Sing for Your Supper Read online

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  Sing For Your Supper

  ISBN #–-

  ©Copyright Jaime Samms

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright August

  Edited by Stacey Birkel

  Total-E-Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN FL, United Kingdom.

  Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Total-e-burning and a sexometer of .

  SING FOR YOUR SUPPER

  Jaime Samms

  Dedication

  For anyone looking for acceptance and the safety to be who they are without fear.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Jeep: Chrysler Group LLC

  Irish Spring: Colgate-Palmolive Co.

  Nike: Nike, Inc.

  Stetston: John B. Stetson Company

  Durango: Chrysler Group LLC

  Ikea: INGKA Holding B.V.

  Chapter One

  According to my map, there should have been a town here. I’d passed a closed gas station five minutes back, and a general store with a curling, paper “out to lunch” sign taped to the window. The crumbling, yellowed tape holding it in place looked like it hadn’t been taken down in months. The doors had been locked up tight.

  I glanced at my gas gauge and felt the tension in the back of my neck crawl up towards that spot behind my left eye. I made a point of rolling my shoulders over in a useless attempt to ease the stress. The old Jeep I was driving wasn’t exactly a stellar gas saver, and the needle edged towards the big red ‘E’ awfully fast. I didn’t have to look in my wallet to know filling the tank was going to be problematic.

  “Where the hell is ‘Redcliff’?” I glanced again at the map lying on the seat beside me. There was a tiny black dot about the point on the map I was driving through, but the gas station and store seemed to have been plunked down in the middle of nowhere, like tornado casualties deposited on the side of the road.

  I rubbed a hand through my hair, trying to ignore the tightening in my gut. The gas tank wasn’t the only tank needing refilling. I was going to have to find a place to stop soon then make the decision—feed myself or fill the tank. I wasn’t going to be able to do both.

  And it was Pete’s fault. Bastard. He was supposed to be my brother, was supposed to look out for me, not be the one holding me down…

  Don’t. Don’t remember.

  I still fell asleep with that image of the red-hot metal coming at me, Pete’s hands vice-like around my upper arms, Luke Driscoll’s leering face. I couldn’t remember what they’d been babbling about. The branding iron seeking my flesh, and the nasty taste of Luke’s spunk still in my mouth, had been about all I could focus on at the time.

  “Fuck.”

  Just the memory made my hands shake. Sweat trickled down my back and under the waist band of my jeans. Luke had been the one to lure me into that trap, swaying his tight ass and offering…

  “Shithead.”

  The highway blurred before me. It took a minute to clear my vision enough to reveal I was on the wrong side of the tarmac. I eased back to my own side of the road.

  The guy had been my friend. Or so I’d thought. He’d certainly acted the part for months, and had no compunction about shoving his dick down my throat. In fact, he’d acted like it was us against the narrow-minded idiots I called family. But no. None of it had meant anything. He’d been bait. Willing bait, eager to take any opportunity I’d offer to get off, but bait, just the same.

  “Fucker.”

  I yanked on the wheel, veering off the highway onto the shoulder. Six months, and I couldn’t get the asshole’s betrayal out of my head. Couldn’t think past it.

  Clouds of dust billowed past me on a warm breeze. The highway stretched out, straight and empty in both directions. I’d learned days ago that emptiness was an illusion in this heat. The shimmering waves of air above the pavement concealed oncoming cars pretty effectively. I sat for another minute, staring off into the desert of wheat fields, but I couldn’t sit there long. I had to get my ass somewhere, or who the hell knew how far I’d have to walk with empty pockets and an empty gas can.

  I shut off the Jeep’s engine. I couldn’t stop shaking as the memory played through. It always played through, whether I wanted to remember or not. It was funny the little details that stood out…

  Luke was younger than me by a few years, but a lot bigger. I remember taunting him that one day, he’d want me up his ass, and it had seemed that day had come. I had already counted it another conquest when he turned on me. I remember the rust-coloured cloud of dust lifting up around him when he spun, landing a roundhouse to my jaw and a wicked left into my gut.

  Splayed out on the barn floor, the next thing I remembered was the scent of Irish Spring soap and not being able to breathe around his cock. It hadn’t been anything but violent, and he’d said as he spewed down my throat, that it served me right for trying to corrupt him. Getting his kicks was one thing, he’d said, but he wasn’t a fag. It’d be a cold day in hell before I ever got near his ass. I’d pretty much lost the desire for it at that point.

  He’d sat back to zip himself up, the sound loud in the still barn, and was still sitting on my chest when Pete had come in.

  That was another detail. Pete in Nike trainers. It was all I saw of him—his feet in Nike trainers.

  I’ll never know how Pete reconciled Luke pining me and raping my mouth constituted me assaulting the younger man, but that was the excuse he’d used to justify his actions that night. The only thing that saved me gaining a permanent reminder how much Pete hated me was our middle brother, calling from the barn yard, wondering where he was.

  Alan. Pete’s shadow. Pete’s echo. My unwitting saviour. I never did find out if he knew what he’d saved me from, or if he would have tried to defend me from it himself. I only know Pete was quick to tell him what a degenerate I was, and he was quick to go to our father for mediation.

  Next morning, I’d got to watch the fiasco as Pete turned as viciously on his co-conspirator as he had on me. Luke got his ass fired for being a fag, and every word of that conversation stuck in my head like a bad screen play.

  “We don’t entertain that sort of behaviour around here,” my father was telling him, as Like’s face turned progressively redder and redder. “You can just pack your bags, and best not be looking for a recommendation from anyone here.”

  “That’s discrimination!” Luke, it turned out, was a screamer. He was in my father’s face with his accusations, and I watched, maybe a little smugly, as his tirade had absolutely no effect. “You can’t fire me for this! You can’t—”

  �
��I can, and I have. You can pack your bags and you and your…friends can be down the road inside an hour, or find yourselves in custody for trespassing.”

  The two men backing Luke shrank back from that icy glare my father was so good at, grabbed Luke by the arm and hauled him off. For about a minute and a half, I actually had a warm, almost cosy feeling in my gut, thinking my father had at last stood up for me. Then he spoke again.

  “That goes for you, too, Taylor. Pete, see your brother off my property.”

  And he turned and walked away, never once even looking at me.

  Luke got his kicks from that, and his last words to me were to let me know he wasn’t going to let me get away with it, as though any of this had been my doing. At the time, I hadn’t taken his words very seriously.

  You gotta stop this, Taylor. You gotta move on.

  Moving on would have been a lot easier if I didn’t keep running into Luke Driscoll every time I stopped for more than a few days at a time. The bastard had developed a fucking vendetta. A dog with a bone didn’t even begin to describe what he’d turned into, and I couldn’t seem to shake him.

  Fuck.

  I started up the Jeep again and pulled back onto the highway. Someplace around here, there was a town named Redcliff, and somewhere in that town was someone who needed something I could give in exchange for a burger and a beer, at least.

  Chapter Two

  The town, it turned out, was down a narrow, crack-strewn side road and consisted of a diner, a gas station, a post office and a dozen houses along a main drag. Somewhere off down another back road were a school, church, and general store, and another couple of dozen homes belonging to rich people sick of city living. It was the diner that interested me most right then. My stomach cleaved to my spine by the time I rolled the Jeep to a stop in front, coasting on fumes.

  The place was quiet. One old cat and an ancient, bright-eyed man sat on the diner’s porch. The guy sprang up when I got out of the Jeep and scurried around the back of the building. The cat blinked a sleepy blink without even lifting its heavy head.

  Lazy thing. Should be out catching mice.

  It yawned at me, showing off yellowed, but formidable teeth.

  You read minds, don’t you?

  Another yawn and it rolled over, tucking its head down under one paw, effectively turning its back on me. Typical.

  And I’m taking a cat’s snub personally. That cannot be a good sign.

  Inside, the place was smaller than it looked from the outside. Six tables and a couple of booths crammed the front room. Half a dozen stools covered in slick, black vinyl lined a low, granite counter along the back. The tables were heavy, polished oak and the chairs high, ladder-backed affairs painted in varying shades of blue. Underfoot, polished linoleum looked newly installed. It looked like the kind of place city-come-country folk would eat—a posher version of the diners scattered all through the prairies.

  Behind the counter a young man pretty much my age grinned a greeting and set a cup of coffee down on the bar. He was taller than me by a good few inches, with sandy blond hair and a pixie face. He tilted his head, just as though he knew precisely how pretty he was, and looked me up and down. There was a golden cast to his eyes that just about matched his hair.

  “Hey.”

  I nodded and changed my path, from where I had been heading to the furthest booth, to sit, instead, at the counter in front of him.

  “Hey.”

  “What can I get ya?”

  I turned out the contents of my pockets right there on the counter. A twonnie and two quarters. “Will that even pay for the coffee?” I met his gaze, determined not to let the shame show.

  “Coffee and a doughnut, if you don’t mind it being stale.”

  “Beggars and all that, right?” I smiled, mustering up a half-decent expression from somewhere, and he gave me a little shrug in return.

  He puttered about, bringing out a plate and arranging two doughnuts on it. It made a little clacking sound as he set it down in front of me. “Have one on me.”

  I’m not a huge fan of deep-fried bread products, but with my stomach growling the way it was, I’d take just about anything. “Thanks.”

  I ate the first one in two bites and glanced up to find him grinning at me.

  “Anything you don’t swallow with that much gusto?” The gold in his eyes seemed to shimmer suggestively, and he winked.

  He’s not really asking what I think. Is he?

  I blinked and placed the second doughnut back on the plate. “I suppose that depends,” I answered, cautiously.

  “How hungry are you?”

  “You got dishes need washing or something?” My belly churned, and I wasn’t sure if it was the day-old-doughnut, the hunger it wasn’t enough to appease, or something else entirely. A vision of Driscoll’s leer popped into my head. Maybe if I played dumb, he’d drop it. Maybe, he hadn’t actually suggested what I thought he had in the first place.

  Maybe you’re losing your mind, Taylor. Just calm the fuck down. Everyone hasn’t turned gay, and you aren’t that irresistible.

  “Danny!” The guy hollered over his shoulder and a few seconds later, the grizzled old man from the front porch poked his head through the kitchen door. “Watch the counter for a few. I’m going on break.” To me, he bobbed his head to one side. “C’mon ‘round back. We’ll talk.”

  “Pansy ass fucker,” Danny muttered as he shuffled in behind the counter and untied his sloppy apron. “‘Talk’ my ass.” He peered at me through a speculative expression. “Or yours.” He gave me a once-over that left the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

  “Mind your own business, Danny,” counter guy snapped.

  I glanced at my doughnut and coffee, wondering if I would look too desperate if I scarfed them back before following the guy to the back of the diner.

  Counter guy reached over and touched the back of my hand to get my attention. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk. C’mon.” He held up a wooden section of the counter and nodded his head towards the kitchen door.

  Outside, I’d expected a grimy lot next to a Nim bin, maybe a few milk crates to sit on. There was, instead, a paved lot a few metres off, and next to the back door of the restaurant, a small patch of herb and tomato garden. The tomato plants were rife with little yellow flowers. Whoever tended that plot knew what they were doing. They’d have a fantastic harvest if the drought didn’t interfere.

  We stepped out the door onto a smooth, stone path that lead past the garden. Under the shade of an ancient apple tree sat a small gazebo with two double swing seats facing each other, and a hedge hiding it from the road and the diner.

  “Have a seat.” Counter guy ascended the gazebo steps and settled on one of the swings. He gestured to the other.

  I perched on the edge of the seat and the chains clinked and squeaked as the swing took my weight.

  “So.” He tilted his head again, studying me. “Looks like you’ve been on the road a few?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How far you travelling?”

  I shrugged. I was beginning to imagine there wasn’t anywhere far enough to escape the image of Driscoll’s face or the sound of Pete’s voice in my ear, but that wasn’t something this stranger needed to know.

  “My name’s Matt, by the way.” He held out a hand.

  “Taylor.” After a second, I shook his hand. “So. What is it you had in mind, exactly. Matt?”

  “Straight to the point, huh?”

  Like I haven’t danced this dance before.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not up for anything you don’t fancy.” Matt leant forwards in his seat. “You ain’t cheap. I can see that.”

  “I fancy a meal,” I muttered, and slid off my seat to my knees. Not looking at him, I shuffled forwards between his legs.

  He didn’t have any compunction about spreading his knees apart to make room for me. My gaze fixed on his crotch and the substantial bulge behind worn denim. Gentle fingers raked through m
y hair and he sighed. “You must be pretty hungry to do this for soup and a sandwich.”

  “Imagine what you’d get for a steak,” I countered, finally raising my face to glare up at him. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

  It wasn’t like it was the first time. It never ceased to amaze me, the number of ‘straight’ guys out there willing to let a fag suck their dick in exchange for, as he said, a soup and sandwich. Most of them didn’t talk this much, though.

  He grinned wide and leaned close. “Fine. No talking, then.” His lips hovered over mine a split second, then descended, his tongue thrusting inside my mouth before I could move out of the way. His fingers tightened in my hair as he kissed me, and I couldn’t help responding.

  It was a good kiss. Old geezer’s comment should have tipped me off that Matt was different.

  When he pulled away, he looked into my eyes and smiled. “Steak it is.” He shifted back in his seat a bit. The bulge hadn’t gone away, and he played with himself idly.

  I watched his fingers caress his cock. “What? That’s it?” I asked after a few seconds of him watching me watch him.

  “You should eat. I can hear your stomach growling from here.”

  “But…”

  “Maybe after. Lunch rush is pretty much over. Got a couple hours before I have to come back for the dinner rush.” He gave me his little shrug again. “Come back inside, have a proper meal. Then decide.”

  “That’s—”

  He tilted his head, waiting for me to finish.

  “Decent of you.” I finally dragged my gaze back to his face. “What if I say no?”

  He leant forwards, sifting his fingers through the hair at the side of my head. “Then you say no. I lose a steak and a couplecouple of potatoes. Lot less important than what you lose if you say yes and don’t really mean it.”