Violated (17 page)

But before he could make up his mind, Ted outed him. “He’s a cop, sweetie, so you better not be thinking of selling him drugs.”

Russ frowned at his host, but Brian seemed to think it was funny. “Really? That’s so cool.”

Russ seriously hoped this guy didn’t have a fetish for cops. That would be the last thing he needed. “What about you?”

“I’m boring,” Brian said, rolling his eyes again. “I’m the manager of a Pizza Hut.”

“That’s cool.”

“It’s nice of you to say so.” Brian shifted so they were facing, which lifted his leg up onto the couch and put his crotch on display again. Russ wasn’t sure if it had been intentional or not. “I come up here once a year to escape the drudgery. I suppose your job is pretty stressful.”

“Sometimes. But there’s a lot of patrolling around bored out of your mind too. I work in Manchester, New Hampshire—not New York City.”

Brian laughed again. The conversation, as they continued to sip their drinks, wasn’t riveting, but it was pleasant. They discovered a common interest in
The Lord of the Rings
—both the novels and the movies—and they whittled away some time discussing the differences between the two, while the others wandered off to various parts of the house and Max found his way over to curl up on the floor beside the couch. During that time, Russ discovered another thing about public nudity—it was difficult for a man to disguise a growing interest in the person he was talking to. Brian didn’t exactly grow erect during the conversation, but he was definitely plumping. Russ found this fascinating, though he attempted to keep his eyes raised.

If Brian was embarrassed, he didn’t give any indication. When he decided to refresh their drinks, he stood and walked to the bar, his cock definitely jutting out a bit. “Ted never did show you around, did he?”

Russ cleared his throat. “Uh… no. We just sort of stopped here.”

Brian walked back to him with a definite bounce to his penis. He handed Russ a new sombrero. “Come on, then. The hot tub is heavenly on a night like this.”

T
HE
CALL
from HR came the next morning, while Derek and Tim were eating breakfast. They’d barely said one word all morning. Tim was pissed at him for coming home so late—utterly convinced he’d been fucking Victor in the locker room or the backseat of his car. Derek had just told him “Fuck you,” which raised the decibel level on Tim’s rant, but he’d been beyond caring. Derek had tossed and turned all night, not once drifting off to sleep. He hadn’t had another panic attack, if that’s what they were. He’d just felt numb, as though he’d cried out all ability to feel anything. He was still feeling numb this morning.

The call from Virginia Haas was disturbing. She’d never been his favorite person in the world. She was the type of person who smiled sweetly at someone and acted sympathetic while informing him the company insurance policy couldn’t possibly cover anesthesia during his open-heart surgery.

“Hi, Derek. Would you mind stopping by HR first thing this morning?”

“What for?”

“Something we need to clear up.”

“What something?”

“I think we need to talk in person,” she told him a bit too cheerfully. “I’ll see you when you come in.”

Victor. It had to be. But what could he have told them? Certainly not the truth.

“What was that about?” Tim asked coolly when he hung up.

“I don’t know. HR wants to see me.”

Tim looked at him suspiciously. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Derek growled. It wouldn’t hurt for Tim to be on his side, just once. “I have no idea what this is about.”

At any rate, the call had accomplished one thing—Derek was no longer feeling numb. Now he was filled with dread.

R
USS
WOKE
to find Brian still in his bed. It was a pleasant surprise, after the way Ian had always taken off immediately after sex. He propped his head up on one arm and gazed down at the man’s face. He had to admit Brian was cute. And the sex had been fun. Not mind-blowing, but definitely worth repeating.

I’m such a slut
. Russ had never thought he was the kind of person who hopped into bed with a guy just a few hours after they’d been introduced, but this made the second time in just a couple of months. He’d been safe, but still… was he that desperate? Not that that was fair to either Ian or Brian. They were both extremely good-looking men. Russ didn’t have to be “desperate” to want to sleep with either of them—although his attraction to Ian had waned.

I’m lonely.
That was definitely true. And he was sick of being lonely. He wanted someone to come home to every night—someone he felt a
connection
to. Physical attraction was great, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. He hadn’t felt any connection whatsoever to Ian, and he wasn’t sure there was much there between him and Brian, either. Unfortunately, the only guy he
had
felt a strong connection to in recent memory was taken.

He quietly slipped out of bed, hoping not to wake Brian, but Max jumped up the moment he saw his master get up and began running excitedly back and forth between the bed and the door—his subtle way of hinting that a trip outside might be an excellent idea. The frantic
click-click-click
of his claws on the hardwood floor caused Brian to stir.

He looked up at Russ and smiled. “Morning.”

“Good morning. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. But Max and I have to pee.”

“No problem. Go use the bathroom. I’ll use it when you’re done.”

The upstairs bedrooms all shared a common bathroom at the end of the hall. Russ felt a bit self-conscious walking out there naked. So far, Brian was the only one who’d seen him without his clothes. He’d stripped at the hot tub last night, and after soaking for a bit, accompanied by a lot of flirting, they’d ended up making out. Then they’d snuck inside, Russ clutching his clothes in a big wad in front of his crotch, and gone upstairs to have sex.

But no time like the present. He took a deep breath, opened his door, and stepped out into the hall, Max practically bowling him over as he rushed out. That, of course, just happened to be the moment the bathroom door opened and a strange man Russ hadn’t met stepped out. He was naked, too, thank God. If he hadn’t been, Russ would have panicked and leaped back inside the bedroom.

“Good morning,” the man said cheerfully. He was dark-skinned—perhaps Filipino—with a broad face and a squat but muscular frame. He appeared to be close to Russ’s age. “I’m Lester,” he said, shifting his toothbrush and toothpaste to his left hand so he could extend his right. “I heard there was a new guest.”

“Hi,” Russ said, shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Have you noticed we’re both naked?
Russ wasn’t sure he’d be able to get used to this.

Fortunately Lester didn’t feel like chatting. Russ’s bladder was growing decidedly uncomfortable. He ducked into the bathroom, quickly relieved himself, and then ran downstairs to find Max, hoping the dog hadn’t decided to lift a leg on the furniture. Normally he and the dog would have gone out together, but he didn’t think it would be cool to urinate in the yard—at least until he saw the others doing it. He found Max pacing anxiously back and forth by the door. When Russ let him out, the dog exploded out of the house and rushed over to the grass at the edge of the driveway.

“Sorry, pal,” Russ said, when the dog trotted back inside. Then he saw Max sniffing the air, and he became aware of a heavenly odor wafting from the back of the house. Bacon! And maple syrup!

The bathroom door upstairs opened and Brian walked out onto the landing to grin down at him. “Hey, handsome. Did you want to come back to bed for a bit?” He was holding his cock suggestively, not exactly jerking it, but definitely caressing it.

Russ was flustered, torn between the stirring in his groin and the rumbling in his stomach. “But…,” he said pathetically, “there’s bacon….”

“I
DON
’
T
really know how to say this, exactly, but… we’ve had a complaint filed.”

“A complaint about me,” Derek said flatly.

Virginia spread her hands in a gesture that seemed to say “It’s probably nothing,” but he wasn’t reassured. “We have to look into these things.”

“What am I supposed to have done?”

“Reports like this are, for the most part, confidential,” she said. “But in a case like this, it’s impossible to keep the other person’s identity from you—there were only two of you there. So you might as well read his description of the events. It’s… a bit crude….” She slid a piece of paper across the desk toward him.

While tendrils of fear and disgust writhed throughout his body, forcing their way up his neck into his scalp, Derek read Victor’s account of that night in Florida. Much of it was true—the drinking, the horsing around back in their room, even the fact that they’d both slept in the nude. Then suddenly reality shifted and Victor was waking in the night, still drunk and hazy, to find Derek’s mouth wrapped around his cock, hungrily sucking him off. He’d come before he was fully aware of what was happening, and because they were old friends, he hadn’t said a word about it when they returned to Portsmouth. That is, until last night, when Derek accosted him in the parking lot, trying to pressure Victor into accepting another blow job.

“That isn’t… what happened….”

“Well, why don’t you tell me what happened, from your point of view.”

He knew this was a lost cause. He’d never liked Virginia, and he felt sure she’d never liked him. This was a case of one person’s word against another, and Victor’s word had far more clout than his. Victor could be funny and entertaining, when he wanted to be. Few people knew him as well as Derek, knew what a pig he was underneath the façade he put up at work.

But Derek took a steadying breath and attempted to defend himself. “I was the one who woke up with him… on top of me,” he said.

Virginia raised her eyebrows skeptically. “Victor.”

“Yes.”

“You woke up and found Victor… performing oral sex on you.”

“No,” Derek said, swallowing back the bile that threatened to rise up in his throat. He didn’t want to talk about this. Certainly not with her. Anything he said would go into her goddamned personnel files, and God only knew who’d read about it. But he couldn’t allow himself to be written up as someone who sexually assaulted employees. With his head starting to swim, he finally choked out, “He… penetrated… me.”

“Victor did that,” she asked, her face devoid of all expression. “Your
straight
manager.”

“I don’t know if he’s straight or bi or what, but he did it.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

“No.”

“Did you have a doctor examine you, after you were assaulted?”

“Did Victor?” Derek snapped.

Virginia spread her hands again. “There isn’t generally much of a trace left behind for oral sex, is there? And that’s what he claims you did to him. But for what you’re claiming…. Well, you’d think there might be some evidence. Hospitals have kits—”

“I went to the doctor, but not until weeks afterward.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did the doctor find anything?”

“No.”

Virginia pursed her lips. “I see.” She held out her hand until he handed the paper back, at which point she placed it on top of the pile on her desk. “This is probably something best dealt with through lawyers. If you don’t have one already, I would advise you to get one. Accusations like this could do a lot of damage to your careers. In any event, Jack and Ronald have reviewed the complaint against you.” Jack was the VP in charge of support, and Ronald was the CEO. “I’ll be passing along your response to them, of course, but for now the decision has been made to terminate your employment.”

“For now?” Derek asked, his head swimming.

She smiled coldly at him—the smile of a shark. “If this goes to court and you’re cleared of any wrongdoing, then of course we would consider reinstating you.”

H
E
WAS
expected to clean out his desk. But to add insult to injury, he wasn’t allowed to go into the support department by himself. Virginia made a call down to security, and a young man in the blue-gray uniform of the private security agency used by the company came up to her office. Derek had to restrain himself from fleeing in a panic. He felt as if he were being escorted to a prison block.

Just before they left the HR department, Virginia handed him his final check in an envelope that had already been prepared. “You’re only being paid up through yesterday, so this is less than your normal biweekly paycheck,” she said. “But we’ve added in any personal leave time you’ve accrued for the year and haven’t used yet. Then, of course, taxes have been taken out. Please take a look and let me know if it looks correct.”

Derek slid the check out of the envelope. It was just under two thousand, which was a little less than his normal paycheck would have been, but everything was itemized on the stub and he saw no reason to argue with it. “It’s fine,” he said.

“Good.”

Then she “helpfully” found Derek an empty cardboard box from the printer room.

The guard led the way into the elevator, and they stood side by side in silence as it transported them down to the third floor. Then the guard swiped them through the door into support with his card. Nobody had asked for Derek’s card back, but he knew IT would have deactivated it as soon as word came down that he’d been let go.

Walking to his desk was the hardest part of the whole fucked-up mess. Derek kept his eyes focused straight ahead as he walked past all his coworkers, people who’d always treated him as one of the gang, someone whose knowledge and experienced they’d respected. Now he could feel them watching him in shock. Had word gotten around yet? Had they heard about Victor’s accusation? HR and management always made a show of keeping the reasons for someone’s dismissal confidential, yet word always got around. Gary had come in drunk once too often, Steve had lost his temper with a customer, Rob had been swiping pocket change off people’s desks….