We waited until it was dark, long after everyone went to sleep. Matilda seemed upset at dinner that Benny wasn’t joining her afterwards. It was the first time in days I’d enjoyed my meal.
The office was unlocked. After all, why lock an office inside a heavily-alarmed mansion? We closed the door behind us, my heart racing as I heard the click. It was only then I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
He pointed at the desk. I pointed at the filing cabinet. Both had locks. Both were locked. We’d only been lucky up to a point; now we were summarily being flipped off.
“Fuck,” I said.
He grinned. “Maybe after we’re done.”
I momentarily forget our dilemma. “Or we can go for it now. All this espionage work has made me horny.”
A chuckle spewed forth. “A slight breeze makes you horny.”
I shrugged. “You should see me in a wind tunnel.”
“I’ll open the window back in the bedroom then.” He removed something from his front pocket. “Just in case.”
I squinted at the gleaming metal. It looked like a tooth scraper of sorts, something you massaged your gums with. It didn’t look like something you wanted anywhere near your dick. “Just in case you want to stick something small and sharp up your ass?”
He moved directly in front of me and placed a soft kiss on my lips, then whispered, “Just in case you need to pick a lock, Ted.”
“Ah.” Seemed the little head had temporarily taken control over the big one, a sort of cock coup. “Right. Pick a lock. Got it.” I locked eyes with him. The little head again throbbed. The big head did the same. Benny had that effect on both. “And you can do that, pick a lock, I mean?”
“I was homeless, Ted. I was a drug addict. One does what one does.”
I frowned. I ran my palm across his cheek. “I’m sorry, Benny.”
“For?”
“I’m sorry you were homeless. I’m sorry you were a drug addict.”
He ruffled my hair. “But then I never would’ve met you, slept in a mansion, broken into a lawyer’s office.”
“The door was open.”
The kiss returned. “No matter what, Ted, we’ll never be homeless again.” He touched his chest. He touched my chest. “Home is where the heart is.”
“You’re going all schmaltzy on me again, Benny.”
He moved back to the front of the desk. “It’s all this criminal shit, Ted; makes me sentimental.” He bent the metal tip of the dental instrument. He crouched down, eye up close to the desk’s lock. “Just the tip,” he quipped, then inserted said tip, jiggled, twisted, and, wouldn’t you know it, there, once more, was that click.
I clapped, then bowed to the master. “My hero.”
He held up his index finger. “Wait.” Then he turned and repeated his little trick on the filing cabinet. Click, I heard a moment later. He turned. “What was that now?”
I grinned. “My hero.”
He nodded, bowed. “Yeah, well.” He pointed to the desk. “You take that.” He pointed to the filing cabinet. “I’ll take this.”
And so, he searched one, I searched the other. The desk was large. There were six drawers. I searched all three on the left. I searched all three on the right. There were no old files, at least nothing as old as what I’d found in the basement. Meaning, there were no files related to me, to my family. That is to say, no files related to my immediate family. There were, however, in the last drawer I’d rummaged through, files on Matilda and her brother Mortimer.
I didn’t think much of them. Maximillian, after all, was the family lawyer. The family owned properties, businesses, sat on boards. It made sense, then, that he’d have files on the two remaining members, not including me, the sudden-third. But when I casually flipped through these files, what I found was not business but personal: their comings and goings, vacation expenditures, email correspondences, and, lastly, in Matilda’s file, what looked like a DNA result, or at least something from a genetics lab with my cousin’s name printed across the top page. I started to say something, something akin to eureka, but Benny was suddenly behind me, and I had a feeling, of the sinking variety, Benny would have a hard time keeping whatever it was that was in the file a secret from his, blech, girlfriend, or whatever the hell she was to him. Though whatever it was, I was sure the blech was well-merited.
“What do you have there?” he asked, his breath on my neck.
I closed the file as my heart thumped in overtime. I loved Benny; sadly, I no longer trusted him. Not exactly. If there was something damning in that DNA report, would he tell her? Could I chance it? I closed the file. I closed the drawer. Meaning, no, I couldn’t chance it. “Nothing,” I probably lied. “Certainly not the missing files.” That part was the truth. “You?”
“Legal shit. No files.” He sighed as he rubbed my shoulder. I sighed as my cock thickened. Same sigh, different cause. “Those files could be anywhere, though. There’s probably a safe hidden in a wall somewhere. And I can’t even crack my knuckles, let alone a safe. Or maybe he doesn’t even have them. Maybe they don’t even exist anymore.”
“Or…” I said.
He’d been smiling, now he wasn’t. He’d been rubbing my shoulders, now he wasn’t. I’d been hard, now…okay, I was still hard, but not throbbing so much. “Or someone else has them.”
I touched my fingertip to his nose. “Which someone?”
He backed a few inches away. “She’s not who you think she is, Ted.”
I shrugged. “Maybe not, but would she steal a few files to protect her name, her inheritance, an estate worth untold millions? Would she protect all that from a stranger with an iffy-at-best family connection? Would you do the same if you were in the same circumstances? I know I would.”
His sigh returned with a vengeance. “You want me to look for them in her bedroom?”
“I want you to do what you think is best.”
He grinned. It didn’t rank among his best. “That’s a fucking lie.”
I shrugged. “I don’t want you to resent me.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t.” His head kept shaking. “I wouldn’t.”
“What if she stole them? Or what if she didn’t and found out you snooped? Either way, I’m guessing you’ll lose her. You love me, I know. Seriously, I do. But it’s not the same thing, not the same with me, with her. You will resent me if I ask, if I ask and this whole thing flies south. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll resent me, simply because that would be human nature.”
His grin widened. “I love you, Ted. I think people would also think that’s against human nature.” He reached out. He pulled me in. “If I should resent you, you’ll hold my hand, you’ll kiss me, all will be fine.”
Or all would not be. All could potentially be lost. I could lose him and gain a family name. The former seemed a more valuable commodity. But what if she had the files? I could still lose him to her and not have the family name. Lose/win versus lose/lose. Neither seemed all that desirable.
“Please look for me, Benny. Please look and please don’t resent me for asking, especially if you should find something, especially if you find something and lose her as a result.” My heart sank even as I said it.
“There are plenty of other beautiful, filthy-rich fish in the sea.”
I chuckled. “At least around the Hamptons.”
“Thankfully, we just happen to be in the Hamptons.”
I suddenly felt anything but thankful.
* * * *
Benny locked the locks the same when he unlocked them, except in reverse. We left the same way we’d come, again, in reverse. We slept in my bed. That is to say, in my dead cousin’s bed, after Benny came with four of my fingers deeply entrenched up his ass, surrounded by odds and ends worth vast fortunes. Everything seemed fine. Everything seemed wrong.
Life had never been easy on me. Life, it seemed, was still having its mean-spirited way.
“Maybe we should just leave,” I said into the darkness of the room, his side pressed up snuggly to my side, his hand, as always, in mine.
“Is that what you really want?”
Was it? I wanted him. I couldn’t have him. Not really. I wanted Manny. Manny I could have. Or could I? Could the master have the servant? Did that scenario ever work out? I wanted to have money, to have a house to call my own. But did that necessarily equate to happiness? Would I know happiness even if it stared me in the face? How could I recognize something I had no previous knowledge of? So many questions. So many fucking questions. And if I left now, none of them would be answered.
In answer to his question, though, I couldn’t have what I really wanted; I’d have to settle for second best. “If we find nothing, and we’re eventually tossed out of here, steal the most expensive thing you can shove into your pocket on the way out.”
He laughed, the bed shaking beneath us. “Two steps ahead of you, Ted. Couldn’t decide between the gold ashtray or the ruby-encrusted goblet—”
“So you stole both.”
“Duh.” His face turned my way. “Don’t worry so much, Ted. If this moment is fleeting, best to enjoy it while it lasts.”
My leg was now over his. As always, I wanted to have every inch of me touch every inch of him. “I’m in love with a philosopher, all of a sudden.”
“I also nabbed a platinum letter opener that once belonged to Abraham Lincoln, or so I was told.” His fingers wrapped tighter around my fingers. “I steal, therefore I am.”
“You’re scared, too, huh, Benny? Of losing all this, a roof over your head, three square meals, Matilda, maybe even me?”
“Terrified, Ted.”
We’d lost everything before. We knew of loss. It’s easier to lose than to gain. Life fucked him over, too. Meaning terrified was a good word for it. “The candlestick in the hallway once belonged to King Edward the Second.”
His laugh returned as his head perched up next to mine. “Then three steps ahead of you.”
I smiled for the first time all day. Apart from when I came. And apart from when he came. “We’ll be the richest homeless men on the block.”
He fell asleep with his head on my chest. We were already the richest men on the block. Just not in money.
* * * *
I gave Meg back the key to the basement filing cabinets after breakfast.
“Any luck?” she asked.
I started to answer, to tell her what I’d found. Or didn’t find, that is. But then I realized, what if she already knew the files were missing? What if she’d simply sent me on an impossible mission, thereby throwing me off her scent. I mean, any of them could have an ulterior motive to steel those files. Or all of them could. Maybe they were all in on this, biding their time until I was forced to leave. The will instructed them to search; it didn’t stipulate to search fairly.
And, so, “No,” I replied. “No luck.” Then again, I had none to begin with, apart from finding Benny; why should that change now? “Thanks for your help, though.”
“Any time,” she replied.
I nodded and left. Were they all in on this or was I being paranoid? There was so much to gain, so much to lose. An incredible fortune, in fact. What was a little subterfuge in the grand scheme of things? Even if I was related, these people didn’t know me, didn’t owe me anything. Still, that wasn’t going to stop me. If anything, I was more determined than ever.
I left Meg’s office. Maximillian’s was a short walk away. I thought of the genetics report I’d seen, albeit all too briefly. It’d been Maximillian who had changed the subject when I’d previously brought up a DNA test. “It could prove inconclusive,” he’d said. But now I knew he already had a report. Sure, it was my cousin’s and not mine, but why not mention it to me? If he had one done on me, he could compare it to hers. And why did he look so nervous when I asked about one? I brushed it off then, but now it seemed suspicious. Plus, why did my cousin need a genetics report in the first place?
“Hi, Ted.” I jumped. It was Manny, suddenly standing behind me. He placed his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” He pointed to a nearby door. “Need to do some paperwork. You?”
“Um, same.”
He looked left. He looked right. He smiled and kissed me. Perhaps I’d been wrong about the whole luck thing. “Nice to have you around, Ted,” he said. “Sometimes a guy just needs a kiss in the middle of the day.”
I kissed him in return. “Here’s a spare for later.”
He smiled. My dick throbbed. It definitely felt lucky. As of late, anyway. “Well, guess I’ll see you,” he said.
My brain flicked on. Most of the blood had travelled south of my equator. A few drops remained up north. “Wait,” I barked.
His smile widened. My cock was already at its max, so it simply leaked. Copiously. “For?”
I blinked. I hated to have to use him like I was about to, but desperate times, yada, yada, yada. “I, um, need a favor.”
He shrugged. “Sure, anything. Just ask. I mean, I am your butler, after all.”
My shoulders slightly hunched. He didn’t seem to mind sleeping with me and working for me. Me, I minded. Big time. Still, I needed that favor.
“Um,” I hemmed. “Uh,” I hawed.
“Ah,” he said, the smile ever-present. “An underhanded favor? Something illegal, immoral?” He grabbed his crotch. “Exhibitionist-like?”
My mouth watered. Seems I was leaking everywhere. “Nice as that sounds…” I also grabbed his crotch. He was steely-stiff within. “And feels.”
“Tastes good, too, Ted.”
My breathing had quickened. “You’re not making this easy, Manny.”
He squeezed his hand over mine, which, in turn, squeezed his uber-thick dick. “More fun to make it hard.”
I coughed. “Um, yeah. Too true.” I moved my hand away from his dick. It was a Herculean task, mainly because my hand was happy where it was and promptly protested my yanking it away. “But that favor of mine doesn’t require the use of your rather fetching tool.”
“What about my fetching ass?”
I sighed as I shook my head, the image of said fetching and oh-so-hairy ass filling my head like an IMAX film. In 3D. “We can play fetch later, Manny. For now, just that favor.”
His hand was now on my crotch. “How much later?”
My eyes rolled back inside my head as his squeeze returned with a vengeance. “After dinner. Promise,” I rasped.
“Not before?”
I nodded. “Before. During. After.” I was kissing him again, with gusto. This wasn’t going as planned. Then again, I’d just come up with the plan, which clearly had some kinks to work out. “Maximillian,” I said.
He chuckled into my mouth. “He’s straight. I don’t think he’d like to play our reindeer games.”
“No,” I said, chest to chest, cock to cock. “Maximillian. My favor. Could you find some reason to keep him busy for a little while?” Reluctantly, I pulled a few inches away. My boner pulsed in protest. “Out of his office, I mean.”
“Why?” he asked.
To which I added, “And not ask me why?”
He backed a few more inches away. He rubbed his chin. He squinted his eyes. A minute later, he winked. “No prob, Ted.” I started to reply, when he said, “And now you owe me two dates.” He pointed down the hallway. “Is the lawyer in his office?”
“No idea.”
Manny exhaled and walked the short distance. He turned my way once at the door, put his ear to the wood, then lifted double digits in a V-shape and aimed them my way. Two, he mouthed, then poked his head inside. A conversation quickly ensued. Meaning, Maximillian was indeed at work.
My heartrate again quickened. This time, it wasn’t as much fun. I ducked around the corner. I waited. I listened. They were talking, their voices growing fainter as Manny led them to points unknown “Thank God for wily butlers,” I whispered, staring down at my crotch. It, too, seemed to share the sentiment.
I hurried inside the now-empty office, quietly closing the door behind me. I sat at his desk. I had the tools I needed to break into the drawer. I’d watched a YouTube video after Benny and I went our separate ways, him to my cousin, me to here.
I tried the handle. It opened. No need for YouTube. “Finally, some luck,” I exhaled, sliding the drawer open. The files were right where I’d left them. I flipped Matilda’s open. The genetics report was there. It was two pages long. “So much for that luck.” Which is to say, it was just a report, no explanation. Everything was in some scientific, genetics mumbo-jumbo. Benny might’ve been in her jeans, but I was in her genes, little good it did me. All that is to say, I’d made it to the promised land, and it was closed for renovations. I flipped through dead cousin Mortimer’s file. There was also a genetics report, which I had missed in my all-too-quick previous break-in, also in the same foreign language they didn’t teach in the high school that I didn’t graduate from. I set the reports side by side. They didn’t look the same, but even I knew that only identical twins would have the same results. Still, it all begged the question, what were the files doing in there in the first place? And what would I do with them now?
I grabbed my cellphone from my jean’s pocket. I snapped a few photos. I placed the folders back, closed the drawer, snuck back outside, walked away from the office and back to the mansion proper. Through a massive hallway window, I saw Benny and Matilda walking to the tennis courts, hand in hand, rackets at their sides. They made a cute couple. I felt like throwing up.
I went back to my room, our room, my recently deceased cousin’s room. Any way I put it, I still felt like tossing my cookies. I opened the door. Manny was on the bed, naked, hard, waiting.
He winked my way. “What was all that about?”
“I thought you had some paperwork to fill out.”
He shrugged. His dick did the same. “It can wait.” He pointed at said dick, which stood at rapt attention. “Some things can’t.” I shucked off my clothes. I stood at the foot of the bed, staring at all that beautiful flesh and hair and muscle. “Tell me,” he said, before I joined him. “Tell me why you needed to get into Maximillian’s office.” He didn’t look angry with me. Horny, maybe. Curious, yeah. But at least not angry. Then again, hard to look angry when your stroking your schlong with one hand and tweaking your nipple with the other. So, horny, definitely.
“I, um, I can’t say.”
He lifted his legs up and out wide, wider still. The butler was limber. His hole beckoned. “Not fair.” I leaned over the bed and gave it a long, luxurious tongue-lapping. Apart from sliding and gliding and prodding at various assholes, licking and lapping and sucking on them came in a close second place.
He sighed and pushed my head away. “I just want to make sure you’re not doing anything that could put you in danger.”
“Danger?” My heart pulsed in my chest and then my head. “Here? In the mansion? Is the lawyer a hit-man, too?”
He laughed less than convincingly. “Poor choice of words, then. I meant jeopardy, your stay, your stay in jeopardy.” He pushed himself up onto his elbows. “You owe me two dates; I don’t want you to have to leave before I cash in.” He tugged on his heavy balls. “Better?”
I stared at his hairy hole, now slick with my spit. DaVinci couldn’t have painted anything more beautiful. “He’s looking for my connection to the family tree, Manny,” I replied, which was accompanied by three fingers up his ass, which sent a million tingles up and then down my spine, a million tingles that exploded simultaneously in my cock. “I was simply concerned that perhaps his looking was lax.” He sucked in his breath when three became four, all of them sliding, back, back, back. I watched as they disappeared deep inside him. I was panting now, knowing that a good part of me was in a good part of him. He jacked his prick while I eased my fingers in and out of his hole. “Why do you think that?” he panted.
Fuck. I thought I’d taken his mind off of all that. Guess he had two tracks to my one. “If I’m related, seems odd that no proof has been found. If I’m not related, then same thing. I was simply hedging my bets by doing a little snooping.”
He nodded. He squinted my way. “Five, Ted. Put five in there. All five. Not the wrist, just the fingers. Then go down, stare at it.”
I gulped. I did as he asked. To say it brought me joy was putting it mildly. In fact, I didn’t know how to put it. And so, I watched all five go in. I was gentle. I was slow. My face was an inch away from the spectacle of it. My heart felt as if it would explode. My fingers had vanished. I scrunched them as tight as I could, not wanting to hurt him, but still wanting all of them in there, the desire for this burning like a three-alarm fire that would take the entirety of the nearby ocean to put out.
He bucked beneath my ministrations, jacking madly away at his cock, balls bouncing, bed shaking. “Takes a lot of trust,” he panted. “A lot of trust to allow you to do that.”
I felt like crying as he said it. He was calling me out. He knew I was lying to him, or at least not admitting all of it. But where did his allegiances lie? Generations of his family were tied to the estate. He knew me for less than a week. My mind was already messed up to begin with; now it was tangled into so many knots it could dock a tanker.
I pushed his hand from his dick. I jacked him while I fucked him, both my hands working in overdrive. His eyes locked with mine. I started to cry as he started to come. Tears rolled down my cheeks as come flew out in all directions, as his hole clenched tightly around my fingers, as his balls rose and his back arched.
I milked every last drop out. I eased my hand from his hole, from his pole. He fought to catch his breath as I stood up and backed an inch away from the bed. I wiped the tears away.
“Why are you crying?” he finally asked.
“You can’t tell me the truth, Manny, and I can’t tell you the truth. You want to tell me what you know, what your father knew, what his father before him knew. I want to tell you what I suspect. I like you so much. I think you feel the same. I trust you, Manny. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust you. But I fear telling you what I know could hurt us both. I fear that not telling you what I know could hurt us both. I’m crying because I don’t want to lose you, not so soon after I found you.” I sighed as more tears came. My chest rose and fell. “I’ve lost more than you can imagine, Manny. No one should ever lose all I’ve lost. Now I’ve potentially found something, and I’m terrified of losing it all again.” And not just Benny; I was scared of losing him, too.
He fell back onto the bed. His eyes were closed, dick softening, come dripping down his sides. “I can’t tell you everything, Ted,” he said, “but you can still trust me. I am on your side.” His eyes popped open. So much blue. So much fucking blue. “Just be careful, then. Just be careful until you can tell me.”
I continued to stare down at him as he stared up at me. I did trust him. And I did like him. A lot, in fact. But what was he warning me about? Or who?
“I’ve never had that much of my hand up a guy’s ass before,” I said, managing a grin. And a hard-on. Though, to be fair, that had been there all along.
He again propped himself up onto his elbows. He, too, was smiling. “And I’ve never had a guy slide all five fingers up my ass before. Heck, I didn’t even know that was possible to do. For me, I mean.” The grin widened. “Felt…amazing.” He hopped out of the bed and was standing in front of me. “You’re amazing, Ted.”
A flush of crimson burned my cheeks. “Yeah, you, too, Manny.” I paused. Here were more uncharted waters for me. That is to say, the pause was followed by, “Do you want to go on a date with me?” It was my turn to ask him. It was time.
He laughed and pulled me in tight. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Yeah, me neither.
* * * *
It was later that night. I’d eaten dinner alone. Matilda and Benny were a no-show. Seems everyone had a date. I was excited for mine. I was both nauseated and terrified of theirs. My heart was torn between the man I could have and the one I couldn’t. My head, of course, knew which half to go with. My dick was good either way. In any case, and for a change, I was going with my head on this one. I really did like Manny. I wanted more than just a date with him. But I wanted so many things as of late, and that head of mine was mightily confused about all of said things.
I finished my meal and headed back for my bedroom. Manny would pick me up at eight. We were going to a nearby bar for a drink, dancing afterwards. FYI, this was my first date ever. Ever! Sex, yes, I’d had lots of sex. Lots and lots. But never a date. I’d never even been to a nightclub. Begged outside of a few, sure, but never inside.
I rummaged through Mortimer’s wardrobe and found a suit that fit and didn’t look like it had been purchased in a clothes catalog from the seventies. We even had the same shoe size. As to underwear, I preferred not to wear a pair last worn by a dead man, and so I went with what I had.
I was nervous and excited. Mostly the latter. “A date,” I said into a full-length mirror. “Life is looking up, Ted.”
Close. So fucking close.