# Book of Ruined Saints

- Site: https://mkarsenault.com/

## The Last Temptation of Dallas DeLong – CH. 1

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/28/the-last-temptation-of-dallas-delong-ch-1/
- Published: 2026-09-28T03:57:21+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

PROLOGUE DALLAS I slam my cock in Beau Ritchie’s hole to the hilt. He digs his fingers in the sheets, his whole body tensing around me as I bottom out completely. For a moment, I don’t move—I just stay there, buried deep, feeling every inch of him wrapped around me. The sensation is overwhelming, almost too much. “Mmhm fuck!” I moan, my voice rough and desperate. The sound comes from somewhere primal in my chest. His hole feels warm and impossibly tight, gripping me like a vice as I hold myself there, savoring the pressure, the weight of him beneath me, the way his body has opened up to take all of me. “Yeah, baby, fuck me!” Beau gasps, his hips pushing back against mine, urging me deeper. His voice is wrecked, needy, and it sends a surge of heat through my entire body. I can feel the desperation in him, the way he’s already trembling, already close to losing control. I pull back slowly, deliberately, watching as my cock slides out of him inch by inch, glistening with his arousal and mine. The friction is exquisite—almost unbearable in its intensity. I pause when I’m nearly all the way out, just the head still inside him, and I feel him clench around me, trying to pull me back in. “Not yet,” I whisper, though I’m not sure if I’m talking to him or to myself. Then I thrust back in hard, fast, setting a rhythm that makes him cry out. His fingers claw at the sheets, leaving wrinkles in their wake as his body rocks with each stroke. The bed creaks beneath us, a steady percussion underlying our heavy breathing and the wet sounds of our bodies connecting. “That’s it,” I growl, gripping his hips firmly, my fingers digging into his skin. “Take it. Take all of it.” Beau’s breathing becomes ragged, his moans growing louder with each thrust. I can feel him clenching around me, his body responding to every movement, every shift in angle. I slow down deliberately, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in with agonizing slowness, and he whimpers beneath me. “Please,” he begs, his voice breaking. “Don’t tease me.” But I do tease him. I set a slow, deliberate pace, each thrust deep and measured, and I watch as his knuckles turn white from gripping the sheets. His hips try to move faster, but I hold him in place, controlling the rhythm, controlling him. I lean forward, pressing my chest against his back, changing the angle slightly. The new position draws a sharp gasp from him, and I feel him tense. “Oh fuck, right there!” he shouts, his voice breaking. “Don’t stop, don’t fucking stop!” I increase my pace, my thrusts becoming harder, more urgent. I can feel the pleasure building at the base of my spine, a pressure that’s almost unbearable. But I’m not ready to finish yet. I want to draw this out, want to feel every second of it. I pull out completely and flip him onto his back. His eyes are glazed, his chest heaving. His cock is hard and flushed, leaking precome onto his stomach. I take a moment to just look at him—really look at him—before I push back inside. “Fuck,” he breathes, his hands immediately finding my back, his nails digging in. “Yes, like that.” I set a new rhythm, slower this time but deeper, my hips grinding against his with each thrust. I’m lost in the sensation of him, in the way his body yields to mine, in the raw need coursing through both of us. Sweat beads on my skin as I move, my muscles burning with exertion and desire. “You feel so good,” I breathe against his neck, my voice barely recognizable. “So fucking good. I could do this all night.” Beau’s hands roam across my back, my shoulders, pulling me closer. His moans have become almost continuous now, punctuated by gasps and broken words. I can feel him getting closer, the way his body is starting to tighten, the way his breathing is becoming more erratic. I slow down again, pulling back to look at his face. His eyes are closed, his mouth open, his expression one of pure need. I reach down and wrap my hand around his cock, stroking it in time with my thrusts. “I’m close,” he whimpers, his hips thrusting up into my hand. “Fuck, I’m so close.” “I know,” I murmur. “I can feel it.” I increase my pace, my hand moving faster on his cock, my hips driving into him harder. The tension builds and builds until it’s almost unbearable, until every nerve in my body is screaming for release. But I hold on, chasing that edge, pushing both of us toward it. “Come on,” I urge him, my voice hoarse with need. “Come for me. I want to feel you cum.” Beau’s body goes rigid beneath me, and he cries out my name as he comes, his hole clenching around me in waves, his cock pulsing in my hand as he spills across his stomach. The sensation is too much. The pleasure explodes through me, white-hot and all-consuming. I bury myself deep inside him one final time as I come, my entire body shaking with the force of it. I spill into him with a groan that feels like it comes from somewhere deep in my chest, from somewhere primal and raw. For a long moment, we’re both still, breathing hard, our bodies slick with sweat and come. I stay inside him, not wanting to break the connection just yet. I can feel his heartbeat against my chest, feel the way his breathing is slowly returning to normal. Finally, I slowly pull out and collapse beside him on the bed. We’re both gasping for air, our bodies tangled together. I reach over and pull him close, his back against my chest, my arm wrapped around him. His skin is warm and damp, and I press a kiss to the back of his neck. “That was…” he starts, but he doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to. We lie there in the aftermath, breathing together, the weight of what just happened settling over us like a blanket. My hand traces lazy patterns across his chest, and I can feel the slow descent of his heartbeat beneath my palm. There’s something charged in the silence between us—something that feels like more than just sex, though neither of us is ready to name it yet. “And cut!” Jarad’s voice cuts through the quiet of the set. “Alright, that’s a wrap.” I’m still catching my breath when one of the production assistants appears beside me with a towel and a robe. The studio lights are hot against my skin. “Thanks,” I say, taking both gratefully. “So, McGarrett, how was that for your final scene?” Jarad is standing over me, still wearing his headset, that familiar grin on his face. Around us, the grips have already started breaking down the camera rigs and coiling up the sound equipment. The organized chaos of a set winding down. “Not bad,” I say, wiping myself off. “C’mon, you went out with Beau. That’s any guy’s dream.” Beau is already gone—probably in his dressing room by now. Beau Ritchie easily has one of the best asses in the business, the kind that makes you forget your lines mid-scene. He’s won the Grabby for best ass and best scene partner for the past three years, and deservedly so. “He’s great,” I say, and I mean it. The words come easier than I expected them to. “So does that mean you’re putting off this whole retirement business?” I can’t help but smile at the question, at the hope threaded through it. “Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “The wedding is next month, and that was part of the deal from the start.” “Well, if you ever decide to get back in the game, you know my number.” I appreciate it, Jarad, but I’m hanging up my jock for good. CHAPTER ONE: THE FIRST BETRAYAL OF JASON MCGARRETT JASON There are a few things I never imagined I would have to worry about, especially at age 37. Past due notices were definitely not on my bingo card. Is this a normal part of being married? Being broke? I’m not all too sure how Dallas and I got to this point if I’m being honest. I knew we were stretching things a little thin, but I had no idea it had gotten this bad. I remember sitting at our kitchen table that afternoon, flipping through the different notices one by one. Electricity. Heating oil. Water. Internet. Cell phone. And the biggie—the mortgage. Each envelope felt heavier than the last, the red stamps screaming their urgency at me. Fuck. How are we going to get out of this? That was six weeks ago. Now the bills are getting paid, and one would think that would make things okay. But not for me and Dallas. Yesterday, I found a prescription bottle hidden in his gym bag. Today, I’m asking where the money came from. I haven’t told him what I found. He hasn’t told me anything. “All I asked was where the money came from?!” “No, Jason, all you do is find a way to make me the bad guy!” “Dallas, what am I supposed to think when bills just magically get paid?” The yelling grows more intense. I can feel my pulse hammering in my temples, my hands clenched at my sides. “I think if I were you I would just shut up!” “It just seems like you’re hiding stuff!” “I’m not hiding anything! I just feel like you don’t need to know everything about my life!” “We’re married!” “So fucking what?!” His voice cracks with anger. “You think a fucking wedding ring is an automatic all-access pass to every part of my life?!” He has a point, but that doesn’t seem to stop me. “Dallas! All I’m—” He cuts me off. “No! Jason! Just fucking no!” His face is beet red, veins visible at his temples. “I’m not doing this shit with you anymore! Fuck this!” He storms out of the bedroom. I follow him immediately, my feet pounding against the hardwood floor. “Dallas, don’t you dare walk away from me!” He’s already in the living room, heading toward the front door. His hand reaches for the knob, and something in me snaps. “You don’t get to just leave!” I shout, my voice hoarse. “You don’t get to throw money at our problems and then act like I’m the asshole for asking questions!” He whips around, his jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle working beneath his skin. “I’m not throwing money at anything, Jason. I’m keeping us from losing our house. You’re welcome, by the way.” “Don’t do that. Don’t make this about me being ungrateful.” I step closer, my hands still fisted at my sides. “I’m grateful. I’m terrified and confused and grateful, but mostly I’m scared because my husband is lying to me.” “I’m not lying.” “Then what do you call it?” My voice cracks slightly, and I hate it. I hate how vulnerable I sound. “Six weeks of overdue notices, Dallas, and suddenly you’re finding money to make payments. You won’t tell me where it came from. That’s not just privacy. That’s a lie.” He turns away again, running his hand through his hair. For a moment, I think he’s going to leave anyway, just walk out the door and leave me standing here in this living room with all these unanswered questions. But he doesn’t. He stops, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths. “Ask me something else,” he says. His voice is quiet now, stripped of the heat it carried just moments ago. Somehow that makes it harder to hear—not because I can’t make out the words, but because the softness feels like distance. “What?” “Ask me if the bank accepted the payment.” “Dallas.” “Ask me if they’re going to shut the lights off.” “That’s not what I’m asking.” “I know.” He turns around, bracing his hands on the edge of the kitchen island. The anger hasn’t left his face, but he looks tired beneath it—exhausted in a way that goes deeper than one argument, one sleepless night. I hadn’t noticed the gray shadow under his eyes before. Or maybe I had and decided it meant something else. Long shifts. Stress. Something ordinary and manageable. Something easier to live with. “How did you think we were going to fix it?” he asks. “I thought we were going to figure it out together.” “We sat at that table for three nights, Jason. We added the same numbers on the same calculator. What part of that was figuring it out?” I look past him toward the dining table. The calculator is still there, half-hidden beneath an opened envelope from our mortgage lender with PAST DUE stamped across the front in red block letters. Beside it sits six weeks of accumulated disaster: the past-due water bill, the shutoff warning from the electric company, the cell phone statement threatening service suspension. When my contract work collapsed two months ago and Dallas’s shifts at the framing shop were cut to part-time, we went from comfortable to drowning faster than either of us wanted to admit. We had skipped meals. We kept the thermostat at sixty all November. But staring at the deficit didn’t make thousands of dollars materialize out of thin air. “You could have talked to me,” I say. “And said what? We need money? You knew.” His voice cracks slightly on the last word, raw and scraped thin. “You knew the whole time. You were making yourself sick over it.” “Where did it come from?” He shuts his eyes. There it is again. That tiny retreat, that fractional withdrawal. Every time I get close to an answer, he goes somewhere I can’t follow. “Did you borrow it?” “No.” “From your brother? From anyone?” “I said no.” “Then somebody paid you.” He opens his eyes and looks at me. For a second, I see something flicker across his face—something that might be relief or resignation or both. “For what?” I ask. “Work.” The word drops between us like an iron weight on the floorboards. “What work?” His mouth tightens into a hard, defensive line. “You already decided.” “No. I’m trying very hard not to decide. That’s why I keep asking.” My voice sounds steadier than I feel, though my chest feels hollowed out. “That’s why I’m still standing here.” For a few seconds, neither of us moves. The hum of the refrigerator feels deafening. I could say it. We both know I could. I could ask him if he went back to the only work he ever swore he’d never touch again. When we met six years ago in Palm Springs, he was just Dallas—warm, funny, breathtakingly attentive. But it hadn’t taken more than a week of dating for him to sit me down over coffee and lay his past on the table before someone else did. For nearly eight years, he had been Dallas DeLong, one of the most bankable exclusive contract performers in gay adult film. His name and his body belonged to thousands of strangers on the internet. When we got serious, and especially four years ago when we signed the deed on this house and got married, we established a line. A firm, unbreakable boundary. Dallas had retired the moniker. He deleted the fan accounts, let the contracts lapse, and walked away so we could build a life where our intimacy belonged exclusively to the two of us. He promised me that man was dead. And I had spent years learning to trust that promise, burying the quiet, poisonous insecurity that the easiest, fastest way Dallas knew how to make money was selling pieces of himself to other people. If I put those words into the air right now, I can’t take them back. I can’t pretend I was asking about a weekend carpentry gig or a loan from a friend. I’ll be the husband who saw an unexpected balance and immediately dragged his past into the kitchen. And if I’m right, I’ll have to hear him confirm it. Dallas picks up his car keys from the counter. This time, I step out of his way. He notices. His eyes drop to the space I’ve cleared beside me, then return to my face. Something in his expression shifts—hurt, maybe, or a quiet, wounded understanding. “I need to cool off.” “Okay.” The front door opens, and then it closes softly behind him. For a while, I stay where he left me, standing in the space between the living room and the hallway like I’ve forgotten how to move forward. Then I check the lock. It’s a stupid thing to do. He has his keys. I watched him pick them up. But my hands need something ordinary to finish, some small physical task to complete. In the kitchen, his ceramic coffee mug is beside the sink. Mine is already in the dishwasher. He always leaves his out because he says he might want another half-cup, then forgets it until the next morning when he finds it cold and abandoned. I pick it up and set it by mine in the rack. I wipe a water ring off the laminate counter. Then I open my laptop. The bank account opens on the first try. We use the same password we’ve used for four years: our anniversary, a capital letter, an exclamation point. I scroll through the recent transaction history. The $1,050 payment toward our $2,100 mortgage—cleared. The $340 electric bill—cleared. The $410 overdue oil delivery, the $120 water bill, the $100 internet bill, and the $180 overdue mobile bill—all paid. The bank had accepted half the mortgage payment for now; the other half was still due. The utilities were caught up, and six hundred dollars remained in the account. Dallas had bought us time. We were still behind, but nobody was shutting off the lights this week. I scroll up to the deposits that made it possible. The description isn’t an employer or a payroll service. It’s an abbreviated payment processor string: FENIX INTERNET LLC – DIR DEP. There are four of them over the last three weeks. $650. $700. $500. $950. I hadn’t looked that closely before. I had just seen the recent payments and an unfamiliar deposit on my phone, confronted Dallas the second he walked through the door, and the shouting started before I could examine the details. Now I write the dates and amounts on the back of the grocery receipt, my handwriting shakier than usual. Twenty-eight hundred dollars in three weeks. Four transfers from the same unfamiliar source. I can’t connect them to the framing shop or any job Dallas has told me about. Work. That’s what he called it. I pick up my phone and open our text thread. Please just tell me the truth. I stare at the blue cursor blinking against the screen, then backspace until the box is empty. He knows what I want. Asking again won’t change whether he’s willing to give it to me. I haven’t searched my husband’s stage name in years. There was a time when I did it more than I would ever admit to him. Early on, before we got married, when I was still trying to decide if our relationship could survive the ghost of his career. I would sit in the dark of my old studio apartment, watching high-definition scenes of other men touching him, using him, hearing him moan the same sounds he made in my bed. I wanted to understand what thousands of strangers knew about the man who held my hand at dinner. I learned quickly that it was possible to find out everything about Dallas DeLong’s body without learning a single thing about Dallas. Tonight, the search bar fills in the rest of his name before I finish typing Dallas De. The first page of results is familiar. Old studio archives. Fan forum threads from 2018. Retired performer directories. Then I scroll down past the old links. Near the bottom of the first page sits a new profile link, marked with a small blue verification badge. OnlyFans | Dallas DeLong. My hand freezes on the trackpad. Having a page doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The adult entertainment world is full of scrapers, automated bots, and old content reposted by third-party aggregators trading on retired performers’ names and catalog footage. I click the link. The banner loads first: a minimalist black header. Then the circular profile picture sharpens. He is smiling at the lens. I know that smile. I’ve seen it across a pillow on Sunday mornings, across the dinner table over takeout, in the mirror while we brush our teeth side by side. And over his eyes are the matte-black Tom Ford aviators I bought for his thirty-fifth birthday in May during our weekend trip to Big Sur. My stomach drops into freefall. Not proof, a desperate voice inside me bargains. He posted photos from that trip on his personal Instagram. Anyone could have saved the picture and cropped it. I keep reading. Dallas DeLong (Official). Back for a limited time. Direct messages open to subscribers. A monthly subscription price: $9.99. Directly below the bio sits a locked video post with a timestamp: Five days ago at 4:15 PM. I lean closer to the monitor. Above the blurred-out video thumbnail is a brief, unblurred preview photo. Dallas is sitting on the edge of a bed in what looks like a boutique hotel room, one hand behind his neck, looking straight into the lens with that half-lidded, teasing look he used to give the studio cameras. Behind him, sitting on the metal luggage rack by the closet, is our brown canvas duffel bag. The one with the broken brass zipper pull. I had fixed it myself three months ago, threading a strip of saddle leather through the slider because Dallas kept catching his thumb on the jagged metal and swearing every time we packed. Dallas had told me that afternoon last Thursday that he was driving an hour north to help an old coworker inventory sound equipment. I sit back in my chair. The house is dead quiet. Outside, a car door shuts down the block, and I turn toward the window so violently my chair scrapes against the floorboards. It isn’t Dallas’s car. Of course it isn’t. He’s only been gone twenty minutes. I look back at the screen. The bag proves the photo is current. The timestamp proves it was uploaded last Thursday. The payment processor on our bank statement matches the parent company of the platform staring back at me. It all connects. Every one of those four deposits over the last three weeks came from this screen. There could still be an explanation. Some nuance. Some reason that doesn’t mean my husband is selling himself behind closed hotel doors while telling me he’s running errands. I hate how badly I want to believe a lie. Beneath the locked preview is a bright blue button: Subscribe to See User’s Posts. I reach for my phone to call him. I imagine him watching my name light up on his dashboard, letting it ring out, or worse—answering with that forced, calm voice, hearing the accusation in mine before I even say hello. My finger moves back to the trackpad. Creating the account takes less than three minutes. I use an old, neglected email address. When the site prompts me for a display name, I type a string of arbitrary letters and numbers—a faceless, anonymous handle that looks like any other wandering stranger on the internet. Typing those random characters makes my throat tighten. I am sitting in our kitchen, underneath the roof his earnings are helping us keep, demanding honesty from the man I promised to love, while actively building a disguise so I can spy on him. I could close the lid right now. I could wait for the front door to open, turn the screen around, and ask him to explain it to my face. Explain this to me. But he had his chance. He had three nights at this table. He had the whole drive home. He had every second of our fight before he walked out to cool off. I enter my debit card information. My personal debit card, tied to the small checking account I kept from before we merged finances. Not our joint one. I don’t want a notification pinging his phone before I see what’s on the other side. I click confirm. For a heartbeat, the screen hangs on a spinning loading circle. Then the page refreshes, and the blurred thumbnail dissolves into sharp, high-definition clarity. You’re now subscribed to Dallas DeLong. I read the text twice, the words refusing to settle into anything that feels like reality. My phone rests on the table beside the keyboard. The last text message from my husband is still the one sitting on the lock screen from two o’clock this afternoon: Need anything while I’m out? A sudden chime cuts through the silence of the kitchen, and a white pop-up box appears in the lower corner of the monitor. Dallas DeLong sent you a message.

## Relicbound – CH. 2

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/24/relicbound-ch-2/
- Published: 2026-09-24T23:06:58+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

CHAPTER TWO: THE THIEF AND THE FOOTNOTE GRAND ALI BABA HOTEL – LUXOR, EGYPT The handcuff bites when I roll onto my side. I stop, half awake, and pull again. Metal knocks against the headboard. “Oh, you fucking bastard.” My right wrist is cuffed to one of the brass uprights. Darius’s side of the bed is empty, the sheets kicked down around the foot of the mattress. Pale sunlight comes through the curtains. The air-conditioning is still running hard enough to freeze the room. I jerk my arm once, hard. Pain shoots into my thumb. That accomplishes exactly nothing. I lie back and stare at the ceiling, breathing through my nose until the urge to tear the headboard out of the wall passes. I let him stay. That’s the part I keep coming back to. I knew exactly who was in my room. I knew what he did for a living, what his father wanted, and how little either of them cared about what stood between them and something valuable. And I went to sleep. The flight had left me exhausted. Darius had finished the job. None of that excuses waking up attached to the furniture. I turn my head toward the bedside table. No phone. There’s a folded piece of hotel stationery where I left it, but I’m looking past that now. My satchel sits on the chair beside the bed. The flap is hanging open. I didn’t leave it open. Keeping my right arm stretched toward the headboard, I lean over the edge of the mattress and catch the strap with my free hand. The bag tips against the chair. I pull it onto the bed, spilling a pen and a packet of tissues across the sheets. The blue folio is gone. I push my hand into the bag anyway, feeling along the bottom, then check the inner compartment. Nothing. The survey photographs. Solomon’s paperwork. My notebook. “Fuck.” I drop the satchel beside me and look around the room. My shirt lies on the carpet a few feet from the bed. Getting it takes longer than it should. I slide down the mattress as far as the cuff allows, stretch one leg over the side, and miss the sleeve twice before catching it between my toes. My hamstring starts to cramp as I drag the shirt across the carpet. By the time I get it into my free hand, I’m sweating despite the cold. I turn the collar inside out. The stay is stainless steel. Thin, stiff, and considerably more useful than anything else I can reach. I ease it from its pocket and shift beneath my trapped arm. Darius hasn’t double-locked the cuff. At least one of us was careless twice. I work at the mechanism, stop when the strip slips, and try again. My hand is tingling badly enough that I have to change position before the third attempt. Then the cuff opens. I pull my wrist free and sit on the edge of the bed. An angry red mark circles the skin. I flex my fingers until the sensation starts to come back, then stand. The folio isn’t on the desk. It isn’t beneath the bed or in the bathroom, where I look despite knowing perfectly well that Darius hasn’t misplaced it while tidying up. My passport is still in the safe. My wallet is inside my trousers. Both SIG Sauers remain beneath the false bottom of my duffel. He’s taken the things that will help him and left the things that will get me home. I dress, secure my holsters, and check the rest of my field gear before repacking the satchel. Water. Torch. Spare batteries. Everything I should have checked before I let myself get distracted last night. Then I pick up the note. Needed a head start. Catch the next flight home and I’ll make it worth your while. D. I read it once. I fold the note and tuck it into my satchel. I’m going to make the bastard eat it. Then I grab the bedside telephone and dial Khalid’s number from memory. He answers over the sound of an engine. “Miles?” “Where are you?” “Outside your hotel. Are you ready?” “Nearly.” “You sound terrible.” “Darius took my phone.” The engine noise dies. “What else?” “My blue folio. There’s a notebook inside it.” A brief silence. “Do you still have the coordinates I sent you?” I ask. “Yes.” “Good. We’re going to the dig.” “I’ll bring the truck around.” “Five minutes.” I hang up, shoulder the satchel, and leave the cuffs dangling from the headboard. Subscribe now Khalid is waiting beside his truck when I come out. He takes one look at my face and opens the passenger door. There’s coffee in the cup holder and a paper bag on the seat. “Layla packed breakfast.” “Tell her I love her.” “You can tell her yourself when you come for dinner.” I move the bag to my lap and climb in. Khalid gets behind the wheel. As I reach for the coffee, his eyes settle on my wrist. “What happened there?” “Handcuffs.” He looks at me. “I was asleep when he put them on.” Khalid starts the truck. For once, he keeps whatever he’s thinking to himself. We pull away from the hotel and join the morning traffic. A delivery van blocks half the street ahead of us. Khalid waits while two men wrestle a stack of crates through a doorway, then takes the first opening wide enough for the truck. I unwrap the bread Layla has packed around cheese and eat without much interest until I realize how hungry I am. “When did they leave?” I ask. “I didn’t see them.” I look at the clock on the dashboard. There’s no way to know how much of a lead Darius has. He could have left as soon as I fell asleep. He could have waited until dawn. Either way, he has my research and I’ve spent the morning arguing with a bed. “Can you get us there without driving straight into their camp?” Khalid glances at me. “There’s high ground along the approach. We can stop before they see the truck.” “Good.” He waits until we’re clear of a junction before asking, “What’s in the notebook?” I take another drink of coffee. “Eleven years of work.” His eyes leave the road for a moment. “The folio was supposed to be for the authentication,” I say. “Photographs, site information, the paperwork Solomon sent. I put my notebook in with it before I left Boston.” “Why?” “Because something in their survey photographs looked familiar.” Buildings give way to stretches of open ground. I set the coffee between my knees and rest my sore hand against the window ledge. “Eleven years ago, I was working through a group of ostraca in storage at the Egyptian Museum. Broken pottery, limestone fragments. Most of it was exactly what the catalogue said it was. Accounts, deliveries, work records.” “And one wasn’t.” “One had been filed with quarry tallies. A piece of limestone small enough to fit in my palm. Three damaged lines of hieratic on one face.” I can still picture it on the padded tray beneath the examination lamp. The chipped upper edge. The dark marks that looked meaningless until I turned the fragment and changed the angle of the light. “There was a reference to Seti the First. Directions west of the royal necropolis. Then a passage about the heart of Osiris being ‘made sovereign beneath the turning sky.’” Khalid frowns. “What does that mean?” “I’ve spent eleven years trying to answer that.” The surviving signs aren’t the problem. It’s what’s missing between them. I’ve examined the scans so often that I can draw the gaps from memory. I’ve tried different readings, compared the language against funerary texts, and filled pages with possibilities I later crossed out. “The last line mentions a golden ankh,” I tell him. “And a chamber being kept sealed. The edge is damaged there. I can’t be certain of the wording.” “The amulet?” “Possibly.” “Is that what the Okafors are looking for?” “Darius said so last night.” Khalid’s mouth tightens. I look out at the pale ground beyond the window. Until last night, I’d known Solomon wanted something authenticated. I’d known the location in his survey photographs was close enough to my research to justify bringing the notebook. Then Darius named the Amulet of Osiris. And while I was asleep, he helped himself to every useful thing I’d brought. “You never published this?” Khalid asks. “Not the translation. Too much of it was uncertain.” “And now?” “The photographs helped. There are features in that branch of Wadi C that fit the directions better than anywhere else I’ve looked.” “The coordinates you sent me.” “Yes.” “So you can still find it.” “I can find it.” The scans are still in my archive. There are copies of some of the notes in Boston. Darius hasn’t erased eleven years of work by walking out with a folder. But the notebook is where I put everything together. The sketches, the comparisons, the readings I trust and the ones I don’t. It’s all there, in one place, conveniently annotated for the thief who took it. “He doesn’t need to work it out now,” I say. “He can read what I worked out.” Khalid turns onto a rougher road. The truck rattles over a shallow rut, and I catch the coffee before it spills. “Does the notebook tell him how to open the chamber?” “It tells him what I think the inscription says.” “That isn’t what I asked.” “No.” I fold the empty breakfast paper into the bag. “The text connects the ankh to whatever keeps that chamber sealed. It doesn’t say what happens if someone removes it.” Khalid drives for a while without speaking. The road narrows. Dust lifts behind us, hanging in the rearview mirror until a bend cuts it off. Ahead, the ground rises into broken limestone. I finish the coffee and put the cup away. Darius knows my objections. We had that argument before I fell asleep. Whatever his father has paid for, whatever paperwork he’s waving around, the amulet isn’t theirs to take. Apparently, Darius found my position inconvenient. I check the fastening on my satchel. He’s going to find it considerably more inconvenient in person. Subscribe now VALLEY OF THE KINGS – MARKAZ AL-QURNAH, EGYPT Khalid slows as the track begins to climb. “The dig is over that rise,” he says. I lean forward, looking through the windshield. Tire marks cut deep into the pale dust ahead of us. Beyond the crest, I can see the upper corner of a canvas shelter and the tip of a metal pole. “Stop before we get to the top.” Khalid looks toward a shallow hollow beside the track, then turns the wheel. The truck rocks over a strip of loose stone and settles behind a limestone outcrop. He switches off the engine. For a few seconds, all I hear is the ticking beneath the hood. Then a generator. I open my door carefully and step down onto the uneven ground. Somewhere on the other side of the rise, a man shouts, followed by the scrape of something heavy being dragged across stone. Khalid reaches behind his seat and brings out a pair of binoculars. “Here.” I take them. He catches my wrist before I turn away. His eyes drop to the mark left by the cuff. “Can you use that hand?” I flex my fingers. They’re stiff, but the tingling has stopped. “Yeah.” He lets go. We leave the truck and work our way toward the rise, keeping the higher rocks between us and the camp. Near the top, I crouch behind a broken slab and look through a gap. The excavation spreads across a shelf of cleared ground below us. Four Land Cruisers are parked along one side. Two canvas shelters stand beside a generator, with equipment cases stacked beneath an awning. A rough stairway climbs from the work area to an opening cut into the rock face. The tomb. I bring the binoculars up. Two guards stand where the vehicle track enters the camp. One has a rifle slung across his chest. The other is holding a radio, watching a pair of workers unload a crate from the back of a truck. A third guard stands near the bottom of the steps. Then I find Solomon. He’s beneath the larger shelter, one hand resting on a folding table while he talks to someone outside my view. A pale shirt, sunglasses, the same upright posture he had when he stood in my classroom and let Maggie explain why I didn’t get a choice. I shift the binoculars. There’s Darius. He has my blue folio open in front of him. For a moment, I forget to look at anything else. He pulls my notebook out, flips through several pages, and lays it flat. Solomon moves closer. Darius points to something I can’t see, then turns the book around for his father. My fingers tighten around the binoculars. He’s folded the cover back. I can see the elastic strap hanging over his hand. I want to go down there and break that hand. “Khalid.” “I see him.” “Is that the only way in?” “The track?” “The camp.” Khalid moves closer to the gap and studies the ground below us. “From here, yes. There’s another approach around the far side, but you’d have to cross that.” He points beyond the vehicles. A broad stretch of bare ground runs between the camp and the next ridge. No scrub worth hiding behind. No rocks taller than my knees. Anyone walking across it would be visible long before reaching the shelters. I follow it with the binoculars anyway. The vehicles face the road. The guards at the entrance have a clear view of the approach, and the man by the steps can watch most of the work area without moving. Driving straight in would have put us in front of all three. I lower the binoculars. Khalid touches my shoulder. “One more.” He points uphill. It takes me a moment to find the fourth guard. He’s standing beside a shallow recess in the rock, above and to the far side of the tomb entrance. His shirt blends into the shadow until he moves. From there, he can see over the shelters and down the track. “Got him,” I murmur. Below us, Darius closes the folio. I lift the binoculars again. He says something to Solomon, takes a bottle of water from the table, and starts toward the steps. My notebook is tucked beneath his arm. The guard at the bottom moves aside for him. “Shit.” I shift forward before I’ve decided what I’m doing. Loose grit slides beneath my boot. Khalid grips the back of my shirt. I stop. We wait. The guard above the entrance looks toward the vehicles. One of the workers is calling to him, pointing at a case they’ve just unloaded. He hasn’t seen us. I ease my foot onto firmer ground. Khalid releases my shirt. “He wants you angry,” he says quietly. “I am angry.” “I noticed.” I watch Darius climb the steps. He pauses at the top to look at something beside the entrance, then ducks beneath the temporary canopy. A moment later, he’s inside. I stay where I am. There are four guards between us that I can see. Possibly more beneath the shelters. Khalid’s truck is hidden, but it won’t stay that way if someone comes looking. I need a way into the tomb that doesn’t bring the whole camp down on us. I turn the binoculars away from the work area and begin examining the rock face. The ground immediately around the entrance has been cleared. Farther out, the slope is rough, broken by old falls and narrow gullies. Most of it ends in drops I wouldn’t attempt without proper equipment. But near our side of the excavation, a shallow channel cuts behind a shoulder of limestone. I follow it upward. From below, it would look like a crack running into the cliff. From here, I can see a shelf inside it, narrow but continuous for most of the distance. It rises toward the level of the tomb entrance. I adjust the focus. The upper end disappears behind an overhanging slab. “What about that?” Khalid follows the line of my finger. “The gully?” “Can we get to the bottom of it without crossing the camp?” He studies the slope between us and the channel. “There’s a wash behind these rocks. It should bring you around underneath it.” “And from there?” He gives me a look. “From there, you climb.” I look through the binoculars again. The guard above the entrance is on the opposite side of the canopy. The rock shoulder would hide me from him for most of the approach. The men by the road would have the shelters between us. The guard at the steps is the problem. If that shelf comes out where I think it does, I’ll be above him—but only by a few feet. There’s a short stretch between the end of the rock and the canopy where I’ll have no cover. I watch him. He shifts his weight, looks toward the vehicles, then back at the entrance. He isn’t wandering away. He isn’t distracted by his phone. He’s doing what someone is paying him to do. I’ll have to get closer before I can judge the angle. Khalid watches my face. “You can’t see where that shelf ends.” “I can see enough to get to it.” “And if it doesn’t go through?” “Then I come back.” He glances at my wrist. I tighten my hand around the binoculars, testing my grip again. It hurts. It also works. Down in the camp, Solomon leaves the shelter. The guard by the steps turns toward him as he approaches. They speak briefly, and Solomon points toward the road. The guard straightens and looks up the track. I hand the binoculars back to Khalid. “I’m taking the gully.” He looks at it once more, then nods. “Stay close to the wall at the bottom. The middle is loose.” I pull my satchel around and check that it’s fastened. Nothing hanging out. Nothing likely to fall when I climb. I shorten the strap until the bag sits tight against my side. “Take the truck back a little,” I tell him. “Keep it out of sight from the rise.” “I will.” “And keep the keys on you.” Khalid puts the binoculars around his neck. He doesn’t tell me to be careful. We’ve known each other too long for him to waste the breath. Instead, he points to a darker strip of ground behind the nearest outcrop. “That way. It’s steep for the first few yards, then it levels out.” I crouch and move away from the gap. The camp disappears behind the stone. Without the view, the sounds seem closer: the generator, men talking, a vehicle door slamming hard enough to make me stop. I wait until I hear an engine turn over. Then I start down into the wash. The footing is poor. Small stones roll beneath my boots, and I have to use my hands twice to keep from sliding. My right wrist complains when I put weight on it. I find a better hold and keep moving. At the bottom, the ground levels just as Khalid said it would. The rock wall hides the camp completely. I can still hear the generator, but the voices are muffled now. I follow the wall until the gully opens in front of me. From down here, the climb looks considerably less inviting. A slab juts out above my head. Beyond it, the narrow shelf angles upward and out of sight. Dust lies thick in the cracks, undisturbed by boots or tools. Good. I press my palm against the first handhold and test the stone. It stays put. I set my boot into a notch, hook my fingers over the ledge, and pull myself up. OFF THE COAST OF ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT – MEDITERRANEAN SEA THREE YEARS EARLIER “Are you sure it’s here?” Darius asks, his voice crackling through the radio. “Well, there’s only one way to find out,” I say, scanning the coordinates on my dive computer one more time. “You’ve been dragging me all over creation,” he says, and I can hear the exhaustion creeping into his tone, “and for what?” “This is it,” I say, feeling the certainty settle deep in my chest. “I can feel it in my bones.” We’ve been searching for Cleopatra’s Palace—the legendary structure said to have been swallowed whole by an earthquake over 1,400 years ago. Most archaeologists think it’s a myth. I know better. We check and double-check the scuba gear, running through our pre-dive routine with practiced efficiency before dropping into the ocean from the side of the boat. The Mediterranean swallows us whole. The water is dark and murky, visibility poor. My flashlight cuts through the gloom with a sharp, narrow beam that barely penetrates more than a few feet ahead. I check the regulator, feeling the steady flow of air, then glance at my watch as we descend into the depths. Something massive comes into view in the distance—a shadow darker than the surrounding water. I tap Darius’s shoulder urgently and point in the direction of my beam, my heart hammering against my ribs. We push forward through the current until we reach the ridge. It’s tight—far tighter than I anticipated—and we have to remove our tanks, pushing them ahead of us in order to squeeze through the narrow opening in the rock face. When we surface on the other side, we’re inside an air pocket. I break open a flare, the red light flooding the space with an eerie glow, and climb out of the water onto what feels like solid stone beneath my hands. “Holy shit—we found it!” We walk about the space, it’s quite large for being underground. The room is largely in tact. Wall sconces are places throughout the space. I sniff one. Oil. I use the flare to light a series of sconces which in turn light the space. “There is it,” I say pointing to the ceiling on the far wall. Sitting on top of a statue of Cleopatra is a bronze cat sculpture.The bronze cat isn’t just sitting there; it’s practically presiding over the drowned ruins. The flickering amber glow from the wall sconces catches the green patina along its arched spine, illuminating two polished obsidian eyes that seem to track our every move in the dancing shadows. Beneath it, the statue of Cleopatra VII is carved from black granodiorite, depicting the queen not in the Romanized caricatures of later centuries, but draped in the pleated robes of Isis, holding a lotus sceptre against her breast. “Tell me you brought the padded case,” I say, stepping carefully across the slick flagstones. The air in here is thick, tasting of brine, sulfur, and centuries of sealed rot, but my lungs don’t care. Adrenaline is doing all the heavy lifting. “I brought the case, Kessler,” Darius says, his voice bouncing off the vaulted ceiling. He shucks his dive harness, letting it drop near the submerged opening we just crawled out of. The tight neoprene wetsuit clings to his chest and shoulders like painted skin, glistening with seawater. He knows exactly what he looks like, too—the subtle swagger in his step makes that painfully obvious. “I also brought enough common sense for both of us, so don’t touch anything until we know the floor isn’t going to drop out from under our boots.” “Relax. It’s Ptolemaic masonry, not an obstacle course.” “Everything with you turns into an obstacle course,” he mutters, though he steps up right behind me, close enough that I can feel the cool mist radiating off his skin. His breath warms the damp crook of my neck. “What makes this particular stray so special?” “It’s not a stray,” I say, craning my neck to inspect the pedestal. “Look at the base. Those aren’t standard royal epithets. That’s a Ptolemaic astronomical cipher. It lists the conjunctions of Sirius during the reign of Ptolemy XII—and cross-references the hidden vaults of the Osirian priesthood in Upper Egypt.” Darius lets out a low whistle, his dark eyes narrowing as he studies the metal feline. “Solomon’s been looking for the source map to that lineage for twenty years. He thought it was destroyed when the Caesareum burned.” “Solomon was looking in royal libraries,” I retort, flashing him a grin over my shoulder. “He should have been looking where the sea swallowed the royal quarter.” “And you just happened to piece together the coordinates from three broken papyrus fragments in a Turin basement.” “Four fragments,” I correct. “And a very persuasive bottle of gin with the deputy curator.” Darius chuckles, a low, rumbling sound that vibrates straight down to my gut. He reaches out, his fingers brushing against the side of my waist as he steadies me on the slick tier of the dais. “You’re an absolute menace, Kessler.” “You love it.” “I love the payout,” he says smoothly, but the way his gaze drops to my mouth before snapping back to the bronze relic tells a completely different story. “Can we move it without bringing two hundred tons of Mediterranean down on our skulls?” “Only one way to find out.” I pull a pair of latex gloves from my waterproof thigh pack, snapping them over my pruned fingers. I climb the two steps of the granite pedestal, rising until I’m eye-to-eye with Cleopatra. The bronze cat rests in a shallow depression atop the queen’s headdress. As I reach for its flank, I notice the hairline seam running around the base of the sculpture. “Counterweight,” I murmur. “It’s resting on a hydraulic plug.” “Miles,” Darius warns, his tone sharpening from playful to strictly operational. “Don’t force it.” “I have to lift it clean. If we leave it, the salt air we just let into this chamber will corrode the interior cipher within months.” I wrap both hands around the cool, verdigris-crusted bronze and pull. It doesn’t budge at first. Then, with a dull, grinding shriek of ancient metal against wet stone, it gives. Instantly, the chamber shudders. A deep, subterranean thud echoes through the floor beneath our feet. From somewhere high above the vaulted ceiling, a spiderweb of cracks snaps across the limestone. A shower of mortar and salt-grit rains down into the pool, followed by a violent, concussive hiss of escaping air. “That’s not good,” I say, cradling the heavy bronze cat against my chest. “You think?” Darius snaps. Water begins erupting from a fissure near the rear sconces—not a trickle, but a foaming, pressurized jet that punches through the masonry with the force of a hydraulic cannon. The air pocket is compressing rapidly, the sudden atmospheric shift popping in my ears like a deep dive without decompression. “We’re losing the pocket!” Darius shouts over the rising roar. He doesn’t waste time cursing; he grabs my upper arm, hauling me down from the dais just as a chunk of ceiling masonry smashes into the pedestal where I was standing seconds ago. He shoves the open waterproof gear bag toward me. “Bag the cat! Now!” I cram the bronze artifact into the padded sleeve and pull the heavy-duty seal tight. The water is already swirling around our knees, rising inches by the second. Torrents of black seawater pour from the fractured stone above, drowning the sconces one by one, plunging the room into violent, chaotic crimson shadows lit only by my dying flare. “Tanks!” I yell. Darius is already at the submerged ledge, dragging our regulators and air cylinders out of the foam. He doesn’t shove ahead to save himself; he turns back, grabs the strap of my harness, and shoves the mouthpiece straight between my lips before yanking his own regulator into place. For a split second, our eyes lock in the bloody flare light—no sarcasm, no criminal posturing, just raw adrenaline and the razor-sharp certainty that neither of us is leaving the other behind. He gives me a sharp nod, grips the back of my dive vest with one massive hand, and pulls us both headfirst into the flooded siphon just as the vault ceiling caves in with a deafening aquatic roar. The memory dissolves under the brutal sting of dry heat. Instead of freezing Mediterranean seawater, it’s coarse, sun-baked grit scraping the skin off my knuckles. Instead of the weight of a dive tank, it’s the dead weight of my own body hanging by eight fingers from a jagged limestone lip fifty feet above the canyon floor of Wadi C. I grit my teeth, hauling myself upward until my forearms clear the rock shelf. My muscles burn with the familiar fire of desert field work, my right wrist throbbing with the tender red welt Darius’s handcuffs left behind. Three years ago, I remind myself, rolling onto the flat stone shelf and flattening my belly against the burning limestone. Three years, two continents, and a dozen lies ago. I catch my breath, tasting dust and iron, and crawl toward the ridge overlooking the dry ravine. Below me, nestled in the shadow of a sheer limestone bluff, sits the Okafors’ forward excavation camp. Two heavy-duty diesel generators chug rhythmically beneath a camouflage awning, muffling the shouts of the crew below. Darius’s four Land Cruisers are parked in a defensive perimeter around a gaping, freshly cleared fissure in the rock wall—a subterranean breach flanked by heavy hydraulic jacks, scaffolding, and industrial halogen work lights cutting into the dark. I reach down to unholster the SIG Sauer at my hip, easing the slide back just enough to verify the brass casing seated in the chamber. Then, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It isn’t the desert wind. Ten paces to my left, just around the curve of the upper ledge, the shadow of a rifle barrel stretches across the pale rock. A boot sole grinds against loose gravel, followed by the unmistakable, crisp metallic clack of an assault rifle being switched off safe.

## Duplicity – CH. 2

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/24/duplicity-ch-2/
- Published: 2026-09-24T23:06:58+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

CHAPTER TWO: THE REVELATION TYLER When I woke up this morning, I was certain of two things. Neither of those things included finding a house that my husband secreted away, and neither of them included being held at gunpoint. Honestly, there are things you just don’t put on your bingo card. But here we are—me standing in a house my husband apparently owns without my knowledge, being held at gunpoint by a stranger who seems to think it belongs to him. “Please don’t shoot!” I manage, my voice coming out higher than I’d like. “I asked you a question,” he repeats, and I can hear the tension coiled in every syllable. And as much as I want to come out of this alive, I’m having a hard time remembering what the question actually was. My brain has gone into full panic mode, thoughts scattering like startled birds. I could ask him to repeat it, but would that anger him to the point where he just pulls the trigger? I talk myself through a series of possible responses, but all the outcomes end with me getting shot in the back of the head. So with my life on the line, I go the only route I know—pure, unfiltered bullshit delivered with confidence. “Excuse me—this is my house,” I say, sounding confident as fuck while being scared absolutely shitless. “Your house?!” His voice rises, disbelief mixing with rage. “I could fucking drop you right now. As a matter of fact—” I feel like that’s the moment they usually shoot in movies, so that’s when I interrupt. “I can prove it!” I squeeze my eyes shut, prepared to have the back of my head blown open, but nothing happens. The silence stretches out, taut as a wire. “This house belongs to my fiancé,” he says finally, and there’s something else in his voice now—confusion, maybe. Uncertainty. “Fiancé?” I say, turning around before I can stop myself, danger be damned. “Did I say turn around?!” he shoots back angrily, and I freeze. The gun is still pointed at me, but I can see his face now. He’s younger than I expected—maybe late twenties, with dark hair and the kind of sharp features that would be attractive under different circumstances. Right now, though, all I can focus on is the weapon in his hand. “Who is your fiancé? What’s their name?” I ask, my heart hammering against my ribs. He’s quiet for a moment, probably having the same heart attack I’m having. I watch his jaw work, see the way his grip on the gun shifts slightly. “Jude,” he says finally. “Jude Morrison.” I don’t sigh aloud, but I definitely sigh in my head. Nathan’s only family is a twin brother whom I’ve never met, primarily because in all the time I’ve known Nate, Jude’s been on a submarine in some remote region of the world. But now I’m wondering why Nate would buy a house in my name for his brother and his brother’s fiancé. This makes no sense whatsoever. None of this adds up. But before I can think about it further, my brain registers the actual immediate danger—the gun still pointed in my general direction. “My name is Tyler,” I say carefully. “Is there any chance you could take that gun out of my face?” It’s another long moment before he lowers the weapon, though he doesn’t put it away entirely. I watch him engage the safety, at least, which makes me feel marginally less likely to die in the next sixty seconds. “Sorry about that,” he says, though he doesn’t sound particularly sorry. “I’m Montana.” “As in… that’s your name?” I ask, because apparently my brain has decided that now is the time for clarifying questions about nomenclature. He holds out his hand. I shake it reluctantly, still running ninja scenarios in my head where I grapple the gun away from him and turn the tables in a split second without getting shot. Spoiler alert: none of those scenarios end well for me. “Yeah,” he says. “So are you gonna tell me what you’re doing here? And what do you mean this is your house?” I carefully reach into my pocket, moving slowly so he doesn’t think I’m going for a weapon. I pull out the few pieces of paper I’d printed before I got on the road this morning—property records, copies of deeds, and a Xerox of my driver’s license. Definitive evidence that this house indeed does belong to me, even though I only learned about its existence this morning. “It’s all there,” I say, handing the papers over. He takes them, his eyes scanning the documents. I watch his expression shift from suspicion to confusion to something that looks like dawning horror. “I don’t believe this,” he says, his voice hollow. “How could he have lied to me like this?” he continues, still in shock and disbelief. The gun hangs loose in his other hand now, forgotten. “How could you have known?” I offer, because what else am I supposed to say? “So what were all those papers he signed?” he asks, looking up at me with genuine bewilderment. But now I’m confused. How could he have witnessed Jude signing anything? Was it a virtual closing? Did they do it over video call or something? “I don’t follow,” I say. “We sat there in the attorney’s office when he signed all the papers,” Montana says, as if this should be obvious. That can’t be right. The timeline doesn’t work. “Wait a second—are you saying you’ve met Jude? In person?” “Um, yeah,” he says, looking at me like I’ve grown a third eye. “Obviously.” “Montana, that’s not possible.” “What’s not possible?” “This house was purchased two years ago, right?” “Yeah, so?” “So Jude has been deployed for the past three years. He’s been in the South China Sea or the Bermuda Triangle or something.” I’m grasping at straws now, trying to make the pieces fit. “Well, first of all, those are two entirely different parts of the world,” Montana says, and I can hear the edge of irritation creeping back into his voice. “And secondly—Jude isn’t in the military. Just Nathan.” Nothing about this entire situation is making sense. Why does this guy think Nathan is in the military? Nathan is a real estate developer. He spends his days at construction sites, in permit offices, and on calls with contractors. “Do you have a picture of Jude?” I ask, because maybe if I see it, something will click into place. “Uh, yeah. As a matter of fact, I do.” He opens a nearby desk drawer and pulls out a framed photo. He brings it over to me, and I feel my stomach drop even before I look at it properly. It’s one I recognize immediately—Nathan and Jude standing outside a battleship docked in Hawaii. The photo is from years ago, back when they were both still in their early twenties. Nathan is dressed in civilian clothes, and Jude is wearing his dress whites. I have the same photo at home, tucked in a box in our closet. “That’s Jude there in the flannel shirt,” Montana says, pointing. I look at him and stare for a long moment, my brain refusing to process what he’s just said. I turn back to the photo, trying to make sense of it all. Because he just pointed at Nate. At my husband. At the man I’ve been married to for two years. “This has to be a mistake,” I say, backing away from the photo like it might bite me. MONTANA Not only has this guy broken into what I thought was my house, but now he’s turning my world upside down and inside out. Has Jude really lied to me all this time about something like this? And why would he tell me that Nathan was his brother? I should have known something was up. He’d mentioned having a brother before, and the moment I said I wanted to meet him, all of a sudden the brother was in the navy and being deployed. At the time it struck me as odd, but I think Jude just fucked the thought right out of my brain before I could examine it too closely. But now this. Now he isn’t who he says he is, and honestly, that’s more than a little scary. That’s the kind of thing that makes you question everything—every touch, every promise, every moment you thought was real. “So what do we do?” I ask, hearing the edge in my own voice. “Do we call him? Confront him?” “I need more information,” Tyler says, and there’s something measured in his tone that tells me he’s already thinking three steps ahead. “What more information do you need?” “I need to understand what this means. The scope of it.” I grasp at the only explanation that makes any sense, even though it sounds insane. “So you think they’re doing the whole twin divide-and-conquer thing?” “No. I don’t think that,” he says flatly. “But how can you be sure?” I ask, still holding out hope for something—anything—that doesn’t make me a complete fool. “He has a birthmark,” Tyler says, almost conclusively, and the moment he mentions it, I know exactly what he’s talking about. The little discolored patch of skin just below his navel that’s shaped like Texas. I’ve traced it with my fingers more times than I can count. “Touché,” I say quietly. And then for the next three hours, we start comparing notes. How often he comes to visit. His work trips. His little quirks that should have given him away a hundred times over—things we both somehow managed to miss or explain away. The things he says and does, his mannerisms, the way he holds his coffee cup, the way he laughs at his own jokes. Everything. Tyler pulls out his phone and shows me photos. I do the same. We compare dates, cross-reference trips. The pattern emerges slowly, then all at once, like one of those optical illusions where you can’t see it until suddenly you can’t see anything else. Afterward, I just sit there, sitting across from a stranger who’s somehow become the only person in the world who understands what I’m going through. My life has been completely upended, and for what? Because I fell for a seemingly nice guy with a pretty smile and a way of making me feel like I was the only person in the room. Everything makes sense now. Why we haven’t gotten married yet, even though he’s hinted at it. Why he never wants to go into the city, even for dinner or a show. “Babe, I spend all day in the city. Can’t we just stay here in the middle of nowhere and relax?” I mean, does he actually think that in a city as big as New York we’re going to run into people he knows from his other life? The odds are astronomical. But I guess when you’re living a lie that big, you can’t take any chances. Tyler wants to wait. For what, I’m not entirely sure. I say we take the fireplace poker and run him through with it the moment he walks in the door. But Tyler wants definitive evidence, wants to confront him with something he can’t talk his way out of. Fucking patsy. Nate—or Jude, or whoever the hell he is—will be here in two days. And what? I’m just supposed to pretend like everything is normal? Like I don’t know that my entire relationship has been built on a foundation of lies? Part of me is actually holding out hope that there really are two of them and they’re playing some type of elaborate game. I mean, what are the chances that someone would do this? That someone could do this? “So now what?” I ask, breaking the silence that’s settled over us like a shroud. Tyler adjusts himself, straightening in the chair he’s been sitting in for the past three hours. “Now—we go back to our normal lives,” he says, like this is the most normal situation in the world. Like we didn’t just discover that the man we both love doesn’t actually exist. “Just like that?” I ask, still in disbelief. “We wait,” Tyler says, and there’s something steely in his voice now—something I hadn’t noticed before. Something that tells me he’s not just hurt. He’s angry. “We act like we know nothing.” “How am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to look at him and not—” “You just do it,” he cuts me off. “You do it because the alternative is tipping him off before we know the full extent of what he’s done.” The thought that there could be more—more lies, more people, more versions of this nightmare—makes my stomach turn. Arguing with him seems pointless. He’s right, even if I hate it. “I have to get back,” he says, all matter-of-fact, like we’ve just finished discussing the weather. “He can’t know I was here.” “Right,” I reply, my voice hollow. He stumbles when he attempts to stand up, his legs unsteady beneath him, but catches himself on the mantle at the last moment. For a second, I’m certain he’s going to bring the whole thing down with him—his movements have reached a cartoonish level of clumsy—but somehow he manages to right himself, gripping the edge until his balance returns. When he leaves, I’m not sure what to do with myself. I just sit there in the gathering darkness, not bothering to turn on any lights. I’m in a house that doesn’t belong to me, and the more troubling part is that it doesn’t even belong to the person who gave me the keys. I let that sink in for a moment—let the full weight of it settle over me. My life as I know it is going to change, and there’s nothing that anybody can do about it. The only question now is how much damage he’ll do on his way down. TYLER By the time I get home, I have a little under an hour before I expect to see Nathan walk through the door. The house feels different now—charged with the weight of what I know, what I’m looking for. I head straight to the office and close the door behind me, even though there’s no one here to hide from. Not yet. First, I check on the present I left Montana. Before I left his place, I’d staged an over-the-top stumble near the mantle—all flailing arms and muttered curses—while discreetly planting a camera disguised as a match container among the clutter there. The device was small enough to blend in perfectly with the other knickknacks, hiding in plain sight. My hope was that Montana had been too focused on my theatrical fall to notice what my hands were actually doing. If I’d played it right, he’d remember my clumsiness and nothing else. Now it was time to see if my little performance had paid off. Bingo. Actually, bingo in 4K. Montana is sitting in the same exact place when I left, poor kid. His life has been flipped on it’s head, unfortunately that is the second to last thing I’m worried about at the moment. I get to work immediately, my fingers moving across the keyboard with purpose. I search every public record I have access to, every database that might yield something useful. Property records. Business filings. Court documents. I run Nathan’s name through variations—middle initials, different spellings, hyphenations. Then I add Montana’s name to the search parameters, cross-referencing them in every combination I can think of. Nothing. Or rather, nothing that tells me what I need to know. I lean back in the chair, rubbing my eyes. What am I missing? There has to be something—some thread I haven’t pulled yet. I’ve always found that talking to myself helps me access a higher level of reasoning, forces me to articulate the problem in a way that makes the solution visible. But right now, I’m drawing a blank. Wait. I sit forward again, my hands flat on the desk. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. Maybe the problem isn’t the method—it’s the assumption. My brain starts to process things differently, like previously locked doors are beginning to crack open. I’ve tried inductive reasoning, working from specific facts to broader conclusions. I’ve tried deductive reasoning, starting with what should be true and working backward. Maybe what I need is a reductive approach—stripping away everything until only the essential remains. The problem is I’m searching for what I expect to find, building my queries around what should be there. But what if the answer lies in the opposite direction? What if I need to search for what isn’t there—the gaps, the absences, the things that should exist but don’t? I recall the picture from Pearl Harbor from the depths of the laptop’s hard drive. Google. Reverse image search. Nothing. No matches found. This makes no sense. He has actual medals. He’s been in the military—but wait—maybe—I crop the image and remove Jude from the frame, then search again. This time, multiple results populate. I find the image, click on it. And well I’ll be damned. The image is there—clear as day. Only Nathan wasn’t standing next to the carbon copy of himself. He was standing next to a red-headed man. A man I had never met, but according to the caption, his best friend since high school: Daniel Freeman. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I mutter to the empty room. I snap a pic and send it to Montana. He responds a few seconds later with a single-word reply. “Fuck.” What else is there to say? I mean, at least he’s not married to the lying bastard. At least he has the option to immediately go back to a normal life, or something like it. I, on the other hand, am about to embark on what will most likely be one of the most protracted divorces in human history. Then my phone rings. It’s Montana. I answer on the second ring. “Now what?” His voice is a mixture of disbelief and exhaustion, like he’s been sitting by the phone waiting for me to call with good news. That we’ve been horribly mistaken and now we have to deal with the fallout of our paranoia. “I wish I knew what his endgame was,” I say, staring at the screen. “What should I do?” he asks. My resolve is more abrasive than I intend. “We wait,” I say. “You have more patience than I ever could.” Suddenly, I hear a familiar mechanical sound as the garage door starts to open. My stomach drops. “He’s home,” I say. “I’ll call you later.” I disconnect the call and head back to the kitchen. Fuck. In all the craziness I forgot about dinner. Guess we’re getting takeout. I close out everything on the laptop and clear out of the study. There’s nothing odd about me being in there, but I’d rather he not ask any questions. Not tonight. Not when I’m still processing what I’ve found. I step into the kitchen and grab the stack of takeout menus from on top of the refrigerator, laying them out like I’ve done a thousand times before. When Nate walks in, I greet him with the same familiar kiss he’s used to. “Takeout roulette,” I say, gesturing my arms in a presentation manner. He looks at the menu spread and a smile creases his face. “Ooh, I like—” he says, a sliver of excitement in his tone. “Let’s go with hibachi.” “Fine choice, guv’na,” I say with an over-the-top cockney accent. I order the food and Nate goes to shower while we wait. I try to keep my hands busy, wiping down counters that don’t need wiping, rearranging the menus into a neat stack. Anything to keep from thinking about that photo. “Ty!” Nate shouts from the second-floor bathroom. I go up, grabbing a roll of toilet paper from the utility closet on the way. When I get there, he’s in the shower. I look at the toilet paper holder and it’s full. “What’s with the ‘I need TP’ scream?” He starts to stroke his cock, water cascading down his body. “Maybe I need something else,” he says, his voice low and inviting. Fuck off, you rat bastard. As much as I want to leave him to his own devices, I’m horny as fuck. The anger and the arousal twist together in my gut, a confusing knot I can’t untangle. I strip off my clothes slowly, watching him as he strokes his cock with one hand and caresses his chest with the other. Once I’m naked, I step inside the shower and lock my lips with his. I’m mad as hell, but I still feel the electricity of his lips pressed against mine. My cock stiffens despite everything. “Fuck,” I say, more whisper than anything else. He grabs my face with both hands and kisses me deeper, his tongue exploring my mouth. I reach down and stroke his cock, and even though the water is running across both of us, I can still feel the precum leaking from his tip. I use it to lubricate the head of his dick and gently roll my thumb across it. “Oh shit,” he gasps. He tilts his head back in pleasure, exposing the column of his throat. I still have a fistful of cock when I drop to my knees and swallow him down in the most obscene fashion. He moans almost instantaneously. I slurp and hum around his length, taking him as deep as I can. “Mmmhm,” I moan as I suck, the vibrations making him shudder. My fingers dig into his ass and his fingers thread into my hair, gripping tight. The water beats down on my back as I work him with my mouth, trying to lose myself in this moment, trying to forget what I know. This is not how I expected my evening to go. Not even a little bit. The water runs down my face and I don’t blink it away. His fingers tighten in my hair—not pulling, just holding—and I work deeper, my tongue pressing against the underside of him. He shifts his weight slightly, spreading his legs a fraction wider, and I feel one of my fingers slip deeper into him, finding that tight resistance and pressing through it. “Fuck, yeah,” he breathes. I pull back just enough to breathe, stroking him with my hand while water cascades between us. His cock is flushed and slick, and I watch a fresh bead of precome slide down before I lean back in and take him again, slower this time, deliberate. His hips rock forward slightly—a small movement, testing. I take it, my throat working around him, and his fingers dig deeper into my scalp. My other hand stays where it is, fingers moving in small circles, feeling him clench around me. “You’re so fucking good at this,” he says, and his voice is rough. I hum around him in response, and his thighs tense. We’re locked in this rhythm now—his hips moving in shallow thrusts, my mouth meeting him halfway, my hand working what my mouth can’t take. The tile is slick under my knees but I don’t care. The water is getting cooler but I don’t care about that either. His fingers thread tighter through my hair. My fingers press deeper. We stay like this—suspended in the moment, in the heat of him, in the anger and the want tangled together so tight I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. I pull back slightly, just enough to breathe around him, and he makes a small sound of protest. The water runs down my face and I don’t blink it away. My fingers curl inside him and he shifts his weight, spreading his legs a fraction wider to accommodate the angle, and I feel him tighten around me in response. “Mmhm,” he says, and it’s almost a question. I take him deeper, my throat relaxing, and his grip on my hair loosens just enough to let me move. The rhythm changes—less urgent now, more deliberate. I’m setting the pace and he’s letting me, which is its own kind of power, and I hate that I notice it. I hate that I’m aware of the control I have in this moment, his body responding to what I’m doing, his breathing hitching when I press my fingers in a certain way. His hips stay mostly still now, just small rocking movements, letting me work. The water is definitely cooler, running down my shoulders, but the heat between us is still there—his skin warm under my hand, his cock hard in my mouth, the tight clench of him around my fingers. “Don’t,” he says suddenly, and I freeze. “Don’t stop. Just—keep doing that.” I do. My fingers stay exactly where they are, moving in those small circles, and I take him slow and deep, my tongue pressing against the underside of him. His free hand comes up to grip the shower wall, and I watch the muscles in his forearm tense. “Fuck,” he breathes. “You’re—” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Just holds there, suspended in whatever he’s feeling, and I’m still angry, still calculating, still aware of the two keys in my jeans pocket on the bathroom floor. But my body doesn’t care about any of that. My body just knows the weight of him, the taste of him, the way he sounds when he’s trying not to lose control. His fingers in my hair tighten again, not pulling, just holding, anchoring himself. My fingers press deeper and he makes a sound that’s almost a whimper, and I feel something shift in me—something that wants to hurt him and something that wants to keep him here like this forever, and I can’t tell which one is winning. He thrusts his hips forward, and I feel his cock push deep, hitting the back of my throat. The pressure makes my eyes water as I fight back my gag reflex, struggling to breathe through my nose. My throat constricts around him involuntarily, and I hear him groan above me. Then his hips start to shudder, the rhythm becoming erratic. His whole body is shaking now, muscles tensing. He’s close—I can feel it in the way his cock pulses against my tongue, in the desperate way his fingers tighten in my hair. “Fuck! I’m gonna—” He doesn’t need to finish the sentence, I know exactly what’s about to happen and while I had considered what to do in this exact situation when I was driving back from upstate New York, stopping just before he finishes and walking out, but that would fuck my plan and right now I need him thinking everything is normal. So I take him all the way, swallowing around him as he cums hard, his body rigid against mine. I can feel him shoot his load—four or five thick ropes of warm cum down my throat. When he finally pulls out, I stay on my knees for a moment, catching my breath, the water running over me. He’s still trembling slightly, his hand loosening in my hair, becoming almost gentle. I stand up, and kiss him, passing his load across my tongue and into his mouth. And he loves it. He spits it back into my mouth and spit it back in his then pull away and use my hand to close his jaw and wait until he swallows. Damn. That makes me so fucking hard.

## Duplicity – CH. 1

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/24/duplicity-ch-1/
- Published: 2026-09-24T23:06:58+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

CHAPTER ONE: THE BREAKING POINT TYLER I knew about the carriage house, but I’d never been there. In fact, I’d asked about it once and all Nate would tell me was that it was in desperate need of renovation and that he wanted to sell it. But that seemed off—because from the brief glimpse of the text exchange I saw, it sounded like someone was renting it. Something about it didn’t make sense. It was one of those things that was starting to eat at me, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts because I felt like he was trying to hide something. And the more I asked about it, the more he told me I was being crazy. To some degree, maybe I am. But why do I suspect something? Because it seems like every time I mention upstate New York, Nate fucks me to the point where I forget about it—like he’s deliberately trying to scramble my thoughts with pleasure, to make me lose track of what I was questioning in the first place. I finish preparing dinner just as I hear the sound of the front door opening downstairs. Nate’s home. My pulse quickens slightly, that familiar mix of anticipation and unease settling in my chest. He bursts through the door a few minutes later, still talking on his cell phone. I walk over, kiss him on the cheek, and help him out of his coat. The fabric is cool from the outside air, and I catch the faint scent of his cologne mixed with the crispness of evening. I hang the coat on the hook by the entryway and reach for his keys, placing them in the bowl on the table near the door. Only there are two sets of keys—the main key ring that houses the house key and car keys attached, and another key ring with just two nondescript keys. There’s just a simple ring that connects the two lone keys, and no indication as to what they open. I hold the keys in my hand a moment longer, feeling their weight, their mystery. The metal is cold against my palm. Before I can second-guess myself, I decide to pocket them. When I get back to the kitchen, Nate is off the phone and patiently waiting for me before he dives headfirst into the dinner I made. “Looks good,” he says. “Thanks,” I respond. “Hopefully it tastes as good as it looks.” He takes a bite, chews thoughtfully, and nods with the kind of exaggerated approval he uses when he wants to move a conversation along. “It’s good. Really good.” A beat. “You always undersell yourself.” I sit down across from him, the keys pressing faintly against my thigh through the fabric of my pocket. I can feel them there like a secret with its own pulse. “How was the Hendricks site today?” I ask, keeping my voice light, the way I always do when I want information without looking like I want it. “Same as always. Contractors dragging their feet on the permits, city inspector being an ass about setbacks.” He shakes his head, spearing a piece of chicken. “Honestly, I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself. Every project, it’s the same fight.” “Because you like winning fights,” I say. He laughs—that easy, warm laugh that used to disarm me completely, that still mostly does. “Maybe. Or I just like seeing something ugly turn into something people actually want to live in.” He gestures with his fork, a habit he has when he’s building toward a point. “You should see the units once they’re finished, though. Totally different energy. Makes the headache worth it.” “I’d like that,” I say, and I mean it, even now. Even with the keys in my pocket. “How about you? Anything interesting happen in the world of firewalls and phishing emails?” There’s a teasing lilt in his voice, the kind he always uses when he wants to make my job sound smaller than his. “We caught an intrusion attempt this morning. Someone tried to spoof internal credentials to get into the client database.” I take a sip of wine. “Almost worked. Would’ve, if the access logs hadn’t flagged an odd login time.” “See, this is why I stay away from computers as much as possible,” he says, shaking his head. “Too much digging. You people notice everything.” I watch him for a beat too long. “That’s the job,” I say. “Noticing what doesn’t add up.” Something in his expression flickers—so brief I almost don’t catch it—before he smiles again and reaches for his glass. “Well, I’m glad you’re good at it. Scary out there.” We finish the meal with lighter talk—a show we’ve been meaning to watch, whether we should repaint the guest room, his sister’s upcoming visit. His hand finds mine at one point, thumb tracing slow circles over my knuckles, and for a moment the warmth of it almost convinces me I’m imagining all of this. Almost. After dinner, he insists on clearing the plates, moving through the spacious kitchen with easy efficiency, brushing past me at the counter with a kiss pressed to my temple that lingers a second longer than necessary. “You cooked. I clean,” he says, like it’s a rule we’ve always had, though I can’t remember when it started. I lean against the far end of the granite countertop, drying the pans he washes in the sink, our movements separated by the generous space between us. The kitchen is large enough that we don’t have to navigate around each other, and yet he finds reasons to move closer—reaching past me for a dish towel, his hand briefly on my lower back. He hums something under his breath—an old habit, tuneless and comforting—and I find myself watching his hands instead of the dish I’m drying, searching for something I can’t name. Upstairs, we move through the familiar rhythm of the night: we step into the bathroom together, and he heads to one of the Jack-and-Jill sinks while I move to the other. We brush our teeth in companionable silence, our reflections side by side in the mirror, the kind of domestic intimacy that used to feel like belonging. When I finish and head to the bedroom, he’s already sprawled across his side of the bed, phone glowing faintly in his hand, thumb moving in slow, absent scrolls. “You good?” he asks, glancing up as I climb in beside him. “Yeah,” I say. “Just tired.” He sets the phone on the nightstand, reaches over to turn off the lamp, and pulls me against him with an ease that used to feel like safety. His lips find my forehead, then linger lower, his hand sliding along my waist in that familiar, practiced way—a kind of quiet insistence that used to melt every question right out of me. He kisses down my body, taking his time, his mouth dragging warm and deliberate across my collarbone, my chest, the soft skin below my ribs. His hand moves ahead of his mouth—palm flat against my stomach, sliding up across my chest, back down again—like he’s reminding himself of the map of me. Like he owns it. Maybe he does. That’s the problem. His lips find my navel, tongue dipping in briefly, and my stomach tightens involuntarily. He notices—of course he does—and does it again, slower, before continuing downward. His breath is warm through the fabric of my underwear and my cock is already hard, already aching, pressing insistently against the cotton. “Mmhm, fuck,” I breathe out before I can decide not to. He looks up at me from the dark. I can just make out the shape of his mouth, the faint curve of satisfaction there. “You like?” he asks, his breath warm against my skin, fingers hooking into the waistband but not pulling yet. Just holding. Just waiting. I don’t answer. He already knows. He takes his time—he always takes his time, which is either generosity or cruelty depending on my mood—pressing his mouth to me through the cotton, mouthing along my length until the fabric is damp and I’m gripping the sheets with both hands just to have something to do with them. “Nate—” “I’ve got you,” he says quietly. He pulls my underwear off completely, tosses it somewhere into the dark, and just—looks at me. Like he’s got nowhere else to be. Like I’m the only thing worth looking at on the entire eastern seaboard. Part of me hates that it still works. He plants both hands on the inside of my thighs and spreads them wider, deliberate and unhurried, and then licks up the full length of my cock in one slow, devastating stroke, base to tip, and my whole spine lights up. “Goddamn,” I moan, my fingers finding the sheets. He does it again. And again. Not taking me in, not yet—just that long, wet drag of his tongue that makes my thighs try to close around his head before his hands stop them. He laps at the vein on the underside, presses his lips to the head, breathes against the slit. Then the point of his tongue, just there, precise and focused, and I make a sound that is not dignified in any way. “Shit,” I gasp, another moan wrenched up from somewhere in my chest. He sucks me slow and thorough for a long moment, taking his time the way he does everything—methodical, aware of every reaction, cataloguing what makes me twitch. Then he pulls off with a soft, obscene sound and my cock is left wet and aching in the cold air. Before I can protest he grabs underneath both my legs and rolls them up toward my stomach, folding me open, and I let him—god help me, I let him—fully exposed, no pretense left to maintain. He doesn’t hesitate. His tongue finds my hole and the first contact makes me gasp so sharply it sounds like a sob. He licks into me slowly, deliberately, tracing circles before pressing deep, his hands gripping the backs of my thighs hard enough to anchor me. Kissing, sucking, working me open with a hunger that makes my spine arch completely off the mattress. I’m gone. Whatever was left of my better judgment evaporates entirely. My hands grasp at the sheets, at nothing, at the back of his head, at anything. “Holy fuck, that feels good!” He hums against me again and I feel it everywhere—up my spine, behind my teeth, in the soles of my feet. My thighs are shaking in his hands. Actually shaking. I would be embarrassed about that if I had a single functioning brain cell left to care. He takes his time. That’s the thing about Nate—he always takes his time. Like he’s making a point. Like he wants me to know, specifically, that he could do this all day and all night and it would cost him nothing. He fucks me with his tongue and I groan into the ceiling. “Nate—fuck—” He doesn’t respond. He just keeps going. Licking into me, slow and thorough, pulling back to circle the rim before pressing in again. My hands find the back of his head without my permission and he lets me—he doesn’t pull away, he just keeps eating my ass, steady and deliberate, like I’m something worth taking apart carefully. “Mmhm—fuck! Fuck! Fuuucckkk!!” He hums again. Still smug. Even now. My hips rock up to meet him—involuntary, humiliating, completely beyond my control. He shifts his grip to accommodate it, and the sound I make is not one I’d put on my highlight reel. High and desperate and way too honest. This is the problem, some distant, still-functioning part of my brain observes. This is exactly the problem. He pulls back just enough to press his lips against the inside of my thigh—soft, almost sweet—and I nearly lose my mind entirely. “You want more?” he asks. Quiet. Like he already knows. “Yes.” No hesitation. No dignity. “Yes, come on—” He goes back down and this time there’s nothing methodical about it. Just hunger. His tongue works into me—deep, pressing, circling—and I feel it in places I can’t name, a pressure building at the base of my spine like something winding tight. Every time I clench around him the sensation spikes higher, coiling tighter, and I can’t tell where pleasure ends and need begins. My hands are back on his head, pulling him in as far as I can. “Don’t stop,” I manage. “Don’t fucking—fuck!” He doesn’t stop. He eats me with a relentless, focused rhythm—tongue pressing deep, pulling back, pressing in again—and I am gasping into the void with both fists twisted in his hair and my whole body rigid and straining toward something— “Nate—” It detonates from the inside—his tongue pressing deep as my body seizes around him, and the first rope shoots out hard and unexpected, cum spurting across my own stomach in a thick stripe. It catches me off guard, because I haven’t touched myself. “Ahh—fuck! Fuccckk!!!” The second follows immediately, my hips jerking involuntarily, my thighs still shaking as another shot milks from me while I watch it happen like it’s someone else’s body betraying them. A third, weaker but still there, my body still clenching around his tongue as the wave rolls up my spine and breaks somewhere behind my eyes. “Fucking hell! Fuck!” “Damn that’s hot!” he says pulling away from me before putting his lips back over my wet hole. The fourth is thinner, trailing, and I collapse back into the sheets with everything buzzing, my thighs still twitching, staring at the ceiling trying to locate a single coherent thought. There isn’t one. Nate presses one last kiss to the inside of my thigh and says nothing. He doesn’t have to. Tonight, I let him believe it still works. I reach over the edge of the bed, feeling around for my underwear. I find them and slide them on. Then I lie back and close my eyes, matching my breathing to his, waiting for the moment his breath deepens into sleep. When it finally does, I lie there in the dark, listening to the house settle around us. I run through everything I know—the carriage house, the texts, the two keys with no explanation—and I feel the shape of a decision forming somewhere beneath my ribs. I don’t know yet what it opens. But I intend to find out. And regardless of his charm, regardless of his ability to fuck me into submission—to make me forget, even temporarily, what I’m looking for—Nate won’t get in my way. Not of this. Not when I’m this close to understanding what he’s been hiding. FOUR YEARS EARLIER I don’t do festivals. Too much mud, too many people who think patchouli is a substitute for deodorant, too much standing around pretending a warm beer in a plastic cup is a personality trait. But my roommate has an extra ticket to the Governor’s Ball—not the political kind, thank God, the music kind, three days of bands nobody’s parents have heard of playing on a repurposed dairy farm an hour outside the city—and she won’t shut up about it until I say yes. So there I am, day two, sunburned in a way that’s going to hurt tomorrow, watching some guy in a mesh tank top lose his mind to a band that sounds like a garbage disposal set to music. I’m doing what I do best: cataloguing. Exits. Who’s too drunk to be trusted near an open flame. Which security guy is actually paying attention and which one’s just there for the free wristband and a chance to feel important. That’s when I see him. He’s not dancing, not really—more like swaying with the confidence of someone who knows he looks good doing it. Which, fine, he does. Dark hair that’s probably supposed to look artfully messy but clearly took effort, a few days of stubble, forearms that suggest he lifts something heavier than a laptop for a living. He’s got a beer in one hand and he’s laughing at something his friend said, head tipped back, throat exposed to the late afternoon sun. I catch myself staring long enough that it stops being casual observation and starts being something else entirely. He catches me too. He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t do the thing where you both pretend it didn’t happen and redirect your attention to literally anything else. He just grins—slow, a little crooked, the kind that makes my stomach do something inconvenient—and says something to his friend that makes the guy laugh and clap him on the shoulder like go get ‘em, tiger. Guilty as sin, that grin. I should’ve clocked it right then for what it was. Should’ve recognized the warning signs. But I don’t. He crosses the field toward me instead, weaving through clusters of festival-goers with the easy confidence of someone who’s never been told no in his life. Which, credit where it’s due, takes a certain amount of nerve in a crowd this size. “You’ve been staring at me for four songs,” he says when he reaches me, stopping close enough that I can smell sunscreen and beer and something warmer underneath—cologne, maybe, or just him. “I counted.” “I’ve been staring at the guy behind you,” I say, not missing a beat. “Terrible dancer. Educational, really. Like watching someone fight invisible bees.” “Sure.” He doesn’t buy it for a second, and he doesn’t pretend to. His grin widens. “I’m Nate.” “Tyler.” “You look like you’re working, Tyler. Like you’re casing the place.” He tilts his head, studying me with an intensity that feels deliberate. “Cop?” “God, no. IT security. Everything looks like a threat model to me eventually.” I nod at the crowd, at the chaos of bodies and noise. “Right now I’m assessing your friend’s odds of getting trampled in the next mosh pit.” “He’ll be fine. He’s survived worse.” Nate takes a pull off his beer, watching me over the rim of it like I’m the more interesting show than anything happening on stage. “So what’s the verdict? Am I a threat?” “Jury’s still out.” “What would tip it?” “Buy me a drink and find out.” He does—cuts through the crowd to the nearest beer tent and comes back with two overpriced cans he definitely paid too much for, condensation already beading on the aluminum. We end up sitting on a hill a little removed from the main stage, close enough to feel the bass thrumming in my chest but far enough to actually hear each other talk without shouting. He’s sharp, funnier than I expect, asks questions like he actually wants the answers instead of just waiting for his turn to talk. Asks about my work, about what got me into security, about whether I actually like living in the city or if I’m just pretending like everyone else. I catalog that too—file it under unusual. Most people I meet at places like this are content to talk about themselves until my ears bleed. “So what do you do,” I ask, “besides heckle strangers at music festivals?” “Real estate. Development.” He says it like it’s nothing, the same way rich people always downplay the thing that makes them rich. “Boring, compared to hacking people’s passwords.” “I don’t hack passwords. I find the holes before someone worse does.” “Semantics.” “Precision.” I take a drink, watching him over the can. The sun’s starting to set behind the main stage, painting everything in shades of orange and pink. “You always this smooth with strangers, or am I getting a special performance?” “Depends. Is it working?” “Jury’s still out.” He laughs—real, not performed, head back the same way it was when I first saw him—and something in my chest does an unwelcome little flip, the kind I usually have better sense than to let happen. The kind that makes me forget I’m supposed to be the careful one. I don’t know why, but even then—four years ago on that hill with the festival lights bleeding into the dusk behind us and the smell of fried food drifting on the breeze—he’s charming in a way that feels effortless, dangerous. The kind of charm that makes you forget to keep your guard up, that makes you think maybe this time will be different. I tell myself I can shake the feeling as easily as I’ve shaken off other attractions, other almosts. Back then, I still believe I have that kind of control. I’m wrong, of course. But I won’t know that for another four years. “So what do you do,” I ask, “besides heckle strangers at music festivals?” “Real estate. Development.” He says it like it’s nothing, the same way rich people always downplay the thing that makes them rich. “Boring, compared to hacking people’s passwords.” “I don’t hack passwords. I find the holes before someone worse does.” “Semantics.” “Precision.” I take a drink, watching him over the can. “You always this smooth with strangers, or am I getting a special performance?” “Depends. Is it working?” “Jury’s still out.” He laughs—real, not performed, head back the same way it was when I first saw him—and something in my chest does an unwelcome little flip, the kind I usually have better sense than to let happen. I don’t know why, but even then—four years ago on that hill with the festival lights bleeding into the dusk behind us—he’d been charming in a way that felt effortless, dangerous. The kind of charm that made you forget to keep your guard up. I’d told myself I could shake the feeling as easily as I’d shaken off other attractions, other almosts. Back then, I still believed I had that kind of control. PRESENT DAY I wake to the weight of his arm across my ribs and the gray wash of early light through the curtains, and for a moment I forgot everything—the keys, the texts, the careful architecture of doubt I’d built the night before. Then it all came rushing back, settling into my chest like sediment, and I lay still, listening to Nate’s breathing shift from sleep into wakefulness beside me. He stirred first with his hand, tracing the line of my hip with a slow, deliberate patience I used to find devastating. His mouth found the back of my neck, warm and unhurried, and I felt the familiar tightening low in my stomach that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with habit. My body knew this choreography before my mind caught up—the way I was supposed to arch back into him, the soft exhale I was supposed to let slip, the small noises that told him yes, more, here. Part of me wanted to pull away. Part of me wanted to ask him, right then, with his lips against my skin, what the keys opened and why he’d never mentioned renting out a property he claimed was falling apart. But I knew what would happen if I did—the practiced concern sliding over his face, the gentle deflection, the way he’d turn a direct question into an argument about trust, about me not believing him, about how tired he was of feeling interrogated in his own home. I’d learned, somewhere along the way, that this—his hands, his mouth, the low murmur of my name—was the fastest way through any conversation he didn’t want to have. So instead of speaking, I turned toward him. “Morning,” I said, and let my voice do the work my face couldn’t. He smiled against my collarbone, pleased, unsuspecting, and pulled me closer. I closed my eyes and let myself become someone else for a while—someone uncomplicated, someone who wanted this simply because it was offered. He kisses me again, slower this time, like he wants to take his time with me. Like he wants to savor every moment. I kiss him back, letting myself fall into the familiar rhythm of it, and turn back around. I reach behind me, finding his hips, and he grabs mine in return, pulling me flush against him. I feel his cock through the thin fabric of his boxers, already hard, and press my ass firmly against his erection. The pressure sends a jolt through me—half desire, half performance, though I’m not sure anymore where one ends and the other begins. He rocks against me once, twice, and I feel the blunt tip of his cock through the cotton. Then his hands are sliding my boxers down, practiced and unhurried, like he’s done a thousand times before. My cock is already hard, already leaking, and he wraps his hand around it, stroking slowly. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. The part of me that wants answers, that wants to turn around and demand the truth, starts to dissolve under the heat of his touch. I hear the snap of the lube bottle behind me, then the wet sound of him slicking himself. His fingers find me next, two of them dancing around my hole, circling, teasing. The part of me that wants to pull away is replaced entirely by the cock-hungry version of me that only wants him to push inside, to make me forget everything except this. “Fuck,” I whisper as he slides his wet cock along my crack, searching, until he finds my entrance. He presses in—slow, deliberate—and a gasp escapes my throat before I can stop it. He filled me slowly, and I let out a long, shuddering exhale against the pillow, my fingers curling into the sheets. The stretch of him was familiar, the particular pressure and heat of it, and my body opened for him the way it always did—with a kind of helpless, cellular recognition that had nothing to do with trust. “God,” he breathed, behind me, his forehead dropping to the back of my neck. “You feel so good.” I didn’t answer. I pushed back against him instead, taking the last of him in, and felt the low sound he made against my skin more than heard it. He held still for a moment, just holding me, his arm wrapped around my chest, and I was aware of everything at once—the warmth of him pressed the full length of my back, the slight ache of being filled, the lube-slick press of his hips against me, the particular texture of the sheets under my hands. I let myself sink into the sensation of it, the weight and heat and presence of him. Then he started to move. He was slow at first, deliberate—long strokes that withdrew almost entirely before pushing back in, the kind of careful, attentive fucking that in another context would have felt like tenderness. I felt every inch of him. My cock was trapped against the mattress and the friction was almost unbearable, and I rocked back into him involuntarily, chasing the sensation, and he made a low, satisfied noise and tightened his arm around me. His hand found my hip, adjusted the angle, and I stopped thinking. He pressed deeper and I bit down on the back of my own hand to muffle the sound that came up out of me—not performance, not that time, just pure animal response, the kind my body produced without consulting me. I felt him register it, felt his grip tighten, felt his rhythm shift into something less patient. “That’s it,” he murmured into my hair, and I hated how much I wanted to lean back into him. I did anyway. We moved together in the half-dark, the brownstone quiet around us, the city just beginning its low early-morning noise beyond the bedroom windows. He fucked me with the unhurried thoroughness of a man who believed he had all the time in the world, and I kept pace with him, tilting my hips to change the angle, guiding without directing, giving him what he wanted while taking what I needed. My body wanted this—wanted him—and I let it, surrendering to the rhythm we’d built over years of knowing each other. His mouth moved over the back of my neck, my shoulder, the curve of my ear, and I pressed back harder in answer, and his breathing changed—a little rougher, a little less controlled. I responded to that shift, to the loss of his careful control, with my own unraveling. He shifted his weight, lifting one of my legs and hooking it higher, changing the angle so he could drive deeper, and I gasped into the pillow at the new fullness of it. His hand found my hip, gripped it, used it to pull me back onto him with each thrust. I stretched my arms forward and curled my fingers around the lower slats of the headboard, bracing myself as he drove into me, the new angle fuller and more direct than before, and I lost myself completely in the sensation of him. He reached under me and wrapped his hand around my cock and stroked, and my hips lifted off the mattress without my permission. “Take it,” he said, low and rough against my neck, his hips driving deeper. “Take my cock like you need it.” I did need it—that was the problem, the thing I couldn’t lie about anymore. My body answered before my mind could catch up, pressing back into him, meeting each thrust. “Fuck me,” I gasped, and there was no performance in it, no careful calibration. “Fuck me harder. I want it—I want all of it.” He made a sound like a growl and obliged, and I felt the shift in him, the moment he stopped holding back, and something in me broke open at the realization that I meant every word, that I wanted this with a hunger I couldn’t pretend away. He built the pace gradually—patient, calibrated, the way he did everything—until we were moving together with the kind of easy fluency that only came from years of this, from knowing each other too well. I made the sounds he expected and also the sounds I couldn’t help, and they overlapped so completely I couldn’t have told anyone which was which. My whole body was warm and close and unbearably focused on the point where we connected, and I thought about the carriage house in the same breath that I thought more, harder, yes, and it occurred to me dimly that this was what dissociation felt like from the inside—two coherent tracks of experience running parallel, neither canceling the other out. His hand found my hair, gathered it, held it in a loose fist. Not pulling, just holding. The way he always did when he was close. I felt him lose the careful patience of the beginning—felt it in the rhythm, in the grip, in the breath breaking against my shoulder—and something in me responded to that loss of control with an answering unraveling, my own thoughts going quieter and my body louder, and I pressed back into him and said his name, and meant it, and hated that I meant it. He came hard, his whole body going rigid against mine, and I felt it everywhere—the sudden tension in his thighs, the involuntary clench of his hand in my hair, the way his breath caught and then released in a low, broken sound against my neck. His hips drove deeper one last time and held there, and I felt him pulse inside me, felt the shudder that moved through him like something he couldn’t control, and it undid something in me that I’d been holding together. My own orgasm followed seconds later, building from the base of my spine in waves I couldn’t stop, couldn’t moderate. His hand was still moving on my cock, still stroking even as he was coming down, and the sensation was almost too much—too sharp, too direct, too real. I made a sound I didn’t recognize, something between a gasp and a sob, and my hips thrust up into his grip involuntarily, chasing the release that was already tearing through me. My muscles clenched around him, around the pleasure, around the terrible, undeniable fact of how completely he still had me, and the orgasm moved through me in waves that seemed to go on and on—my vision going white at the edges, my breath coming in ragged gasps, every nerve ending screaming. For three or four seconds my head emptied completely, the carriage house and the keys and the walkthrough all burning away, leaving nothing but the raw, animal sensation of cumming, of being held, of belonging to someone I couldn’t trust. Then it passed. And I was back. He rolled, drew me with him until my head was against his chest, and his hand settled over my heart—possessive even in sleep. I lay still and looked at the ceiling, aware of everything I’d been trying not to think about, and waited for his breathing to deepen. As soon as Nate leaves, I clear away the breakfast dishes and move into the study. The brownstone feels different without him in it—quieter, colder, mine again in a way that should be comforting but isn’t. I shake off the thought and settle into the desk chair, waking my laptop from sleep. In light of my considerable computer skills, I launch into full research mode. Property records first—the most obvious place to start. I run searches in every variation of Nate’s name I can think of: Nathan, Nathaniel, middle initials, no middle initials, hyphenated possibilities. I check county records, state databases, cross-reference with tax assessments. Nothing. I keep coming up dry, hitting dead ends that feel too clean, too deliberate. But there has to be a property somewhere. The carriage house exists—I’ve seen it, been inside it, have the keys sitting in my pocket right now. Which means I’m just looking in the wrong place, asking the wrong questions. I lean back in the chair, staring at the screen until my eyes blur. Think. If I wanted to hide a property I didn’t want anyone to find, how would I do it? Shell company? Too complicated, too many paper trails. Family trust? Possible, but Nate doesn’t strike me as someone who’d rely on family connections for something like this. Something in my brain fires—a connection I almost don’t want to make. “No, it can’t be that simple,” I say to myself, but my fingers are already moving across the keyboard. I pull up the property database again. This time I don’t search for his name. I search for mine. I verify the spelling and hit enter. The page loads. My heart is pounding in a way that has nothing to do with the sex we just had and everything to do with what I’m about to find. And what do you know—he has a property in upstate New York. Only his name isn’t on the record. My name is. So what do I do next? I could confront Nate with this new information, watch his face as I tell him I know what he’s done. Or I could take matters into my own hands. I have an address. If I leave now, I can be there in less than two hours. It takes me less than a moment to reach a conclusion. The answer is obvious. I send a quick text to my team at work—something vague about following a lead, nothing that would raise questions I’m not ready to answer. Then I grab my keys and head for the car. As I pull out of the driveway, there’s a determination settling into my chest, and beneath it, something I haven’t felt in weeks: a glimmer of hope. The drive to the Catskills takes me up 87 North, then onto a series of winding backroads that cut through dense forest and past farms that look like they haven’t changed in fifty years. I was right about the time. Two hours, right on the money. The carriage house sits just off the river, next to a large clearing that opens up to the water. The next nearest house is just over a mile away, and the scenery is breathtaking in that way that makes you understand why people disappear up here. It’s a one-story bungalow with a corrugated carport, and there’s a newer model sedan parked beneath it. I don’t recognize the car, but it seems entirely out of place—too clean, too expensive for a property that’s supposed to be abandoned. The paint gleams even in the dappled shade of the carport, and when I step closer, I can see the dealer plates are still attached. Recent. Very recent. I shut off the engine and step from the vehicle, taking in my surroundings with the kind of careful attention I usually reserve for security audits. There’s no doubt I’m in the right place—the address matches exactly—but the questions are already multiplying. Why was he hiding this place? Why has he never brought me here? It seems like the perfect getaway, the kind of spot we could have escaped to on weekends when the city felt too close, too suffocating. Granted, he seems to be renting the place, and maybe the car belongs to whoever’s fixing it up. But that’s the thing—I’ve scoured our bank accounts. If someone’s paying rent, or if he’s paying a contractor, I don’t know how they’re being paid. Cash, maybe. Another question that needs answering, another thread to pull. I walk up to the front door and peer through the narrow window that runs along its length. I can’t see much through the gauzy curtain on the other side, but what I can make out looks furnished—a couch, a coffee table, the edge of what might be a bookshelf. No signs of life, though. No movement, no lights. I pull the key from my pocket, and for a moment I just hold it, feeling the weight of what I’m about to do. Then I slide it into the lock. The tumblers disengage with a soft click as I turn the key, and the door swings open. Inside, it smells like linen and pine needles—some kind of potpourri, probably, though it’s subtle enough to seem almost natural. I step into the small living space, my eyes adjusting to the dimmer light. The place is decorated with various knick-knacks and old-timey touches—a vintage clock on the mantel, framed botanical prints on the walls, a quilt draped over the back of an overstuffed armchair. It looks modern but with a touch of rustic charm, like someone tried to split the difference between contemporary comfort and country nostalgia. The surfaces are free of dust. Nothing seems out of place. It feels incredibly lived-in and homey, and also not at the same time—like a stage set of domesticity rather than the real thing. Or maybe like someone’s been here recently enough to keep it maintained but not long enough to leave their mark. I move through the living room and step into the kitchen, noting the clean counters, the dish towel folded neatly by the sink. That’s when I hear it behind me—the unmistakable sound of a pistol chambering a round. The voice that follows is low, controlled, and absolutely furious. “Who the fuck are you and why are you in my house?”

## All the Time in the World

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/24/all-the-time-in-the-world/
- Published: 2026-09-24T23:06:58+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

There are some things you never expect to encounter. Some things are just so fantastical that they can only happen on TV or in the movies. They exist beyond reason and normal comprehension, well beyond the realm of possibility. That is—until they do. When those things find their way onto your front steps, you really have two choices. Embrace the strangeness or run as fast as humanly possible. Tonight Nico and I are celebrating our fourth anniversary of dating. I know—me of all people, Jackson Gray, dating someone for the sheer fact of enjoying the other person’s company for four straight years. Crazy times, right? Nico and I are like the thing of dreams. We’ve both been married before, and both of our previous marriages ended for completely different reasons. My ex-husband decided he wanted to try his hand at being straight, while Nico’s former husband lost his battle with cancer. He was devastated afterwards, and even though I would have married him in a second, he wasn’t quite ready for that. To some degree I understood. And even though it’s been four years, it’s still not something I’m willing to push. He’s a very straightforward person—he’ll let me know when he’s ready. We have a pretty solid relationship with exactly one point of contention—his mom. Nico’s mom actually moved from Orlando, Florida to be closer to Nico. Either that or she wanted to keep an eye on me. Even I’m not sure. She’s always meddling, and I’m always the problem. Dealing with her is like trying to free your foot from a bear trap—you can do it, but at some point you have to ask yourself if you’re better off just hacking the damn thing off. His mom never really gives me a reason as to why she doesn’t like me, but I think it’s because my day job is too mundane for her. After leaving the military, my day job isn’t as sexy as Navy helicopter pilot, but I love my job. And isn’t there a thing about if you love your job you’ll never work a day in your life? Okay, not even I believe that. Still, I’m a reservist and I work part-time as an oil rig inspector. Since I can fly myself to the rigs, I can be flexible with my schedule. Anyways, tonight is the perfect night to surprise Nico for our anniversary. He’s great at that kind of thing—planning surprises, making everything special. I’m usually working too much to remember the important dates, but after I screwed up his birthday last year, we had a come-to-Jesus talk and decided I could do better. I mean, I do love him, and for all he’s been through, helping me transition from the military to civilian life—I wouldn’t be the man I am today without him. He’s planned some pretty elaborate stuff over the years, and by and large he’s gotten most of the credit. But I have to get this right. Over the past two years I’ve been a bit of a letdown—more than a bit, if I’m being honest with myself. Last year, I left Nico stranded on his birthday, stuck waiting at the restaurant for over an hour while I was dealing with an emergency inspection that could’ve been handled by someone else. And a few months before that, I caused us to miss our flight to Cabo because I lost track of time. He’d been looking forward to that trip for months, had the whole week planned out. We lost the deposit on the resort, and worse, I lost a little more of his trust. So yeah, tonight has to be different. Tonight has to matter. So imagine my surprise when I show up to my own house two hours earlier than planned and find my best friend’s car in the driveway. Eric is, admittedly, the best interior designer and party planner in southeast Houston. Had I known we could call in the professionals, I wouldn’t have looked like I put forth the effort of a kindergartner on every occasion before this. “You both are never living this down!” I say with a smile on my face. I shut off the engine and walk around to the back door. I’m gonna pop the balloon right out of his mouth. And to think there were at least four occasions where I accused him of hiring Eric or another outside service and he denied it every single time. “I do all my own party planning,” I mock under my breath, mimicking his voice. The back door opens into the laundry room, but it’s far enough away that unless you’re actually in the laundry room, you wouldn’t hear the door open. I just need to squeak across the kitchen floor long enough to scream surprise so loud they both pee their pants. It’s not until I get through the kitchen that I hear the low voices. And it’s another minute before I actually hear what they’re saying. Another minute before I see it. They aren’t having a conversation, not in the traditional sense at least. But I am so wrong about so many things. For one, Nico has more than a balloon in his mouth, and I don’t need to worry about either of them peeing. In fact, I have sufficiently rocked my own world. They aren’t planning a party—they’re having one. And by party, I mean Nico, my loving boyfriend of four years, is getting fucked senseless by my best friend. “This can’t be real,” I say barely above a whisper, peering through the crack in the bedroom door. This cannot be real. If for any other reason, Eric is married…to a woman. Addy. He’s married to Addison. My heart hammers in my chest as I watch them through the narrow opening. I am so still I’m not sure I’m breathing. I have no idea what I expected to find on the other side of that door, but it wasn’t this. It was never going to be this. Eric’s hands are on Nico’s hips. My best friend’s hands. On my boyfriend’s hips. I know those hands. I’ve watched those hands hang artwork and drape fabric and gesture wildly through three rounds of drinks on a Friday night. I know those hands the way you know anything you’ve never had reason to look at too closely. I’m looking closely now. Nico makes a sound I recognize. That’s the thing nobody tells you about this—that you’ll recognize everything. The sounds, the way his shoulders drop when something feels good, the particular curve of his back. I know this person. I have spent four years learning this person, and none of that knowledge is protecting me right now. If anything, it’s making it worse. Every familiar detail lands like something new and terrible. “Fuck, you feel so good,” Eric says, his voice rough. Nico moans—actually moans, the kind of sound I’ve only ever heard him make with me—and pushes back against him. “Harder,” Nico says. “I want it harder.” Eric obliges. I can see the shift in his rhythm, the way his body moves with more force, and Nico takes it, his fingers gripping the sheets. “That’s it,” Eric breathes. “Take it.” My hand is flat against the wall beside the doorframe. At some point I put it there. I don’t remember doing that. I think it’s the only thing keeping me upright. The thing about shock is that it doesn’t feel like anything you’d call shock. It feels like being very awake. Like every nerve ending has been turned up and simultaneously disconnected from anything useful, so all that heightened awareness has nowhere to go. I can hear the blood moving in my own ears. I can feel the exact temperature of the air coming through the crack in the door. I can see everything with a precision that I would very much like to turn off. Nico tilts his head back. I have seen him do that before. In this room. In that bed. “Don’t stop,” Nico breathes. “Please don’t stop.” Eric doesn’t. Something moves through my chest that I don’t have a clean word for. It isn’t just jealousy, though there’s plenty of that—hot and immediate and humiliating in its intensity. It’s something older and quieter underneath the jealousy. Something that has to do with the fact that I came home two hours early to surprise him. That I was proud of myself. That I was standing in the kitchen thirty seconds ago thinking about the look on his face when he realized what I’d done. I keep waiting for this to stop being real. It doesn’t stop. I keep thinking about Eric. Not about what he’s doing—I can see what he’s doing, I am unfortunately watching what he’s doing in real time with my own two eyes—but about the fact that it’s him. Of all the people in the world Nico could have done this with, he picked the one I would have trusted in this house without a second thought. The one I would have handed a key to. The one I did hand a key to, probably, at some point, because that is what you do with your best friend. That’s a special kind of efficient, when you think about it. Two betrayals, one evening. I should leave. I am fully aware that I should leave. Every reasonable instinct I have is pointing toward the back door, toward the laundry room, toward anywhere that isn’t here. And yet here I am. Still at this door. Still watching. Still waiting for some part of my brain to catch up with my feet and issue a clear directive, because right now the only directive I’m getting is stand here and feel all of this, which is not a directive, that’s just cruelty. Nico. My Nico. Four years. Eric. My best friend. God knows how long. They are still going and I am still here and nothing about any of this has stopped being real. I pull myself away from the wall, my legs moving on autopilot, carrying me through the hallway and into the living room. The couch receives me like it always does—soft, familiar, completely indifferent to the fact that my entire world is currently being dismantled twenty feet away. I sit there, rigid, trying to drown out the noise, but it’s impossible with the way they’re carrying on. The sounds filter through the walls like they’re designed specifically to find me, to make sure I don’t miss a single moment. “Shit! You feel so good,” Eric moans, and his voice is thick with pleasure I’ve never heard from him before. The moment those words reach me, a surge of anger consumes everything else. It burns through the shock, through the numbness, through whatever fragile composure I’ve been clinging to. Do I just sit here and wait for them to finish? Wait for Nico to come out, sated and satisfied, so I can confront him? Do I grab the baseball bat from the hall closet and beat them both across the head with it? Is he worth going to jail over? No. Be smart about this, Jackson. “Mmhm, fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me harder!” Nico’s voice. Desperate. Demanding. Shameless. What a sorry piece of shit. All that talk about me needing to do better. Me needing to make more of an effort. Me needing to be more understanding, more present, more everything—me, me, me. Always my failings. Always my shortcomings. And now he’s in our bed, in the sheets I washed last weekend, telling my best friend—no, demanding that my best friend fuck him harder. I can’t do this. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. The guy I’ve devoted four years to, the guy I’ve built a life with, is not even twenty feet away getting his insides rearranged by my best friend’s cock. Jackson, you’re smarter than this. You’re bigger than this. You don’t have to let him control you anymore. You’re better than this piece of shit. I get up, my hands shaking, and walk back into the kitchen. The knife block sits on the counter—polished wood with gold trim, a housewarming gift from Nico’s mother. The bottoms of the knives also have gold trimming, matching the block perfectly. I reach over and grab the santoku knife, feeling the weight of it in my palm. The aptly named Japanese blade—meaning “three virtues” or “three uses”—is known for its ability to slice, dice, and mince. Right now, I could do all three to Nico, and once I’m done with him, I’d go for Eric. At the very least, I wouldn’t be sad to see him castrated right about now. I look at the blade, at the way the kitchen light catches the edge, then at the bedroom door down the hall. I could just walk in there and plunge it into his gut. Fucking bastard. How dare he tell me I’m not good enough when he’s been doing this behind my back. Or I could be smart about this. I could make him pay in ways that last longer than a single moment of violence. I could make them both pay. Fucking asshole. And to think I was in love with this skinny piece of shit. I could scream. I could throw every glass in this house and smash them against the wall until my arms give out. How could I have been so stupid? I walk over to the old oak filing cabinet in my study, where papers and previous audit reports are neatly filed away in chronological order, each one meticulously labeled with dates and client names. The cabinet’s metal drawers slide open with a familiar squeak that I’ve grown accustomed to over the years. I grab a thick manila folder from the second drawer, its edges slightly worn from handling, and peek around the corner of the doorway. I pause there for a moment, listening intently to the sounds of Nico and Eric’s animated conversation as their voices echo through the hardwood halls and drift into the study. Their laughter bounces off the walls, and I can make out fragments of their discussion about last weekend’s game. I lay the folder on the desk and flip it open, my hands steadier than they have any right to be. The pages inside blur for a moment before my vision sharpens, focusing on the neat columns of numbers and dates that suddenly feel like weapons in their own right. From the bedroom, Nico and Eric seem to be getting louder. The rhythmic sounds of skin slapping against skin carry down the hallway—obscene and nearly unbearable. Each wet collision of their bodies makes my stomach turn, the soundtrack of my humiliation echoing through what used to be our home. I can hear the creak of the bed frame, that same goddamn bed I’ve been sleeping in for four years, now defiled by my best friend’s betrayal. The file tells me everything I need to know. It’s just a matter of me getting a few things in order. I shoot off a quick text message, grab my car keys and sneak back out of the house. Before I leave, I grab some things from the utility closet in the laundry room. Once I get to the car, I grab the stuff I’d gotten for the anniversary surprise—the champagne, the gift box with the watch he’d been eyeing for months. I depress the lock button twice in quick succession. The horn beeps, sharp and insistent in the quiet evening air, and I just wait. Less than a minute later, Eric comes out of the front door. The sweat on his brow is visible even in the low evening light, his shirt hastily thrown on and only half-buttoned. His hair is disheveled in a way that would be comical if it weren’t so damning. “Jackie! My man!” he says, almost out of breath, his chest still heaving. If I didn’t know what he’d been doing a minute ago, I might not suspect a thing. But I do suspect, because I know exactly what this bastard has been up to. I can practically smell Nico on him from here. “Hey, Eric! What are you doing here—wait, did he get you to plan our anniversary for him?” I say, putting on an Academy Award-winning performance. I even manage a laugh, light and easy, like my world hasn’t just shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. “Ahh! You caught me!” he says, still sweating profusely. “He called me, I just got here, then we heard the horn.” The lie comes so easily to him. I wonder how many times he’s lied to me before. How many times he’s looked me in the eye and smiled while fucking my boyfriend behind my back. “Gotta admit, swallowing his pride to ask my best friend to provide a service for him—priceless.” The series of words startles him to the point where he almost falls, his eyes going wide for just a fraction of a second. He catches himself against the doorframe. “Yeah,” he says, laughing nervously. “You wanna stick around for dinner? I’m sure Nico would love for you to taste his—” I pause a moment for effect, watching his face, “chicken parmesan.” His nerves are clearly shot. A muscle twitches in his jaw. “Nah man, I gotta get home—Addy has dinner waiting.” Of course you have to get home to your loving wife. The wife who has no idea what kind of man she married. He turns to grab the door handle and I’m behind him a second later, my arm hooked around his neck in a chokehold. I catch him off guard and he struggles to breathe, reaching and pawing wildly at my forearm, his fingers scrabbling uselessly against my skin. His body jerks wildly as he desperately reaches for oxygen, clawing his way back to consciousness, but I don’t grant him that luxury. I squeeze harder, my bicep pressing against his carotid artery, depriving his brain of the oxygen it so richly desires. Another twenty seconds and his squirming slows, his movements becoming sluggish and uncoordinated. A moment after that, he goes completely limp in my arms, his full weight sagging against me. I drop his unconscious body to the ground, open the trunk of my car, and load his body inside with a grunt of effort. I slap a piece of duct tape across his mouth and tie up his arms and legs with the rope I’d grabbed from the utility closet. Once I’m satisfied that he’s secure, I slam the trunk closed and head inside. I hear the shower running in the bedroom, the sound of water hitting tile echoing through the hallway. “Babe! Is that you?” Nico calls out, his voice bright and cheerful, completely oblivious. “Yeah, what are you doing?” I call back, keeping my voice steady. “Just grabbing a quick shower,” he says. Washing Eric off of you, I think. Washing away the evidence. “I’ve got something for you,” I say. “Really?” I strip off my clothes and toss them into a pile, then walk into the bathroom. Steam billows out as I open the door, warm and thick. “Hey babe,” I say through the steam. “I’ll be out in a second,” he says. I can see his silhouette through the frosted glass of the shower door, the water cascading over his lean body. “Maybe I just love you so much, I can’t wait,” I say, my voice dropping lower. I climb inside the shower and kiss Nico. He kisses me back, but I can sense his hesitation, the slight stiffness in his body, the way he doesn’t quite lean into it the way he usually does. “You sure you don’t want to wait?” he asks, pulling back slightly. “Babe—I have never been more sure about anything in my life,” I say, kissing him again, harder this time, more insistent. I reach down and grab his hips, pulling him closer to me, to where our cocks are touching. I kiss down his neck, and a moan breaks free from his throat. He may be a cheating bitch, but he’s still horny as fuck. Still responsive to my touch. His cock hardens against my stomach, my own erection meeting his as the hot water streams over both of us. “Mmhm, fuck!” I say, laying it on thick, playing the part of the eager lover. I reach down and grab his cock, stroking it a few times with firm, deliberate movements. He moans again, his lips parting, and I kiss him again, swallowing the sound. “Fuck, you like that, baby?” I ask, stroking his cock more, feeling it throb in my hand. He grabs my cock and starts to stroke it, his grip familiar and practiced. I kiss him again, then I reach around and slide a finger into his hole. Tight, but a little loose from his earlier escapades with Eric. The thought makes my jaw clench, but I force myself to stay focused. I add a second finger to the mix and turn him against the shower wall, pressing his chest against the cool tile. “Holy fuck!” he moans, his voice echoing off the bathroom walls. “Yeah, baby, you like that, don’t you?” I ask, working my fingers deeper. “Yeah, fuck, I love it,” he moans, pushing back against my hand. I push his stomach flush against the wall, pinning him there with my body weight. “Tell me you want me to fuck you,” I say, kissing his neck and sliding my dick up and down his crack, teasing him. “Fuck, I want you so bad,” he says, his voice breathy and desperate. I kiss his neck again and then slide my cock into his hole. I start thrusting right away, fucking him with an intensity that is totally out of character, but I don’t care. All the rage, all the betrayal, all the hurt—it pours out of me with every thrust. “Mmhm, uh—ugh—fuck!” he cries out, his palms flat against the tile. I slam my hips into his ass, relentless, unyielding, each snap sending a sharp vibration through my cock and deep into his body. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he chants, the words punctuated by each thrust. “Mmhm, yeah, baby, yeah, fuck, you feel so good!” I say, even though the words taste like ash in my mouth. My hips keep snapping forward, driving into him harder and harder. “Fuck! Baby!” he moans, his voice cracking. “Bet you fucking love that, don’t you?” I growl against his ear. I snap my hips again and again, fucking him while the water runs down our bodies, mixing with the sweat and the steam. “Fuck, Jackson! I love your cock!” Yeah, well, apparently not enough. And from what I heard earlier, seems like you loved Eric’s just fine. The thought ignites my anger all over again, white-hot and consuming. I slam my cock into Nico harder, punishing him with every thrust. Then I pull my cock free and replace it with two fingers, curling them inside him. His moans grow louder and he pushes back against my fingers eagerly. I add a third finger to the mix, stretching him wider. His moans grow louder, more desperate. “Mmhm, yeah baby,” he moans, spreading his legs wider to give me better access. Nico’s body is muscular and taut against his wiry frame, every muscle defined and trembling. I push my fingers together and slowly slide my fist into his hole. He makes a sound that seems to match the way his body stretches around my fist as I push it deep inside him, a guttural groan that’s almost animalistic. He reaches back and spreads his cheeks apart, trying to give me more access, trying to take more of me. “Yeah?” I ask, my voice rough. “Holy—fuck—fuuucckk!” he cries out, his whole body shaking. I pull my fist back and slide it back in deeper this time, my knuckles disappearing inside him. He grunts and groans, his head thrown back. I wrap my other arm around his waist for leverage and slide my fist back and forth, working him open, claiming him in a way that feels both intimate and violent. Watching my fist stretch his hole open, watching him writhe and take it—for some reason it turns me on even more than I expected. The sight of him like this, so desperate and open, sends a fresh wave of heat through me. I take the hand I had wrapped around his waist and bring it to my cock, gripping myself hard. Long, deep strokes that pull me closer and closer to the edge with each pass. Fuck. I keep fisting him, maintaining a steady rhythm that stretches and widens his hole with each deliberate thrust. The wet sounds of my fist working him open mix with the spray of the shower, creating an obscene symphony. “Mmhm—fuck! Jackson! Fuck!” His breathing grows more and more ragged, each word punctuated by gasps. I keep stroking my cock, harder now, faster. The dual sensation of feeling him clench around my fist while I work myself over is almost too much. “Fuck!” I moan, the word torn from my throat. I’m getting close. I can feel my balls starting to tighten, that familiar tension building low in my stomach, coiling tighter and tighter. “Ah—fuck!” I moan again, unable to hold back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I shoot my load—maybe four or five thick ropes of cum that splatter against the shower wall and his back—as my body jerks from the pulses and spasms. The orgasm hits me hard, stealing my breath. As soon as I finish, my body goes slack, the tension draining out of me all at once. I drop to one knee, bracing myself against the shower wall to get my bearings. Nico is still fucking himself back on my fist when I pull it free. He winces at the sudden loss, his body clenching around nothing, and turns around just in time to feel the crack of my fist across his face. The impact is solid, satisfying. His naked body drops in the shower, his busted lip already bleeding, the blood mixing with the water and flowing down the drain in pink rivulets. I shut off the shower and take a moment to catch my breath, watching the water circle the drain. My heart is still pounding, adrenaline mixing with the post-orgasm haze. I grab a towel and dry myself off quickly before pulling on my clothes—jeans, t-shirt, nothing fancy. I need to move fast now. I reach down and haul Nico up from the shower floor. He’s barely conscious, his head lolling to the side as I drag him out and drop him onto the bed. Water pools on the sheets beneath him. I rummage through his dresser until I find a pair of athletic shorts and wrestle them onto his limp body. It’s not easy—dead weight never is—but I manage to get them up over his hips. Once he’s sufficiently dressed, I flip him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He groans but doesn’t resist. I grab my phone from the nightstand on my way out and check for responses. There’s one waiting from the message I sent earlier. Perfect timing. The walk to the car feels longer than it is. Nico’s weight presses into my shoulder, and I’m hyperaware of every neighbor’s window, every passing car. But the street is quiet. I pop the trunk, ease him inside, and slam it shut before anyone can see .When I arrive at the airfield in Galveston, the chopper’s rotors are already idling, the rhythmic thump-thump-thump cutting through the humid night air. I kill the engine and step out of the vehicle, the asphalt still warm beneath my boots. I march across the tarmac toward the open door of the helicopter, squinting against the rotor wash that whips at my clothes and hair. A man hops out, one hand pressed over his brow to shield his face from the downdraft, and jogs over to meet me halfway. “Lieutenant Commander,” he says, his voice raised to carry over the noise. “Kelly,” I say, relief flooding through me at the sight of him. “Good to see you, too.” “I appreciate the wheels,” he says, gesturing back toward the idling aircraft. “Well, after that little run-in with that Russian frigate, I owe you,” he says with a laugh, the memory clearly still fresh for both of us. “Next time I say duck, just do as I say,” I reply, unable to suppress a grin. We both laugh before shaking hands, his grip firm and familiar. Kelly Drysdale served in the navy with me for twenty years. He was a door gunner for eight of those and my right-hand man on more missions than I can count. So when I told him I needed a chopper off the books for eight hours and three to four years’ worth of food, he moved heaven and earth to make it happen in less than an hour—no questions asked. Save a guy’s life a couple of times and they owe you for life. That’s just how it works. He climbs into the car and drives off into the darkness, taillights disappearing down the access road. I head back to my vehicle and pop the trunk. Eric and Nico have both regained consciousness and are fighting against the zip-tie restraints I secured them with earlier. Nico is easier to transport—still groggy, less fight in him. Eric, on the other hand, makes me work for it. He thrashes and curses, trying to headbutt me when I lean in. A few solid gut punches take the wind out of him, and he finally goes limp enough for me to haul him out and drag him toward the chopper. I load them both into the back and secure them to the jump seats with additional restraints. They’re not going anywhere. I climb into the pilot’s seat and run through the pre-flight checks. Pulling back on the collective, I slowly lift the chopper into a hover. The skids leave the ground as I bank left over the dark expanse of the Gulf. The lights of Galveston fade behind us as we head out over open water. The two-hundred-mile flight takes just under ninety minutes. The ocean stretches out endlessly below, black and featureless except for the occasional whitecap caught in the moonlight. I keep my eyes on the instruments, my mind focused on the coordinates programmed into the GPS. Finally, my destination appears to materialize from the ocean itself—a dark smudge against darker water. I bring the chopper in low, lining up with the helipad, and touch the skids down with barely a bump. I leave the rotors idling as I step from the aircraft. Nico and Eric are much more cooperative this time around. Then again, they don’t even know what I have planned yet. The uncertainty works in my favor—keeps them docile, compliant. For now. “Jax, what are you doing?” Nico asks, his voice hoarse. It’s the first time he’s spoken to me since I clocked him in the shower. The sound of my name in his mouth makes something twist in my chest, but I push it down, bury it deep. I chain them both to a bolted-down table in the mess hall, the metal cuffs clicking into place with a finality that echoes through the empty space. The rig groans around us, settling into the ocean swell. I start unloading the crates of food. As I unload the last of the crates and wheel them into the small galley space, Eric still hasn’t said anything. He just watches me with those dark eyes, calculating. Like he was going to do something that would change the outcome of what was to come. “Baby, please talk to me,” Nico says, and there’s a tremor in his voice now. The word—baby—hits me like a physical blow. How many times has he called me that? How many times did I believe it meant something? “Don’t baby me, you cheating son of a bitch,” I bark, slamming a crate down harder than necessary. “Baby,” he cries out, straining against the chains. “I’m sorry.” “You’re sorry. I’m sure you are.” I don’t even look at him as I say it, just keep stacking supplies with methodical precision. “What are you doing?” I pause, my hands resting on the lid of a crate. “Well, if I’m being honest, I’m making a really rash decision, one that should require a lot more thought and planning. But here we are.” “Jackie,” Eric finally speaks up, and hearing that nickname from his mouth makes my jaw clench. “Where are we?” I turn to face them both, and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. “I’m glad you asked.” I gesture around at the rusted walls, the industrial fixtures, the porthole windows showing nothing but black water. “This is the Aegis Vanguard.” “The what?” Nico asks, confusion written all over his face. I grab the pry bar and start working on opening a few of the crates, the wood creaking as the nails give way. “Well, if you weren’t so dickmatized, you might have actually heard me talk about it. I mentioned it at least three times over the past month.” The expression on his face shifts, morphs into something like recognition. His eyes widen slightly. “What’s an Aegis?” Eric asks. “A place to think.” “A place to think?” Eric’s voice rises slightly. “Did you bring us out here to interrogate us?” “I did not,” I say, meeting his eyes. “I thought about it, but then I remembered I don’t actually want to know the answers. Don’t want to hear the details, the excuses, the timeline of how long you’ve been fucking behind my back.” “What are you gonna do to us?” Nico asks, and now there’s real fear creeping into his voice. I look at him—really look at him. At the face I’ve kissed a thousand times, the body I’ve held, the man I thought I’d spend my life with. I put the pry bar back in my bag. “I was never good enough, was I?” I ask, and my voice comes out quieter than I intended. “Jax, I’m sorry—” “What are you sorry for exactly?” I cut him off, straightening up to my full height. “Cheating on me? Or cheating on me with my best friend? Because those are two very different things, Nico. One’s a betrayal. The other’s just outright disrespectful.” “Jax—it’s not like that,” Nico says, shaking his head. “Really? Because a couple of hours ago, I came home early and found Eric here fucking your brains out. In the bed we picked out together. On the sheets I washed last weekend.” I take a step closer to them. “So please, enlighten me. What exactly is it like?” “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Nico says, and there’s something almost rehearsed about the way the words come out. I turn my attention to Eric, who’s been uncharacteristically silent through all of this. “Did you, Eric? Did you mean to hurt me?” I ask, keeping my voice level. He doesn’t answer right away. The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating in the confined space. When he finally speaks, his voice is flat. “No,” he says. “No?” I repeat, letting the word hang there. “That’s it? Just no?” I take a breath, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. “So why’d you do it then?” Eric’s eyes slide over to Nico, and something passes between them—some unspoken communication that makes the rage surge back through me threefold. “Really? You’re gonna give him that look right in front of me?” The words come out sharper than I intend, but I don’t care anymore. Eric shoots me a look then, and there’s actual venom in his eyes. For some reason, he actually thinks he has the upper hand in this situation. “Eric, shut the fuck up,” Nico snaps. “Uh oh, sounds like there’s trouble in paradise,” I say, unable to keep the bitter satisfaction out of my voice. “Jax, let us out of the cuffs,” Nico says, and now his tone has shifted—less pleading, more demanding. “Yeah, you’re right,” I say, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the key. I kneel down next to Nico and grab his wrist, holding it steady. The metal of the cuffs is cold under my fingers. “I really hope you think about what you’ve done,” I say quietly, looking him in the eye. “I hope you both do.” Then I take the key, grab Nico’s jaw, and force his mouth open. Before he can react, I shove the key inside and clamp his mouth shut with my hand, holding it there until I feel him swallow. “What the fuck?!” Eric yells, straining against his restraints. “Oh, don’t worry,” I say, standing up and brushing off my knees. “It’ll be back, and then you can let yourselves out.” “If you leave us here, I’m gonna come find you,” Eric says, and his tone is vicious—nothing like the man I’ve known all these years. “You know, Eric, that’s not the threat you think it is.” “Are we on an island or something?” Nico asks, and I can hear the first real edge of panic creeping into his voice. “Or something,” I say. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “The Aegis is an offshore oil rig,” I say with a completely straight face. “By the time you get that key back and free yourselves, you’ll realize you’re two hundred miles from shore.” Their expressions change almost immediately—the color draining from both their faces. “What?” Eric says, and it’s the first time I’ve seen something genuinely human in his expression since we got here. I reach out and put my hand on Nico’s face, feeling the warmth of his skin one last time. Then I lean over and kiss him—soft, brief, final. I can see the fear blooming in his eyes when I pull back. “What’s all this for, Jax?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not an animal,” I say. “Of course I’m leaving you with food.” “Someone’s gonna find us,” Eric says, matter-of-factly. “And you’re gonna spend the rest of your life in jail.” “That’s just it, Eric. This thing is decommissioned. The only room on this whole rig with power is this room, and you really better hope nothing breaks, because the access way isn’t really an access way anymore.” I pause, letting that sink in. “But when they decommission these things, they either recycle them or feed them to the coral. Want to guess the fate this one got?” I turn and walk toward the door. Behind me, Nico yells. “Jax—what the fuck, you can’t leave us here!” I stop in the doorframe, one hand on the rusted metal. “I want you guys to think about what you’ve done. How much you’ve both broken my heart.” “Jax, think about this,” Nico says, and now there’s real pleading in his voice. “I think if I think about it any more, it’ll just hurt worse. All that shit you said to me about how I was such a bad boyfriend—and all the while you were fucking my best friend.” And then his expression changes—shifts from fear to fury. “Fuck you!” “Why don’t you fuck each other instead?” I say. “After all, you have all the time in the world.” “You’re not even half the man Eric is.” The words hit exactly where he intends them to, but I’ve already bled out everything I have to give today. I let a slow smile spread across my face. “Yeah, well, you weren’t saying that when I had my fist up your ass,” I say, watching Eric’s expression shift to abject horror—like he’s the one being cheated on, like he’s just discovered some terrible secret about the man handcuffed beside him. Nico’s face flushes red, but he doesn’t back down. “You think a few Hallmark cards make up for the complete and utter failure of a human being that you are?” I press my hand to my chest in mock devastation, letting my head tilt back slightly. “Uh—Nico, you wound me,” I say, my voice dripping with theatrical hurt. “I think we could have gone another three years, don’t you, Eric?” Eric doesn’t respond. He just stares at the floor, jaw clenched tight. “Three years?” I press, letting the question hang in the air between us. I see the exact moment Nico realizes I know—the change in my expression, the shift from wounded to something colder. His eyes widen just a fraction before narrowing again. “Yeah, that’s right. Three years,” he says, his voice taking on a cruel edge now that there’s nothing left to hide. “Three years of incredible dick and whatever the hell it is that you’ve got going on.” The casual way he says it—like our entire relationship was just some inconvenient side note to his real life with Eric—sends a fresh wave of humiliation through me. My face burns with it. “You evil son of a bitch,” I say, my voice low and tight. “Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag, why don’t you let us go so we can send your sorry ass to jail?” Nico leans forward as far as the restraints allow, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. My expression hardens. The theatrical hurt evaporates, replaced by something much more dangerous. “I don’t think you’re in a position to make those kinds of demands.” “Go suck a dick!” “Oh, you mean like you were earlier?” I shoot back, the words coming out sharper than I intend. “You’re crazy, you know that,” Nico says, shaking his head like I’m the unreasonable one here. Seeing his personality come out like this is jaw-dropping—expected, maybe, but still jaw-dropping. The mask has slipped completely now, revealing the person who was there all along, the one I was too blind to see. “You know, I was going to come back after a few days,” I say slowly, letting each word sink in. “But maybe deep down, I packed so much food for a reason.” “What—you really think you’re gonna just leave us here?” Eric asks, speaking for the first time in minutes. There’s genuine fear creeping into his voice now. I meet his eyes and hold his gaze. “I guess I don’t really have a reason to come back.” “I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Nico lunges forward against the restraints, the metal cuffs rattling against the chair. He is not at all the guy I thought he was. Just then, Nico leans over as far as the cuffs will allow and sticks two fingers down his throat. He gags once, twice, and then he’s vomiting onto the floor in the space between him and Eric. “Fuck,” I mutter. As soon as he expels the contents of his stomach, his fingers are reaching through the mess, searching frantically. Nico looks up at me the moment he grabs the key, and the mask is completely gone now. “Piece of shit,” he spits. “Took you long enough to drop that act,” I say. “Go to hell!” “You first!” I smile. “Gotta go!” I take off down the corridor at a run. Behind me, I can hear Nico’s curses echo off the solid metal walls. I’d considered he might try something like that, but I came prepared just in case. “Get back here, you piece of shit!” His voice is louder than his footsteps, and I’m not certain if he waited for Eric to free himself before he took chase. Once I get outside into the salt air, I climb the two platforms to the waiting helicopter, my hands finding the familiar handholds even in my haste. I jump inside the still-idling chopper and flick a few switches to ready the craft for air travel. No sooner do I pull back on the collective and get the skids off the deck than the door I left through bursts open. Nico stumbles out onto the platform, his eyes wild as they search for me. The fear is apparent the moment he realizes what surrounds him—nothing but endless ocean in every direction. “Jackson!” he yells, his mouth forming my name with desperate fury. I can’t hear him over the roar of the rotors and the wind whipping off the water, but I can read his lips clearly enough. Between the ocean spray, the thundering blades above me, and the engine’s growl, his voice is completely drowned out. Fuck you, Nico. Fuck you and everything about you. His face contorts with rage as my words boom across the platform. I bank hard out over the ocean, the rig’s lights growing smaller behind me as I fly out into the night. Two and a half hours ago, I had a boyfriend and a best friend. Two and a half hours ago, I had a life that made sense. Instead of beating the shit out of them both—and God knows I wanted to—or just leaving Nico like a normal person would, I made the insane decision to stock a decommissioned oil rig with MREs and canned tuna and left him and his filthy little whore out here to think about what they’ve done. Would they be rescued? Unlikely. The rig’s coordinates aren’t on any current maritime charts, and the nearest shipping lane is forty miles east. Would they die here? More likely than not, though the supplies I left should last them several years if they’re smart about rationing. Did I feel bad? I’ll find out when I get home, I guess. But at the moment, with the ocean stretching dark and infinite beneath me and the taste of betrayal still bitter on my tongue, it doesn’t seem like I’m gonna lose that much sleep. Nico cheated on the wrong person—someone with the resources, the skills, and apparently the vindictive streak to do something about it. Eric betrayed the wrong friend—the one person who would’ve done anything for him, who trusted him implicitly. And I? I trusted the wrong people. Put my faith in two men who didn’t deserve it, who threw away everything we had for a few stolen moments behind my back. It’s a mistake I won’t make again. The more distance I put between me and that oil rig, the more vindicated I feel. I fly for a long time without thinking about anything at all, which is its own kind of relief. The rhythmic thrum of the rotors becomes white noise, something to fill the space where thoughts should be. The GPS keeps its quiet insistence about where home is, the coordinates blinking steadily on the screen. I keep ignoring it, just a little, just for now, watching the water turn from black to the deep bruised blue that means morning isn’t as far off as it feels. Four years. I keep turning that number over in my mind like it might mean something different this time. It doesn’t. It’s still just a number attached to a life I don’t have anymore, no matter how many oil rigs I leave in my wake or how satisfying it felt to slam that trunk, that door, that radio switch. Vindication turns out to be a lot like the ocean beneath me—vast, and dark, and not actually going anywhere. I thought getting even would feel like an ending. It doesn’t. It feels like the middle of something I haven’t figured out yet, a story with the last chapter torn out and thrown into the Gulf somewhere behind me. I have all this dark satisfaction and nowhere to put it, no one to share it with. I have my hands on the controls and no home waiting on the other end of this flight that looks anything like the one I left this morning. Funny thing about anniversaries. You spend so much time planning the perfect surprise that you forget the whole point was supposed to be more time together. Well. I gave them that, in the end—more time than either of them bargained for, more time than they’ll know what to do with. All the time in the world, out there on the water, just the two of them. Exactly what they wanted, right? Just without me in the way. I bank the helicopter east, toward whatever’s left of my life, and I let myself laugh once, short and humorless, into the empty cockpit. The sound gets swallowed by the engine noise almost immediately. Whatever happens now, they still have each other. That’s something, I suppose. As for me? I guess I get to start over. The thought sits heavy in my chest, equal parts terrifying and liberating. I glance down at the instrument cluster, at the heading that says I’m flying east, back toward the mainland, back toward civilization and whatever comes next. But the numbers on the display feel meaningless. For the first time in four years—four years of routine and schedules and knowing exactly where I’d be and when—I have absolutely no idea where I’m going. And by one stranger’s standards or another, by whatever metric the world uses to measure a man who’s lost everything and somehow kept flying—I’m okay with that.

## Dead Reckoning – CH. 2

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/24/dead-reckoning-ch-2/
- Published: 2026-09-24T23:06:58+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

CHAPTER TWO: THE SETUP “You piss in the cup?” Merve asks. Merve is my parole officer, and every Tuesday I have to drag myself to this rundown office next to the precinct to, among other things, pee in a cup that they then test for drugs. As a condition of my parole, weekly drug tests are mandatory. More than that, I have to find a job—gainful employment, they call it. Me, the convicted felon with a record that makes potential employers go pale and suddenly remember they’ve filled the position. Yeah, I don’t know how they expect me to pull off half the shit they’re requiring me to do, but I don’t really have a choice if I want to stay on the outside. And I have to stay on the outside because my plan falls apart in the most epic way if I end up back in jail before I get to carry it out. I’ve had three years to plan out my next moves, three years to come up with one contingency after the next, and this plan is damn near perfect. Subscribe now “Merv, can I ask you something?” “What?” He doesn’t look up from the paperwork on his desk. I look him straight in the eye when he finally glances up, my expression serious and forthcoming. “Has anyone, at any point in your life, called you Merv the Perv?” His pen stops moving. He stares at me for a long moment, his jaw working like he’s chewing on whether to throw me out or laugh. “Doyle,” he says finally. “Yeah?” “Get the fuck outta my office.” I stand and walk toward the door. It takes me a total of two steps—that’s how small this place is. “Merv, in all seriousness, my cell was bigger than this. This is a closet.” “Ehh, fuck off!” he says, but I catch the edge of a smile tugging at his mouth. “See ya next week,” I say, catching the door and spinning into the hallway. I hear him yell from his desk as I’m already halfway down the corridor. “And get a job!” “Maybe I’ll get one building you a real office,” I call back as I cut the next corner and head for the exit. Ratchet’s real name is probably something boring like Richard or Robert, but nobody calls him that. Corbin told me the guy got his nickname because he could fix anything—locks, security systems, problems. The kind of guy who knows which screws to turn and in what order. We meet at a dive bar in Southie called The Tap. It’s the kind of place where the floor sticks to your shoes and nobody asks questions. It’s also the kinda place you go for shady business dealings. I get there first, order a beer I don’t drink, and wait. He walks in ten minutes later. Early-fifties, short cropped hair, gray at the temples, wearing a Carhartt jacket and work boots. Kinda looks like Jason Statham with hair. He looks like every other tradesman in Boston. But I suppose that’s the point. He slides into the booth across from me without preamble. “Rufus?” “Yeah.” He gives me a look—assessing, maybe a little amused. “Your name’s not really Rufus.” I lean back against the cracked vinyl. “And Ratchet’s printed on your birth certificate?” We stare at each other for a moment. His eyes are sharp, calculating. This is a test, I realize. He’s measuring whether I’m serious or just another wannabe with more mouth than sense. Finally, something shifts in his expression. Not quite approval, but close enough. “Corbin says you need to access to something,” he says. No handshake. No small talk. I like him already. “Whitmore Capital Management,” I say. “Financial district. It’s on the fifteenth floor of the Devonshire building.” Ratchet pulls out his phone, taps a few times, studies the screen. “New construction. 2019. They upgraded security after COVID—keycard access, biometric scanners on executive floors, cameras in every hallway.” “I know.” He looks up. “You know?” “I’ve done my homework.” And I have. Three years of it to be exact. I know Sean’s office is corner suite 1507. I know the building uses Lenel OnGuard for access control. I know there are four cameras on the fifteenth floor—two in the main corridor, one at the elevator bank, one covering the emergency stairwell. I know the cleaning crew comes through between 10 PM and midnight on weekdays and the night guard makes rounds every thirty minutes. I know all of this because I’ve spent every spare moment in the prison library researching Sean’s world. Building blueprints are public record. Security system specs get leaked in vendor proposals. LinkedIn tells you who works where and when they started. You’d be amazed what you can learn when you’ve got nothing but time and motivation. “What do you need?” Ratchet asks. “Keycard access. Fifteen minutes inside without triggering alarms. And I need to know the camera blind spots.” “When?” “Next week. Thursday night. 11 PM.” He nods slowly, thinking. “Keycard’s easy—I can clone one from an employee. Cameras are trickier. They’re on a closed network, but I can loop the feed for twenty minutes if you’re fast.” “I’m fast.” “Alarms?” “Motion sensors in the offices after hours. But if I’ve got a valid keycard and I’m not breaking anything, the system reads me as authorized personnel.” Ratchet smiles. Not friendly. Impressed. “You really did your homework.” “Like I said.” He leans back, arms crossed. “This about money?” “No.” “Revenge?” “Something like that.” “Don’t care,” he says. “Just need to know you’re not gonna do something stupid that brings cops back to me.” “I’m not breaking anything. I’m not stealing anything. I just need to be inside his office for fifteen minutes.” “What are you doing in there?” “Installing something.” He waits. “Cameras,” I say. “Small ones. Wireless. I need to see how the sausage is made.” Ratchet considers this. “You want surveillance.” “Yeah.” “How many cameras?” “Three. One behind the bookshelf facing his desk. One in the corner by the window. One covering the door.” “You know where you’re putting them already.” “I’ve got the office layout memorized.” He studies me for a long moment. I can see him doing the math—figuring out if I’m crazy, if I’m dangerous, if I’m worth the risk. Finally, he breaks the silence. “Two grand. Half now, half when you’re inside.” I don’t hesitate. “Five hundred.” “Like hell—” I cut him off before he can build momentum. Before he can talk himself into believing his price is reasonable. “I’ll take my business across the street,” I say, letting the words hang there for a beat. “No, really—there’s a guy across the street who’ll do it for four hundred. But I told Corbin I’d give you my business first, considering how things have dried up for you lately.” The change in his expression is immediate. His jaw tightens. He stares at me like I know entirely too much about him—which I do. I’ve done my homework on Ratchet the same way I’ve done my homework on everything else. You don’t walk into a negotiation blind, not when you’ve only got one shot at this. He’s quiet for a moment, weighing his options. Pride versus pragmatism. The need to maintain his reputation versus the reality of an empty wallet. “Fine,” he finally says, the word clipped. I pull an envelope from my jacket. Gate money from the state—their parting gift for five years of good behavior. Plus what I had stashed away before I got locked up. I slide it across the table. Ratchet counts it without looking down. Muscle memory. “I’ll text you Wednesday with the details,” he says. “Keycard, access codes, camera loop timing. You get twenty minutes from the moment you badge in. After that, the system resets and you’re on camera.” “Understood.” “And Rufus?” “Yeah?” “Whatever you’re planning—make it worth it. Guys like you don’t come to guys like me unless it’s serious.” I meet his eyes and hold them. Let him see that I’m not some desperate ex-con scrambling for revenge. This is calculated. Deliberate. “It’s serious.” He nods once, slow and measured, like he’s filing that information away for later. Then he pockets the envelope and stands. “Wednesday.” Then he’s gone, weaving through the sparse afternoon crowd toward the door. I sit there for another ten minutes, staring at my untouched beer. The condensation has formed a ring on the scarred wood table. I trace it with my finger, thinking through the timeline again. Wednesday gives me one week to prepare. One week to make sure every detail is locked down, every contingency accounted for. The plan is coming together. Piece by piece. Screw by screw. Sean thinks he’s safe in his corner office with his biometric locks and his security cameras. He thinks the past is buried deep enough that it can’t claw its way back to the surface. Well his world is going to come crashing down on him and in epic fashion no less. Later that night, I find myself back at Sean’s house. In the same hedges from the last time I was here, branches pressing against my shoulders, the smell of mulch and damp earth filling my nostrils. This time I have a DSLR camera with a telephoto lens. I’m not snapping pictures—not yet. Just getting a visual. Confirming patterns. Building the map in my head. Sean and his boyfriend are sitting on the couch watching something on TV. They look cozy, cuddled up together with a fire crackling in the fireplace. How romantic. How fucking domestic. My eye starts to twitch. That rage inside me burns hotter, spreading through my chest like gasoline catching flame. I desperately want to walk right through the front door and surprise him. Watch his face drain of color when he realizes the past isn’t as buried as he thought. But not yet. Timing is everything. I’ve been here every day this week to intercept the mail. Yesterday I got what I came for—a letter from the state prison system letting Sean know that I was released. I want him to know I’m a free man, but only when I’m ready. Only when I decide it’s time for him to start looking over his shoulder. I focus back on the two of them on the couch. They’re kissing now. Like actually kissing, not just a peck. To the point where Sean pulls off his shirt, tossing it onto the floor beside the couch. I remember that chest. The way it felt under my hands. I remember what it used to do to me, how it made my pulse race. Fuck. I pull the camera down from my face and let the heat in my chest subside. This isn’t productive. I’m not here to torture myself with what he has now. I’m here to take it all away. I leave the neighborhood and catch a bus a few blocks away, putting distance between myself and that perfect little domestic scene. I ride it into town, hop off near the waterfront, and find my way to a nightclub. Nondescript on the outside—just a black door with a small rainbow flag decal in the corner—but that’s on purpose. It’s a gay bar. Sean told me about it years ago, back when we used to hang out. Back when he was teaching me about this world I never knew I’d become part of. When I go inside, it’s like the place is alive, pulsing with energy—nothing like the dead quiet street outside. Music throbs through the speakers, bass vibrating in my chest. Colored lights sweep across the crowd. There are shirtless guys everywhere, walking around like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Some are wearing even less—harnesses, leather straps, things I don’t have names for yet. There are quite a few guys just wearing jockstraps and boots, nothing else. The thing is—none of this used to turn me on. I was only ever attracted to Sean. He was the exception, the only man who ever made me feel that pull. But things have changed. Five years in prison changes a man in ways he doesn’t expect. And right now, all I want is a distraction. Something warm and uncomplicated. A nice tight muscled ass, preferably of the twink variety. Subscribe now I scan the room, letting my eyes adjust to the strobing lights, and that’s when I see him at the bar. He’s got to be in his early twenties, maybe twenty-three at most. He’s wearing a black harness that crisscrosses his smooth chest and a matching jockstrap. His ass is perfectly lifted by the straps of the jock, round and firm. Damn. He makes eye contact from across the room, holding my gaze for a beat longer than casual. He’s got two shot glasses in front of him, and he raises one toward me in invitation. I glance around to make sure he isn’t looking at someone else behind me. When I turn back, he smiles and holds out the shot glass like an offering. I make my way through the crowd toward him. “Hey daddy,” he says, handing me the drink. He tosses his shot back while I do the same with mine. It tastes like lighter fluid mixed with regret. I blink a few times and fight to keep myself from choking on the burn. I knock on the bar to get the bartender’s attention. The bartender comes over—he’s also only wearing a jockstrap, but he looks to be about my age, maybe late thirties. “Two Jägerbombs,” I say. “You wanna start a tab?” he asks. “No, put it on his,” I say, nodding toward the kid beside me. Twink Number One. At least that’s what my brain conjures as his credit in the movie that is my life. The bartender looks at him and he nods his approval. While the bartender goes to make the drinks, I take the opportunity to get a better look at the kid’s ass. He notices me checking him out and smiles. It’s even nicer up close. “I’m Brad,” he says. “Have you had a Jägerbomb before?” I ask. He shakes his head. “Well, let’s just say we’re both gonna forget that question by the time this night is over.” “You’re funny,” he says with a laugh. And you’re young and dumb, but I’m not gonna say that out loud. A few moments later, the bartender returns with two shot glasses filled with dark liquid, two tall glasses, and a can of Red Bull. He pours half the can into one glass and the rest into the other. “Godspeed,” he says as he walks away to help another customer. “What’s this?” Brad asks, pointing to the setup. “Well this,” I say, pointing to the shot glasses, “is the devil’s piss.” “And the Red Bull?” “The piss chaser,” I say, smiling. I pick up one of the shot glasses and one of the tall glasses. Brad follows my lead, watching me carefully. I drop the shot glass into the tall glass and start drinking. Brad follows suit. I drain it all in one long swallow, feeling the burn all the way down. It takes Brad three attempts to get it all down, his face scrunching up with each gulp. “Whew, yikes!” he says, shaking his head. “That’ll put hair on your chest,” I say, slapping his ass. We look at each other for a moment, the music pounding around us, and then without saying anything, we’re moving toward the dance floor, letting ourselves get lost in what I can only assume is some kind of EDM mix. We dance until we’re nearly sober and before we can get back into the feeling, we’ve missed last call. “Fuck,” I say looking over at the bar. The lights coming back up. “I’d be down for that,” says Brad. It takes me a moment to register what he’s just said and then I catch up. “Oh, shit, wow–how far do you live from here?” “Two blocks.” A menacing smile creeps across my face. Twenty minutes later we’re in Brad apartment ripping each other’s clothes off. Well mine at least, Brad is already ninety percent naked. He goes to unfasten the harness, but I stop him. “Leave it on.” “Yessir,” he says. I push him back onto the bed and he lands with a bounce, legs spread, cock already hard against his stomach. The leather straps frame his chest perfectly—black against tan skin, the metal rings catching the light from the street outside. I’m not gonna say I didn’t have sex in prison because I did, but not like this. I strip off my shirt and Brad’s eyes track every movement. His hand moves toward his dick but I catch his wrist. “Did I say you could touch yourself?” “No sir.” “Then don’t.” I climb onto the bed, knees on either side of his hips, and lean down to bite his neck hard enough to leave a mark. He gasps, arches up into me, and I can feel his cock pressing against my stomach through my jeans. “Please,” he says. “Please what?” “Please fuck me.” I sit back and look at him—this willing, eager thing beneath me. The harness makes him look like a gift someone wrapped just for me. And maybe that’s exactly what he is. A reward for surviving. A tool for forgetting. Or maybe just a warm body that isn’t Sean’s. I unfasten my belt, pop the button on my jeans, and Brad’s watching like it’s the most important thing he’s ever seen. When I pull my cock out he actually licks his lips. “You want this?” “Yes sir.” “Then get on your hands and knees.” He flips over fast, ass up, and I take a moment to appreciate the view. The harness straps wrap around his torso and I grab one, using it to pull him back toward me. He makes this desperate little sound that goes straight to my dick. I spit on my hand—classy, I know—and work myself over while I line up. When I push in, Brad drops his head and moans into the mattress. Tight. Hot. Exactly what I needed. I start slow, one hand gripping the harness, the other on his hip. I can feel every inch of him wrapped around me, the heat and pressure making my breath catch. But slow doesn’t last. Not with the kind of need I have to satiate. I fuck him harder and he takes it, pushing back to meet every thrust, making these breathy sounds that might be words but I can’t tell and don’t care. The rhythm builds between us—something primal and uncomplicated. The leather creaks under my grip, the sound cutting through the thick air of the bedroom. Brad’s saying something—”yes” and “fuck” and “harder”—his voice muffled and desperate, and I give him what he wants because right now what he wants is exactly what I need. I pull him back by the harness, using it like reins, feeling the sturdy leather straps taut against my palms. He moans louder, his back arching to meet me, his body responding to every shift of my hips. Each time I thrust, the clap of our skin and the slick sound of sweat echo throughout the space, filling every corner of the room. The bed frame rocks beneath us, headboard knocking rhythmically against the wall, adding its own percussion to the soundtrack. I can feel the heat radiating off Brad’s skin, watch the muscles in his shoulders and back flexing with each movement, his body taut and trembling. Brad buries his face in the pillow and his moans pour out of him in long, drawn-out spurts, each one more desperate than the last. His whole body shudders with each impact, trembling beneath me. His fingers clutch at the sheets, knuckles white, like he’s holding on for dear life. The rhythm between us intensifies. I’m not gentle anymore—I don’t have it in me to be gentle. Not tonight. “Is that what you want? Huh? Is this what you want, you little bitch?” “Fuck yeah, daddy,” he manages between moans, his voice raw and breathy. “Fucking tight little hole, that’s all you are, aren’t you? Just a fucking hole to be used!” “Fuck, just fucking wreck my hole!” he manages, pushing back against me with renewed urgency. I drive my hips into him harder, faster, relentless. His moans grow louder and he buries his face again, the pillow muffling his cries. Sweat drips down my chest, my abs, pooling where our bodies meet. The entire atmosphere in the room changes—sweat and sex and the sound of skin on skin. My mind goes blank. Just sensation. Just the grip of leather in my hands, the heat, the rhythm, the sound of Brad falling apart beneath me. Just this. Just not thinking about Sean for five goddamn minutes. What I do think about is the fact that Brad’s hole is tighter than anything I’ve felt in a long time. It’s warm and wet and clenches around me at all the right moments, gripping my cock like a vice every time I thrust deep. The way his body responds to every movement, every shift of my hips, is almost intoxicating. The way he pushes back to meet me, desperate for more. Fuck. Sometimes I don’t give people enough credit. I had low expectations when I swiped right on this guy—just another faceless hookup to help me forget—but I guess random hookups can surprise you. This guy knows exactly what he’s doing, how to move his hips, how to angle himself, how to take it. He’s not just lying there; he’s working for it. “Ohh fuckkk!” he moans loudly as he arches his back, his spine curving in a perfect arc that makes him look like something out of a porn scene. Damn, he’s got a nice ass. Round, firm, perfect handfuls. The kind of ass that looks good in jeans and even better naked. Too bad I’m never gonna see him again after tonight. That’s the rule. One and done. He leans back suddenly, like he wants to kiss me, and opens his mouth. His eyes are half-lidded with lust, pupils blown wide. I’ve learned my lesson about kissing random hookups, though. It just leads to other shit—feelings, expectations, complications I don’t need. The thought alone makes me fuck him even harder, punishing him for even trying. His mouth hangs open in shock and pleasure, a strangled sound escaping his throat. “You want me to kiss you?” I ask, not waiting for an answer. I lean forward and spit directly in his mouth instead. “Fuck that!” “Fuck!” he says, swallowing it down and then opening his mouth again, tongue out, eager for more. I spit in it again, watching it land on his tongue before he swallows. My hips snap even harder this time, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the room, echoing off the walls. He grunts and falls back to the bed, overwhelmed, his arms giving out beneath him. “You’re fucking trash!” “I’m trash daddy,” he says breathlessly, his voice trembling with need. “You’re just a fuck toy, aren’t you?” “Yessir, I’m just a fuck toy,” he repeats obediently, like he’s been waiting his whole life to say it. “You like when guys use you, don’t you?” I ask as I drive my cock into him again, harder than before, making the headboard slam against the wall with a sharp crack. “Yes-sir,” he starts, but the second half of that gets choked off as I thrust again, stealing the air from his lungs. The thing is–Brad was just a casualty in all of this. Right now, he’s just on the receiving end of all the anger and rage I have built up inside me that needed some way to escape that didn’t involve me going back to jail for violating parole. At least he’s loving this. Fucking whore. “You fucking whore!” Hell, I was already thinking it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Brad cries out, his voice breaking on each word. And for a moment, I can feel his entire body tense up beneath me, muscles going rigid like he’s gonna cum—but he’s not touching himself. I guess he doesn’t need to. I look down and watch as cum gushes from the tip of his dick, spilling across his stomach in thick spurts. “Fucking hell!” I drive harder, pounding into him in quick succession, chasing my own release now. Brad’s body is spent, trembling and slack beneath me, but I still need him for another moment or two. I feel the pressure building in my stomach, coiling low and tight. It starts in my balls and works its way up, spreading into my spine like electricity, and then I feel it—that moment right before the edge, like I’m standing at the precipice of the world with nothing but air beneath me. I pull out and push Brad off me, my hand already wrapping around my cock, jerking it hard and fast. “Turn the fuck around!” He obeys immediately, rolling over and looking up at me with those glazed, fucked-out eyes. Just as he does, I cum hard. “Fuck!” I groan, the sound ripping from somewhere deep in my chest. I shoot my load in about five thick ropes of cum that coat his face, his chest, and his stomach, marking him with it. He collapses back onto the bed, chest heaving, completely spent. I watch him for a second—the rise and fall of his breathing, the mess I’ve made of him—and feel nothing. No connection. No warmth. Just the hollow satisfaction of a need met. But that’s not why I came here. I didn’t go to that club looking for intimacy or whatever the fuck people pretend casual hookups are about. I came here to get off, to burn through the restless energy that’s been crawling under my skin all week. And now that I’ve done that—mission accomplished. Brad, thank you for your service. Your country thanks you…and so does my cock.

## Dead Reckoning – CH. 1

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/24/dead-reckoning-ch-1/
- Published: 2026-09-24T23:06:58+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

CHAPTER ONE: THE ACCIDENT I’ve known Sean most of my adult life. We met during freshman year of college—some orientation mixer where everyone was trying too hard to make friends. Even though I realized pretty quick that college wasn’t for me, he kept at it, stuck with the grind, got his degree eventually and then his MBA. Meanwhile, I worked odd jobs here and there, but mostly at the docks. That’s what you do in Boston when you don’t have a degree—either the docks or you work the family’s plumbing business. I chose the former. When Sean came back to East Boston from Salem a few years later, he wasn’t all that different. A little looser, maybe. Less high strung than he’d been growing up in the neighborhood. But there was something about him that had changed, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Turns out—he’d met some guy who managed a hedge fund and was all ‘my life is perfect’ now. But I was still the best man at his wedding. I swapped ties with him when he decided to eat one of my mom’s cannolis twenty minutes before the ceremony and got powdered sugar all down his front. And then, in that moment, in the back room of the church while I was helping him straighten his collar—that was the first time I kissed another man. Yeah, it was weird as hell, but somehow—for some reason I still can’t explain—it felt right. We told ourselves it was just a fluke, just two dudes standing too close together in a moment of stress. But then it happened again a few weeks later. And again. And since Patrick, his husband, would go to New York for business every other week, I’d go over to Sean’s place and we’d kiss and do other stuff. Stuff I never thought I’d be doing with another guy. And then one cold rainy night… “Cam, we keep saying this is the last time,” he says as I kiss down his neck. “Yeah, well maybe this is the last time,” I say, the Bostonian accent thick in my voice. “You’re insufferable, ya know that?” “Is that a question?” I say, sitting up to look at him. The rain is pouring down outside—like a torrential downpour, the kind that floods the streets and makes the gutters overflow. Between that and the brief spurts of thunder rolling across the sky, the candles he’s lit around the room flicker and dance. I’m no romantic, but this? This is nice. Sean is lying on the couch beneath me, naked, his body warm and inviting. His dirty blonde hair is messed up from my hands running through it, strands sticking up at odd angles. Those perfectly symmetrical lips are parted slightly as he breathes, each exhale coming a little faster than the last. His body is toned and tight, the ridges of his abs catching the dim light from the lamp across the room, the way his torso contours into that perfect v-shape that leads my eyes downward. His smooth pubes, trimmed neat, and his cock—damn, his cock. I never knew I was attracted to guys until I met Sean. I’d been married once—big mistake, dated a bunch of women I had no business dating, or so my ma says. And all that time I felt straight, thought I was straight. Never questioned it, never wondered. But with Sean, it’s different. Like he brought something outta me. Something different, something new. Something that was maybe always there, just waiting for the right person to unlock it. I grab his cock and slowly stroke it, feeling the heat of him in my palm. His precum is—fuck, he’s leaking like a sieve, slick and warm. He moans as I stroke it, his hips shifting slightly, pushing up into my hand. I use my thumb and rub it across the head, spreading the wetness around. His body jerks at the contact, a sharp intake of breath. It’s a reaction that makes my own cock twitch with anticipation. I use my free hand and pull my boxers off, tossing them somewhere on the floor. My cock is hard as a rock, aching. I sit up on the couch and spread his knees further apart, positioning myself between his legs. He moans underneath me, his eyes locked on mine, pupils blown wide with desire. “You want me to stop?” I ask, my voice rough. He doesn’t even hesitate. “I want you to stop teasing me and fuck me,” he says, his voice breathy but demanding. “You want me to fuck you, huh?” “Is that because you’re a dirty little slut?” “No,” he says, flashing that almost menacing smile that makes me a little harder every time. “Because I’m your dirty little slut.” “Hell yeah, you are. You’re my filthy dirty little slut—” He reaches up, grabs me by the neck and pulls me into a kiss. It’s sloppy and desperate, our chests crashing together. Our hard cocks are trapped between our stomachs, grinding against each other. Both of our precum mixing together, making this wet, sticky, warm mess between us, and I love every second of it. He pulls out of the kiss, and he’s serious now. I can see it in his eyes—those eyes that remind me of the ocean. Not that Boston ocean, all gray and cold, but the ocean where the water is so blue and clear you can see right to the bottom. He wants me to fuck him. He wants me to fuck him hard. And I’m not gonna hold back. I spit in my hand and slick up my cock, coating it thoroughly. He spits in his hand, reaches down and rubs it across his nice pink hole, pushing two fingers in to loosen himself up, working them in and out. We’ve fooled around a bunch, but this is maybe the third or fourth time we’ve actually had sex. Each time feels like the first all over again. I line my cock up with his hole and push in slowly. I’m met with a gasp, a powerful gasp that catches in his throat. “Fuck! Cam-Fuck!” ”Call me sir, you dirty little slut!” “Fuck, sir! Your cock feels so fucking good.” He wasn’t wrong, if his hole felt this good, the way it wrapped around my cock and consumed it. The way his whole body reacted to mine. It was just my cock getting pleasured, it was every part of me. The muscle and meaty parts. It was soul. “Fuck man, Sean, you too. Your hole feel good man!” I thrust harder, snapping my hips, allowing my cock to full him out completely. Every inch of me was inside every inch of him. And in that moment I didn’t wanna be any where else. I just wanted to keep fucking him. Keep drawing his body into mine. “Ohhhh, fuck!!” I cry out. “Yeah, baby, just like that—that’s fucking great! Fuuucck!” “You like that baby?” I ask, thrusting harder and faster. He only made that sound when I was hitting that spot, the spot that made his vision blurry, made his eyelids stutter, made his eyes roll into back of his head, made his toes curl. I’m not usually down with the lovey-dovey talk but something about Sean brought it out of me. Fuck he drives me crazy. When I’m with him, he’s all I think about, when I’m not with him, he’s still all I think about. What the fuck is that all about? This was supposed to be just about fucking, busting a nut and getting the fuck outta here before Patrick gets home. Sean says I should come over and get to know him, but he’s never liked me. Not since the time I got drunk at one of their cookouts and jumped into the pool. For the record I’m not drunk. Sean fists the sheets, his knuckles white, his breath coming in ragged gasps. And I know—fuck, I know—I’m not walking away from this unscathed. His breathing changes—it’s heavier now, the sound not so much ragged as it is filled with something unfamiliar to me, maybe even to him. There’s a rawness to it, a vulnerability I haven’t heard before. And the way his body responds to mine, arching and trembling beneath me, is sending me every which way but right. “Holy fuck, Cam! Fuck—fuck me! Fuck me!” His moan gets drowned out by a crack of thunder, the sound rolling through the room like the sky itself is coming apart. He grabs his cock and starts to stroke it, his hand moving in rhythm with my thrusts. Watching him stroke himself like that—man, fuck. It’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. The way his fingers wrap around his shaft, the way his hips buck up into his own grip while I’m buried deep inside him—it’s almost too much. I lean down and kiss him, deep and consuming. My lips press against his, and for a moment, everything else falls away—the storm outside, the risk we’re taking, all of it. There’s just him and me and this moment that feels like it’s been building for years without either of us knowing it. When I pull back, the words tumble out before I can stop them. “Fuck! Sean, I fucking love you.” The confession hangs in the air between us, raw and terrifying. I don’t know where it came from, don’t know if it’s the heat of the moment or something that’s been buried deep inside me all along. But it’s out there now, and I can’t take it back. He looks back at me, and I’m staring into those eyes—those impossibly blue eyes—and all I see is the bottom of the ocean. Deep and endless and pulling me under. “I love you too,” he whispers, and the words hit me harder than anything I’ve ever felt. My chest tightens. My throat closes up. I smile—can’t help it—and this time when I move, I slide into him more gently, savoring every inch, every breath, every second of this. Then the door opens. Patrick stands in the doorway. Still in his suit—navy blue, perfectly tailored. His tie is loosened, his collar undone. He’s holding his phone in one hand like he was checking something when he walked in. For one long, horrible second, nobody moves. Nobody breathes. Patrick’s eyes move from Sean—naked, frozen beneath me—to me, still buried inside him. Then to the bed. The tangled sheets. The evidence. His face doesn’t change. That’s what gets me. He doesn’t yell, doesn’t gasp, doesn’t even look surprised. He just stands there, and something in his expression goes very, very cold. “You unimaginable bastard,” he says quietly. Then he turns and walks out. I pull out and scramble off the bed, grabbing for my jeans. Sean’s already moving—faster than me, naked, not even bothering with clothes. He’s out the door before I get my pants halfway up my thighs. By the time I make it to the hallway, Sean’s already caught up to Patrick at the top of the stairs. “Patrick, please!” Sean’s voice cracks. There’s a desperation in it I’ve never heard before—not in all the years I’ve known him. Not even close. It makes something twist in my gut. Patrick stops. Doesn’t turn around. Just stops, one hand on the bannister, his shoulders rigid. “Please what?” His voice is quiet. Controlled. That’s worse than yelling. “Please pretend I didn’t just walk in on my husband getting fucked in our bed?” “Patrick, I—” “Two years.” Patrick turns now, and his face is a mask of cold fury. “Two fucking years you’ve been doing this. Don’t insult me by pretending this was the first time.” Sean reaches for him. “I can explain—” “Explain?” Patrick’s laugh is sharp, humorless. “You’re going to explain how you’ve been fucking him in our house? In our bed? While I was working in New York to pay for this goddamn life you wanted?” I’m still in the doorway, shirtless, jeans unbuttoned, watching this unfold. The hallway’s long—maybe fifteen feet from the bedroom door to the stairs. Crown molding, expensive wallpaper, recessed lighting that makes everything look like a fucking museum. Sean’s standing between Patrick and the stairs now, blocking his path. “Patrick, please, just listen to me—” “I knew.” Patrick’s voice drops. “I fucking knew something was wrong. The way you looked at him. The way you’d find excuses to see him. I told myself I was being paranoid. That you wouldn’t do this to me.” “Baby, please—” “Don’t call me that.” Patrick moves to step around Sean, toward the stairs. “Don’t you fucking dare.” Sean grabs his arm. “Wait. Please. Just wait.” Patrick jerks away. “Get your hands off me.” “I love you—” “You love me?” Patrick’s voice rises now, the control starting to crack. “You love me? You just told him you loved him! I heard you! The whole fucking neighborhood probably heard you!” Sean’s face goes white. Guilty bastard. “Patrick, I—” “Move.” Patrick tries to push past him. Sean blocks him again, hands up, pleading. “Please, just give me a chance to—” “A chance to what? Lie to me some more?” Patrick shoves Sean back. Not hard, but enough to create space. “I’m done. I’m going to my brother’s. When I get back, I want all your shit out of my house.” “Our house—” “My house!” Patrick’s shouting now. “My fucking house that I paid for while you were busy fucking your little dock worker!” That one lands. I see Sean flinch. Patrick moves for the stairs again. Sean grabs him—both hands on Patrick’s shoulders, pulling him back. “Let go of me!” “Please, just listen—” They’re grappling now. Patrick trying to pull away, Sean holding on, both of them too close to the bannister. The staircase is open—no wall on the left side, just the railing and a straight drop to the marble floor below. “Sean, let him go.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. I’m moving down the hallway now, calculating distances. Ten feet. Eight. Neither of them hears me. “I said let go!” Patrick wrenches backward, and Sean stumbles forward, still holding on. They’re right at the edge now. Patrick’s back is to the stairs, Sean’s hands still gripping his shoulders. Patrick shoves him—hard this time—and Sean’s grip tightens reflexively, pulling Patrick with him as he staggers back. “Sean!” I’m running now. Patrick breaks free—twists hard and rips himself out of Sean’s grip. He turns toward the stairs, already moving, and Sean lunges after him. “Patrick, wait—” Sean’s hands find Patrick’s chest. Both palms flat against him. Not grabbing. Pushing. “Just listen to me!” But Patrick’s already off-balance from the turn, one foot too close to the edge, and Sean’s shove—desperate, panicked, trying to stop him from leaving—sends him backward. Patrick’s arms windmill. His mouth opens. I’m five feet away. Too far. Sean’s hands are still extended where Patrick’s chest was a second ago. And then Patrick’s not there anymore. Just empty space where he was standing. And the sound—Christ, the sound—of a body hitting marble fifteen feet below. Sean just stands there, his arms still outstretched, he’s shaking uncontrollably. “Pat…Pat…” He’s trying to say his name, reaching for every part of him that knows desperation all too well. I’ve never in a million years would have seen this coming but it’s happened and a million thoughts flood my mind. Sean moves toward the stairs. I grab his arm and yank him back. Hard. “Don’t.” He’s not hearing me. His eyes are glazed, fixed on the empty space where Patrick was standing. He tries to pull away but I tighten my grip, fingers digging into his bicep until he flinches. “Sean. Look at me.” “I have to—I need to—” “Look. At. Me.” His eyes finally snap to mine. Wild. Terrified. Already seeing the rest of his life collapsing. Good. He should be terrified. “Listen very carefully,” I say. My voice is steady. Calm. Like I’m explaining something simple. “When the cops get here, you’re going to tell them I did it.” “What—” “You’re going to tell them we were fighting. That Patrick tried to break it up. That I pushed him.” Sean’s shaking his head, but it’s not disagreement—it’s shock, disbelief, his brain trying to catch up to what I’m saying. “Cameron, no, I can’t—” “You can and you will.” I pull him closer. Close enough that he can see I mean every fucking word. “You pushed him. I saw it. But that’s not what happened. What happened is I lost my temper. I shoved him. It was an accident, but it was me.” “I can’t let you—” “You don’t get a choice.” My grip shifts to the back of his neck. Possessive. Final. “You think I’m letting you throw your life away? Everything you’ve built? For what—a stupid fucking accident?” His breath is coming in short, panicked gasps. “Cameron—” “I’m taking the blame. That’s how this goes. You’re going to let me.” “Why would you—” “Because you’re mine.” The words come out flat. Matter-of-fact. “And I protect what’s mine.” His eyes search my face like he’s looking for the catch, the angle, the part where I’m lying. But there isn’t one. This is the simplest thing I’ve ever done. “When they ask, you tell them the truth—up until the moment Patrick went over. Then you tell them it was me. You tried to stop me. You couldn’t.” “I can’t—” “Yes you can.” I lean in until our foreheads touch. “And you will. Because if you don’t, we both go down. And I’m not letting that happen.” He’s crying now. Silent, helpless tears that make him look younger than he is. “You’re going to be okay,” I tell him. “You’re going to get through this. And when I get out, we’re going to have the life we should’ve had from the start.” It’s a lie. Or maybe it’s not. Right now, standing here with his husband’s body cooling on the marble downstairs, I genuinely believe it. “Cameron—” “Say it.” “I can’t—” “Say you understand.” His jaw works. His hands come up to grip my wrists, holding on like I’m the only solid thing left in the world. “I understand,” he whispers. “Good.” I kiss him. Hard. Claiming. Sealing the deal. Then I let him go and pull out my phone. “Now call 911.” The cops arrive in under ten minutes. Two uniforms first, then detectives. The house fills with the sound of radios, footsteps, the coroner’s team moving Patrick’s body with the efficiency of people who’ve done this a hundred times before. Sean sticks to the story. His voice doesn’t shake—I made sure of that before they got here. He tells them Patrick came home, caught us, things escalated. I pushed him. It was an accident. Patrick lost his balance at the top of the stairs. The detectives watch him like they’re waiting for the lie to crack. It doesn’t. I give my statement in the same flat tone. Confirm everything Sean said. Apologize for the affair, for the violence, for Patrick’s death. Play the part of a man who made a terrible mistake and knows it. The detectives take notes. They ask follow-up questions. I answer them all the same way—consistent, remorseful, cooperative. The coroner examines Patrick’s body on the marble. Broken neck. Blunt force trauma. Consistent with a fall from the second-floor landing. No signs of struggle beyond what we’ve already explained. No reason to suspect anything other than what we’ve told them. By the time they leave, it’s past midnight. Sean and I don’t speak. We sit in the living room while forensics photographs everything, while the house becomes a crime scene, while the life we were building gets catalogued and documented and filed away as evidence. Two days later, they come back with an arrest warrant. The detectives are polite about it. They read me my rights in Sean’s living room while he watches from the kitchen doorway, his face carefully blank. I don’t resist. I don’t make a scene. I just let them cuff me and lead me out to the car. Before they close the door, I catch Sean’s eye. Hold it for a second. A reminder: this is what we agreed to. This is the price. He nods, barely perceptible. Then they drive me away. A lot of people do a lot of talking over the next six months. Detectives. Lawyers. Reporters who smell blood in the water—wealthy hedge fund manager’s husband killed by his lover, the kind of story that writes itself. My public defender is a tired woman named Marissa Chen who looks like she stopped believing in the system around the same time I was learning to tie my shoes. She’s good, though. Competent. She tells me the DA is offering a deal: plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, accept ten years, avoid the circus of a trial. “They don’t want this in front of a jury,” she says. “Affair, crime of passion, wealthy victim—it plays badly for everyone. You take the deal, you’re out in seven with good behavior.” Seven years. Ten years. The numbers don’t mean anything yet. They’re just words. Involuntary. Wanton. Reckless. Manslaughter. Clinical terms that sound like they belong to someone else’s life. Someone who made different choices. Someone who didn’t stand at the top of a staircase and watch the man he loved push another man to his death. I take the deal. The sentencing hearing is in a courthouse that smells like floor wax and old wood. Sean sits three rows back, wearing a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my entire legal defense. He doesn’t look at me when I’m brought in. Doesn’t look at me when the judge reads the terms of my plea. Doesn’t look at me when she says the words that will define the next decade of my life. “Ten years in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction, with eligibility for parole after seven.” Ten years. The number finally lands. Settles into my chest like a stone. I’m thirty-two years old. I’ll be forty-two when I get out. Maybe older. The judge asks if I have anything to say. I stand. Look at Sean for the first time since I walked into the courtroom. His face is blank, carefully composed, but I see the crack in it—the way his jaw tightens, the way his hands grip the edge of the bench in front of him. “I’m sorry,” I say. Not to the judge. Not to Patrick’s family, sitting on the other side of the aisle with their grief and their rage. To Sean. “I’m sorry this happened. I never meant for any of this.” It’s the truth. It’s also a lie. I’m not sorry I took the blame. I’m not sorry I protected him. I’m only sorry it came to this. The bailiff leads me out through a side door. I don’t look back. They let Sean visit me in the holding cell before transport. Five minutes, supervised, a guard standing just outside the bars like we’re going to make a run for it. Sean looks worse than he did in the courtroom. His eyes are red-rimmed, his hair disheveled like he’s been running his hands through it. He stands on the other side of the bars and doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “Ten years,” he finally says. His voice cracks on the second word. “Could’ve been worse.” “Cameron—” “You promised me.” I step closer to the bars. Close enough to reach through if I wanted to. “You promised you’d wait. You promised you’d visit. You promised you’d be there when I got out.” “I will.” He says it fast, desperate. “I will, I swear—” “You promised we’d have the life we should’ve had from the start.” I wrap my hands around the cold metal. “You promised me, Sean.” “I know.” He’s crying now, tears streaming down his face, and Christ, I want to reach through these bars and pull him close. Want to kiss him. Want to remind him what this is all for. “I know, I promise, I’ll be there, I’ll visit every week, I’ll take every call—” “You better.” I don’t say it like a threat. I say it like a fact. Like gravity. Like something that simply is. “Because I’m doing this for you. For us. You understand that?” “Yes.” “Say it.” “I understand.” His voice is barely a whisper. “I’ll wait for you. I promise.” The guard clears his throat. Time’s up. Sean reaches through the bars. His hand finds mine, fingers lacing together, and for five seconds we just hold on. His skin is warm. His grip is tight. It’s the last time I’ll touch him for years. “I love you,” he says. “I know.” Then the guard steps forward and Sean has to let go. He backs away from the cell, his hand still outstretched like he’s trying to hold onto something that’s already gone. I watch him leave. Watch the door close behind him. Listen to his footsteps fade down the hallway. Then I sit down on the bench and wait for the transport van. Ten years. I can do ten years. As long as Sean keeps his promise. FIVE YEARS LATER The sky is too big. That’s the first thing that hits me when I walk through the gates at Cedar Junction. Not the freedom, not the relief—just the sheer fucking size of the sky. No bars cutting it into sections. No razor wire framing it. Just open blue stretching in every direction like it’s trying to swallow me whole. It’s six in the morning, they do that so they can save on a breakfast. CO McCarthy escorts me to the final gate, his keys jangling against his belt with each step. He’s been working this shift for the entire five years I’ve been here—seen me come in, now he’s seeing me out. “See,” he says, gesturing to the world beyond the chain-link. “It pays to know people.” I stop walking and turn to face him. “McCarthy—shut up. And let’s hope our paths never cross again.” He grins, that same shit-eating grin I’ve seen a thousand times during count. “You sure that’s a bet you wanna make? Recidivism rates in the Commonwealth are staggering. Most of you guys are back within three years.” “If I ever see you again,” I say, stepping through the gate as it buzzes open, “it’ll be too soon.” The gate clangs shut behind me. That sound—metal on metal, final and absolute—should feel different from this side. It doesn’t. The air smells wrong. Clean. No piss, no industrial cleaner, no bodies packed too close together. Just October in Massachusetts—cold and sharp with a hint of something rotting—leaves maybe. I breathe it in and my lungs don’t know what to do with it. The noise is different too. Cars on the highway. Birds. Wind. Inside, sound was contained—echoes in concrete, metal doors slamming, voices bouncing off cinder block. Out here, everything just dissipates into nothing. You never understand how prison fucks with your senses, okay maybe no one says that but it’s true. The sounds, the smells—everything is different out here. I’m thirty-seven years old. I’ve got two hundred dollars in gate money, the clothes I was arrested in that don’t fit right anymore, and a bus ticket to Boston. No one’s here to pick me up. I didn’t expect anyone. Sean stopped visiting three years ago. The calls dried up around the same time. At first it was once a week, then every other week, then once a month. Then nothing. I wrote letters. He didn’t respond. I left messages with his assistant. She stopped taking them. I didn’t understand it at first. Thought maybe he was scared, maybe the guilt was eating him alive, maybe he just needed time to process what we’d done. I made excuses for him the way you make excuses for someone you love when they’re hurting you. Then I heard through Marcus—a guy I knew from the docks who ended up inside on a possession charge—that Sean had met someone. Some guy who looks more like arm candy than a serious boyfriend. Marcus saw it in the Globe‘s society pages. Sean in a tuxedo, arm around a man with dark hair and a smile that probably cost ten grand in orthodontics. The caption called Sean a “rising star in Boston’s financial sector.” Rising star. I sat in my cell and read that photocopied clipping until the words stopped meaning anything. Sean moved on. Built a life. Found someone new. And I was still counting down days in a six-by-eight cell, surviving on the promise he made and then broke without even having the decency to tell me to my face. I had to learn to live by other means, with a will I never knew I possessed. I was a dock worker with no connections and semester of college under my belt. Prison took a lot from me, but it also gave me things—some of which I wouldn’t be able to use until now. The bus to Boston takes forty minutes. I sit in the back and watch the world scroll past the window—strip malls, gas stations, neighborhoods I don’t recognize. Everything looks cleaner than I remember. Newer. Like the whole city got a facelift while I was gone. I get off at South Station and walk to a diner on Summer Street. Order coffee and eggs. The waitress doesn’t look at me twice. I’m just another guy in clothes that don’t fit, trying to figure out what comes next. I pull out my phone—it’s an older model iPhone that was already several years outdated when it was taken away from me after I got locked up. I look Sean up. It takes thirty seconds to find him. Sean Whitmore, Managing Partner at Whitmore Capital Management. The hedge fund he used to work for under Patrick’s connections—he took it over. Grew it. There are articles in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes. Profiles talking about his “aggressive growth strategy” and “innovative portfolio management.” Photos of him at galas, conferences, charity events. He’s worth millions now. Maybe tens of millions. And he’s still with the guy from the Globe clipping. I find their Instagram—private, but the profile picture is both of them on a yacht somewhere tropical. Sean’s smiling. He looks happy. He looks like a man who’s never spent a single night in a cell. I set the phone down. Drink my coffee. Stare at the eggs congealing on the plate. Five years. I gave him five years of my life. Took the blame for a crime he committed. I survived unimaginable degradation and hunger and violence because I believed in the promise he made. Believed we’d have the life we were supposed to have. And Sean used that time to become powerful. To build an empire. To fall in love with someone else. He didn’t just break the promise. He thrived because I kept it. The rage doesn’t hit me like an explosion. It’s colder than that. Sharper. It settles into my chest like a blade sliding between ribs—precise, deliberate, perfectly placed. Sean owes me. And the list of things he owes me is longer than my arm. He owes me everything he built while I was inside. Every dollar, every success, every moment of happiness with his pretty new boyfriend—all of it exists because I took the fall. I pull out a pen. Grab a napkin. Start making a list. First, I need to see him. Not to talk or reconcile—nothing so civilized as that. But to let him know I’m out. To let him see my face and remember the promise he made. To watch the color drain from his cheeks when he realizes I haven’t forgotten. Second, I need to understand his world. His business, his money, his relationship with this new guy. The mechanics of his life. You can’t dismantle something if you don’t know how it’s built, and I plan to understand every bolt and beam. Third—and this is the part that makes me smile for the first time since walking out of Cedar Junction—I need to make him explain himself. I need to hear him try to justify it. Why he abandoned me. Why the promise meant nothing. Why I was so easy to discard. Because five years ago, I made a choice based on nothing more than the fact that I was thinking with my dick. That version of me—young, stupid, desperate to protect the man I thought I loved—is so far behind me now it’s almost laughable. I am not the same Cameron who walked into that courtroom and pled guilty to manslaughter. Prison has a way of clarifying things. Of burning away everything soft until only the bones remains. I finish my coffee. Leave a five-dollar tip—muscle memory from a life I barely remember. Walk out into the bitter, cold October air. The sky’s still too big. But I’m starting to get used to it. Sean still lives in the house. The same house where he killed Patrick and where I, in my infinite fucking wisdom, came up with some half-cocked plan to save him from what he’d done. The house that should’ve been a crime scene but instead became his castle. And there he is. Seeing him in the newspaper clipping was one thing—a photograph, distant and abstract. But seeing him with this guy in real life, in the flesh, standing in the driveway of the house where it all happened? That’s something else entirely. I’m standing across the street, partially hidden behind a row of hedges that line the neighbor’s property. The rage in my chest is damn near palpable, a living thing with teeth and claws. He moved on. He built a whole new life. He abandoned me to rot in a cell while he played house with someone new. And for what? I saved his life. I gave him everything. And this is how he repays me. Sean Whitmore, you and I are going to have a reckoning and it will be beautiful.

## My Best Friend’s Dad — Chapter 1: The Boy Next Door

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/24/my-best-friends-dad/
- Published: 2026-09-24T23:06:57+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

***THIS STORY WILL REMAIN FREE FOR SEVEN DAYS*** Lately when I’m home for breaks or long weekends, my dad just wants to watch television or spend an obscene amount of time doing absolutely nothing. When he was with my mom, he wasn’t like this. He used to be engaged, present, always planning some activity or outing—obsessively so, actually. Every minute of my visits was scheduled down to the second. But the divorce changed something in him. The joys of being a divorcee, I suppose. Now he’s the opposite: sedentary, checked out, content to let entire days dissolve into nothing. I have no idea where this version of him came from, or if he’ll ever snap back to his old self. Either way, being around him is exhausting, so I tend to sneak off to hang out with Duke whenever I can manage it. Duke Martin and I grew up next door to each other and spent a considerable amount of time driving all of our parents insane with our antics. His dad owns a construction engineering firm, so it was no surprise that Duke opted out of impossible student loans and went straight into the family business after high school. It made sense for him—steady work, good money, and no crushing debt hanging over his head. I’m already planning to steal away to Duke’s place before I even walk through the front door. I’ve got my excuse ready, my keys in hand, clothes hamper tucked under my arm, the whole thing mapped out in my head. So imagine my surprise when I reach for the door knob and hear sounds coming from inside. At first, I think nothing of it. Dad’s probably got the TV on, or maybe he’s on a call. But then I hear it again—a moan, unmistakably male, followed by rhythmic thuds against what sounds like furniture. My hand freezes on the knob. I push the door open slowly, my brain struggling to catch up with what my ears are telling me. The sounds get louder. Clearer. There’s no mistaking what I’m hearing now—the wet, deliberate sounds of sex, heavy breathing, and then— “Fuck, yeah—” That’s my dad’s voice. I quietly pull the door shut, set the hamper down, step off the porch and walk around to the side of the house, step up onto an overturned bucket and peer inside the window of the living room. Holy shit. It’s my dad…and Duke. My stomach drops. The bucket wobbles beneath my feet and I have to grip the windowsill to keep from falling. I blink hard, convinced I’m hallucinating, but the image doesn’t change. Duke is on his knees on the couch and my dad is behind him pounding his ass like his life depends on it. “Damn, your hole is tight,” my dad says, his voice rough and strained in a way I’ve never heard before and desperately wish I could unhear. “Fuck, daddy, your dick feels so good!” Duke moans back, loud enough that I’m certain the neighbors can hear. I want to cry and pass away on the spot. He just called my dad daddy. My best friend—my lifelong, grew-up-next-door, I-thought-I-knew-everything-about-him best friend—just moaned the word daddy like it’s something he says regularly, comfortably, enthusiastically. My brain flatlines. There’s a full system failure happening somewhere behind my eyes, every cognitive process grinding to a halt as it tries to reconcile what I’m hearing with everything I thought I knew about both of these people. My fight-or-flight response kicks in immediately—and then just as immediately stalls out, because it can’t decide which option is more survivable. Flight means moving, and my legs have apparently unionized and gone on strike. Fight means doing something I can’t even begin to conceptualize. So instead I’m just standing here, balanced precariously on an overturned bucket outside the living room window, one hand death-gripping the windowsill hard enough to turn my knuckles white, the other pressed flat against the siding like that’s going to do anything useful. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to get down, to run, to put as much distance between myself and this house, this street, this entire zip code as humanly possible—but my body isn’t taking requests right now. The bucket wobbles beneath my feet every few seconds, threatening to send me pitching headfirst into the hedges, and even that isn’t enough to make me move. I just keep standing here. Watching. Horrified. Unable to look away. The word keeps looping in my head, unbidden and merciless. Daddy. Just sitting there, rotating on a spit in the back of my skull like it owns the place. I think I might actually be sick. What the fuck have I just climbed a bucket to see. Honestly, on some level I know I don’t have the right to be this upset—they’re both grown, free, consenting American men, and what they do behind closed doors is technically none of my business. But it’s my dad. And my best friend. Two separate worlds that are supposed to exist on the same plane without ever, under any circumstances, colliding. That’s not me being unreasonable—that’s just the natural order of things. Church and state, people. Church. And. State. And even though every single cell in my body wants to flee, I can’t, because the sounds coming through that window only get more obscene. “Oh, fuck! Daddy! This is your hole!” I actually flinch. That one detonates somewhere between my stomach and my soul, and I feel the bucket shift under me as my whole body recoils. And before I’ve even had time to recover from it, my dad responds—low and certain and completely unhinged— “You love it when I wreck your hole, don’t you?!” “Yessir!” Gag me with a spoon. Or a chair. Or literally anything within arm’s reach. The rhythmic, relentless slap of skin against skin is loud—obscenely, unavoidably loud—and the window is cracked open wide enough that I’m out here getting the full unfiltered experience in real time. Anyone walking past on the sidewalk could hear this. Anyone who happened to glance over from the street could probably see it too, which means the only person dumb enough to be standing at this window on a bucket, voluntarily, is me. And then, somewhere underneath all of that noise, another realization cuts through: since when is my dad gay? Because I genuinely don’t know the answer to that. I have no frame of reference for it. I’m running a full diagnostic on eighteen-plus years of memories and coming up completely empty. There’s no manual for this—no guide, no checklist, no emergency protocol for discovering your father is balls-deep in your best friend. And I can’t even figure out which one of them I’m supposed to be angry at, because I don’t know how any of this started. Duke had no real reason to come over here without me. So how did he end up bent over that couch? I start running through every scenario I can construct—maybe he came by for something innocent and it spiraled, maybe he came over specifically for this, maybe he was doing yard work and my dad caught a glimpse of him without a shirt on and something snapped—but every theory I land on is somehow worse than the last, and none of them give me a single second of peace. My dad’s face is nuzzled into the crook of Duke’s neck, and Duke’s hand is reaching up and back, fingers threading through my dad’s hair, pulling him closer like he can’t get enough. His hips roll back to meet every thrust, matching the rhythm beat for beat, shameless and unhurried, like he’s been doing this long enough to have figured out exactly what he wants. “C’mon, daddy—fuck me! Fuck me harder! Oh—oh—holy fuck!“ He spreads his legs further apart as he says it, and my dad obliges, grip tightening on Duke’s ass like he has every right in the world to be exactly where he is. The sound of skin on skin fills the whole room, bleeds right through the open window and into my skull. And for about two seconds—two long, traitorous, deeply shameful seconds—my brain performs some kind of emergency dissociation where they stop being my dad and my best friend and become just two guys. Two anonymous guys in a video I could close and forget about. A thumbnail I could scroll right past. But the moment passes, because this is not that, and there is no closing this tab. The memory has already lodged itself somewhere deep and permanent, the same way a popcorn kernel lodges in the back of your teeth the moment you realize you’re out of floss—unreachable, irritating, and absolutely not going anywhere no matter how hard you try. I need to put this nightmare to rest. I peel myself away from the window and make my way back around to the front of the house. I find my car, open the door, and slam it shut—hard enough that it echoes down the street—then hit the lock button. The horn beeps twice. Short, sharp, unavoidable. The universal signal for someone is home and accounted for. Immediately, I hear them scramble. I lean against the driver’s side door and study the sky. I’m going to give them a minute. Maybe two. Because as much as I want to walk through that front door right now and burn this entire situation to the ground, I am not—I repeat, not—responsible for anyone pulling a hamstring or rolling an ankle trying to disentangle themselves from whatever position they’re currently in. I’ve already seen enough. The last thing anyone needs is an injury on top of all of this. Once I’m satisfied they’ve had ample time to dismount, disengage, get dressed, or whatever the hell else they need to do to make themselves presentable, I walk up to the door and grab the hamper. As I turn the knob and open the door, I catch Duke in my peripheral vision slipping over the fence and into his house. That wasn’t even remotely obvious you dumb ass. I walk inside and I’m instantly hit with the smell of sweat and musk. Dad is sitting on the couch, and he looks up a full two seconds after I’ve been standing there. Then he feigns excitement to see me. “How’s it going, Pop?” I ask, trying to break the tension, but I’d have better luck bringing down the Hoover Dam with a bottle rocket. “Logan, good to see you,” he says, his voice uncertain, like he’s not quite sure what to do with his hands or where to let his eyes land. “Everything okay?” I ask, studying his face for any tell. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s great,” he says quickly, maybe a little too quickly. “Tell ya what—I’m gonna get dinner started.” “Okay, cool.” The words barely leave my mouth before the door bursts open behind me. I spin around just in time to see Duke filling the doorway, that familiar grin plastered across his face. “Duke!!” “Logan! My man, I thought I saw your car pull up.” The greeting sounds normal enough, friendly even, but my mind immediately flashes back to what I witnessed just minutes ago. How could you have seen anything? I think bitterly. You were too busy getting pounded by my dad’s cock. Dad clears his throat from the couch like a man who has just remembered he has legs. “I’m gonna—” he starts, then stops, then starts again. “I’m gonna hop in the shower before I get dinner going.” He says it with the practiced casualness of someone who has been rehearsing it since they heard the horn beep. He doesn’t look at either of us on his way out of the room. His footsteps disappear down the hallway, and then I hear the bathroom door click shut, followed almost immediately by the sound of the shower running. He turned it on fast. Real fast. And then it’s just Duke and me. The silence between us is spectacular. It has texture and weight and an uncomfortable warmth to it, and I let it sit there for a beat longer than I probably should, just to see what Duke does with it. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, glances toward the hallway like he’s checking that my dad is really gone, then runs a hand through his hair and lands that familiar grin back on his face. A little wider than usual. A little too deliberate. “So,” he says. “How’s school?” How’s school. He really opened with how’s school. “Fine,” I say. “Yeah? Classes going good?” “Yep.” He nods. Rocks back on his heels. His eyes flick to the couch and then immediately flick away, which I clock with the kind of precision that comes from having just watched what I watched. I cross my arms and lean against the wall, keeping my expression neutral, which is genuinely the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. “You eat yet?” he tries. “Sounds like your dad’s making dinner, so—” “I’m good.” He nods again. The silence fills back in around us. Somewhere down the hall, the shower hisses steadily against the tile, and I find myself acutely, almost pathologically aware of the couch in my peripheral vision. I am not going to look at that couch. I refuse to look at that couch. I have looked at that couch for the last time. “It’s good to see you, man,” Duke says, and I can hear the sincerity underneath the nerves, which somehow makes this worse. “Feels like it’s been a minute.” “Mm.” He exhales through his nose. A short, quiet breath that’s almost a laugh but doesn’t quite get there. “You good?” I turn and look at him directly for the first time since he walked through the door. He holds my gaze for exactly three seconds before something flickers behind his eyes and he glances down at the floor. “I’m great, Duke,” I say evenly. “Really. Never better.” He opens his mouth, closes it again. Nods slowly, like he’s weighing something, deciding something. The shower is still running. Neither of us moves. Part of me wonders if he knows I know. Duke was never really the best liar, and I have always had a finely tuned bullshit detector. “Can you give me ten minutes? I need to go downstairs and start a load of laundry.” “Didn’t you just get here?” he asks. And I feel embarrassed to even have to make the admission. “Well, I figured it’d be easier if I just brought the dirty clothes hamper with me rather than pack clean clothes.” He looks at me with the expression I expect—a mixture of amusement and disbelief. Before I left, it seemed like a bright idea. Bring dirty clothes, leave with clean clothes, and I’ve saved time on packing on the front end. Now, standing here under his scrutiny, I realize how ridiculous it sounds. “Sure,” he says with a grin on his face. I lug the hamper down to the basement, the plastic handles digging into my palms with each step. As I start sorting the laundry, I hear the shower turn off upstairs. A moment after that, I hear voices—low and muffled, but definitely there. And I don’t think Dad ever realized that I used to eavesdrop on him and my mom’s arguments using the laundry chute that led from the bathroom. Old habits die hard. I grab a step ladder, open the hatch, and place my entire head inside the chute. It’s Dad and Duke. “I thought you said he wasn’t coming until later,” Duke says, his voice carrying down through the metal tunnel. “Well, I guess he got in a little earlier,” my dad replies. “So now what?” “He’s only here for the weekend.” “Kevin—I’m so fucking horny,” Duke says, almost in a whisper, but from the acoustics of the chute he might as well be yelling. He’s mad because he wants to fuck my dad. How gross. “Don’t worry—when he leaves I’m gonna fuck your brains out all over this place,” Dad says, and I can hear the promise in his voice. Ew. I want to vomit. “Even in his bed again?” My bed again? What the fuck? “Especially in his bed.” I really am going to vomit. What kind of sick bastard fucks his little boy toy in his son’s bed? I mean, objectively it sounds hot, but still. Gross. And it’s my bed. I pull my head out of the chute and close the hatch as quietly as possible, my heart pounding. I load the clothes inside the washer and start the machine, letting the sound of rushing water ground me. When I get to the stairs, I make a show of climbing them heavily so they have time to get back in position. By the time I get back upstairs, Duke is back on the couch like he never moved, and my dad is nowhere in sight. Probably in his room jerking off to the fact that he didn’t get a chance to cum inside his boy toy. Duke gets to his feet, stretching like he’s thinking about other things—or maybe trying not to think about them. “Well, I better be heading out,” he says. “Wanna hang tomorrow?” I watch him for a moment, studying the way he won’t quite meet my eyes. “Yeah, sure, why not. I’ll probably go over to my Mom’s place for a bit this evening,” I say. “But I’ll be back tomorrow before noon.” The lie slides out smooth as oil. Tomorrow before noon—that’s what I want him to believe. That’s what I want both of them to believe. In reality, I’m planning to head to my mom’s, kill a few hours, and slip back here around ten when the house is dark and quiet. I need to know what this thing is. And if I’m being honest with myself, I need to see it again. I need to understand what the hell is happening in my own house. “Yeah?” he says, a tinge of excitement in his voice that he can’t quite hide. “Yeah, well,” I say, “she’ll lay into me if I don’t make time for her.” “Well, if you wanna hang with your mom tomorrow, we can hang another day,” he offers, too quickly. But I already have an idea. Why not? “Are you sure, dude?” I ask, totally disingenuous but he doesn’t know that. “I hate to be a flake.” “No, man, I get it.” “That’s why you’re my best friend,” I say, watching his reaction carefully. I watch something dislodge from his throat only to get stuck a few inches down—guilt, maybe, or shame. “Right,” he says. He seems riddled with guilt, and I have no interest in alleviating it. He lingers for another beat—the way people do when they’re hoping something will unspool and make leaving feel less loaded—and then, when it doesn’t, he bends to grab his keys off the end table. I don’t remember him setting them there. I file that away. “Aight,” he says, jingling them once. “I’ll text you.” “Sounds good.” He moves toward the door with the careful, measured ease of someone trying very hard to look unhurried, and I follow him just far enough to lean in the doorway. He throws a hand up as he cuts across the front yard, not quite a wave—more of a vague gesture in my general direction—and I watch him disappear around the hedge that divides our properties without looking back once. The door swings shut. I stand in the silence for a moment, cataloguing it. The shower stopped running a while ago. I clock the soft sound of a drawer opening and closing down the hall, the muffled drag of fabric, the particular quiet of someone taking their time. When my dad finally appears, he’s freshly showered, hair still damp at the edges, wearing a clean shirt I don’t think I’ve seen before. He surveys the living room with an expression that is working extremely hard to look neutral. “Duke head out?” he asks. He asks it lightly, the way you’d ask about the weather. “Yeah, just now.” “Hm.” He moves to the kitchen, opens the refrigerator, closes it without taking anything out. Then he opens a cabinet. Then closes that too. “I thought we’d all have dinner.” “He’s got stuff to do,” I say. “Sure, sure.” He nods, pulling a hand across the back of his neck. There’s something in the set of his shoulders—a particular, almost imperceptible drop—that he recovers from quickly, but not quickly enough. I’ve known this man my entire life. I know what his face does when he’s disappointed. “Dad.” “Hm?” “He lives next door.” A pause. He turns from the counter and looks at me, and for just a second, I see him calculating exactly how much I mean by that. “I know that, Logan.” “Just saying,” I say. “It’s not like you’re never gonna see him again.” He holds my gaze for a moment, then lets out a short breath that isn’t quite a laugh and turns back to the counter. “You want pasta?” he asks. “Sure,” I say. And neither of us says anything else about it. It’s close to ten by the time I pull back into the driveway. I sneak inside and look around to make sure they’re not in the living room—the way you move in a house you’ve lived in long enough to know where every creak is. One lamp on in the living room. The rest of the house dark. Completely normal. And then I hear it. My bedroom. Unmistakably my bedroom. The sounds coming through the partially closed door are not subtle. The creak of my bed frame—the specific, rhythmic creak of my bed frame, the one I have slept in since middle school—and underneath that, voices. Not talking. Not anywhere close to talking. Duke’s voice, low and broken at the edges, and my dad’s, and the two of them together in a combination that I have now had the profound misfortune of becoming intimately familiar with. In my room. In my bed. I stand in the hallway and stare at the thin strip of light under my door and absorb this information at whatever pace my brain is willing to accept it, which is not a fast one. A few hours. I was gone a few hours. That’s all. I went to my mom’s, I came back, and in that time the two of them apparently surveyed the entire house, looked at every available option, and chose my room. My bed. My four walls. They are in there right now, doing exactly what I already watched them do once today, except this time they’re doing it in the one space in this house that was supposed to be mine. I peek through the barely closed door, my heart hammering against my ribs, and everything I fear to be true comes crashing down on me like a sack of bricks. “Ah—ah—ah—fuck!” The breathless moans pierce through the narrow opening, each sound confirming my worst suspicions. “Mmhm, baby, you feel so good,” my dad says, his voice thick with pleasure. Duke exhales—long and shaky and thoroughly undone—and even through a cracked door and what is left of my sanity, I catch the low, rhythmic sound of my headboard doing what headboards were never meant to do in this context. “Right there,” Duke breathes. “Don’t stop—don’t stop—” And the thing is, I believe him. That’s the part that’s actively killing me. There is no fumbling, no uncertain negotiation of limbs or angles. It’s fluid. Practiced. There is a choreography to what I’m hearing that no amount of beginner’s luck could account for. The bed creaks in a slow, deliberate rhythm, and Duke makes a sound that I am going to need to forget by morning if I intend to function as a person. “Harder.” My dad obliges. The headboard finds the wall. I close my eyes. It does not help—it never helps—but I close them anyway and press myself flat against the hallway wall like I can somehow physically distance myself from the sounds even though they are right there, right on the other side of a door that is barely even closed, carrying through the gap with a casual indifference to my suffering. “Fuck, daddy—” There it is again. That word. Right in my chest, like a thumbtack. Duke says something else then, quieter, and my dad laughs—low and warm and completely at ease—and somehow that is the sound I wasn’t prepared for. Not the moaning, not the headboard, not any of it. The laugh. Easy and intimate, like this is just a thing they do, like it’s as natural as anything. Because apparently, it is. The rhythm picks up. There is nothing subtle about it anymore—not that there ever was, but whatever thin pretense of restraint existed in the earlier minutes has clearly been abandoned, because my dad is going for it in a way that I am horrified to find myself registering as athletic. The headboard hits the wall again. And again. A steady, punishing tempo that my childhood bedroom was not architecturally consulted about. “Yeah—yeah—just like that—” Duke’s voice is wrecked. Gravelly and high all at once in a way that shouldn’t even be physically possible, and yet here we both are. “You take it so good,” my dad says, and I actually have to bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound, because that is my father’s voice saying those words in that register, and there is not a single framework I have ever built for this moment. The bed is really going now. A full, aggressive creak-and-slam that I know, with absolute certainty, is going to replay behind my eyes every single time I sleep in that room for the rest of my natural life. The mattress springs—springs I have had since middle school, springs that have survived sleepovers and bad dreams and one ill-advised attempt at a backflip—are getting the workout of their lives. “Deeper,” Duke says. Blunt. Direct. Like a work order. My dad doesn’t respond verbally. The headboard answers for him. “Shit—” Duke’s exhale is sharp, punched out of him, and then dissolves into something lower, more continuous, a sound that is frankly too honest for me to be overhearing. I press the back of my head against the wall and stare at the ceiling and have a genuine out-of-body experience. They’re sweating. I can’t see them—I refuse to look, I have already seen enough today to fill a calendar—but I can hear it, somehow, in the wet-slap percussion of skin on skin that is mixing with the headboard and Duke’s breathing and my dad’s occasional low grunt into something that my brain is classifying as a full sensory crime. “Don’t stop,” Duke says again, though it comes out broken this time, not a command so much as a plea, all the composure drained out of it. “Fuck! Don’t stop—” “Shit—this feels—” my dad says, like a promise. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world. And I believe him again. That’s the problem. I keep believing him, because nothing about what I’m hearing sounds like a man who has any intention of stopping. He sounds loose and certain and entirely at home, which—I realize, slowly, with the particular horror of a fact assembling itself in real time—is because he is. This is his house. That is his bed, technically, in the sense that he is the one paying the mortgage. And Duke, apparently, has decided that makes it a perfectly reasonable place to— The headboard cracks against the wall hard enough that I hear something shift on my bookshelf. I have trophies on that bookshelf. “Fuck yes—right there—right there—right there—“ Duke’s voice climbs and my dad makes a sound that is low and rough and deeply satisfied, and they keep going, they just keep going, with the easy relentlessness of two people who have done this enough times that they don’t need to pace themselves or negotiate. It’s shameless. The whole thing is completely, comprehensively shameless, conducted at full volume in my bed. I slide down the wall, just slightly, until I’m half-crouched in the hallway with my keys still in my hand, unable to leave and unable to stay and somehow doing both. The bed keeps going. So do they. And yet I don’t move. That’s the part I can’t explain and refuse to examine too closely, because the only honest answer is one I’m not ready to sit with. I don’t move. I don’t push off the wall, I don’t retrace my steps to the front door, I don’t do any of the twelve rational things available to me. Instead I straighten up, just slightly, and angle my head toward the gap in the door, and I look. I look. I don’t know what I was expecting. Something I could dismiss, maybe. Something clumsy or awkward or at least slightly less confident than what I’m hearing. What I get instead is the exact opposite of that. My dad has Duke face-down in the mattress. Duke’s arms are braced against the headboard—my headboard, the one with the little dent from where I caught it with a baseball bat in seventh grade, that headboard—and his back is arched in a way that makes the whole scene look deliberate, almost structured, like they’ve established preferences and are executing them efficiently. My dad is behind him, one hand pressed flat between Duke’s shoulder blades, the other gripping the back of his neck, and he is not slowing down. He is not even close to slowing down. “That’s it,” my dad says, low and airless. “Just like that.” Duke makes a sound into my pillow that is muffled but unmistakably filthy—a bitten-off groan that he turns his face sideways to release, and even that small movement looks practiced, like he knows exactly what angle to use, like he’s done this in this room enough times to have a preferred method. I think I’m going to pass out. I don’t pass out. My body has apparently decided that consciousness is the punishment, and it is committed to the bit. The sheet is nearly off the bed. I can see that much from here. It’s bunched somewhere at the foot of the mattress and neither of them cares, and I care—I care an unreasonable amount about the sheet, because it gives my brain something benign to be angry about while the rest of the scene continues to unspool in front of me in full, high-definition, unasked-for detail. Duke shifts, repositioning his knees, and the new angle must do something significant because he exhales like he’s just been winded—a hard, involuntary sound—and my dad’s grip on his neck tightens. “There it is,” my dad says. “Yeah,” Duke breathes. “Yeah, right there—don’t—” “Fuck!” The slap of skin is louder now, more emphatic, and the headboard’s rhythm has escalated past anything the wall should reasonably be tolerating. I can hear Duke’s breath catching in sync with it, sharp and shallow and completely undone, and I realize with a fresh wave of horror that this is a sound I will now permanently associate with my best friend. Duke Martin, who I have known since we were eight years old, who once helped me bury a dead bird in the backyard with full military honors. I will hear this sound every time I see him for the rest of my life. “Harder,” Duke says, and the word is rough, scrubbed clean of anything resembling embarrassment. My dad obliges. Immediately. Without negotiation. I watch my dad’s hand slide from Duke’s neck down to the base of his spine, pressing there, adjusting the angle, and Duke’s response to that is a string of muffled profanity into the pillow that I can’t fully make out but don’t need to. The message is clear. The message is aggressively, comprehensively clear. I should leave. I am completely aware that I should leave. I have been aware of this for the better part of several minutes and I haven’t moved so much as an inch, which is information about myself that I am going to need to shelve indefinitely and never retrieve. Duke’s fingers curl against the headboard, knuckles white, and he turns his face again just far enough that I can see his jaw, his throat, the tension in the line of his neck—and he says my dad’s name, not daddy this time, just his actual name, just Kevin, like the word got away from him, like something knocked it loose. My dad makes a sound at that. Deep and quiet and entirely private, the kind of sound that was never meant to travel past the walls of a room, let alone past a half-open door into the hallway where his son is standing with his keys still in his fist and every rational thought he’s ever had lined up neatly on the floor around him. I don’t leave. The bed keeps going. I keep watching. “Fuck daddy, I’m gonna cum,” Duke’s voice carries through the door. “Damn, I’m getting close too,” my dad groans in response. And that’s my cue to leave. My heart hammering in my chest, I sneak back down the hall as quietly as I can, slipping outside and making my way back to my car. The cool evening air hits my flushed face as I slide into the driver’s seat. I start the engine, back the car out of the driveway, and park it a few houses down from mine. I sit there, the engine’s thrum vibrating through my hands, trying to steel myself for the conversation ahead. But then another idea strikes me. I could knock on the door right now—just to watch them both scramble. They can have their sex, but I’ll ruin the moment. I could tell them they aren’t fooling anyone. Or I could just make it up as I go, see what comes out of my mouth when I’m standing face to face with them. Well, here goes nothing. I shut off the engine and walk up to the house. My legs feel shaky as I step onto the porch and press the doorbell. I hear footfalls moving toward the door, then the click of the lock, and then the door swings open. “Hey,” the man says, slightly breathless. The hallway behind him is dark. The porch light catches only the edge of his silhouette—broad shoulders, the general shape of someone tall, someone solid. His face is mostly shadow, lit in a way that makes it impossible to read his expression clearly. All I can really make out is the suggestion of features, the vague impression of someone I should recognize. His voice is familiar enough. Deep. The kind of voice that carries weight. He’s breathing a little hard, like he was doing something before I interrupted, and for a second my brain tries to catalog whether that’s normal or not, but I’m too tired to care. “Hey Mr. Martin,” I finally manage. “You wanna hang out?” I wrote this story and there are currently three chapters but I’m releasing the first chapter as a stand alone project. If enough interest is generated, I’ll consider releasing the other chapters and making this a series.

## Relicbound | Teaser

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/13/relicbound-teaser/
- Published: 2026-09-13T15:28:34+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

_Watch the Teaser | Subscribe Now!_

Darius may have gained the upper hand, but Miles is determined to make up for lost
time—in more ways than one. Their globe-trotting, ass-pounding adventure heats up
as Miles tracks down Darius in a race to claim the Amulet of Osiris.

## The Last Temptation of Dallas DeLong | Teaser

- Link: https://mkarsenault.com/2026/09/12/the-last-temptation-of-dallas-delong-teaser/
- Published: 2026-09-12T06:04:41+00:00
- Author: M.K. Arsenault

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Dallas McGarrett—formerly known as porn star Dallas DeLong—hung up his jock, married
the man he loved, and settled into suburbia. But when bad fortune threatens the 
comfortable life he’s built, Dallas returns to the one thing he knows can make him
a quick buck: porn.

He tells himself it’s temporary. He tells his husband nothing.

With bills piling up and his husband growing suspicious, Dallas struggles to keep
his comeback a secret. But saving their comfortable life may cost him the man he
built it with.

Subscribe now and don’t miss a single chapter when it drops later this winter!

_The Last Temptation of Dallas DeLong premieres this winter! _