"Where did you get those? Those look fresh. You said that Cole didn't . . ."
"No, it wasn't Cole. It's OK, it doesn't hurt much."
Tab had called the bank and asked Ben Semple if he was interested in a nooner at the apartment.
"Always," Ben had answered. "I'll be there in ten."
Ben was already stripping his shirt off as he entered his apartment, and that's when Tab had seen the welts on his back.
"God, Ben. They're on your butt and the backs of your thighs too," Tab exclaimed further as Ben stripped completely down. "This was kinky sex. Who did it, if not Cole?"
"It was Avery Shern, OK? Senator Avery Shern. So, it's just going to be OK . . . OK?"
"No, it's not OK. Does he do this often? He fucked you too, didn't he?"
"You asked before. I told you that I sometimes took cock. That's what Shern wants, so that's what Shern gets."
"Here, lay down over here on your belly. Now I know why you have the large bottle of salve that's in your medicine chest. Let me put some more on—"
"I came because you said you wanted to fuck." Ben's voice was defiant, irritated. "I didn't come to discuss my sex life with others."
"And so we will. But why do you let him do this?"
"This is his town. We've been over this before. And he's after my little brother, if you must know. He's barely legal and already Avery Shern is sniffing around him."
"So, you're trying to divert him from your younger brother. You think that's going to work?"
Ben was on his belly on the mat in front of the French windows overlooking the marina, and Tab, naked now himself, was rubbing salve on his thighs and back. Ben sighed.
"No, not if my brother stays here," Ben responded after a moment of contemplation. "But I'm thinking of trying to get my brother away from here. Maybe move him south for college—his grades aren't too good, but he's a fine athlete."
"But he might come back to Shernhaven now and again, right?"
"Right. Oh god that feels good."
Tab had straddled Ben's hips loosely with his knees and was rubbing his hard cock up and down across Ben's hole between his butt cheeks while he was applying more salve to the man's back.
"You really think you're going to keep Avery Shern from a Semple man he wants?"
"I suppose not. But Demonte's barely eighteen. I can keep him away from Shern for a while longer at least. Oh, shit. Oh, holy shit. Shit, shit, shit!"
While rubbing salve on Ben's butt cheeks, Tab had spread them, positioned his cock at Ben's opening, pushed inside, and each of his thrusts was being answered with a "shit" from Ben.
There was no more talking for the next fifteen minutes. Just heavy breathing, moans, and grunts. Tab ran his hand under Ben's belly and pulled him up onto his hands and knees. As Tab fucked Ben doggy style, he ran his hand below Ben's belly and latched onto his cock and jacked him off to a mutual ejaculation.
* * * *
"So, you really are going?"
"Yep, by the time you get off at the bank this evening, I'll be gone."
"I'm going to miss you."
"You don't have to miss me. You could come with me?"
"I don't see how I can. Shernhaven is all I've known."
Tab moved to a more comfortable position, rolling onto his side while rolling Ben Semple with him, maintaining the purchase of his softening cock inside Ben. This placed them both overlooking the masts of sailboats in the Shernhaven harbor marina through the French windows.
"I think that's your problem—why you've said you feel antsy and dissatisfied with so much in life. I think you've been enslaved by Shernhaven and by your boss, Trevor Cole, too. And, even by Avery Shern."
"Well if they could see you fucking me like this, they'd certainly be angry," Ben responded. "Cole knows what Shern does to me now and again—but he can't say anything. It doesn't mean he isn't angry about it."
"I can imagine. I've heard he can be violent."
"Oh, I don't know. I've never seen it."
"That's because you've given him all he wants from you. You've played his slave."
"That's the second time you've used that word. That's a pretty explosive word to use with me."
"And I didn't do it lightly. I think something or someone needs to get your attention. As long as you stay here in Shernhaven, you are going to be a slave to it and to the entitled families who act like they own the town. You don't think that letting Shern chain you to a wall, beat you, and then fuck you is treating you like a slave?"
"My family's been here almost since the founding. We have a street named after us here. How many other black families in Massachusetts can say as much?"
"And all the good it's done you. Your family is respected, yes. Because it knows its place and keeps its place here. You know, sometimes I think our behavior is genetic—that we inherit our proclivities. You said your family operated Hernando's, the gay bar, with its extra services, even before it was Hernando's—when it was named Henry's. Did it offer the same services then?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Some of my brothers and cousins still do that there."
"And they let men fuck them? Your little brother doesn't know about this, isn't likely to fall into this on his own with or without Shern's help?"
"Demonte fucks men. Already. But that doesn't mean I want Shern at him with what he likes to do."
"And this servicing of the white men in this town by Semple cock. How many generations has this been going on? How many generations of Cole men have had their Semple to fuck them? How many Shern men have torture-fucked a Semple?"
Ben didn't respond.
"As I said, sometimes I think it's genetic—that we inherit our turn-ons and our proclivities and positions—in more ways than one—in life. It's a wonder there are so many Semples in the world—or Sherns, and Coles or Fischers, for that matter, from what I've heard. Their men have been so busy fucking each other down through the generation that it's a miracle they had time, effort, and inclination to plow their wives as well."
"As far as Semples go, we've always had enough steam to fuck anything we wanted." Ben followed that up with a low laugh, as if he was taking it all as a joke. But Tab thought—hoped—that he was listening and absorbing. But he'd probed enough.
"But maybe it's mostly environment. We're back to you letting the environment of Shernhaven and its first families control your life. It's you doing the fucking mostly, but even then it's them with a leash around your balls. Who was worried when we started fucking just now that your boss would be angry that you went back to the office late?"
"Well, I don't know."
"Think about it. You know where I'm going next. I'll be there a while. Long enough for you to decide whether you are too comfortable in the subservient role here to break free. And haven't you told me more than once that this loan business is getting to you—that there's no money to give out and that you find it depressing to tell people no all of the time?"
"Well. My area is accounting. It wouldn't have to be in a bank."
"Except that the comfortable place for you is a bank—because the man who controls you is the president of the bank. I said for you to think about it. You could be your own man. You don't have to be the slave element of Shernhaven."
They laid there for several minutes, each listening to the regularizing breathing of the other, the senses of each concentrated on the softening cock inside Ben—until Tab ran his fingers down Ben's belly and took possession of the young black man's cock and began to work it. Each of them knew where this would be going if Ben didn't pull away to return to the bank.
"You've given notice at the shipyard?"
"I don't think I have to. I think by this evening they'll all know."
"I have to get back to the bank."
"I'll bet Cole isn't even there—that he won't be back at the bank for hours yet."
"You think? You just want me to fuck you."
"Yes, I want you to fuck me. Now. It's your turn."
* * * *
"You're late."
"You could have left. You waited for me because you want it bad, don't you? You're panting for it."