Kissing different guys was one of the best parts about being in porn. I loved kissing, and everyone did it a little differently. Sometimes fucking got to be redundant, especially if it was the sixth shoot I was doing in a weekend and I just didn't have it in me to be sexy and amazing anymore. But kissing was different; it told me so much about a guy's personality when I was being kissed by him. If he was rough and forceful with me, I knew what I would be in for. Soft and playful, and I'd probably get to top him.
I was happily vers, and I made more because of that since I could be cast in pretty much any movie that required a good-looking, athletic, thirty-something white guy. I was currently saving up to expand the tattoo on my back. Right now, it was just around my shoulders, but by the end of the summer I wanted something beautiful and intricate that wound down my spine and touched my ass. Some guys used their money for cars or huge televisions. I had a car and I was rarely home enough to watch TV. What I liked were my tattoos.
All except for one, that was. The one a fae had given me when I'd blown him off as a teenager after he'd asked me, quite simply, for directions to the nearest homeless shelter. And now I had to go through life with my secrets and inner thoughts spilled out over my skin. I was called a monster often enough from the things I thought about. It was a pain in the ass more than anything, to be exposed like that for all the world to see. The fae had wanted to let everyone else know how ugly I was on the inside, and he'd succeeded. Now just to work I had to slather globs of makeup over my neck to cover up that tattoo. I couldn’t wear it all the time, since it irritated my skin to wear it for more than the few hours it took to do a scene or two, but it was vital for me to be able to work.
The guy kissing me was so sweet I might have thought he was a virgin if I hadn't done a shoot with him the day before. There was something tentative and honest about him as if he were laying it all out there for me. It could have been an act, and sometimes it was, but people who could lie to me when they kissed were few and far between in my experience. It took real guts and commitment to do that, and very few people had that going for them.
Randy, the guy currently reaching his hand inside my shorts to grab my cock. I was hard. It was porn. I was supposed to be. He was too. It didn't mean much. But I acted like it did as I took the lead and started controlling the kiss. His hand tightened on my shaft as I held the back of his head to kiss him deeper and let him silently know that I was going to be taking over here. He didn't have to worry about looking good while he organized us into the right positions for the camera. He just had to act like he was enjoying being fucked by me. Randy, if that was his name, was a natural at that. He could plaster a smile on and not let it slip until two hours later when he was done. He'd told me his real name once, in passing, but I'd forgotten it. Most of us didn’t use our real names, or at least not our whole names. I still went by Randy, but that was because I didn't give a shit what anyone else thought. I didn't have some family at home waiting for me to come back that I wanted to give some privacy to like a lot of these guys did.
When Randy was ready for me to go into him—after I'd put on the lubed condom, of course—he grabbed my hip and pulled me closer. I liked that about him.
He was decent at fucking. Maybe he was better when there weren't cameras on him and he wasn't getting paid to do a scene with a veritable stranger. But he moaned when he was supposed to, and I came over his stomach when we were done. He smiled at me, played with my come for a little while as the cameras kept going, but as soon as we got the all-clear signal, he was off the bed and grabbing a bottle of water.
I went over to join him because I was thirsty too. He wasn't a bad guy and he certainly wasn't rude like a lot of the guys in the business could be, but I didn't exactly want to spend more time with him and he didn't seem that interested in me either. That was fine.
"Your neck says that you're tired. So, I guess it is true what they say about you. What you're feeling really does show up on your skin."
"It's true," I confirmed. "It's a curse. Makes me a beast." I shrugged and pretended, as I always did, that having my secrets exposed in such a manner wasn't the absolute worst thing that I could ever imagine happening to someone.
"Are you going to the holiday vacation next week?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I'm doing the Country Boys shoot in Montana."
He gave me a long look, from my head down to my still-naked thighs, before he met my gaze again. "I would have never guessed that you grew up as a farm boy." He'd said it with a smirk, like he thought I was joking.
I knew why he'd think that. I had over a dozen tattoos, and I'd pierced plenty of parts of me at one time or another. I'd kept some of the piercings and grown out of others. My nipples and my ears were still pierced, but it had been a long time since I'd had anything pierced below the waist.
"Yeah, that was a long time ago. My family has a horse farm there."
Tim nodded and sipped his water. Soon he found something more interesting than me or my past to focus on, and I moved on as well to get in the shower. I was done for the day, so I could have just gone home smelling like sex and sweat, but I preferred not to take my work home with me. I wasn't ashamed of it in the least. I loved my life and everything I was able to do and afford to have because of it. But I also smelled like I'd been with a dozen different guys since eight that morning, which I had since we'd done a lot of threesome and more scenes, and I was ready to get back to smelling like myself for a while. Showering in between the scenes helped some, but not nearly enough when I could still smell Paul's way-too-thick cologne on my arms from four hours before. He really had to tone it down on that shit.
I came out of the shower to pass by someone waiting to go in. I put on fresh clothes, my own that were just a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and I headed out the front door.
"See you next week, Jamie," the producer, Albert, called to me from the kitchen where he was talking with one of the other guys and eating some mini corn dogs. He loved his junk food, and I wanted some too, but he didn't have to look good naked on camera.
"Yep," I said to him. I gave him a wave as I left the studio—a converted warehouse—and headed to my Jeep. She was the best thing about being in porn. The tattoos and getting to have sex all the time with generally good-looking, and sometimes nice, people was definitely a bonus. But before I'd left the farm I would have never dreamed of being able to walk into a dealership, pick out a forty-thousand-dollar vehicle like this, and pay cash for her. Saving up that much money hadn't been easy, but it had been so worth it.
I had every bit of luxury possible and I could still go off-roading. It wasn't even below forty degrees out, but I still blasted the heated seats and sank blissfully into the leather with a sigh.
The one indulgence I allowed myself was Thai food, and I grabbed it on the way home. I was off work until I had to be in Montana to start shooting on Monday. That gave me four days off, but I had to subtract the one I'd spend driving there. Most of the guys were flying, and if I'd wanted to fly with them then my ticket would have been covered. But unlike them, I liked driving, and I wouldn't mind the little more than eight hours it would take me to get from Denver to Billings. My family's farm was only a short drive away from Billings in Joliet, but I had no reason to go back there. I hadn't been welcome anywhere near my family since I was eighteen.
I slipped out of my shirt and shoes as I got in the front door of my condo. It was just me, so I didn't mind the little bit of a mess I'd made. Some of the guys I worked with had boyfriends. Sometimes they even came to the shoots to make absolutely sure there was nothing going on beyond sex. Maybe they were afraid we were hanging out and falling in love with each other, which would have been bullshit. I was friendly with some of the guys and I could fake it with the others, but we certainly didn't all get together and drink beer and have BBQs on my patio or anything like that.
Going back to Montana shouldn't have filled me with anxiety like it did. And that unwelcome tightening in my gut was a completely new experience for me. I hadn't been anything but generally happy since I'd left Montana when I was eighteen, even with the complications that came with having my tattoo, and I really didn't want to go back. But the photo shoot was a great promo opportunity for me, and in my contract it said that I had to do at least two of photo ops each year, along with at least six events. It was almost the end of the year and I’d been slacking so far. I had to go back to Montana. I didn't have a choice about that, but there was no reason for me to go anywhere near Joliet, or my family's farm.
Yet, I did miss it. Windsong had been more than my home. It had been my place of peace and comfort for the first eighteen years of my life, and as hard as I'd tried, I'd never found another place that made me feel that content with myself. But thinking about my home at Windsong came with a whole shit-load of complications too, none of them I really had the energy, or the time, to deal with right then.
*~*~*
I was supposed to check in with Albert as soon as I got into Montana, but I decided to get some breakfast first. After a completely loaded omelet to warm my stomach, it was still a few hours before he expected any of us to show up at the house he'd rented.
I stood in the diner's parking lot looking out at the city I'd known for the first eighteen years of my life, and I tried not to feel a bit sick about being back in the state I'd once called home and swore I'd never move from. I wouldn't have either, if my fucked-up family hadn't gone and turned on me. I had been just a kid and they'd been like animals. Thinking about it now, even after more than ten years, still made me angry. It shouldn't have. I'd gone through therapy to come to grips with what my homophobic family had done. I'd made good progress too. But all of that work apparently didn't matter at all now that I was back here in the last place I ever wanted to be. No, I took that back: Montana was the second-to-last place I wanted to be. Windsong was the place I'd never go to again. I hated everyone there and my memories of it. Especially from the last few months I'd lived there.
Even as much as I hated Windsong and everything it represented to me, I knew it would always be my home. Despite the piercings, the tattoos, and my condo in the city, I was a country boy at heart, and that pull was impossible to ignore. That was why, ten minutes later, I was in Joliet and driving past the high wooden arch with 'Windsong' dangling from it. I'd helped hang that sign with my dad when I'd been thirteen.
I pulled my Jeep over to the side of the dirt road and rolled my window down so that I could look out over the pastures where the paint horses grazed. There were a dozen pastures, plus two barns, a round pen, and an arena. At full capacity, Windsong could be home to nearly a hundred horses. I'd never seen it that full though, and now I did a quick count and saw that there were probably only thirty or so horses there. It was still plenty, especially with half of those being new foals who huddled tightly against their mother's sides.
I wondered who my father had as his stallion now. It wouldn't have been a horse I'd known growing up since that had been too long ago, but maybe it was a descendant of one of the horses I'd ridden and loved as a child. I could barely remember them now after so many years of blocking out those memories, but sitting there in my Jeep and seeing them all in the pastures, it was starting to come back to me. How free I'd felt galloping around bareback with only a pair of lead ropes attached to the horse's halter as my reins with my best friend Tom right there beside me. We were fearless and free back then, back before everything had changed for us.
Before anyone could notice me, and come out to kick me off the property, I started up the Jeep again and headed back to the hotel to meet up with Albert and let him know that I'd made it safely to Montana. I checked my neck in the mirror. My tattoo called me a coward.
*~*~*
I got to the hotel, planning to have to search for Albert to let him know I'd made it up to Montana just fine on my own, but I found him after only about a minute. He was talking to some cute blond guy by the bar, and Albert's cheeks were tinted pink so I knew he'd been drinking a bit already. I wasn't surprised, and I didn't really care either. He was an adult; he could do what he wanted in his own time. As long as his drinking didn't mess up my career, it wasn't a problem for me.
"Hey," I said, coming over and dropping my bag down at the base of his stool. I was interrupting him talking to the blond guy.
He clapped me on my back and kissed me on my cheek. It was a sure sign that he was a lot more drunk than I'd originally anticipated. I laughed it off, but I didn't push him away.
Albert introduced me to the guy he was talking to. "Brady, this is Jamie. Brady is interested in doing a few scenes while we're all in town this weekend."
I looked the guy over. He was cute and had a look I was sure the guys would love. It was easy for me to see why Albert had probably come up to this guy first and talked him into trying things out. Brady was probably a little taller than my own six feet, but not by much. He was thinner than me, which wasn't a bad thing. A lot of guys liked a skinny guy over a muscular one like me. And from what I could see of him, he didn't have any tattoos. He was a perfectly nice-looking guy for a boy-next-door type of role. I knew in an instant that I'd like to be in a scene with him. He looked like he'd be fun to work with sometime soon.
"What do you like?" I asked him.
Brady gave me a sultry little smile that hinted at plenty that we could do together once the cameras were on us. "Anything, as long as I'm on top."
That surprised me, because he didn't look like a stereotypical top like a lot of the guys I worked with did, but that was fine by me. "Sure thing. Albert, whenever you want to set it up, I'm game."
Albert laughed and kissed me on my cheek again. I didn't react.
"I'm going to go up to my room," I told him as I started to back away. "Nice meeting you," I told Brady.
"You too." He smiled at me again, and then he was back to paying more attention to Albert than to me.
I went up to my room and smiled at the sounds of people having sex in the room beside mine. It was two guys, I knew, because of the low moans I could clearly hear coming through the thin walls. Whatever worked for them was cool, but that wasn't my style at all.
I hadn't had sex without the cameras being on me in years. I didn't see a point in it. Sure, porn was just naked, sweaty acting, but I still got off and I still had a lot of fun while I was doing it. Usually, at least. Why have sex with someone when I wasn't getting paid for it? Maybe that made me like a whore, but at least my career paid me very well.
Maybe things would have been different if I weren't as popular as I was. Maybe then I would have been more likely to take guys up on their blatant offers, even the ones who also worked with Albert. Some guys liked to try each other out before the cameras were on them so that they could get out any rough patches and awkwardness and make the scene look good right from the start.
But I wasn't like that. I had been when I'd first started though. Back when I'd thought I had to get on my knees and suck some guy's cock just to get him to notice me in this business. But that wasn't the case now. After years of doing this, I knew that if I wanted to try something new, or if I wanted to do more scenes, or if I saw a guy at the company that I wanted to be with, then all I had to do was shoot a text over to Albert and he'd made it happen. I'd been spanked, tied up, double teamed, and fisted all because I'd wanted to try new things out—and I'd gotten to do them all on camera and been paid ridiculous amounts for getting to explore my fantasies. I wasn't sure why more people didn't get into this career. I hadn't seen a downside to it yet.
Albert came to my door about half an hour later. I'd changed, and showered, and was watching TV. There was some cop show on. I'd forgotten how boring local TV was in Montana.
"Hey," I said, letting him in.
"So… I was thinking," he started. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like this new idea of his one bit. "Didn't you grow up near here?" Yep, I already hated it. I didn't like talking about my family, and that definitely included where I'd grown up.
At least he'd brought me a six pack. Maybe as a peace offering for whatever he was going to ask me that I was going to hate. I took one of the beers, and we sat down at the little table against the window. "Yeah. About twenty minutes away."
"Cows or horses?" Apparently, we were jumping right in.
I sipped my beer. "Horses. Paints."
"Are you still close with them?" he asked.
Shaking my head, I tried to figure out just how to tell Albert how very not close to my family I was. "If they were on fire, I'd probably add more kerosene to them and sit back with a smile."
He cringed, and I shrugged. I wasn't going to be pretty about how much I did not like the people who had kicked me out of their lives so easily. "Did they abuse you?"
"No. Just hated me because I'm gay." And because my tattoo told them all exactly what I thought of them.
His expression brightened considerably at that little revelation, and I had no idea what he was up to. "Maybe it's time to go back and see how they feel about you now. I bet they've changed."
I put my beer down with a thud against the table. "What do you really want?" I asked him. Albert didn't care about our personal lives at all, not unless they started being a problem for him while he was filming. If we came in bitching about some recent break up, or if our boyfriends came onto the set and started throwing a fit, then we were gone. It was that simple, and I loved that about his company. There was no drama because we all knew the score, and my life was far easier, and simpler, because of that.
"Fans want to know where their favorite stars come from. Their back stories, their first loves, what they did when they were eighteen and barely legal and these guys couldn't have had a chance with them in a million years."
I snorted. "But probably for a million bucks." Easily. I remembered being eighteen. I would have readily sold my soul for that kind of financial security. "Okay. So what are you thinking? An interview? A magazine article?"
Albert shook his head. "I don't think that'll be enough. Not this time. Let's go bigger. Better. I want pictures of you on your family's farm doing the things you normally would have done back when you lived there. Let's pretend you went home, they loved you, and then you went right back to work. Cowboy hat on, dirty jeans, scuffed boots. No shirt, of course."
"Of course," I replied sarcastically. With a sigh, I leaned over the table toward him. His idea was good and it had merit… just not for me. Any of the other guys, sure. But I couldn't go home. it wasn't nearly as easy as he wanted to make it out to be. And I hated disappointing him. "Albert… Look. I can't. I just can't. That's not how my family is. It's a good idea, but not for me. I'm sure some of the other guys here have a farm or something we can all go take pictures on for you. That would be so much better than me being back at Windsong."
"Is that the name of the farm?"
I nodded.
"It even sounds beautiful. Jamie, you're doing this. I don't care what you have to do to make it happen, but this shoot has to take place and it has to be at the farm. Do it. I know what it means to you to go back there, and this is important."
I shook my head. I couldn't. "Albert…" I wanted to argue with him, but when he stared at me like he was I pretty much knew it was over. I'd been a homeless kid, and I would have been suffering on the streets if it wasn't for him and everything he'd done with me. I felt like I owed him this. I gave it up with a sigh. "Sure. Whatever. Fine."
"I knew you'd see how good this idea was. Text me when you have a time. We'll only need about four hours." He looked practically giddy as he got up and started heading back to the door.
"Yeah. Yeah. Leave the beer." I was going to need those drinks before I went back to the farm. He laughed and put them in the fridge in the room for me. I sat back to think about what I was going to do. I'd be doing it tomorrow though. There was no way that I'd be going back to Windsong today. I needed at least a day to wrap my head around talking to my family again. And, for starters, I had no idea what I was even going to say to them to begin with.
*~*~*
I was at Windsong by eight the next morning. I'd been up since three, and had spent a good deal of time in the hotel's twenty-four-hour hot tub while I'd been trying to get my head on straight and think happy thoughts and all that other bullshit. But there were no good thoughts in coming back home. That country song about always being able to go back home no matter what? Yeah, that was crap. At least it was for me.
I sat there in my Jeep for a while, just listening to my radio and coming up with a hundred reasons why this was the stupidest idea I'd ever had. Well, maybe never ever. That was probably stretching it some. But I hadn't been this stupid in a long, long time.
Eventually, I had to get out of my vehicle. Not because I wanted to or anything like that. But just for the simple fact that eventually someone would notice me parked there across the street from the farm and, knowing my family as well as I did, sooner or later someone would either call the police or come out to see what I was doing. They would likely do both and when my dad came out I expected him to be carrying his old shotgun on his shoulder, just like he had when I was a kid, and he'd thought someone might be making trouble for his family back then.
I went up to the front door, which was still the same shade of pale blue that it had been before. Now the paint was peeling around the weather-roughened edges.
I raised my hand to knock but didn't get a chance to before a rail-thin woman in her sixties opened the door and stared at me.
It took her a few moments in which we simply looked at each other for her to get to the point where she was able to recognize me. "Jamie?"
I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd been so sure that she'd forgotten what I'd looked like in the last decade. "Hi, Mom."
My mother promptly slammed the door in my face. I sighed. I hadn't exactly expected this to go well, but I'd assumed I'd at least be allowed to say something to her.
This time I did get to knock.
"Go away!" she screamed at me through the door. It sounded like she was right on the other side of the thick wood.
I knocked again, harder this time. "I need to talk to you!" I yelled back at her. Five minutes into seeing each other again, and we were yelling. It was just like old times before I'd run as far away from the farm as I possibly could. After I'd been thrown out though, of course.
"I just need two minutes!" I kept yelling at her.
"You aren't getting it!"
My stubbornness came from her. "Mom!"
The door swung open, but not by my mom. Instead, a man I hadn't thought I'd see again was standing there in front of me. "Tom."
He looked just as shocked to see me as I was to see him, and for a long time we just stared at each other across the threshold of my childhood home.
"Jamie?"
He didn't sound happy to see me again at all, which pissed me off because I was the one who had been screwed over by him and everyone else in my life, not the other way around.
"Hi." I tried to sound friendly, but it was hard to do when I was halfway between grabbing him and kissing him against the wall for old times' sake, and yelling at him for abandoning me when I was just a kid and needed him most. We'd been practically children. We'd been best friends, and we'd been innocent as could be as we'd figured out what it meant to care about each other. We'd done things, but comparing what I did now to how I'd been with him then, I knew how innocent we'd been.
It had been one perfect summer, and he'd ruined everything by saying he hated me and what we'd done together. I hadn't understood why he'd said those things about me, or us, and as I stood there in front of him I was sucked back to that hot summer night when my life had imploded.
"What are you doing here?" he asked me gruffly.
I was instantly on the defensive. This was my family's home. Not his. He didn't have the right to demand answers from me like that. He wasn't one of my parents. "I'm here to talk to my mom or dad."
He came forward and leaned against the doorway. "Your neck says you have more to say. Thought you would have gotten that removed by now. You here to make trouble at all?"
"No more than you already are," I snapped back at him, already too fed up with the interaction that I was having with him, as short as it had been. He'd been there with me when the fae had cursed me. He knew how awful having everything I was feeling spelled out for people actually was. And he also knew that it couldn't be removed. Because he'd sat there next to me holding my hand when the guy with the spell book had tried.
Surprisingly, Tom laughed at that. "Come on in, can't say anyone will be happy to see you though. Or that they'll even recognize you. I barely did. You've changed a lot over the years."
I didn't expect people to like me being there, but the way he'd said that I changed, that almost sounded like a compliment. I smirked and knew that he still liked me, maybe even wanted me, on some level.
I followed Tom into my family's dining room. It was odd that he was leading the way as if I didn't know the layout of the only house I'd ever lived in. Since leaving Montana, I'd stayed in apartments and condos. Houses were for families to be in, I figured, and I didn't have one of those. Not anymore.
"I need a favor," I started out as I sat down across from my mom at the dining room table.
My mother snorted. "Well, that's rich." She wouldn't look at me, but I figured that maybe just getting her to talk to me was progress in and of itself. It was better than ignoring me completely, at any rate.
I spread my hands out in front of me. "My boss wants to do a photoshoot here, so that fans can see where I grew up. I'm a…" There really was no good way to tell my mother that I did gay porn.
"I know what you do. That filth. That disgusting—"
"Yes, I do porn. So sorry I'm not perfect," I said sarcastically. "Let's not do the niceties anymore then. My boss wants to take some photos of me here. Shirt off but nothing more than that. No one else here either. Just him and a camera guy. We can stay in the barn or around some of the horses and not soil up your home at all with our disgusting filth as you want to call it. I'll pay you for the inconvenience and then I'll be gone again. I didn't want to come back here in the first place."
"Ten thousand," my mother said, surprising me.
I rolled my eyes and my neck burned as the words changed. I wondered if they were calling her names like they used to when I was a teenager. "Five hundred." There was no way in hell I was going to be paying ten thousand to be able to be in a place I couldn't stand again. That was insanity.
She looked up at me and gave me a shrewd glared with her icy, pale blue eyes. Age hadn't dulled her at all, which I was glad to see. "Two thousand, and you can't use anything that would identify the farm. No one else can be in the pictures and no one will be doing any interviews."
"Done."
My mother nodded. "Good. Then, after this unpleasantness is over, you won't ever come back here again."
Of course I wouldn't. Hadn't she heard me when I said I hadn't wanted to be here in the first place? "Sure. Whatever you want."
"What I wanted was a good son who wasn't tainted by such blatant disrespect for God's will," she shot at me.
Ah. That old argument again. Where I was supposed to go make babies. Because I was gay, and perfectly happy not having little people depending on me, that was not ever going to happen for her.
"I'll be back tomorrow with the crew."
"And the money," my mother snapped, as if I had that short of a memory.
I sighed. "Yes. And your money. You'll get your two thousand. I'm making more than that just from the shoot." I didn't know why I'd tacked that last bit of information on. She didn't need to know how much I made. It wasn't like me having money would have changed anything between us. But maybe it was a power thing for me. She obviously needed money or else she wouldn't have let me come back to do the shoot.
I wondered, for a few seconds, if the farm was in trouble or something like that. And if there was some way that I could help too. But this place wasn't my home. Not anymore. And these people hadn't been my family since I'd been eighteen. I didn't need to worry about them since they obviously hadn't cared about me in what felt like a lifetime. I was good and done with them. That was all there was too it.
I let myself out. Once I was outside, I should have gone straight to my Jeep and then right back to the hotel room. I could have found some lunch and watched a movie. Or I could have spent the afternoon in the pool. There were probably some guys there that I hadn't met yet, and it was good to make connections in this industry.
But what I did was go to the fence and lean my elbows over the railing while watching Tom brush out a foal in one of the big pens that were for mares whose foals were still nursing but were old enough not to need to be in the barn with them anymore. He was a cute little horse, but it was Tom's smile that got to me most. He looked just as happy as he'd been in our last summer together, and I was a lot more miserable being back there than I had been in years.
*~*~*
Once I was back at the hotel, I did shots at the bar with the guys before going into the pool and sinking up to my neck in the shallow end while I hovered over the bottom. There were a lot of guys from Albert's company in the hot tub, but I knew better than to think that six shots would mix well with spending time in the heat. That would have made me a mess for sure.
The cool water helped clear away some of the haze of the alcohol, but I stayed at a nice level of buzzed well into the afternoon while I laughed away the stress my family had caused me.
*~*~*
The next morning, I was ready to get down to business. I handed an envelope full of cash to my mom, who I'd found sitting on the porch when I pulled up with the crew. None of them said anything to me, which was perfectly fine by me.
"Where do you want to start?" I asked Albert as I walked back to them.
He gave me a once over. "Lose the shirt first. Then get over by the fence." I cleared my mind and tried to think happy thoughts or some bullshit like that so that my tattoo wouldn't say anything horrible for the shoot. If that didn’t work, I had plenty of makeup slathered over my neck to fade out the ink anyway.
I did as he'd told me to, tossing my shirt through the open window of my Jeep. I leaned back against the rough, weathered wood and, after a few shots had been taken by the crew, I lifted my arms onto the fence as well. A bit of smiling, some pouting, and even some smirking and I was given the thumbs up by the guy with the camera.
Then we were moving on. I was in the zone and just focused on giving my fans what they wanted as I leaned over hay bales, carried a saddle on my hip, and posed with an old cowboy had I'd found in the barn. This was easy work, and I was being paid well for it. I was still a bit uncomfortable just because I was back in the place where I'd grown up, but the more I thought about it as just a set, the more I started to believe that.
"Can we get a few with you and the horses?" Albert asked me.
I shrugged. "Sure." I didn't see any reason that we couldn't. I let myself into the nearest mare pasture. These were the mares that had been given the year off from breeding. Over a decade of not being at Windsong, and I still knew the layout.
"What are they?" Albert asked me as he and the cameraman stayed on the other side of the fence.
"Paint horses. They're like quarter horses, only flashier."
The horses were well socialized and came up to me easily. They were looking for treats, those handouts that I used to come out and bring them when I was a child. Today had nothing but love for them, and they ate that up easily.
The cameraman was taking photos behind me, but I was focused on the mares coming up to me and rubbing against me. I gave them each pets and scratches over their beautifully colored coats. They were each unique with their wildly varying coats and patterns.
"How long has your family raised horses?" Albert asked me.
I'd almost forgotten that he was there since I'd been so wrapped up with the horses and giving them attention. "Four generations," I told him.
I trailed my fingers through their long manes and thought back to endless summers where I'd stood in the pastures just as I was now. Everything had seemed so perfect then. I'd lived in a bubble that I'd thought was unbreakable, but in the end my perfect summers had been made of the most brittle glass.
"Jamie?"
I looked over my shoulder at the sound of Tom's voice. He was standing away from the photographer and Albert, on the west side of the paddock. "Hi." I smiled at him, and he, miraculously, smiled back at me.
"I know that look," he said, still smiling.
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I knew I didn't have time to socialize while I was working on a shoot. "What look?"
"You still love the horses."
He was right. I really had never stopped, apparently. But that didn't change anything. "Can't talk right now. I'm working."
Tom gave me a nod and moved away from the fence. "Maybe later?"
This was a drastic change from what I'd expected to find with him. Maybe not having all of my family around to get in the way meant that I might get to catch up with him. There'd never be an 'us' again. He'd betrayed me too badly for that. But we did have over a decade to talk about and catch up on, if he was interested. And if I could swallow back my hurt long enough to stand to be around him for that long. He'd been my best friend back then, and since I really hadn't let anyone close enough to hurt me like he had again, in some ways he'd been the best friend I'd ever had.
"Sure," I told him quietly. I was trying not to get my hopes up, but I was also trying to fight back the need to snap at him and hurt him just as much as he'd hurt me. I was confused, and a big part of me wished that he hadn't come out to check up on us to begin with.
He moved away from the fence and Albert cleared his throat. "Who was that?" Albert asked me.
"His name's Tom." The guy wasn’t taking pictures anymore, so I came away from the horses. Maybe we were done for the day. I really hoped that we were.
Albert was still staring off in the direction Tom had gone. "He's good looking. Do you think—"
I snorted and shook my head. "I'm going to stop you right there because I know for a fact that there's no way in hell that Tom would ever be interested in anything you're offering."
Albert gave me a sour look. "Everyone has a price."
He was right about that, but Tom's would be astronomical.
I found Tom standing by my Jeep as we were getting ready to leave a few minutes later. He handed me a bottle of water. Albert and the cameraman waved to me, and I waved back to them. I'd see them at the hotel in a bit after I grabbed some lunch.
Tom leaned against my Jeep with his arms crossed over his chest. "Your mom and dad miss you, even when they hate you."
I laughed. That sounded about right. "I miss them too." Admitting that was hard, because I'd been the one to leave. I could have stayed, but only if I had been able to change everything about myself. I couldn't be gay and live with them, so I'd chosen to be myself and make the best of it. "If you want to get a drink or anything before I leave to go back to Denver again, I wouldn't turn you down." I reached into the Jeep through the open driver window and pulled out one of the business cards Albert insisted we always have with us. They were there in case we happened to meet anyone that would want to work with us for a scene or something, or if we could recruit some guys to come join Albert's company. We got referral bonuses and other benefits for doing it, not that I'd ever met anyone who wanted to do porn who didn't already work for Albert.
Tom hesitated to take the card from me. Maybe because I was practically naked on it with just a thong on to cover up my cock. "It's got my cell number on it," I explained.
Still, he refused to take it from my fingers. "Is it because I don't have many clothes on in that picture?" I asked. "Because you have seen me naked."
He laughed nervously but did take the card and put it into his back pocket. "Yeah, I have. But we were teenagers then. You look a lot different now." He did too. I wondered what horrible secrets my neck was saying about me. Damn fae and their curses.
"I need to get back to work," Tom said.
I nodded. I had to get back to the hotel too at some point. "See you." If he didn't call me, I wouldn't. But I was hoping that he would. It might have been nice to talk to an old friend for a while.
He headed off in the direction of the bigger barn, and I got back into my Jeep and drove away.
*~*~*
I hadn't meant to come back to Windsong again, but there I was with my fast-food breakfast sandwich half-eaten as I leaned against one of the pasture fences the next morning. It wasn't even eight yet, but I remembered days from my childhood that I would have been working for hours by then. Work started early on the farm, and I didn't miss those pre-dawn days one bit.
I was so focused on the mares and their foals quietly grazing a few yards in front of me that I missed someone riding up behind me. I turned and covered my eyes against the sun. "Hi." I definitely hadn't meant to run into my father that morning either. But I couldn't do anything about that now as I stared up at him. He'd hated me when I'd been eighteen, and he didn't look any happier to see me now so many years later.
"What do you think you're doing here, boy?" he snapped as gruffly as I thought he possibly could. His anger still sent shivers down my spine, just as it had when I'd been a child awaiting his punishment.
"Watching the horses," I quietly replied. My backbone was gone in an instant.
"You don't belong here."
He was right. I didn't.
"And you need to stay away from Tom. He's a good man, despite what you did to him."
And suddenly my anger had chased away any fear or meekness within me. "Screw you."
My father could barely speak past his anger, but I saw his tension moving into the horse he was riding as she put her ears back and started tossing her head. As he started yelling, she began to dance under him with her nervousness.
"Dad…" I tried to warn him. "Dad!" I screamed at him when he only got louder. I tried to grab for the mare's reins, but she pulled out of my reach only seconds before rearing. My father was a great rider, but he lost his balance anyway, and before he hit the ground I had my phone out and I was calling for help.
It didn't take long for Tom and my mom to come out of the house after that. The mare didn't run off, but she was visibly shaken as she stood there trembling at the side of the road. My father kept pushing me away even as I tried to figure out just how badly he was hurt. "You need to stop fighting me!" I shouted at him.
Mom rushed up and knocked me aside. I should have been there next to him when the paramedics came to take him to the hospital, but only my mom was. Tom was with me, holding me back against my Jeep with a strong hand around my arm and another pressed against the center of my chest, stopping me completely.
"You can't help right here," Tom told me as the paramedics got my father on a stretcher and started loading him into the ambulance.
"I shouldn't have come back here," I whispered as I stared at the frail body of my unmoving father.
"Why did you?"
I didn't have a good answer for that.
*~*~*
I knew they'd all be angry to see me again, but I went to the hospital anyway. I was lucky that they were at lunch or something when I came into my father's room, though, because it was only he and myself there.
"Hi," I said as I leaned against the wall.
"Take those piercings out of your ears. You look like a clown," he snapped at me.
I smirked. Same old Dad, even if he was attached to various machines by a bunch of tubes. "If you hadn't been so angry, she wouldn't have reared."
"I wouldn't have been angry if you hadn't come around where you weren't wanted."
He had me there.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped.
I shrugged and came across the room to sit down next to him in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. "Checking up on you. I wanted to make sure you weren't badly hurt."
"Broken hip, but I'll live."
I cringed. There was no way he'd be back to work right away with that kind of an injury. "Tom will take care of Windsong then, I'm sure." Strangely, that made me feel better about things. Even as a teenager, Tom had been extremely responsible with the farm. We'd never even snuck off until after all the horses had hay and water and the stalls had been cleaned, because he'd refused to neglect them, even for a few hours. He was always better about being responsible for them than I was.
"He'll need help," my father surprised me by saying.
I snorted. The Tom I'd known didn't need help doing anything.
"Tom was helping me run the farm. You want to be allowed back into this family and not shot the next time I find you next to the fences? Then you help him out and show me that you're my kid again and not just some mistake."
I was instantly offended by most of what he'd said. But there was a small part of me that wondered if I did want to be let back into his good graces. Probably not. “Why would you ever offer me that? You and Mom don’t want me anywhere near the farm to begin with.”
“I’m old, boy, in case you hadn’t noticed. Someone has to take care of the farm when I’m gone.”
I had an easy answer for that. “Then give it to Tom. He actually wants it.”
“I already tried. He said he wouldn’t take it unless I offered it to you too.”
Tom had no way of knowing that I would have ever come back to Windsong so I’m not entirely sure what he’d planned by saying that to my dad. My parents could have called me at some point, to talk to me about taking over the farm, but if they hadn’t then I had a hard time believing Tom would have let it just fall apart after their eventual deaths.
"You'll probably just fuck it up anyway. Like you do with everything else," he grumbled darkly.
I rolled my eyes, but my pride wouldn't let that lone insult slide. He didn't think I could add anything to the farm. I'd show him that he was wrong. I'd been worth something when I'd left them as a teenager, and I was even more valuable to him now. I'd show him what he'd lost and then I'd leave with my chin held high and my finger in the air. That was a good plan and one that instantly made me happy.
“I’ll be there.”
My father looked surprised. "You won't last an hour."
I'd prove him wrong. "I'll be there at dawn." I was done talking to him, and he couldn't have added anything more to the conversation anyway, so I took off.
Working the farm was hard, but so was having sex with four other guys while being exhausted and making sure my face didn't look stupid when I came because it was all being recorded. I'd been able to handle anything in porn, and now I knew that I could do the same on the horse farm. I hadn't worked it in over a decade, but it wasn't like horse farming ever changed all that much.
*~*~*
At dawn the next morning, I was back at Windsong. I went straight to the barn where Tom was already taking horses out to the different pastures.
"When your dad told me you'd be coming to help out at the barn, I definitely didn't believe it," Tom said as I put a halter around the horse closest to me.
"I would hope that you would know me better than that." I followed him with his horse out to the closest pasture with the mare next to me.
He laughed softly, we released the horses, and then we went back for more. "Back when we were teenagers, sure. But I haven't seen much of you since. I get why, but it would have been nice if you’d made an effort. They do still love you."
Tom was blushing as he turned away from me, and I frowned. I ignored him telling me that I should have come back sooner to focus on the bit of information that had caught my attention. "You haven't seen me at all except for this week."
He busied himself with getting the next horse haltered and ready to leave the barn. "I've… uh… seen a few of your movies."
That made me snort. I kept working right alongside him as we finished getting the horses in the barn out to the pastures. I didn't care that he'd seen my movies. So had potentially millions of other people.
"Are you going to finish that tattoo on your back? It might distract people from that mess on your neck."
I laughed. "You've seen a more recent video of mine then."
He wasn't looking at me anymore, so I figured that was confirmation enough.
"I will be as soon as possible," I said, answering his question.
He nodded, and we were soon done with that part of the morning. There were still hours of work left, and we started mucking out the stalls.
Within the hour, I was sweating despite how cool it was outside, and I had to take off my shirt. I found Tom looking at me minutes later, and I smiled over at him.
"I really wish you'd grown up to be ugly," he muttered.
He made me laugh again with that. "Sure. But then I wouldn't be such a top porn star." And the curse around my neck showed just how ugly I was anyway. I might have been good looking, but that only got me so far when my ugliness was on display for everyone to see.
He didn't say anything to that, and we got back to work.
*~*~*
Hours later, we were sitting on the porch with glasses of lemonade. I was sweaty, exhausted, and for once I didn't care what my neck was saying about me because it was probably just saying that I didn't want to muck another damn stall or fix another fence, for the rest of my life.
"It's nice to see what you became," Tom said idly.
I glanced over at him. "You're exactly as I would have pictured you. Still good looking. Still kind and hardworking and the perfect person to work this farm. We may have been a fluke, but at least your work ethic when it came to the horses wasn't."
"We were never a fluke."
“You fooled me then. You deserve an Oscar for your performance back then.”
“I still love you.”
His words were so quiet I was half-certain I hadn't heard him. But he was blushing as he looked away from me. I kissed him as hard as I could. I put every bit of the need and desire I'd always felt for him in that kiss as I crashed our lips together. I never should have done it. And kissing Tom was wrong. But hearing him say that we hadn't just been some childhood mistake, that the years I'd spent mourning my relationship with him hadn't be for nothing… that struck me hard.
He was soft and hesitant under my mouth. I had to pull back on how roughly I was kissing him. I wanted to drag him into the dirt and get his clothes off, but that wouldn't have been the right thing to do. I wanted him, but I didn't want the life he had. I didn't want Sunday-night dinners with my family. I didn't want to live in Montana again, and I sure as hell didn't want to live at Windsong again.
I pulled back while those thoughts were rushing through my head. I was quick to get to my feet. Kissing him had been wrong, and a mistake. "Have fun here and forget all about me," I told him softly. My voice broke on the words. I didn't want to say them, but I needed to. I was done. I'd go back to the hotel and spend the rest of the week in the pool. I wouldn't come back down this way again, and after this week was up I wouldn't ever come up to Montana again. I probably wouldn't even be going above Wyoming.
He grabbed my wrist as I started to walk away. "I can't do that."
"I can't be who you want," I said as plainly as I could. "I'm a porn star. I live in Denver. Do you really want me in your life? Do you want to be that worried about whether or not I enjoy sex with the guys I'm working with more than I do you?" I was being harsh but that was the reality of our situation. He had his life here, and there was nowhere for me in it.
He shook his head and let me go.
Without another word, I walked across the fields and between the pastures. I got back in my Jeep, and a few minutes later I was back on the road and heading toward the hotel.
*~*~*
After shooting multiple photo sessions with different guys from the company all over the hotel, I was exhausted and just getting into bed around midnight. I was pretty close to being asleep a short time later too when my phone started ringing.
I groaned and answered it. "Hello?" I sounded like shit. Groggy, annoyed shit.
"Jamie?"
Sighing, I sat back up in bed. "Hi, Tom." I'd thought I'd made myself clear earlier at the farm, but apparently not.
"Can I stay with you tonight?"
He sounded miserable, and I didn't want to be a jackass. "Why?” I didn’t wait for him to answer me. It was so late that I didn’t actually care anymore. “Whatever. Sure. You know the hotel your mom used to work at when we were kids? I'm there. Room 275. Just come on up."
"Thank you."
"Sure." I hung up after that, and waited for Tom to join me in my hotel room. Normally the idea of sharing a room with him would have made me at least half-hard. But tonight I was too tired, and I'd already spent the afternoon wrapped around enough guys not to want to be doing it any more than I already had been.
He was there shortly, and I let him in while I tried to hold back a yawn. "Hi," I said. When I caught him staring at me, I realized that I was just in a pair of low-hanging lounge pants. I'd been in bed, after all.
He swallowed thickly and looked away from me. "Hey. Thanks for letting me crash here."
I shrugged and shut the door behind him. It locked on its own. I didn't offer him the couch, since we'd shared a bed for years when we were kids. It wasn't weird for me, but he just sort of hung there by the side of the bed as I got under the covers again.
"What's wrong?" I grumbled as I looked up at him. Why couldn't he just make this easy for once and get in bed too? Then we could go to sleep.
"You're okay with this?"
"Of course I am." I had no reason not to be. "Look, it's not as if we're going to be having sex here or anything like that. You need a place to sleep, I've got a king-size bed. It's simple math. Just lay down too so that we can get some sleep and stop worrying so much."
He didn't say anything more to me after that as he got into bed, which I was grateful for. I wasn't up to talking, or doing anything more than sleeping. But once he was beside me and we were looking at each other, I couldn't help but remember the times when we'd been teenagers and he'd slept over and we'd been just like this. We'd just been kids trying to figure out who we were, well before we'd ever started experimenting with sex. We'd been best friends innocently sharing a bed and loving each other and trying not to let the other one know.
"I missed you," I told him sleepily. If I hadn't been so exhausted, I would have never been able to say something like that to him. But being tired, it was like all my normal defenses had left me there and I was simply this lump in the bed across from him.
And I had missed him. I'd missed how we'd been as teenagers when he'd been my best friend and I'd been able to tell him everything. I missed how he'd been my first love and everything we'd done together had been special because we'd always loved each other. We had promised each other and we'd be together forever, no matter what. He'd said that, and I'd agreed, and only six months after that I'd been told to stop being gay or get out. And he'd just stood there. He'd made his choice and he'd chosen his family, and pretending to be straight, over me.
"I know. Your tattoo says so. I'm sorry for what happened when we were teenagers. And I’m sorry for being an ass when you showed up at the farm too. It was a shock to see you there again. I didn’t know how to react and I handled myself badly," Tom said as if he could read my mind somehow and know what kind of a hole his rejection had left there in my heart.
I sniffled and wiped at my eyes. "It doesn't matter. Not anymore."
"I think it does. I wasn't as strong as you. I was scared. I should have said something, but the idea of being on my own was too much for me."
He was wrong there though. "I was on my own. You wouldn't have been, because I would have been right there with you." Back then, I'd been so naive and idealistic, but I had known that together we would have been better off. We were always stronger, and smarter, when we were together and that wouldn't have been any different at all.
“Would you give up porn to be with me? If we could be together on the farm?”
I answered him without thinking. “Yes.”
Tom wrapped his arms around me and pulled me across the sheets until I was wrapped tightly against him. I should have fought back, or at the very least told him what an idiot he was being by touching me. But I didn't. I closed my eyes, rested my head against his chest, and I savored those quiet moments between us. I thought about the choices I'd made and how much different my life would have been had he run away with me when he'd had the chance. We would have struggled and it would have been harder than hell, but at least we would have been together then.
*~*~*
We drove to the farm in separate vehicles the next morning and my mother instantly called Tom and I into the house. Once we were seated at the table, my mother shook her head and looked at each of us in turn. "Your father has decided to give Jamie another chance, since he's done so well on the farm while his father has been in the hospital. Jamie, if you can stop your disgusting ways, then you are welcome back here into this family. And get that tattoo removed. It says horrible things about me."
I snorted. I was sure that it was right then. "Oh. Wow. That's so generous. Really. So, no more gay porn or do you want me to stop being gay completely?"
She hesitated, and I waited to see just how awful of an offer she was going to give me. "No more anything. We understand that you believe you're gay, but surely you don't have to act on it."
I was getting up from the table before she'd finished speaking. "Actually, I do. Just because I don't like vaginas doesn't mean that I suddenly don't get to have sex at all if I want to be part of this family again. If denying who I am to suit you both is the price I need to pay to be welcome here again, then we're right back to where we were when I left the first time. You either accept me as I am or not at all. Giving up porn is something I could have probably done. I’ve got plenty of money anyway and I did miss being with the horses. But I'm not going to pretend to be straight to fit your idea of what I should have been for you. Clearly nothing has changed, so I'm going to be leaving."
Tom grabbed my wrist before I could get too far away from the table. "You were right," he said as I stared down at him. "When we were teenagers and you said that no one in this tiny town would accept us as we were, you were right. I should have left with you." He got up from his chair as well. "If you can't accept Jamie for who he is now, then you're losing me too. Jamie will stop doing porn. We'll make this all work. But you need to see how wrong it is to demand that he try to act straight, or that I do either. When my parents died, you became my new family and I love you for that, but this isn't right and it needs to stop."
I put my hand over his shoulder in a show of silent support. Did I suddenly want him with me? Maybe. I tried thinking of a life where Tom lived with me in Denver and did something and I'd do something else, because apparently me doing porn wasn't going to be happening anymore if we were together, which I understood. I didn’t want to see anyone having sex with him either so I got his position on the matter. But having a life with him in Colorado was too hard to picture. Tom didn't belong in Denver. He fit in right here, at Windsong. He always had.
"I want to buy the farm," I quickly said, before I could think better of my ludicrous plan.
My mother stared at me, and Tom… he just smiled. "You figure out that you belong here?" he asked me. He reached up to touch my neck. "You should look in the mirror."
I shook my head. I'd deal with my tattoo later. "No, I don't, but you do. And I don't want to drag you down to Denver and see you in a corporate office building filing paperwork eight hours a day. That kind of life would slowly kill you. I want us, but I don't want to force you to fit into my life. That would be wrong. So, I'll buy the farm and we can live here and my parents can go far, far away. I don't really care where."
"You think it would be that easy to get rid of us?" my mother asked.
I turned back to her. "Yes. I do. Maybe I'd have to cut back on some of the herd or sell off some of the extra acres to the neighboring farms, but the actual job of taking care of this many horses isn't impossible. I've done impossible. I was a homeless teenager without any money, family, or friends, and I survived that. Taking care of a horse farm is going to be a piece of cake compared to what my life was like when I left here."
Tom gave my hand a squeeze, and I leaned against his side. "I'll talk to your dad tomorrow. I'm half-owner, as is he, so only he needs to be convinced."
I frowned over at him. "When did you become half-owner of this place?"
"We gave it to him. You're just going to kick your parents out on the street?" my mother snapped.
It was what they'd done to me, so it sort of seemed fair. But they were my parents. "No. Fine. Tom and I will build a small house on the property, or we'll buy something nearby, and you two can stay in this house." I didn't want to do that, but I didn't want to be an asshole to them either. They’d always lived in this house. It didn’t seem fair to ask them to leave either just because I couldn’t stand them. I wanted Windsong, and I wanted Tom, I just didn’t want my parents anywhere near me.
"Guess we're done here for tonight then. I'll talk to my father tomorrow." I wouldn't call him Dad. He'd lost that when I'd left here. But we could be civil at least. I'd do my best.
I really did need to talk to Albert first though. That wasn’t really a conversation I was looking forward to having. I’d probably owe him a bit for breaking my contract with him early.
"I have some things to do before tomorrow, so I'll be going." I let go of Tom's hand and started heading for the door. He followed me outside and grabbed me in a hug.
"Thank you for giving up your life to be here with me," he told me quietly.
"It’s nice here. I like it," I said as I settled in against him. "Not with them around, but with the horses. I love my life as it is right now, but this part has always been missing from me. Come to the hotel later, if you want to. We'll talk about things."
"About us?"
I nodded. We would have to. He carefully, slowly, kissed me, and I let his lips linger over mine as we stood there in the front yard.
Before my mom came out of the house to start yelling at us, I pulled away and headed back to my Jeep with Tom watching me from the same spot where I'd left him. I was not looking forward to talking to Albert. I knew he wasn't going to be happy about me leaving the company one bit, but I was starting to see that I belonged at Windsong and that my home really was there. I just wished that my parents didn't have to come into that same equation.
Lucky for me, Albert was at the bar when I came into the hotel's lobby. I pulled him aside as quickly, and quietly, as I possibly could. "I need to quit," I told him plainly.
His eyes got wide as he just stared at me. "Are you seriously leaving me for another company? After all we've been through together?"
I shook my head. Maybe I should have explained things a bit before letting him jump to that conclusion. "No. I'm staying here, on my family's farm." Assuming that my father didn't have a complete fit about it. But even if he did, the more I thought about living at Windsong, the more the idea made sense to me.
Albert relaxed almost instantly. "Are you sure about this?"
I nodded. I really was. But I was also going to miss my life and him as well.
He clapped me on my shoulder. "Okay then. Let me buy you a drink and we’ll go over how to get you out of your contract."
"Sure. I'd like that."
*~*~*
I'd had three beers with Albert and went to my room shortly after. Tom came up a few minutes later. "Hey," I said, letting him in. I was a bit buzzed, but nothing too serious. He hugged me tightly, and together we moved to the bed.
I kissed him quickly and began pulling his shirt out of his pants, but he stopped me before I could go much further. "Slow down. Please. Have you looked at your neck yet?"
I didn't care about my neck at that point. "No. I haven't." I slowed down, because he'd asked me to, and forced myself to relax. He wanted me, and I wanted a life with him. This would all work itself out. I was sure of it. I didn't think about my messed-up family, or how he fit into it at all, as I undressed him.
Each patch of skin I uncovered I kissed, and for a long time we lay naked together, simply touching each other. He kissed my tattoos and traced them over my ribs. He moved on top of me, and I opened myself up for him.
When he sank into me it wasn't like it had been when we were teenagers. That was awkward and scary. This was far more on the line of perfect. He was sweet and slow, and I moved with him. This wasn't fucking as I'd always known it. This was something special I'd only ever done with Tom. This was me giving myself over to someone else completely and finding pleasure with them as well.
When we moved together, there was no rush, only sweet, slow need as he kissed me and I sank into that blissful pleasure. We took our time because we had all night to enjoy each other, and when I came, I whispered his name against his neck. When he was done he might have said that he loved me, but I wasn't going to hold him to that.
*~*~*
Tom and I met with my father at the hospital at close to eight the next morning. "I want to buy your half of Windsong," I told him without bothering to say hi first. This wasn't a nice little family visit. This was me buying a farm I loved and getting it away from him so that I could enjoy it without having to deal with him or my mother around me constantly. I loved Windsong, and the horses on it and it was high time I started admitting that. But I couldn't stand the people that it would come with.
My father just stared at me. Then he moved his attention to Tom. "What do you think about all this?" he asked Tom, who shrugged.
"I think Jamie loves the farm and cares about the horses. He works hard and he'll stop doing porn. If you did this, then he'd come back home. I'm in favor of owning Windsong with him as joint partners."
"Are you really going to change your ways?" my father asked me.
I shook my head, and his expression instantly fell. "I won't be in any more porn, but I'm still gay, and I'll be starting my life with Tom. No more hiding. It'll be how it should have been if we'd been allowed to be ourselves as teenagers."
My father didn't look convinced. "I don’t like this plan one bit. You’re still being selfish, only this time you’re pulling Tom into your ways. Have you even thought about that? About what it’ll mean for him living in this small town?”
I hadn't thought of what us being together and out would do to Tom, but when I looked over at him, he didn't look worried. In fact, he seemed happier than he had since I'd come back. "The town will adjust. If they don't, then that's their problem."
I agreed with him completely.
"And," Tom continued, "if you don't allow this to happen, then I'm leaving too. I can't live this lie anymore."
"It's yours then," my father said dejectedly. He sounded like he was giving up, and being forced to at that. I was fine with that since how he felt about the deal wasn't my problem. All that mattered to me was that I was going back to Windsong, and this time with Tom beside me.
And, as we were leaving the hospital, I finally looked at my neck in a window. Beauty was all the tattoo said. "How long as that been there?" I asked Tom.
"At least a day."
Frowning, I reached up to touch the letters laying across the side of my neck. My tattoo had never stayed the same way for that long.
"Are you vain now?"
I shook my head. "This isn't about me. It couldn't be. The tattoo has always made me an outcast and a monster. I'm good at porn, but otherwise that's it as far as my social life goes. I mean, really, no one would want to be friends with the guy who can't disguise how he really feels about them."
Tom smiled at me in the mirror. "Maybe, whatever the curse was, you broke it. Maybe deciding to be selfless made the difference."
I highly doubted that was it. "More likely it was you deciding to be yourself for once, if anything. Stupid fae and their curses. I'd shoot him if I ever saw him again."
Tom laughed and slipped his hand into mine. "Whatever the reason, it'll be nice to have that changed. Your tattoo could be really mean."
"It wasn't the tattoo though. It was my thoughts. I was the one being mean."
"I know. I was trying to give you an out." Tom smiled at me.
But I didn't need him to do that for me. "I'm okay admitting that I can be a horrible person. Everyone can be sometimes. The tattoo showed me who I really was."
"And now you're going to be good and work your family's farm and continue Windsong even though you can't stand them. Sounds like you're not that horrible anymore."
Tom could believe what he wanted to, and maybe he was right. The tattoo certainly seemed to give some weight to that idea that I'd somehow changed for the better. But only time would really tell, and right then I didn't want to worry about it anymore. I was much more interested in getting him back to my hotel room and getting his clothes off.
"I love you," Tom quietly told me. I stopped and stared at him. "I always have. We were teenagers, and I should have been as strong as you when you left."
Having him there would have been nice, but I didn't blame him for staying. I took a deep breath. "And I love you too."
Tom smiled over at me and I laid my head on his shoulder. There was still a lot to work out with everything, but life was peaceful. I felt loved, and accepted, there with Tom, and I felt alive and whole while we worked together at Windsong. It wasn't the life I'd imagined, and when I'd left at eighteen I'd never thought that I'd be coming back to Windsong ever again. But there I was, feeling better than ever, and having my best friend, and the man that I loved, back at my side. All in all, life was perfect, despite still having to see my family on occasion.