy inside. Then I returned a call from an Austin-based insurance company that occasionally subcontracted insurance fraud cases to me. They hired me to investigate a worker’s comp claimant who insisted he’d hurt his back moving a skid of paper at a local printing company. I finished my work day by closing my client’s case, marking the account as paid in full, and stuffing my notes into a battered black filing cabinet where old cases usually disappear forever.

    When I arrived home, I hung my suit and my shoulder holster on the back of my bedroom door, and I changed into sweatpants. As soon as I felt comfortable, I sat in my living room and ate Chinese takeout while watching the six o’clock news. Near the end of the programme, a familiar English professor discussed his latest book, yet another examination of Hemingway’s code hero. Beside him during the entire interview sat his current graduate assistant, a dark-haired young man not unlike Jeremy. I watched mind-numbing sitcoms for the rest of the evening, finally turning in halfway through the ten o’clock news.
    An insistent pounding woke me some time after midnight. I retrieved my .38, thumbed back the hammer, and crept down the dark hallway wearing only my boxers. I opened the front door and found Jeremy standing on the porch, reeking of alcohol, a nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s tightly gripped in one fist. I stared at him through the screen. ‘Why are you here?’
    He raised the bottle to his lips and drained it before answering. ‘He kicked me out. I didn’t have any place else to go.’
    ‘How did you find me?’
    ‘How hard can it be?’ he said. ‘You’re in the phone book.’
    My boxers began to tent as I stared at him. ‘Go to a hotel.’
    ‘And do what?’ he asked. ‘Sleep in the lobby? I don’t have any money. I never had any money. Everything I had belonged to him and he took it all before he kicked me out.’
    I pointed my chin at the Lexus parked at the curb. ‘And that?’
    He spun around to look at the car, lost his balance and nearly fell off the top step. He caught himself against the wrought iron railing, then threw the empty Jack Daniel’s bottle at the car. When it fell short and shattered on the sidewalk, he turned back to me and smiled. ‘He doesn’t know I took it.’
    I uncocked my revolver, then unlatched my screen door and pushed it open. ‘Get in here before the neighbours call the cops.’
    Jeremy stepped past me and into my living room. He stood close enough I could feel the heat from his