He had closed his eyes, and when he opened them, his pupils were dilated. Brandon was so perfect for me. I kissed his lips and patted his chest.
“And after you put lotion of those, put a t-shirt on. If you walk around here all day just in those boxer briefs with those bare nipples daring me, you’re going to spend most of the day getting carpet burns, pup.”
“I’m okay with that,” he said.
I kissed him again, reiterated his tasks, and told him I was going to step out onto the deck to call Russell. He said that he’d be ready for me when I was done with the phone call.
I didn’t make a habit out of stepping outside in just my boxer briefs, but it was my deck, and with all of the trees, no one could even see my patio. Brandon had me very relaxed, which wasn’t a bad thing. I sat on one of the patio chairs and dialed Russell. It was going on 11:00 in the morning, and I was prepared for him to give me shit over it being so late in the day. He was an early riser. A beyond ridiculously early riser.
“Morning, James,” Russell said when he answered on the second ring. I chuckled because I was ready for him to say it was the afternoon.
“Russell, how are you?”
“Things are going well; I can’t complain. How are you? I haven’t heard from you in a few days.”
“They’re good now, but I had quite the scare. Saturday afternoon Brandon and I went down to Andrew’s housewarming party. Brandon was triggered by something and nearly passed out. I brought him home and tried to make him comfortable so he’d talk to me. I left him alone for fifteen minutes, and when I came out of the bedroom, he was gone.”
“Shit, did you find him?”
I went through the brief version of how I found Brandon yesterday and that his explanation for running was because he had heard about my psychology background. I didn’t leave out how our feelings for one another pretty much spilled out, leading us to bed.
“So just him hearing that you have a psychology background set him off?” Russell inquired.
“Yes, it would seem so. He starts to refer to this one particular guy, but then he catches himself and ‘he’ turns into ‘they.’ At first I thought that Brandon was referring to the Sebastian ringleader asshole, or possibly one of Sebastian’s guys that would carry out some of the torture and abuse.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m not so sure.”
“How so?”
“I think the ‘he’ that he refers to is the man who took him to this party. This friend of the family he has referred to before. He mentioned that he wasn’t sure of their relationship; though, I gather he may have felt that there was more to it than what he leads me to believe. I don’t think Brandon would have such a severe reaction to the similarity of a psychology background.”
“He was tortured, James. It’s believable for that connection alone to scare the shit out of him. Have you detected any sort of Stockholm Syndrome going on with him in the months you’ve had him with you?”
“A touch of it, yes. I have talked to the psychologists of the other four patients; they all have it. Actually, from what it sounds like, they have it in much stronger degrees than Brandon.”
“Interesting.”
“And you don’t need to remind me that he was tortured. I lay beside him each night. I hear the whimpers and cries in the nightmares. I see his body naked each day, and I see the scars. Each time he smiles, I picture the metal piercings that had kept his mouth shut. I see the fear of being abandoned in his eyes nearly every day, Russell. And because of what those assholes did to him, I repeat my promise to him each day that I won’t leave him. So, yes, I am well aware that he was tortured.”
I let the silence hang between us for a few moments while I calmed myself down. I watched the waves crash and then settle on the shore. Feeling the need to keep talking about Brandon, I began offering up little pieces of information that I’d already shared with Russell in prior conversations.
“Sometimes when he’s sleeping, in a nightmare, no doubt, he’ll say the name ‘Eli.’ I don’t know if this is just one of the guys at the house, or if this is someone else from his life.”
“Could it have been a stepfather or a boyfriend of the mother’s?”
“I don’t know for sure. From what Brandon says, his mother had different men over often. Brandon didn’t have a close male role model, and it’s very evident. He craves positive attention.”
“Just like Ryan.”
I stood up and wandered to the corner of the deck and leaned forward, resting my arms on top of the wooden railing. I had more thoughts on who Eli might have been, but I hadn’t logically thought through all of them yet. But this was Russell that I was talking to, and there was a good chance he was waiting for me to reveal what other ideas I had on the topic.
“Part of me, and this isn’t a well-thought out idea yet, but part of me thinks this Eli character is from his earlier life,” I admitted.
As if on cue, Russell was all over that.
“Perhaps a friend of the family?”
