“Do it like that. I’ll show you.” Quinn pushed off the lakebed into deeper water and thrashed around, dog paddling. He felt a little ridiculous, but Graham found it funny and giggled loudly. The lake quivered around Quinn’s body as if Lochlan, too, were laughing at him. “Hey, give me a break,” Quinn scowled, hiding a grin. “I haven’t dog paddled sinceIwas a kid. Do you know how long ago that was?”
Graham snickered. “Along, longtime ago.”
“That was arhetoricalquestion.” Quinn made a face at the boy as he bobbed in the water. “I don’t need to be reminded howoldI am.”
Graham giggled. “You’re notthatold.”
“Well, thank you for that… vote of confidence.” He wiped water from his face. “Okay. Your turn. Do it like I did, but maybe with… more grace.” He rolled his eyes, and Graham laughed. Another ripple in the lakevibratedthrough Quinn. “Lochlan is laughing at me, too. You two are not allowed to gang up on me.”
“Uh-huh,” Graham giggled hard when the tentacle holding him quivered, tickling the boy.
“All right, all right,” Quinn chuckled. “Show me what you got.”
The afternoon wound toward early evening with them in the water. Graham was a quick learner, and it didn’t take long before he was swimming on his own, with Quinn and Lochlan staying close by his side. Quinn watched with deep love and affection as Lochlan played with the boy, developing bonds that Quinn believed would remain for years to come.
When the sun dipped toward the horizon, and they left the water, Graham paused at the shore and looked back, his young face glistening in the fading sunlight. “Bye, Lochlan!” He waved wildly. “See you tomorrow!”
The surface roiled as tentacles broke the surface, as if the gentle giant were waving back at his new friend.
Quinn cooked dinner on a wood cook stove. Though the cabin was equipped with a generator, Quinn preferred cooking on the wood stove or the gas burners. He used oil lamps for lighting, while keeping gas lanterns and flashlights for when he needed to go outside after dark.
“Did Grandma Em know about Lochlan?” Graham asked as they sat at the small table, eating their dinner.
“No, she didn’t,” Quinn said, thoughts of Emily warming his heart… igniting a soft ache. He missed his sweet Emily. She had passed away within an hour of giving birth to Adam due to complications. She’d known she was going to die, though Quinn had insisted she was strong and would make it. She knew it was her time to go. No bitterness consumed her—rather, she was thankful that God had let her live long enough to hold her newborn baby.
“Because Lochlan was a secret?”
“Yeah.” Quinn smiled small. “It wasn’t because I didn’t trust her with the secret—I trusted her more than anyone I knew—but some secrets are only for yourself.”
“I wish Grandma Em didn’t die.”
“Me, too, Graham,” Quinn murmured. All Adam and Graham knew about Emily came from Quinn. He didn’t need to exaggerate her admirable qualities; she simply was incredible. When Emily became pregnant and her boyfriend, who had professed his love and desire to marry her, abandoned her, Quinn immediately stepped in. In the sixties, unwed mothers faced ridicule and scorn, but Quinn refused to let that happen to Emily. She was hesitant to accept his proposal initially, knowing he was gay, but he assured her that their marriage wouldn’t alter his life and that his love was genuine, even if not romantic. She agreed to marry him, and they enjoyed a blissful few months until Adam was born and Emily left them.
Quinn had promised to raise Adam as his own, and to this day, Adam believed that Quinn was his real father.You are his real father.He had been there through all of Adam’s “firsts”, had been his emotional support after the near-fatal swimming incident, and his financial support for college. As a single father, Quinn had developed a close relationship with Adam that remained over the years. When Adam got married, Quinn gave them their space as newlyweds and spent even more time at the lake. He and Adam had drifted apart somewhat by the time Graham was born, but his grandson had drawn them back together.
“I bet Grandma Em would’ve thought Lochlan was cool.” Graham smiled.
Chuckling softly, Quinn nodded. “I agree. She was pretty cool herself. I think they would have gotten along well.” Hecouldhave trusted Emily with the secret of Lochlan’s existence, but hisintimaterelationship with Lochlan wasn’t something he could have ever shared with her or anyone. Though he did speak to her of “Lochlan”—the reason he spent time at the cabin—she believed he was amanwhom Quinn was in love with, anddiscreetly met at the cabin to prevent public scandal for Emily. There was a grain of truth in that; hedidlove Lochlan.
Just after midnight, well past Graham’s bedtime, while the boy spirited through his dreams, Quinn left the cabin and walked down to the lake. As the water lapped at his bare feet, Quinn undressed and waded in, the warmth of the afternoon sun reflected in the lake. Moonlight shimmered on the water as gentle ripples rolled across the surface, meeting Quinn, ebbing his body.
As he swam deeper, the world beneath the surface began to awaken. The warm water circled around his thighs as slick tentacles reached up from below, exploring his legs and gently coiling around his lower limbs. Quinn shivered pleasantly as they suctioned to his skin, pulsating… and pulling him under. He closed his eyes and held his breath when his head slipped under the surface, and when the thin, slippery tendril probed his mouth, he opened up.
A shudder of ecstasy rushed through him as the tendril slid down his throat and entered his lungs. He experienced that familiar burst of breath—nothing like the feeling of breathing oxygen, yet it sustained his life.
Lochlan surrounded him, tentacles—arms—of various thicknesses, curled around his aching body, while others intertwined in front of him, forming a mass that drew him closer. Quinn moaned past the small tentacle pulsing inside his throat as another slightly larger one probed his mouth, the tip opening like a petal. A tongue-like appendage emerged, tracing the lines of Quinn’s lips. Quinn opened his mouth a little wider, and it slipped inside, exploring before coiling his tongue.
Quinn pressed against the mass, his hands caressing the slick “flesh” of the being he had come to desire and cherish, his love for Lochlan growing stronger with each passing year. Spending winters away from him was agony, but coming “home” was pure ecstasy.
‘I miss you so much when we’re apart,’the words whispered from his soul, from every nerve ending, every molecule that made up his being. An energy responded—not in words, but with an eruption of emotion and light that surged through Quinn’s veins and arteries, through the synapses of his brain fibers, setting off a kaleidoscope of light and colors inside his mind, his spirit.The expression of love.
The consuming sensations ignited Quinn’s arousal and passion, and he trembled as his hips rolled against Lochlan’s “body”, his hard member squeezing between the slick, tightly knit tentacles. A shuddered rippled through him as the appendage in his mouth began to throb and gently thrust into the back of his throat. He pushed his hips more urgently forward, gliding his engorged cock through the hard, fleshyroots, pulsating with tinysuckersthat gripped and tasted his shaft.
Quinn whimpered, his loins burning with need. Acaveopened inside the mass of tentacles, and he thrust into the fleshy maw, which immediately closed around his erection. A thousand tinymouthsattached to his dick, sucking him off as the larger “muscle” surrounding his member began to quiver; pulsingthrobsrolling up and down his shaft.
His eyes rolling back, Quinn clung to Lochlan and pumped his hips faster, his loins on fire. He sucked desperately on the appendage in his mouth, feeling it swell and quiver as it stretched further down his throat. He moaned and sucked with more force, fucking hisloverdeeper, harder, his thick rootslipping urgently inside the cave, now filling up with a warm,slimysubstance that tingled his cock.
Shudders coursed through his tense body, and he gasped around the tentacle fucking his mouth when a quite thick appendage nudged his anus. Quinn squeezed his eyes shut and parted his legs as the tip of the tentacle excreted a glob of slime into his hole before beginning itsinvasionof his anal cavity.
