​
Prologue
 
 
Caleb Green
 
“Hey, bub.” Levi hooks an elbow around my neck, herding me in the direction of the bar area. The lights and sounds of Restraint are beating at my brain, skin beading with a cold sweat, pulse skyrocketing. “Stop looking so fierce– you’ll be the one to end up starting a riot.”
​
Raw and on edge, I can’t allow the overstimulation to get the better of me, as it batters all my senses, leaving them in tatters. It was a battle in a never-ending war that actually got me out of Green tonight, and I can’t risk being placed back into captivity.

Stanton is in overprotective brother mode, the intensity worse for the fact that he is the head of our family. What he says is law on three fronts– as the Green patriarch, the head of our organized crime syndicate, and the elder of our founding family.

Since I set foot on Dominion soil, I haven’t had a second of privacy, barely taking a shit unaided– I can sense someone is always lurking outside the bathroom door. Levi has taken it upon himself to sit on the closed toilet seat and chatter at me while I shower, which means I wear my boxers into the shower, then toss them at him, because no one is going to see that mangled region of my body.

Stanton and Syn are terrified, rightfully so, after they guessed I’m suffering from PTSD. They fear suicide, because after living life in survival mode, with laws differing than those of man, it’s difficult to assimilate back into civilized society. Not to mention the fact that I lost the bulk of the men who had been by my side during the entirety of my enlistment.

Suffering in a state of endless mourning, the guilt eating up my insides as I second-guess my decisions during that last raid– the order that annihilated my men and my ability to function as a man. The confidence in my competency to lead has been reduced to ash.

Fearing a setback, Stanton wouldn’t allow me to take my rightful place at his side, lording over Dominion and our territories. Instead, he chose his ballerina mafia princess, who had cut her teeth in Las Vegas, which was decidedly a more bloodthirsty territory.

After jumping every time someone opens or closes a door in Stan’s apartment, where I’d find the nearest cover, after cataloging what could be used as a weapon against overly touchy feely, well-intentioned relatives, tonight is about busywork and getting me out of the house.

I was ordered to accompany Levi and Gwen to Restraint. A ruse of sorts, where I was to protect my companions, which is laughable, considering I’ve never bested Levi, and he’s never bested me, and who the fuck would ever harm harmless Gwen. In my weakened state, I could easily be brought down by a teenage girl.

The irony of going to a club– a sex club no less –when my brother had effectively lobbed off my remaining nut by coddling me and treating me like a fragile pussy.

They had an intervention of sorts, because I refuse to talk about my tenure with the United State Marine Corps, because everything I could say it classified. It’s best to not even think it, lest it spill from my loosen lips. It’s nothing but a hornet’s nest of pain, each sting painful enough to incapacitate me.

Busywork, babysitting, trying to give me a purpose since everything I’ve strived to achieve has been torn from my grasp, and they don’t know the half of it, because I refuse to speak a word. Not only am I bunking with my bloodthirsty niece, now I’m watching over Ezra’s brainchild.

The founders are unsure if Ezra is going off the rails again and self-sabotaging while taking us down with him, or if something far more nefarious is going on. I’ve been tasked to find out, but they all know it’s a bullshit job to give me something to do, instead of counting the remaining seconds of my life. No military. No cartel. No sex. No kids.

No future.

If there is truth to the threat, I’ve been approved to head a security unit. While the founders may feel like they’re throwing me a bone, security is what I excel at, especially combining individuals into a cohesively functioning team. They at least managed to make me look forward to something in this dreadful existence I call a life.

“It would be another setback in a journey of many.” Somehow, even above the music assaulting my eardrums, Gwen’s soft voice carries from the other side of Levi. I’ve known this woman since birth, at one time she was supposed to be my mother figure– she just about bowled me over by wearing a pair of jeans and a tank top. Blonde and petite, Gwen is surprisingly blending in with her surroundings, appearing to be an indiscriminate age with her hair in a ponytail. “Do try to change the ferocious expression on your face, Caleb.”

No matter the looks, a woman who is shorter, smaller, and appears to be younger than me, manages to cut me off at the knees by treating me as her child.

Laughing lightly, whether it’s for show is anyone’s guess, Levi turns on the frat boy charm. A happy-go-lucky smile is tinged slightly with smug confidence. A pair of worn-out jeans and a tight t-shirt lowers his age into the range of twentysomething. That shaved head is hiding the fact that he has honey brown curls that takes away from his serial killer image. But the severity of his skullcut is lessened by the deep tan from two weeks of running the pavement on Dominion’s streets at my side. Nonstop doubletakes, those brown contacts covering laser beam eyes are driving me to distraction. If I hadn’t known Levi since birth, I wouldn’t know what to make of him.

Leviticus Wilson is a consummate actor, and I know him better than anyone else on this planet. But as he perfectly mimics a college kid, I barely recognize his facial expressions, the loose way he carries his taut body, and even his voice has lost that raspy threatening edge that I find more comforting than terrifying.

Our motley crew threesome is something to behold. After Aaron almost pissed himself at the main entrance, sputtering and waving us through, followed by Roarke’s eyes bulging out of his sockets, we’re slowly weaving our way through a club that is breaking a half dozen fire codes– firefighter Levi just finished listing those off, most falling on deaf ears as the music assaulted us.

Arm wrapped lightly around Gwen’s waist, looking like lovers seeking a bit of a thrill to liven up a dull relationship– in actuality, Levi is protecting his mother-in-law. Bro-ing it up, Levi’s got his other arm wrapped around my shoulders, elbow hooking my neck– in actuality, he’s keeping my shit together.

“Instead of resting bitch face, you’ve got resting warrior face, my brother.”

Eyes cutting to the side, I show Levi just how much I appreciate his nonstop hilarity, just as a douchebag with a death-wish steps in front of me, forcing me into a standstill. Smarmy, sweat licking at his brow, face bloated from alcohol, he reminds me of the men who pay for sex– the ones who knock the whores around and demand a refund, even though the ladies gave the man everything he paid for and then some. This lowlife is the type of guy who will drug a drink and take advantage, then say the woman wanted it.

I know the type– I was reared by this type. Satan and his lieutenants.

Only this guy doesn’t have the smarts Satan had in the tip of his dick. 

That arm hooking my throat tightens, stopping me from lashing out to snap that motherfucker’s neck. “Toto, you’re back in Kansas,” is a low warning rumble from Levi’s chest, meant only for my ears. “I’m good at cleaning up messes, but I ain’t that good.”

Recognizing his death flashing before my eyes. “My bad.” The dude holds his hands up in the universal sign of ‘I’m harmless’ then slowly backs away. A few seconds ago, he was filled with alcohol-induced courage and fueled by mob mentality, about to shout at me to watch where I was fucking going, probably razz me a bit to increase his dick size, judging by the posse of nutless wonders at his back.

Just because I’m below average height, taut body hidden beneath loose clothing, doesn’t mean I’m not the biggest predator in this club, one that is running off pure adrenaline, instinct, and survival of the fittest.

Those assholes aren’t fit to survive. They’re not fit enough to reproduce, but a man like me had that torn away in an explosive burst during a roadside bombing.

“Nope.” Arm swinging me to the right, nearly cutting off my oxygen supply. “That’d be a big nope, killa. Might feel good for a split-second, but then you’d hate yourself. Then you’d use it as an excuse to atone for your sins. Not on my watch, bub.”

The only response Levi gets is a death glare.

I am not suicidal.

Doesn’t matter if I use big or small words, bellow it loudly or whisper it all quiet, no one believes me when I promise not to put a cap in my right temple.

“I’ve been going through eye-witness accounts on the past two riots.” Gwen is smart to reroute us back to the subject at hand. Those hypnotic blue eyes miss nothing, completely at odds with the innocent maiden expression on her face. “That man was probably paid to get someone riled up, and he chose you, Caleb. Rightly for the fact that you look like a ticking timebomb. Wrongly for the fact that you’re here to stop a riot. I assume,” she tacks on, not trusting me anymore. 

A toxic stew of grief, shame, and decimated confidence slam into me all at once. “And I almost played into his hands.”

“You’ve got the look of a man with demons riding you, my brother.” That arm hold turns into more of an embrace. Everyone keeps acting as if I look differently to them than who I see gazing back at me from the bathroom mirror.

“We need alcohol.”

A brow lowers in confusion, while a pretty face upturns in my direction. Levi and Gwen stare at me like I’ve grown a third head.

“Not to drink.” Scoffing, I jerk out from beneath Levi’s hold. They all assume I’m dosed with the psychotropic drugs I’m supposed to be taking, so I’ve been living the life of a monk. “As a prop. I’m not a sociopath like you motherfuckers– I need a prop to excuse the fact that my face looks like I’m about to commit mass slaughter.”

“Fine.” Gwen eyes me, the trust everyone had in me before I left Dominion as a teen has turned tenuous at best since I returned a wounded hero. “I’d feel safer near Kristal anyway.”

“Uh!” Twisting his face up, Levi glares at his mother-in-law. “What am I, woman? Chopped liver? Been protecting your ass since I was sixteen.”

Those angelic eyes roll, and a montage of every human being Gwen’s brought into this world plays out inside my head, dominated by Syn mostly. All disrespectful eye-rollers, the whole lot of them, especially Torian.

Anger dissipating in an instant, Levi releases the filthiest laugh I’ve ever heard– not playing a role in an MdJ production, that is the laugh Levi employs when he’s around those he trusts. A laugh he inherited from his mother. The laugh that has quivers of pleasure roiling up and down my spine.

Asshole.

It’s the uninhibited, joyous laughter Levi always released after coming down my throat. I swear to God, seventeen years later, I can still taste it coating the back of my tongue.

If that imagined taste can’t get my dick hard, nothing ever will, not after being conditioned to rise for Levi since I learned what a hard-on meant.

Sharing a look with me, it’s not the same with those contacts covering his gaze, but an entire conversation takes place between us in less than a second. “You’ll be okay.” Levi assures himself, following after Gwen as she weaves through the crowd toward the bar Kristal is manning.

Doing the only thing I can– my duty –I follow.

Slipping into recon-mode, my eyes miss nothing. I shrink into myself, trying to cloak the fact that I’m the biggest predator here. All around me, the alcohol flows easier than water, the lust-inducing thump vibrates at our feet to reverberate up our legs and throughout our bodies. Dancers gyrate against one another in a mating dance that hammers home the depressive state of my mangled junk.

Ominous yet thrilling, a thick yet heady scent lingers in the air, raw sex with the possibility of violence. Sighing deeply, the pheromones swirling around me draw the tension from my taut muscles like the most potent of drugs, deeply lulling me to momentarily forget about the possibility of my own impotency.

Strategically placed, I realize this isn’t babysitting duty or busywork, not by how hypervigilant those spread across the club appear. The patrons none-the-wiser, except for a few who are sensitive to the suffocating energy coalescing.

Dexter is spotted first, hiding against the far wall, arms crossed over his glistening chest– brow heavy with determination and concentration.

A vibe, but it’s always been as if I have a homing beacon set on Syn– her post is by a key-coded door at the rear of the club. Eyes sharp with the promise of justice.

A few paces to the right, Roman Alexander is stationed at the mouth of a hallway, the flare of an Exit sign glowing from above, promising restrooms and emergency exits, and most likely offices and storerooms lining the hallway.

A dozen strides from me, Gwen is belly-up to the bar, chatting openly with a beaming Kristal Harris, with Regina Regal glaring her down for some unknown reason. Oh, right– Gwen has either fucked or birthed the majority of the men in Regina’s life.

The crowd parting like Moses and the sea, none other than a Whittenhower strolls through as if he owns the world. Tall and fit, with the world at his fingertips, that blond, blue-eyed young god of Dominion is none other than Daniel Whittenhower II, otherwise known as Pretty Boy or Whitt.

Captivity hasn’t been very productive on the networking front, not that I’m much of a joiner. If they didn’t show up to the only founders’ meeting I’ve attended, I haven’t laid eyes upon them yet.

This man is the taller, prettier version of his scarred sire– the broody writer I have seen several times in the past two weeks, since he’s always shoved up Levi’s ass. I was introduced to Grant’s youngest spawn the first night of my arrival. Niel is nothing like I expected, looking more like the Atwaters than the Whittenhowers, mind more twisted by Machiavellian plots than Machiavelli himself, which leaves the only possibility for this obvious Whittenhower man to be our resident Pretty Boy.

Stunned, frozen solid in the middle of the floor, with a swarm of packed bodies surrounding me, I watch as Whitt walks in a bubble of his own confidence, wearing tailored trousers and a heartwarming, sunshiny smile.

After eating and breathing blood, sweat, tears, death, and destruction for the better part of two decades, beauty still hurts to gaze upon. The first time Levi hugged me, I bawled like a pussy for nearly an hour while my entire family waited on the other side of a closed door.

It was too much, too soon. Too kind. Too compassionate. Too loving. That hug broke the bitter dam I’ve erected since I was a teenager, and I can’t seem to repair the protective barrier surrounding my soul.

Green is filled with the brutality and loyalty of family, MdJ meetings are much the same. Seeing innocent aristocracy, glowing with angelic beauty in a city as tainted as Dominion, deep in the seedy underbelly, waltzing through a club catering to deviancy, my brain can’t compute.

Gaze tracking the boy through the club, following his arm… Whitt’s palm is softly resting above the swell of a woman’s ass. Owning the world, he probably owns this woman too. No matter how innocent appearances may be, Whitt’s neck is taut, eyes searching the shadows as he escorts the woman to the door Syn is manning, like the woman is precious cargo he’s been entrusted to protect.
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Recognizing the way Syn’s cheeks clench, it’s guilt not disgust that is revealed as she takes in the woman approaching her. Then her eyes soften, not because Whitt is her brother, but who could ever stay angry when looking at his beauty.

Curiosity has me slipping through the crowd, eyes glued to that door, the black pleather catsuit my beacon. Skin-tight, every movement is revealed as she takes smaller steps, the shiny material drawn across the swell of her ass and the curve of her hips and her rounded thighs.

In a club packed with women hopped up on alcohol, lust, and violence, why did this woman draw my attention?

She’s wearing a pleather catsuit– I’m not into this silly BDSM shit. I live in reality, with no room for fantasy. I don’t need to whip a person to get off, not when I’ve been held against my will and tortured. I don’t need genital mutilation when I’ve protected villages from the awful fate, then suffered it myself. I don’t need to playact acts of sexual violence and dubious consent, when I spent my childhood being taken against my will.

Not the catsuit, it’s the bloodred hair cascading to tickle at Whitt’s hand that is beaconing me forward until there’s only a dozen feet separating us. Longing slams into me, the fierce hunger to slide my fingertips through the strands– pet her like a cat.

I seriously need to get out more, it’s no wonder my brother is terrified and sent me with babysitters. I can’t be trusted to behave like a rational human being in public. Place a rifle in my hands and Marines at my back, and I thrive. Shove my ass in with normal, everyday humans, and I’m out of my element.

Pet her like a cat? For fuck’s sake!

Possessively glaring at Whitt’s elegant hand resting far too close to her voluptuous ass, the air is knocked out of my lungs– it’s just a split-second, not long enough to discern eye color –the woman looks over her shoulder, probably sensing someone was staring a hole through her ass, but it was long enough for our souls to connect.

A smoky fog descends, washing away what is happening in reality and replacing it with a fantasy.

That glorious mane of hair flows with lifelike movement as her head hitches back, creamy neck exposed for the tiniest of kisses from my lips. Throaty laughter vibrates against my mouth, as we become a tangle of arms and legs on a sofa, playing and wrestling over the remote.

“Daddy?” Gigantic blue eyes, sandy curls, a button nose, and a pointy chin, a little boy from my past gazes up at me. He’s me. I’m him. This is what I looked like in the mirror before Satan and his lieutenants started creeping into my bedroom in the dark of night.

“Daddy?” The sweetest, childlike, most beautiful voice to caress my ears is speaking to me. It’s not me from my memories– this is my future, and he’s calling me daddy. “Stop being mean to Mommy.”

The little boy crawls into our laps, chubby hand knocking my lips away from his mommy’s throat. He called her– the woman with the fiery hair wearing that indecent catsuit –mommy.

I’m daddy.

She’s mommy.

“Hey, bub!” An arm wrapping around my neck is just muted background noise as clarity descends. The woman is getting away from me, escorted by Pretty Boy, with Syn acting as the Ferryman to Hades.
Struggling to get out from beneath that ironlike arm, “I–”

“What are you doing?” Voice filled with nothing but confusion, Levi fears I’m losing it. The door is closed, effectively locking me out. Head tilted, sighting me down like a hawk after prey, Syn is staring at me with one eye while communicating with her husband with the other, silently conveying, “Wil, keep our boy’s shit together, will ya?”

“What is your malfunction?” Playfully dragging me to and fro, Levi effectively snares me in a headlock. “Why are you creeping on Ezra’s wife?”

Ezra’s wife?

The pallor of death sucking all the blood from my system, the fantasy I erected bursts apart and reality descends.

Fifteen seconds…

It only took fifteen seconds to change my world view.

Fifteen seconds to give me hope.

Fifteen seconds to erase the fact that I’m missing a nut, my junk is marred and functionless, and I probably can’t get it up, and if I could, I probably can’t get off, and if I can, I probably can’t make that son that starred in my fantasy.

Fifteen seconds where I felt nothing but hope, and love, and warmth, and contentment, and trust, and purpose, and happiness.

All it took was two words to decimate me. Break me. Annihilate me in a way a roadside bombing couldn’t. Fifteen seconds ago, I didn’t know what it felt like to be happy, where I could easily function in this apathetic state, only to have that happiness torn away from me.

Ezra’s wife.

“Good God, never let Ezra see you look at Kat like that.” Levi’s laughter isn’t taunting, but that’s how it hits my ears, filters through my body, to combust my heart. “He’d gut you in your sleep, then masturbate with your entrails.”

Vibrating as every emotion a person is capable of feeling hits me with force. Fifteen seconds ago, I could function in this numbness, but I’m no longer numb, and now I fear everyone was right… I fear looking in the mirror to see the ghost of who I once was staring back at me.

I may have survived my wounds, but it left me dead inside and out.

Touch light and soothing, a small hand pets the nape of my neck, pouty lips nearing my ear but never making contact. “The drive to rescue the damsel in distress is strong in you,” Gwen whispers to me, making sure even Levi can’t overhear.

There’s a cadence in Gwen’s voice, a quality she possesses that reminds me of my grandmother. I haven’t seen my grandmother since I left for basic training, because she has a witchy way about her when she asks if I’ve got a woman yet. When I tell her no, Grandma always replies that I’ll know when I’ve found her, just like how Mom knew in an instant when she met my stepdad.

Fuck. Me.

Ezra’s wife.

Shit! Levi called her Kat… and I was fucking fantasizing about petting her hair like a cat.

Kill. Me.

With only a few feet separating us, there are tears glistening in Gwen’s eyes, almost as if she understands that I’ve finally admitted to myself just how close I am to ending it all, no matter the promises I’ve made to my brother.

“Maybe it’s you who needs to be rescued,” Gwen flutters against the shell of my ear, hand cupping my shoulder for stability. “Marriages don’t last forever. Maybe you’re the hero of Katya’s story, but maybe she’s the unlikely heroine of yours.”

Hell breaks free from the earth’s crust, the sights and sounds of combat surround me. Stampeding humans not realizing they’re making it worse for all of us, punches are thrown as Levi and I fight to keep Gwen safe.

Getting my own dick out of my ass, I want to tear my remaining nut from my body for being so distracted by my own bullshit that I didn’t realize a violent riot was erupting around us.

In the ruckus, Syn and Dexter charge across the club toward the bar. “Fate! Fate!” is shrill with panic from the bravest, most ferocious woman I’ve ever met. “Kristal! Help Fate!” Struggling against the current, I try to get to Syn to help, because it’s bad judging by how terrified her voice sounds.

“Regina!” Dexter’s booming voice joins the fray, the edge of hysteria lighting fear in my veins more than active combat ever did. “Regina!” Even from this distance, I can tell the crazed woman is beating a man to death, the guy who got in my way and tried to start shit with me. Fist landing after fist landing, Regina renders him into a bloody pulp at her feet. Hand jerking at her shoulder, Dexter tries to tear Regina off her prey, only to be backhanded by her. “Regina, you’re killing him!”

The steel door slams open, clipping a group of men struggling against one another, rebounding to hit them several times over, and I expect demons to pour out next. Whitt flies out the door, voice pitched with terror. “Dalton! Somebody fucking help Dalton!”

“Pretty Boy!” Dexter manages to scream over the riot surrounding us. “Either get your fucking wife out of here or get your sisters!”

“Dalton!” Whitt bellows to anyone who will listen. Catching sight of me, never having seen me before, he looks me dead in the eyes. It could be the fact that he must recognize his mother clasped to my chest in a protective embrace, or it could be the instinctive radar all founders possess to recognize their own kind. “Same code as the gates. Go!”

Loyalty never an issue for Levi, blood is thicker than water, and the stronger the blood tie, the stronger the loyalty. Levi flees the riot, leaving everyone to their fates, his driving force saving his brother.

With renewed purpose, I take lead. 

I haven't written a blog post in well over a year, and I felt the need to just ramble a bit. 

Last year was crazy for me, nonstop working. While this year feels like I'm treading water with nothing being accomplished. A few hazards popped up unexpectedly- I don't feel like getting into any of that -which twisted my emotions, tossing productivity and focus out the window. 

The words are stuck in my head. The stories and plot threads rich and multifaceted. It's not a matter of sitting at the keyboard and pouring the words on the page. Those words exist, they just refuse to reach my fingertips. 

My confidence has taken hit after hit. It's hard to be real with yourself, to the point you remove an entire series from sale to be rewritten, without admitting defeat. The triumph was rewriting those books the way they should have been written the first time around, but that in and of itself means I made a mistake to begin with. I admit it. I accept it. I changed it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact on my confidence. 

Hero is the redheaded stepchild who is getting the brunt of my lack of confidence. Up and down. Left and right. Sideways and straight. I'm all over the place. The plot doesn't change, only gets better as I step away. There is so much pressure, after rewriting Restraint - Integrated, simply to create a strong foundation for Hero, only to fear I'll muck it all up like I did its predecessors. 

I will never rewrite another novel again. Not a single one. What I publish from here on out, it will be its final form forever. That puts pressure on me to write the book the way it deserves. I don't mean editing and formatting, as those things can be fixed. The plot, the flow of words, the motivations of the characters. I can't put myself through republishing rewritten work again. 

This sets me up for failure. Performance anxiety.  There are many drafts, that's not what I'm trying to convey. It's the confidence that what I publish is the best it can be. 

I want to share something with y'all, using it as an example. 

Hero (which is now Heroism, but I will still call it Hero) is refusing to be written. The muse puts up a roadblock, because the closer I get to the finish line, the more confident I'll have to be in order to hit publish. That's not the example. I'll shed light on the progress of that later.

The muse is a master of creation, but she gets bored easily. A bored, unfocused muse is catastrophic. I have to feed her, and feed her often. 

I write tomes. 500 - 700 pages on average per book. But some of those books are closer to 1000 pages, a few much longer. That is a lot of pressure. To help curtail this pressure, I fed the muse Wexler.

What's Wexler? 

A short novella, featuring Auggie Kline's dad, set in the Blended universe. In case you're curious, Adam Wexler from Wicked is a dual-narrator with Patrick Kline. Good Girl - Widow was the winter and spring. Warped - Wager was the summer. Wicked was in the past. Wonder was far in the future. Wexler is the fall in the current time frame, with Wayward running alongside all the others. 

I got about halfway through a short novella, and the pressure came back, because this novella seeded the much-larger, much-anticipated Wayward. The content is deep and dark, but fast paced, with a message of hope. It matters what I write in so few pages. The muse went limp as soon as she realized this. 

It's like I had ED for writers. Not writer's block. Performance Anxiety. 

Wexler is currently half completed, shelved in a folder, awaiting the muse's attention, along with many, many other projects with a similar fate. 

Here is the example, only I'm working through it, learning about myself as a writer. 

Followill. 

Last Wednesday, I woke to a daydream/dream of sorts, with a story rapidly solidifying in my mind. So I sat with my laptop and wrote out a few chapters. That night, as I struggled to sleep, I decided to make changes. That's how the writing process works, as frustrating as it may be.

In a long-standing series, there isn't much wiggle room. You know the characters and their universe, almost as well as your own life. It's like a long hallway, with a few doors here or there, able to branch off to rooms you already recognize, but you'll still be in the same house. You can't go anywhere, except to wander around the various rooms, maybe discovering things you hadn't realized were hidden there. If you go out the front door, the series is finished. If you go out the back door, the series will head in a new direction. 

A blank slate. A new project, something from scratch that you're breathing life into from nothing, it's a puzzle without a picture. The pieces continually need to be rearranged as the picture solidifies. Sometimes the puzzle forms a picture, but that last piece refuses to fit. So you tear it apart, dump the pieces back in the box, shake it up, and try to put it together again, hoping against hope that it will eventually fit.  

30,000 words into Followill. The story changed. I have a beta-reader who points out when I tell vs show. Storytelling is a narrative where the characters aren't in the moment. Showing is based on placing the character in the thick of it. One is where the reader gets suffocated under a pile of info-dump, the other flows organically in an easily digestible treat.

I kept hearing Diane scolding me as I reread passages. There's a lot of story to tell that isn't happening on the pages, and even I as a reader hates that. I went back to the beginning, reworking the entire draft, trying to eliminate it by showing it in the now. Then I hit the same roadblock. Found myself back into telling.

Another sleepless night. Another epiphany. Another reworking from the beginning (at this rate, I'm just happy it's only 75 manuscript pages to keep reworking) I hit another roadblock. Didn't write yesterday at all. My house on Sims Mobile is looking pretty swank though.

Another sleepless night, too many in a row. 

Something shifted last night. Delusion? Sleep deprivation? I don't know. But the newest epiphany removed most of the telling. Instead of reworking those same 75 pages, because I'm sick of those pages, I'm writing this blog post. 

This is where a lack of confidence kills a book. If I closed out the document, put it in a folder, and let it go with the rest its ilk, it would never see the light of day. Unlike Wexler above, Followill and the others are not in a series, where it is dependent on them being completed to move forward. Wexler will see the light of day, when my writer's ED vanishes, because the novella is not independent of Wayward. If Wayward is to exist, Wexler must be completed. 

Under pressure. Pressure pushing down on me... Under pressure. Under pressure. Pressure. (did you just sing that? Because I know I did) 

Instead, I look at Followill as a learning experience, just as I did when I started writing Hero and discovered that 11 books, some well over 1000 pages long, had to be rewritten, or the series was dead. Dead and in a folder, never to see the light of day. 

I promised I wouldn't write anything else until Hero was finished. Not just a promise I made to my readers, but most importantly, a vow I made to myself. But the muse dies when she is not creating. She goes quiet, resentful. She is an entity of creativity, and with her death, there goes my imagination. It's the confidence in feeding her that is my malfunction. 

Lessons learned, a journey of honing my craft awaits, the muse will be fed by breaking my vow, if only for a short while. 

As soon as I'm done writing this post, I will go back to page 1 and fix those issues in Followill. Remove the telling. Slowly weave in the new changes to remove the telling. Then get back to a place where I can let the muse run with wild abandon, and start the process again. Over and over, until my confidence returns. The confidence in my abilities. The confidence in my stories. 

This is a lifelong marathon, not a sprint to the finish line, leaving me unable to race again. 

Now, onto what you really want to know...

What's up with Hero? 

Hero is approaching 300,000 words.

What does that mean? 

If you're not in the publishing industry, you might not understand why some authors/publishers use word-count instead of page-count. Page-count shifts dependent on the device vs print- it's not an absolute and up to interpretation. I'll see x-amount of pages for a specific word-count listed, and wonder how the publisher managed to bloat a 200-page book into 400. Even I get confused when a book is listed as say 400 pages, when my 400-page book has twice as many words. A writer's version of penis envy, since it fits with the overall ED theme I have going here...

I use word-count for all working drafts and ebooks because it's accurate. Page-count will only be used on books published into print, where I personally numbered the pages. Again, that is up to interpretation, as font size matters. I'm not a size queen. Again, PE, some bloat the font to make it look longer. All I care about is a full story that offers me escape. Don't care if it's 20k or 200k. But length matters to some. I only mention it when giving updates, simply because I'm notorious for being long-winded and fear y'all think I'm slacking off. 

By saying Hero is currently 300K, that is my way of justifying why it's not on the shelves. My way of offering proof that I am not twiddling my thumbs and making no headway. 

What's the industry average?

On average, a full-length novel in my genres is between 50k-120k. Many books we read, a quick little escape, are 35-60k. Authors from major publishers, who release one book per series a year, generally those books are averaged 120K. 

300k. 

Hero is 300k in 6 months. Just a little over halfway finished, maybe closer to 2/3. 

I'm not treading water. In 6 months, Hero is the length of what some authors output in 3 years. This is not me saying I'm better than anyone because my book is longer (the longer it is, the more hassle it is- trust me, this isn't a good thing). It's me weighing why the book is not for sale. I feel guilty for breaking my vow of taking a step back, but 3 years worth of work shouldn't be rushed. As that is the lesson I learned from the entire series needing to be rewritten and republished.

In the breaks I've taken during this 6-month journey, major changes have occurred. Epiphanies, like I used as an example with Followill. Hero wouldn't be the cerebral-f@ck it will become, without those steps back to let the story marinate, then evolve. 

The pressure and performance anxiety stem from allowing the book time to become what it needs to be, to allow the muse to become inspired, to ensure I will never regret what I publish. There's no takebacksies anymore. 

What's new with Hero?

Hero has a new title: Heroism. It's dual-narration, and Hero is masculine singular. Hero has a new cover for the same reason. Lips were zipped on whether or not anyone liked the cover, so I'll go by the loaded silence that like is not the emotion felt.

As its creator, do I think the cover fits the content?

Yes. Do I wish Kat's hair was more crimson? Yes. Is the cover final? Yes, unless I can somehow isolate that hair, because I am unhappy to report that her skin is the same shade as her hair, and we don't want a Kat with red skin. Snorts. I spent a good 3 days on that hair. I'll try again at another date. Maybe I'll learn a new trick or two before the book's release. 

What happens next?

When Hero finally reaches the beta-reading process, I will work on updating my website, formatting a slew of books for print, as well as promos. In the mean time, I have to do right by Hero, by the muse, and for my sanity, which means I have to work on something else. There's a reason most authors either write standalones or numerous series, as no muse would be satisfied being stifled, and it would harm the story. 

What's Followill?


Followill is both a town and a surname. 

Clearly it's still in its inception phase. Rayna Scott is a 17 year-old girl, deep in the south, interacting with a prominent family from the other side of the tracks. This coming-of-age angst fest is filled with struggles, heartbreak, triumphs, and failures. Going by the path set, it will evolve into a duology or trilogy, on the short side for me.  

Will Followill see the light of day, when the others have not?

Yes. But I'll be a headcase before, during, and after, fearing readers' reactions, because I'm writing out of my comfort zone. A young woman of color. Venturing away from LGBTQ with a girl who only has the feels for boys. Relocating from the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast to the deep south.

Writer Rule: write what you know. I'm ditching those rules.

Par for the course, I have to lob angst bombs at the girl, witnessing her struggle to avoid them, drive through them, or suffer because of them. You can take me out of my comfort zone, but you can't take away my need to emotionally torture my characters to witness how they will react. 

Will Hero ever see the light of day? 

I'm known for short writing bursts, where I bang out an upwards of 50-70,000 words in a session, anywhere from 3-10 days without a break. One of those sessions would net me the foundation of an entire novel. Two of those sessions would finish Hero. I write based on my mindset and emotions, neither are in the right place for Hero at the moment. Never fear, Kat and Caleb run in my blood. I even have the foundation and outline created for the next in the series, Thief. 


Thanks for listening to me ramble- Erica Chilson, the wicked writer isn't feeling too wicked or much of a writer at the moment. Like every novel in creation, humans are also a work-in-progress.

Over the past three years, no doubt a large portion of my fanbase has wondered why I took the M&M series off-sale and began writing it from scratch.

Don’t worry, I hear you.

One camp doesn’t want to reread, so this causes problems, because the rewrites demand a reread of the series. If not, all new books will make absolutely no sense. I’ve lost fans due to this, and I did so with the understanding that this would happen.

Another camp was eager for new books, and they didn’t want to have to wait for me to rewrite thousands of pages. They waited patiently for a long time, but have since lost interest as the rewrites are coming at a snail’s pace.

Then there is the new camp, brand-new readers who are waiting for the next installment, not realizing it’s a rewrite.

Lastly, are the countless readers who pass over my books due to ratings- rating reflecting the original copies, which were light-years different than the final editions published today.

I take full responsibility for all the above. This was a decision I didn’t make lightly, and I already foresaw the consequences before I acted.

As a writer, my sole responsibility is to my craft. My story comes first. I owe it to my characters and the world I’ve created for them to inhabit to do them justice. This translates over into giving the reader the best possible finished product.

When I first started writing, it was addictive. Fans were contacting me nonstop, wanting more. I was cranking out words as quickly as possible, yet it wasn’t fast enough. My first year writing, I sold more books than I have in the rest of my career.

During that year, the books were coming so quickly, I was too new and ‘young’ in the craft, that I was only thinking like a writer who wanted to give her fans what they wanted, and as quickly as possible in our instant gratification world.

This speed translated into proof that I wasn’t yet an editor or publisher, both of which are important aspects in the literary world.

I’d grown up, deciding three years ago it was more important to be proud of my work, to give my characters the respect they deserve, than it was to make money, doing so with the knowledge that I could lose a large portion of my fanbase in the process.

The story comes first.

In the past three years, I’ve re-released 7 M&M novels, while actively writing two other series. This has also been a point of contention with my fans, because they feel I should be concentrating on M&M, and every book I release is an insult to them, refusing to read those other stories on principle.

Rewrites are an entirely different beast than writing a book from scratch. I’m not talking about editing a book- completely overhauling it. Last night, as I tried to explain it to my mother. “It’s like a finished puzzle that no longer fits- the type that has no outside border. Someone knocks all the pieces to the ground, so you’re struggling to put it back together. Suddenly, the cat runs in, and you’re finding pieces scattered around the house for months. You’re always worried you missed a piece, but you can’t tell because it’s the type without a solid border, and this freezes you into inaction.”

You can’t just sit down and organically write, allowing the words to flow, because changes you make in book 2 affect book 3, 4, 5… 17. You have to weigh the choices, more so than if you were just writing a new book.

It’s stressful. There’s a lot of pressure put on me to perform. The muse isn’t pleased, as she wants to create new stories. Not that she doesn’t want to create more in M&M’s universe, just not spend time focusing on a rewrite.

Writing a book is about creativity. Rewriting a book is in the absence of creativity. It doesn’t feed that need, and that compounds the problem. This is how Rusty Knob was born, believe it or not. I needed to create, because I’m a writer. Rewriting is about editing and publishing, and I couldn’t sit down and rewrite 12 books in a row, completely devoid of creativity.

That’s why I will write in M&M for so long, and then you’ll see another book and another. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been ‘trying’ to rewrite the books. I have to be in a good mindset, I have to have my creativity topped off, to be able to function during a rewrite, because my brain has to be firing on all cylinders to remember what happened in book 1 to connect it to book 13, and how it affects the book I’m actively rewriting.

It’s highly complicated, and not just remembering grammar and punctuation rules.

Last night, as I started chapter two of King, I took a long bath to relax. It took me eight hours to rewrite one short chapter, when ordinarily I can do that in less than an hour when properly inspired. Now, imagine doing that for 40+ chapters each over 12 books.

There are times where I will highlight and delete several chapters in a row, and just start over fresh, as this saves me considerable time. 

Last night, I was so stressed out, I got out of the bathtub and wrote a plot outline and three chapters of a standalone title, in less than two hours.

You read that right. It took me eight hours working on turning four pages into a seven-page rewritten chapter, but only two hours to write three chapters of a brand-new book, with brand-new characters, not attached to any series of mine.

I woke to write this blog post and will be continuing onto chapter two of King when I’m done. (we have no satellite tv or internet thanks to a storm, so you won’t be seeing this for a bit after I’m done)

I will continue to use this new novel to spark creativity while I work on King and beyond. Hopefully this will relieve some of the pressure. I chose a standalone, as this will make sure I don’t get too involved in a series of mine and end up writing several books in a row. A small cast of characters, and what may become a novella.

I’m not asking for sympathy– I’m trying to explain the process, explain why it’s been like pulling teeth.

I LOVE M&M. It’s my baby. Katya and Ezra were the first characters I put on paper and brought to life that I knew would see the light of day. I’d written other stories, but I knew no one would ever read them.

After writing twelve books in the series, then going back to Restraint, the side characters were no longer side characters. They had enriched lives, major backstories, and they connected to each and every other character.

When writing new, these side characters are one-dimensional. Flat. They are created to push the main character into situations and scenarios, and I don’t want to be ‘that’ type of writer. I want my side characters to be as vividly real as the main character.

Upon the rewrite, knowing every facet of these ‘side’ characters, the motivations changed. The reasoning as to why they act/react to one another shifts.

As I rewrite, I breathe life into otherwise flat characters. I give them a voice. I alter who gets to release what information. Does that information belong to our current narrator? Who best to voice this? What is this character going through at this time that needs to be addressed and not written away in a later book? What doesn’t the narrator know, as they are not a mind-reader in this first-person perspective voice?

That’s the theme of every book I’ve ever written, why I use first-person. In our daily lives, we are all unreliable narrators in the wide scope view. We only know what we know. We only see what we see. We only bring to the table our experiences and how they shaped us. Our view will vastly differ from another, even if we share the experience together. This I’ve tried to get across. So upon the rewrite, I’ve found this a challenge, voicing motivations that weren’t present the first time around.

My re-readers will understand. The best way to show this (for new readers) is Dexter’s perception of Dalton, and then our perception of Dalton as we read his book. We do this to people every day of our lives, only seeing them from our perspective. Case in point, Katya is a heroine, until Regina and Faith’s jealous view of Katya shifts our opinions. We do this in real life, every day, unable to recognize we all take on the view of the person we are interacting with, instead of seeing someone clearly.

I have to have that in my mind at all times during a rewrite, and it’s stressful to say the least. Hundreds of characters and their motivations, as to why they ask and do specific things, to ensure there is no shock-value writing, character trait lobotomies, or characters acting out of character.

As my New Year's Resolution, I made a promise to complete the rewrites and release a brand-new M&M book during 2018. This promise wasn't to myself. This promise wasn't to my readers or fans. This promise was to my characters and the universe I created for them to dwell within. 

Below, I will show you the difference a rewrite makes. The original edition of King vs the final edition. You’ll see what I mean, and as to why it is such a struggle for me to make this happen.

I will show the differences between passages, then I will post the first chapter of the final edition. I’d like to hear your opinions about the changes.

Thank you, and I appreciate you listening to me release some of the pressure in this vent. 

Daniel Whittenhower II: aka Whitt | Pretty Boy | Regina’s Sunshine
 
The excitement is palpable and completely choking me– suffocating me with anxiety. Dalton’s fingers turn white under the onslaught of my nervous, sweaty grip.

“Shh…” Dalton whispers into my ear, fingers squeezing back, doing his damnedest to even me out. “This is the right thing to do.”

I want to scream, but right for whom?!

Reading me as only a lover could, he says in English that is heavily accented with French, “You. You’re doing the right thing for you. This isn’t just about your family. This is the event that has culminated since the very beginning of your life.”

Sucking in a fortifying breath, I close my eyes. I want to cover my ears and release the primal scream of a caged predator, the guttural sound reverberating off the walls of the bus. The excited murmurs and sharp conversation around me drill into my skull. As we sit, crammed on the bus, I question every decision I’ve ever made in life– every choice, every crossroads I’ve come to pass.

I’m only twenty-four as of this morning. Am I old enough to head a family? Do I have the ability to take on the responsibility for all these people? How will my grandfather react? What of my aunt and father? Should I let them into our family home, when it’s better if they stay where they are?

Even the guy holding my hand is brand-new to me, and I fear the truth will upset what we’re trying to build. I’ve stood by and plotted, brooded, been bitter while showing the outside world this happy-go-lucky man I am not.

Is this what I really wanted after all, or did I play into their hands somehow?

The Gates has been a ghost town since we were hit by the media frenzy, everyone I love has been trapped in hiding. Something has to change– someone has to take charge. This is my part to play, and I instinctively know we’re all puppets in the larger scheme of things.

The only person I know who can take on the responsibility of our family is Queen, with the tenacity of a marching general. As if sensing I’m thinking about her, she seeks me out, flashing me a sad half-smile. That smile and its following look of encouragement fills me with confidence that only Queen can infuse within me.

I can do this, I repeat to myself for the billionth time today.

We’re all on a bus, driving through The Gates, because it made more sense to travel in a singular vehicle, one in which the media would think beneath us, versus creating an easily divided procession. Most of us will be staying at Misery Castle indefinitely, with the others wishing me a happy birthday– most of whom are my relatives that don’t realize I know they are.

So many secrets, and I vow to myself to be the one who reveals the truth.

I can’t look away from my wife, even knowing I should, especially as I hold onto Dalton’s hand like a lifeline. I’m barely holding on to either of them. Queen is getting closer to Marcus and my sire, emotionally distancing herself for what’s to come. Life and lies have built walls between Dalton and me. I can’t truly have either as long as I hold onto both. There is no having my cake and eating it too with Queen and Dalton.

Queen’s emerald gaze captivates me– her hold over me is infinitely stronger than the delicate fingers entwined with mine. Since I met her when I was only five, my entire life narrowed down to focus on getting her. Now that I have her as my wife, there’s no way I can keep her.

Today marks the end of that dream, and I don’t want to let it go.

Queen is the ultimate mother. An unexpected surprise for those who don’t know her as well as I do. She is engulfed in the loving embrace of children– hers and those she’s adopted in the depths of her heart. Children, and adults alike, instinctively know Queen is a safe haven that harbors you from the violent nature of life’s storm.

A tiny Marcus Zane is cradled to her chest, a breathtaking woman-child is fused to her left side, while my soft baby sister is leaning on her right shoulder. My brother, his girlfriend, and my dainty cousin sit in the seat in front of Queen. Turned around, Azrael crawls from her big sister’s arms, wanting to cuddle with her twin against Queen’s chest.

I find Whitney with a scowl on her face, glaring at Ava. I nod to the small space on our seat, not wanting my blood to sit with strangers. Strangers to her, not me– Kayla is one of the nicest women I know. Whitney’s next to us in a flash, leaving a scant inch between Dalton and herself. She only cuddles with her mom, with our grandmother, and Queen. Whitney will be all over Adelaide when she sees her again. But the rest of us, she holds herself apart from.

“I just ask one thing of you, Whitt,” Whitney implores me, leaning around my boyfriend so she can look me dead-on. She reminds me of the Adelaide I knew before she went off the deep end– completely self-contained and sure.

Whitney’s light blonde hair is in a perfect ponytail. Her feminine business suit makes her look way beyond her years, not the girl who hasn’t even reached eighteen yet. Dalton’s vivid green eyes quizzically inspect the girl. Seeing the two of them so closely packed together brings a smile to my lips. My effeminate, Emo boyfriend next to my Harvard-bound cousin, it’s amusing in the extreme.
“What’s your request, doll?”

“Just hear him out, okay?” I give a slight tilt to my head in ascent. No need to ask who Whitney’s asking about. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“I’m not sure I want to know what they are, though,” I murmur in the din of the bus. My voice washes out as the occupants’ combined voices overpower mine.

“Whitt,” flows as a shrill hiss, Whitney used to always getting her way. “He’s your father,” she states, not knowing the truth of my parentage yet. “Grandfather loves us. We’re all he has left– Grandmother is staying with Mommy and Daddy on the campaign trail. Whitt, don’t do this to us. To him,” she stresses. “I agree that you should be our patriarch, but don’t take his family away along with his home and business. He needs us more than we need him, and we need him a lot!”

“Whitney, have I ever been the vindictive sort?” I think back to how nasty I’ve been to my cowardly sire, the man I miss more than anyone, and feel a pang of regret. I’ve treated my grandfather even worse, always knowing there was something else riding beneath the surface. “Don’t you realize I have reservations and doubts plaguing me?”

Resentful isn’t a strong enough word to embody how I feel about the men in my family. My grandfather lied to me for life, by saying I was his son, while treating me as lesser. My sire treated me as his baby brother, attentive and affectionate, actually giving a shit about my hopes and dreams, then he unexpectedly died and left us behind.

I spent my childhood raising my abandoned brother, while aching to be with Queen and my baby sister, putting plans in place for us to be a whole family again… only to discover that my father is alive, a cowardly rat who’s lived half a city away from me all this time.

As for my birth mother and my many siblings and their children, I drove by their houses several times per day, just as I am now, never knowing they were related to me, believing the lie that Daniel and Priscilla Whittenhower were my birth parents. My siblings looked me in the eye, took me places and spent time with me, but they never once admitted I was their brother.

I am the son of Grant Whittenhower and Gwendolyn Meyers. The biological grandson of Jackson Whittenhower, which is why the claim to everything Whittenhower is mine, because my father threw it all away. Katie and Ade are not my sisters as everyone was led to believe, but rather both my aunts and my cousins, as my grandmother had children with a pair of brothers and lied about it– Jackson and Daniel.

I am the brother to Fate Simpson, Boyd Spencer, Faith Simpson, Bianca Green, Niel Whittenhower, and Ella Whittenhower. The uncle to Torian Spencer and Zane Zeitler. The brother-in-law to Gretchen Spencer, Levi Wilson, and Dalton Fontaine. The cousin to Whitney and Priscilla Preston.
​
I am the husband to Regina Regal, adopting my biological brother and sister as my own children.
My namesake, Daniel Whittenhower is not my father, as it states on my false birth certificate. He’s not my grandfather, as it states on my sire’s false birth certificate.

Daniel Whittenhower is my great-uncle and my step-grandfather, sitting in my seat as the Whittenhower patriarch, that position is owed to me by law of primogeniture, since the death of my birth father. As long as the resurrected James Atwater doesn’t stake his claim, it’s all mine… and I don’t know if I’m ready for it.

Now I’m keeping secrets from Dalton, never naming those siblings, because of secrets that aren’t mine to keep. When he finds out how I kept him at arm’s length, didn’t trust him with the truth, as he poured out his past to me… finds out his ex-wife is my sister.

My boyfriend is my unknown ex-brother-in-law… Dalton almost broke up with me when he discovered he had sex with my wife in the dungeon at Restraint so many months ago.

Game over.

My fingers tighten around Dalton’s, terrified he’s about to disappear from my life.

“Just go easy on Grandfather,” Whitney murmurs, then sits back against the seat, effectively cutting off the conversation, using Dalton to hide from my view.

Queen catches my eye again, and I know she’s eavesdropped on our conversation. She holds no judgment on anyone– she’s a forgiver to my grudge-holder. Once a week for years, she sat with her enemies and found a common ground. If she can forgive my grandfather for the heinous acts he perpetrated against her, maybe I can forgive what he’s done to me, but I’ll never forgive what he’s done to Queen. Never.

No matter what, a point of contention in our relationship is the one I refuse to forgive, the one Queen defends even when her heart bleeds bitter blood. Grant is the one I refuse to forgive, and it makes me respect Queen less and less as she continues to defend and love that spineless rat.

We’ll see when I set foot off this bus where it comes to my sire’s false sire…

“I’ll try with Daniel,” I answer Whitney, but it’s for my wife’s ears.

Queen smiles back at me, rubbing her cheek on the fiery hair on top of Azrael’s head. She just wants us to be happy and together, and to hell with the past. But if someone disrespects Queen by betraying her second chances, she’ll be the first one to cut them from our lives.

Once we pass the first of three gates to my familial estate, the excitement ratchets up by several degrees. Everyone is excited, save me. The anxiety hits me out of nowhere. Sweat beads on my spine, bumps well up on my skin. My heartrate accelerates to the point I can feel my blood rushing through my veins. My chest rapidly rises and falls, pulling me toward hyperventilation. I rub moisture-slicked palms on my pant legs, the charcoal gray fabric darkening.

Closing my eyes tightly, I draw in a deep breath, one I don’t release until I finally open my eyes. Watching the scenery of my estate flash past me from the bus window, I’m thoroughly entranced by the vividly green, heavily wooded landscape that the three-mile drive winds through.

I’ve always felt a sense of pride overwhelm me when I gazed over the land that was always meant to be mine, and eventually that pride would transform into resentment as the lies surrounding my birth hit me.

With Daniel stating I was fourth-born, none of this was to be mine.

Jackson was the first born. Even though he had no legal children, I was always confused as to why Grant was the heir apparent, and not Daniel. Daniel is an honorable, ethical person, loving his brother so fiercely he would never begrudge Grant of his legacy.

As the first son of the first son, all of this was promised to Niel’s from his conception, because Grant never expected to become our patriarch.

I’m not the fourth-born of the second-born– I’m the first of the first, Niel is the second, and this estate is MINE!

As is the way of my kind– the elite –the land, the castle, and the businesses my great-grandfather built, passes from eldest son to eldest son.

Primogeniture.

Rich asshole entitlement aside, nothing is more infuriating than knowing a billion-dollar legacy was torn from me as surely as I was torn from the family tree, no matter how much I love the Whittenhower heir apparent.

Now I look over the landscape and know without a shadow of a doubt that this property is mine. I feel it to the core of my soul– the rightness of it. My sire took himself out of the legacy, leaving me the opportunity to lead my family as the eldest male.

One day, I will step down and pass the responsibility to my adopted son, my blooded-brother, Niel. At seventeen, he isn’t ready, but a few years from now, he might be. If he isn’t, I will break the line– I will pass it to whomever is most capable, male or female. Any children I have in the future, grandchildren, cousins, or nieces or nephews– anyone with Whittenhower blood running through their veins. It’s time to start a new generation of Whittenhowers– a new legacy built on honor and respect, not primogeniture.

The millions of dollars’ worth of property don’t fill me with the pride, but that single thought alone does. I’m about to instigate change. This is for the betterment and health of my family. I can do this. I need to do this. Not because I am the only one capable, but because I want it– I crave it.

The anxiety bleeds out of me as we crest the knoll that takes the bus through the final gate– large and looming, stone-walled with a black iron, ornate double gate opening electronically. Revealed is the foreboding Misery Castle with its flying buttresses and guard gargoyles.

A sharp gasp emanates from my companions– all who have never been here before and some who are frequent visitors. My family lights up with pride and the thrill of homecoming.

As of late, the Whittenhowers weren’t as wealthy as the Holdens and Zeitlers, our equivalent in Dominion society. But that was until my grandfather pulled Regina into our family through coercion, intimidations, and threats. Almost twenty years ago, he saw the potential of a young woman who would irrevocably change our lives.

Misery Castle was built well over a hundred and fifty years ago when the Whittenhowers were at their peak– revolutionaries, innovators who influenced the direction of our great nation. The city of Dominion, New York was founded by several families who settled in this area, using their old money and power to create the world we live in today, reaching every branch of government.

The bus follows the circular driveway, giving its passengers a slow view of the large, sprawling manse. Whittenhower Estates, known to me as Misery Castle– a moniker Queen aptly created –looms four stories overhead.

One of the largest privately-owned homes in our country. Its stone masonry and arched leaded-glass windows lend to a gothic, gloomy appearance. But not as much as the gargoyles that sinisterly hang from the eaves and line the walk to the entrance of the estate. Double doors, each nearly four feet in width and heavier than a bastard, rise almost ten feet on the front of the familial castle.

 This castle was erected as a fortification during the construction of Dominion. The three most powerful families took point. Misery Castle looms over Dominion itself. Shadow Haven Estates watches over Crestview, which we call The Gates. Serenity Lake, the Zeitler property, was the first to be erected, used during the construction of the castle, but has since burned to the ground. Dexter rebuilt a smaller facsimile at the head of The Gates.

Pride at being a large part of history– whether it was for the greater good or to our detriment remains to be seen –infuses me, lending me the confidence to pull on the mask of the entitled rich pretty boy who can do anything and everything he sets his mind to. Unlike who I am– the boy who is about to shit his pants out of pure terror.

I pause for a moment as the bus idles at the walkway to the limestone staircase, leading to the main entrance to the castle. My eyes linger on the malevolent splendor, drinking in my home.

Expectant gazes draw me from my confusion. Dalton squeezes my hand– oh, right, it’s my home now, so I’m the one in charge. I have to lead them. I have to invite them inside.

As I stand with my shoulders drawn back, pretending I’m more confident than I truly am, all sound ceases, even breath from our lungs. My boyfriend and cousin stand to allow my exit. On my way by, I kiss my cousin on her cheek, and she freezes in surprise. Whitney and I were never close growing up, closer now that Queen demands it, but we never bonded. Whitney follows me as I’d hoped.

I pause at the seat where Ella sits with Queen. Catching on, Queen hands the twins off to Ava and Spyder. Mother and daughter join Whitney and me in the aisle. Niel instinctively knows what to do, grabbing for our youngest cousin’s hand. Priscilla, delicate Prissy, who at fifteen looks like a tiny sprite or faerie.

As I step from the bus, I sense his presence just as strongly as I did that first day back at the brownstone. The man who now calls himself Jamie sits in a car behind the bus. I wonder if he’s having second thoughts, as this was meant to be his. When Grant gave up his legacy, he abandoned us too, which is unforgivable in my book.

As my family and I exit the bus, I change my mind. I refuse to storm my own home. I have no need to take by force that which is rightfully mine. I don’t know where this revelation is coming from, but intuitively I know the Whittenhowers are already mine, without ever having to fight for them.

My companions empty from the bus, all staring upward at the imposing manse. As if sensing the change in me, they all stand back– no one will enter the great doors until I offer the invitation. They won’t pass its threshold until I am the King of Misery Castle. 

​Screw it!
Queen sits around for no man, especially Whitt.
Playing pretend by living in denial, I only take the strength from my conversation with Jamie, leaving behind everything else that will completely debilitate me. Dragging in a deep breath, the force filling my lungs so quickly they burn, I let it out in a rush as I escape the Zeitler private room at Restraint.
Conversation flows down the hallway to reach my ears, so I step softly when what I truly want to do is stomp as I march into battle.
I never got a good look at the dungeon since I was blindfolded, then I was in a state of emotional shock. The shock has worn off, taking Jamie’s words to heart.
What’s done is done. What I do next is all on me.
Taking another page from– don’t go there, Regina –Jamie’s playbook, I linger at the head of the hallway, taking it all in while forming a battle plan before charging forward.
Shithole.
An emotionless wasteland of gray upon gray upon gray, no doubt Ezra’s brainchild. The narcissistic, lunatic doctor is probably paying homage to the color of his own eyes. Cold, in both feel and temperature, the dungeon lives up to its name.
Radiating warmth in the cold with his darker skin and amber gaze, Marcus is so full of life, smiling blindingly at something his cousin says, but the humor doesn’t reach his eyes– he doesn’t belong in such a lifeless environment. I don’t know Dexter well, but my impression is that he’s a warm person whose tastes run even hotter. Tan and vivacious, Cortez is always the center of attention, and he deserves a better place to shine. Whitt– my sunshine shouldn’t even be in here.
The only inhabitants fit for this desolated wasteland are Ezra and Faith, both paler than death, with Ezra’s hair and eyes just as pale. Faith’s fury runs red hot, and I have a feeling the man had a hand in turning the adorable child into the faithless Syn. There is a balance between the pair, as if they are connected and communicating even with distance and silence separating them.
I was meant to be here, to bring life into this cesspit of self-created and self-inflicted misery.
“Niel was showing off his armpit hair during our ‘how to be a megalomaniac’ training yesterday afternoon, and I thought for sure Daniel would shit a brick.” Animated, Whitt is telling Ezra a story about my son in a voice filled with pride and affectionate humor.
My gut clenches, twisting in on itself, because not only does Whitt know Niel inside and out, I have a feeling Ezra knows my son almost as well.
Soon– I’ll give Whitt anything he wants as long as I get my son back.
Gracing us with a rare smile, Ezra goes from corpse to angel. “You don’t know Daniel very well, Pretty Boy.” Ezra shakes his head, white hair tumbling to brush along his forehead. “How is that even possible? Daniel is the one who helped tutor me through med school.”
Shocked, Whitt gasps, “My Daniel?”
“Yes, your Daniel.” Chuckling, Ezra sounds so much like Cortez, all heads whip in his direction. It’s obvious to all, Ezra truly enjoys Whitt’s company, almost as a centering force. Collectively, everyone relaxes and takes a deep breath, like Ezra’s mood influence theirs. “Pay attention to the man, Whitt. He’s a font of endless information, and a very good teacher.”
“Daniel is an arctic blast in my home,” Whitt mutters, expression glazing over with hurt. “Since it was Niel disrupting our lesson on the stock exchange to count his short-hairs, Daniel indulged him.” Handsome face turning away, I can barely make out, “I would have gotten my fingers swatted with a ruler.”
“Ah, good ol’ Hillbrook punishments, alive and well in Misery Castle.” Smiling broadly, Cortez insinuates himself into their conversation. “Does the carpet match the drapes?”
Head thrown back, Whitt is a glorious sight, but the sound of his laughter nearly brings me to my knees– Grant. Nodding his head up and down while laughing, he forces out, “Yes. The carpet is even redder than the drapes, and the dang kid announces every new hair on his body.”
“Ah– he’s just rubbing it in because you couldn’t even grow a partial beard until last spring.” Cort is being his usual snarky self.
“Ass,” Whitt murmurs while wearing a fond smirk. “Niel will have a full beard in the next two years or so, mark my words.”
“And you’ll still be baby smooth,” Cort taunts while patting Whitt’s flushed cheek, causing Ezra to laugh. “I have no room to talk, and neither does he.” Cort thrusts a finger in Ezra’s direction. “Baby smooth for life.”
“Whitney bought Niel a flannel shirt for his last birthday, and Prissy got him a shaving kit.” Face a brilliant shade of red, Whitt looks so much like his father, to the point I’m thankful his voice is all his own. “They even managed to get Daniel to call Niel Lumberjack for the day.”
Ezra and Cortez clasp their fists above their hearts, looking touched, and it confuses Whitt.
Deciding I’ve seen enough, I break away from my hidey hole. “The Ezes realize how Daniel meant it in a different way– Jackson,” I announce. “Wild and crazy Jack. My son inherited his manliness from both sides of the family, even if Grant was smoother than a baby,” I mutter wryly, realizing it doesn’t hurt as badly as I thought it would. “No doubt testosterone bleeds from my son’s pores.”
“Hi!” Whitt chirps, looking beyond embarrassed, either because he was caught gossiping about the family I was excommunicated from, or because an hour ago he ordered me to fuck his friends…
“Um… this is awkward, Reg.” Cortez has the decency to be ashamed of himself for earlier. “I– I don’t know what to say, or how to say it.”
“Bad position for a word-weaver to be,” Ezra adds in, but he doesn’t look ashamed or apologetic. Just business as usual for Dr. Ezra Holden Zeitler.
I ignore the billion elephants towering over us in the dungeon. “One question– does Daniel tutor Whitney and Prissy, or just you and my son?”
A collective breath is taken, almost as if they all thought I should punish them for my horrific initiation. I should– but I won’t. As Jamie said, no one held a gun to our children’s heads. I had a choice to stay and participate or leave, and I need to honor my choices’ consequences.
I’m not allowed to play the victim or the hypocrite.
“Daniel is an asshole,” Whitt snarls, lips curling aggressively to showcase his perfect teeth. The feral expression is at odds on his handsome face. “But he teaches us one-on-one, in groups, and all together. A Whittenhower is a Whittenhower is a Whittenhower. Katie said he had done the same with Grant, her, and Ade.”
“And that makes him an asshole, why?” I coax, knowing Daniel is an asshole because he can’t help himself, but I don’t know where this animosity is coming from.
“Because Niel, Whitney, and Prissy were taught from birth, and Daniel ignored me. I wasn’t taught lessons until he needed me to keep Niel focused, that’s why.”
“Grant didn’t want this life for you, Sunshine.” I reach for Whitt, but allow my hand to fall to my side. “That’s why.”
“And why should my dead brother get a say in my upbringing?” Whitt spits, causing all of us to jerk back, giving us the emotional equivalent of whiplash.
“About that– it’s time to talk.” This time when I reach for Whitt, he doesn’t allow my indecision. His warm hand wraps around mine, then gives a reassuring clench. “Breakfast? I’m starving.”
“I could eat.” Whitt nods his head, humming to himself.
Our fellow Masters of Restraint look around at each other with unease, wondering if they are invited, or maybe they feel the discomfort wafting in the air like I do.
“Regina?” Marcus walks toward me slowly, as if waiting for me to faint like a delicate flower after the night I’ve had. “The rest… the rest of your initiation? My room? You and Whitt?”
“Nope.” I pop the P. Eyes narrowing with defiance, I glare Marc’s way. “Not happening, and I feel more than insulted that you actually thought it would.” 
“None of this was of my making,” Marcus snarls, amber fire blazing my way. “If you want to disobey, it’s not my problem.”
“Getting soft, old man?” Ezra’s words are light and humorous, but filled with barely suppressed rage. “Just because you’ve finally found a lover, doesn’t mean Regina shouldn’t be held to the same standards as the rest of us.”
“Standards? Don’t you mean warped perversions and cerebral torture?” I murmur, causing Cortez to snort.
“More like mind fucks,” my partner-in-crime adds in. “Mixed with literally fucks.”
“I didn’t say Regina was my lover, did I?” Marc’s careless words wound. “If I had, do you honestly think I would have allowed her to suck my cousin’s dick and fuck my adopted son?”
“Harsh,” Dexter breathes, sounding as pained as I feel. “Regina definitely owned it, though.”
Allowing myself a half-second pity party, I close my eyes in a slow blink and release the breath I was holding. By the time I’m drawing in a fresh breath, I pretend I’m not bothered by Marc’s dismissive attitude about the past eighteen months we’ve spent together.
“It’s true.” Marcus shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “I wouldn’t pass my lover around like a party favor.”
“Judgmental, much?” Cortez jumps to my defense. “I don’t know what game you fuckers are playing, but this dungeon is now neck-deep in bullshit. The stench is rank.”
“Marcus, Maître du Jeu placed you in charge of Restraint’s BDSM chapter, and it’s your job to make sure all rules are adhered to. If Whitt and you negotiated for Regina’s initiation, then all duties must be met.”
“Ezra!” Syn barks loudly, like she’s calling a dog to heel. “There is MdJ business, then there is family business–”
“Which is one in the same–”
“Ezra!” Syn stalks across the expanse of the dungeon to grip Ezra’s arm, nails biting in. “You made use of Regina’s body. I suggest you thank her for that and move on. She’s not fucking Whitt in your room this morning.”
“Then I’ll have Pretty Boy ink in that M on Regina’s hand, and we’ll be done with this bullshit.”
“Even you don’t have that authority,” Syn seethes, and Ezra’s skin actually blanches paler than usual. Impressive. I assume either Syn has the authority, or knows who does.
Another puzzle piece slides into place, and the elephants in the room get harder and harder to ignore.
“Fine, Master.” Ezra wrenches his arm out of Syn’s grip. “Judge, Jury, and Executioner, you have Whitt ink in Regina’s M. Then Marcus can go fuck his lover behind closed doors, just like our precious Grant always did. Let’s be realistic. Their love nest is the brownstone, so she’s probably fucking Jamie too, which means she knows who he is. Who here doesn’t know Alex is Roman Alexander? Regina’s bud from the hood? She’s probably fucking him too. What about Stanton Green? Is Regina still in contact with Stanton?”
“Cort?” Syn addresses the last person she’d ever speak to. “Is Ez off his meds again?”
Yanking his partner to his side, Cortez looks about ready to pass the hell out. In a low voice, he warns, “Shut the fuck up, Ezra, before Faith kills you.”
“Is Regina screwing Stanton too?” Ezra glares my way. “Let’s fill the brownstone so Regina can fuck her way through MdJ.”
“What?” Marcus and Dexter murmur slowly in unison, more confused than I am. If my brain wasn’t spinning its wheels, I’d be launching myself at Ezra and clawing his perfect face to shreds.
“Jesus Christ!” Whitt tries to dislodge his hand from mine, no doubt envisioning wrapping his fingers around Ezra’s throat. For a split-second, I almost allow it– I almost help. “Don’t speak of Queen like that, Ezra. I thought we were friends.”
“Daniel.” Ezra releases a resigned sigh. “We’ll be friends for life. What’s one more fuck in Regina’s long list of fucks?”
“Oh, my Lord.” I groan, with Syn growling in the background. “I’m a grown fucking woman! A mother of two, and a business owner. I’ve had sex with two people until tonight, asshole. It’s your fault I doubled that number because you can’t shit and get off the pot by screwing your own partner.”
“Way to take ownership in the state of your own vagina, Regina.” Ezra does not like me.
“Since you obviously know Roman, I’ll be sure to have him lecture you on the perils of slut-shaming, asshole. Your dick has been inside everyone in this room, or theirs inside your ass, except for Whitt. I bet given the chance, you’d bend over and beg him for it. Is that your problem? Are you jealous he’s waiting to do me first?” Lips twisted in disgust, “You can have my sloppy seconds.”
Whitt has the common decency not to comment on that, but his shudder speaks volumes.
“I’m not jealous.” I thought Cortez was the pouting champion, but Ezra… Ezra wins hands down. “Whitt deserves what Whitt wants. We’ve all had to endure and adhere to ridiculous machinations.” Ezra’s voice is as cold as ice, and just as sharp. He speaks at me, not to me. “Why should Regina be any different?”
“Because anything that happened after the M was inked on my hand had nothing to do with my initiation, and you know it, Ezra.” If he can use his asshole voice, then I can use my mom tone. “Because all of you warped motherfuckers may have thought Whitt and I were going to fuck, but Whitt and I knew it wasn’t going to happen.”
Facial expression twisted with indecision and confusion, Marcus gestures to Whitt. “You sure about that, Regina? All I’ve heard since young Daniel hit puberty was how you were going to be his first. I concealed your presence in the brownstone because I feared he’d cut my dick off for touching you first. He’s under the impression you’re Whittenhower property, but has since said I was okay since I was Grant’s best friend.”
A grumbling rolls through the dungeon, everyone in agreement, including the idiot holding my hand.
“Whitt was trying to humiliate me tonight, not get into my pants,” I admit the painful truth.
“What?” Marcus is taken aback. “Regina, I’ve been going insane with fear and worry for the past two months. This was not about humiliation.”
“Yeah, it was.” Whitt has the balls to admit it. “I know Queen will eventually give in, but I knew it wouldn’t be tonight, and I can’t believe you all thought it would be. You don’t know Regina very well if you thought differently.”
“Why?” Ezra and Marcus say in unison, with Cortez looking sad, Syn confused, and Dexter enthralled with the drama.
“Just as Whitt seems to be the only person in this dungeon who truly knows me, I’m the only one who truly gets him. Whitt wanted to humiliate me because I’m a goddamn liar and a hypocrite of the highest order. Which is why I want to speak to Whitt in private, to put it all on the table once and for all, and then to apologize.”
Whitt squeezes my hand, while every muscle in his body relaxes at once.
“All I know is if this is how this organization is run, by temper-tantrum-throwing children playacting adults, then it’s no wonder this place is a shithole.” I tug Whitt’s arm, pulling him toward the nearest door. “I’ll be back later tonight to get Restraint in working order, membership included.” 

​Walking hand-in-hand with Whitt is surreal. Neither of us speaks but it feels like the years melt away, like there was never a moment’s separation. What is hard to wrap my mind around is how the man walking next to me is nearly the same age Grant was when we were together, looking like a perfect clone to his father. But instead of serenity and solace as we walk in silence, anticipation and veiled aggression flavor the air.
Whitt and Grant are not the same beast, and I’m unsure how to go forth, so I take Jamie’s sage advice. The watcher knows us all best.
“Um… Obviously we have no car.” I stumble over my words. “Unless you want to jack Ezra’s ridiculously expensive SUV.”
As we walk out the side door to Restraint and into the damp morning air, the rising sun casts an orange glow on the parking lot. Whitt turns to look at me with his eyebrow raised wryly. “I could call Albert, but…”
Whitt makes me feel uncomfortable, more so than when I was around Jackson and Daniel at the same time. I feel like a lost child again, one who knew nothing of the world, and I’ll never learn the knowledge the man at my side possesses. It’s the same feeling Marcus elicited in me when we first met. I hope this tension between Whitt and me dissolves quickly, before it gives him the advantage to bulldoze right over me.
“So… we can walk, or do you want to leave everyone stranded?
“Walk it is.” Whitt’s voice sounds like he holds all of my secrets and finds me cute. “Syn is a detail-oriented person, so I highly doubt she left Ezra’s keys in the car. Unless you learned to hotwire in the hood.”
“Ha-ha!”
This is so fucking bizarre on so many levels. Jesus Fuck, uncomfortable is an understatement. After fantasizing about our reunion for more than a decade, this is not how I envisioned it.
Feeling many eyes on me, I wonder who is hiding in the shadows. Ezra’s Aaron and Roarke? Who watches Faith’s back? I have no doubt Ezra and Faith are at the very top of Maître du Jeu’s food chain– founders’ council, not its BDSM front. Does Jamie have Roman and Kristal haunting our every step? Whitt is with me, so where is Albert, or even Martha? Is that how this enforcer business works?
Add paranoia to my discomfort.
“We could catch a cab and go home.” Hope lingers in Whitt’s voice, but I’m not ready.
“I can’t, Sunshine.” My stomach clenches as my feet take me to the sidewalk, with Whitt following at my side. “Daniel… I can’t go back there, not after how I left things.”
“Hey,” Whitt breathes softly. “We need to talk, and I could eat, remember? So let’s do breakfast and see where our conversation takes us. Plus, I long ago learned not to speak in public or private with so many listening ears, and I’ve often wondered when my private words were used against me in conversation when I uttered them when I was alone.”
“Yeah, the first time I was in Cort’s car, Marcus was listening to our every word, and I didn’t know until afterward.”
Marcus is one of the most intelligent creatures I’ve ever met, so I was a bit surprised at how shocked he appeared to be when I explained how easy it was to hijack his surveillance and use it against all of us.
Even our ears have ears, so maybe I’m not being paranoid after all. 
“Fucking lovely,” Whitt hisses, hand clenching around mine. “There is some bizarre shit going down, even Niel has noticed. We’ve tried to talk to Daniel about it, but he brings Diane in, and the pair of them tell us to leave it alone.”
Testing the waters– always testing the waters… “Are they terrified or resigned when this happens?”
Whitt thinks about this for a block or two, and I have no idea where he’s leading me. “Terrified is not an emotion Daniel ever exhibits. But I guess frazzled would be the best way to describe it, which is major for that man.”
I mull that terrifying information over. “I doubt Daniel and Diane know exactly what’s going on then, just that they know shit is going down like we do.”
“I know more than most,” Whitt admits, causing my steps to falter.
“You hate me,” I blurt out. “I can tell you know the truth.”
Pace slowing, Whitt whispers, “Do you ever feel like everyone in your life is betraying you by omission?”
I can barely swallow around the ball of guilt threatening to suffocate me. “Yeah, I do, and that answered my question, didn’t it?”
Voice emotionless, “Yeah, it did,” Whitt replies without hesitation.  
Whispering softly, because to speak louder would make me choke on the words. “I believe you’re the only person I know who has never betrayed me, Sunshine. Yet I betrayed you by omission, even if I didn’t want to.”
Swinging around, suddenly furious, Whitt drops my hand and faces me. I bite back laughter at how the Denny’s sign illuminates his blond hair like an angelic halo. Eyes narrowed, muscles taut and coiled for attack, fists clenched, Whitt asks the question I’ve been asking myself.
“Why did you?”
Body slumping in defeat, “I don’t know,” flows from my lips like a coward. “Because I’m a mother, and the thought of someone going against my wishes with my children kills me, and I know this firsthand. For that reason alone, I kept Grant’s wishes.”
“My father’s wishes?” Whitt challenges me.
“Yes, your father’s wishes.” Jamie’s words ring in my head. Own it. “I won’t apologize for not telling you when you were little. I was building a life with your father, trying to hold onto my own son with my fingertips, all the while trying to survive. I agreed with Grant’s reasons, and I still do, even seeing the formidable young man you’ve grown to be.”
“Why?” Whitt breathes, sounding just as defeated as I feel. “Why didn’t he think I deserved my legacy? Why don’t you think I deserve it?”
“No,” I cry, reaching for Whitt. Tugging him roughly into my arms, I hold him, rocking back and forth while I tell the truth. “Your father wanted you to have the life he wasn’t allowed to lead. A life of his own choosing.”
“Was it because I’m gay?” Whitt sniffles against my neck, rubbing his cheek along my jawline.
“Partially,” I admit, and Whitt jerks as if struck. “But not for the reasons you believe. His marriage to Cora, your conception, along with Niel’s, it was all forced on Grant, and he didn’t want you to live like that. Being gay, it would have made it even more of a nightmare, to be forced to marry, bed, and make children with a woman.”
“I could do it.” Pulling away, Whitt acts, sounds, and looks like the boy I’d grown to know and love. “I’m stronger than they think.”
“I know, but you shouldn’t have to do it.” Hand moving on its own accord to cup his cheek, for a moment, I’m confused by touching and looking at a man who is Grant’s doppelganger. It takes me ten seconds of blinking back tears to see Whitt instead of the man I lost.
“What your dad wanted for you, what your grandfathers wanted for you, your grandmother and your aunts and uncle, and what I wanted for you, is for you to grow into your own man, with your own passions, to find a man who will love this person we all love so dearly. That is why.”
Whitt looks away from me, hiding the tears staining his cheeks, and my hand falls back to my side. “Okay, that makes sense in regard to why Daniel didn’t shove his lessons down my throat before Niel and the girls were ready, but I guess it also explains why no one told me Grant was my dad.”
Eyes scrunched in confusion, I try to get Whitt to explain. “What are you reasoning out?”
“Over breakfast– c’mon.” Whitt grabs for my hand to tug me into Denny’s of all places. “I feel eyes on me. There’s a man over there by the bench watching us.”
As Whitt pulls me into the diner, I check out the guy acting disinterested in us. Blank. Nondescript. Closely cropped brown hair, jeans and a leather jacket, and a cellphone in hand as if he doesn’t even notice us. But I’ve seen him before– often.
“Have you seen Stanton Green recently?” I ask Whitt when we come to stop before the hostess station.
“No, why?” Whitt looks at me crosswise. “That’s twice Dominion’s lord of the underworld has been brought up, when I hadn’t heard his name in ages. The last I remember of him was having forced playdates with Toddler.”
“Toddler?” I snort at Whitt’s insulting nickname for Binks. “Well, people age, but they tend to still look similar. That guy out there, I’ve seen him before. I don’t know his name, but he was friends with Caleb Green before Stanton’s little brother was shipped away to military school.”
“That’s disturbing. If you’re one to keep tabs on people, you should know Caleb joined the Marines and is stationed somewhere playing GI Joe,” Whitt murmurs, then turns on the charm for the hostess. “Hello, darling.” The dimples pop and the crystalline blue eyes shine, and the fifty-something woman is about to swoon. “Could we have a booth with a front window, but away from the door? Please and thanks.”
As Whitt’s passenger, I trail behind him and the hostess, who has perfected the art of walking slowly, in case we get lost in the twenty feet from here to there. “Thank you.” Whitt’s charm is still turned up to swoon, but if he adds flirting to the mix, I’m out of here.
Eyeing the man who utterly terrifies me, yet makes me want to pull him into my arms and never let him go, I slide into the booth. Flipping the well-used coffee mug over to signal I want some, I wait the hostess out as she lingers and bats her eyelashes at Whitt.
“Dear God,” I groan. “There should be a warning label on your forehead.” Laughing to myself, I shake my head back and forth. “So, if you haven’t seen Stanton, then I guess you haven’t seen Binks, either.”
“Toddler?” Whitt visibly shudders. “Fuck no.”
So much for that segue. Uncomfortable in the extreme, I pretend to look at the menu. “Um… so I should probably tell you­–”
“That she’s my sister?” Whitt fills in the blanks for me. Voice dry enough to catch fire, “I figured that out when I was six– thanks.”
Hands stilling, I drop the menu to the tabletop with a loud clank to my coffee cup. “Why did you wait to confront me?”
“I thought you’d tell me when you were ready, I guess.” Whitt’s finger goes line-by-line on the menu. “I figured out Grant was my dad because my sisters didn’t seem to take as much of an interest in me as he did. As my mother, Priscilla always deferred to Grant. If he wasn’t my dad, then why would she?”
“PedoBear– holy fuck!” Covering my mouth with the back of my hand, my conversation with Kristal rears its ugly head. Laughing, I decide Kristal is a cunt of the highest order, but one with a warped sense of humor.
“What?” Whitt’s eyebrows scrunch together in confusion, but his lips are twisted with amusement. “Grant was not like that. I mean, I always thought Jackson’s kissing on the mouth was a bit much, but I think that was to get a rise out of Daniel.”
“Nail. Head.” We’re interrupted by a gobsmacked waitress who can’t stop drooling over the young man seated across from me. Whitt, wearing expensive clothing like a second-skin, is a sight to behold in a diner of all places. “All-American Slam with white toast and coffee, please.”
“Fit Slam and grapefruit juice,” Pretty Boy requests, earning a sigh of pleasure from our waitress.
“For serious?” I volley across the table at the kid as soon as the girl shuffles away. “Fit Slam? Meanwhile, the middle-aged woman is eating enough to feed a horse.”
“Middle-aged?” Whitt has the good sense to roll his eyes. “You’re only thirty-one, right? Almost thirty-two? You seem to have forgotten that I’ve seen you naked, and even with being gay, I enjoyed the view.” Noticing the flaming blush on my cheeks, he changes the subject before my attitude turns dicey. “As for the caloric mindfulness, Daniel has me on a double course load.”
“So much for living your passions,” I mumble underneath my breath. “Grant would be pissed.” –I refuse to use present tense.
 “Well, up until I reached the age of majority, Daniel was my governing authority.” Animosity replaced by a softening of his features, Whitt’s voice shifts to affectionate. “Double course load: business and art. Half for him, half for me.”
Angry at myself, I voice my private thoughts. “I want to hate him, but I can’t.” Thankfully the waitress passing out our beverages saves me from explaining.
“I spend my days at the university. When I return to Misery Castle, Daniel forces me to sit at his desk with him– the old bastard pretends it’s not for my company. Like I’m still in elementary school, he goes over my homework, while trying to override my professors. If the TA teaches one of my classes, Daniel calls up the Dean, saying he’s going to pull Whittenhower funding.”
“Good times?” I lift my coffee mug and clink Whitt’s juice glass in a toast. “Same Daniel, different decade.” Voice fond, but still holding a wealth of sadness, “At least you don’t have Jackson going livid crazy on your professors with Grant trying to play interference.”
“Daniel would embarrass you, too?” Whitt’s laughter is a sucker-punch to the throat. All is not lost forever. “I have no life. School. Daniel. Waiting for the kids to get home from school so Daniel can get his rocks off on teaching us whatever for the night. I sit on my ass, so that’s why I avoid fatty foods.”
“Jeesh. You’re nineteen, Whitt– live a little.” I wait a moment in the silence, then coax him to continue. “But don’t stop talking. Gimme more.”
All the charm Whitt had bestowed on the wait staff was pale in comparison to the high-wattage smile he flashes my way. Mouth drying up, breath hitching, all I can do is stare across the table as he indents his dimples.
“No one but the youngsters give a shit about what I’m doing unless I’m not doing as I was told.” The sadness makes a reappearance by lurking in the depths of his eyes. “My favorite part of the week is when Prissy’s trainer visits. Gymnastics. God, that guy is hotter than Hades. Straight. My gaydar is faulty, and I mistook his impressive bulge for a ‘happy to see me’ showing.”
Grinning, I chuckle underneath my breath at the crestfallen expression on our waitress’s face as she delivers our breakfast platters. She doesn’t even respond to Whitt’s, “Thank you, darling.”
“So much for Cinderella finding her Prince Charming at Denny’s,” I tease, doing my damnedest to hold back the laughter trying to escape.
“Prince?” Scoffing, Whitt looks more than mildly insulted. “Try KING, Queen.”
“King Whittenhower.” I try for teasing again, but it sounds like reality to me, which is terrifying. “So nothing fun besides ogling Prissy’s trainer? How are your art classes? Do you tattoo often? How did you end up at Restraint?”
“Teddy– the trainer’s name is Teddy. He is the highlight of my week for spank-bank material. Art class is still class, and I’m sick as fuck of formal education because I’ve been doing it since I was two, which is why I ended up tattooing in the first place. Not as often as I’d like, but Kristal and Syn humor me when I have a new design. Restraint–” Whitt’s wicked grin is so wide I fear his lips will split in the center.
“There’s a story behind that, I take it.” Amazed, I can’t look away from Whitt. Just sitting here, listening to him speak, is the highlight of my decade. I’m not even hungry, and I don’t care that my food is getting cold.
“Daniel is boring, as you know.” Whitt winks at me, the pisspot. “By the time I hit sixteen, I was getting angrier and angrier with every passing day. Daniel is also a weirdo, like he wasn’t put off on my being gay. He would hand me books on things I’d rather experience than read.” Voice warping until it’s a facsimile of his grandfather’s, “You have to be safe, Daniel, and don’t have sex with a woman unless you plan on procreating. Condoms are not infallible.”
In between chuckling, I nosh on a piece of bacon. “That is the Daniel I remember.”
“Yeah, well… it sucked having him quiz me on how I was feeling and why I was feeling it. Since I’ve never stopped chasing Ezra around–”
“Obviously,” I mutter dramatically for effect.
“Ha-ha! On a whim, I told Daniel I wanted to train with Ezra, and he actually said yes. I was flooooored,” Whitt draws out. “I ended up with Marcus, but Daniel was still proud of me, saying I was like Jackson.” Whitt leans across the table and whispers conspiratorially, “What does that even mean? Jack wasn’t gay, was he?”
“I would get so frustrated with Daniel and Jackson, where I’d war with myself over hating and loving them, to the point Grant would feed me juicy bits and pieces to keep me from killing the men. So unless you truly want to know, don’t ask.”
“Don’t be a bitch, Queen.” Smiling, Whitt points across the table at me. “I’m trying my damnedest not to be pissed at you, so if you’ve got the goods, you better produce ‘em.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I make Whitt suffer while I make a sandwich out of bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast. After a few bites, where the poor guy is practically vibrating with anticipation, I put him out of his misery.
“Jackson was a hellraiser in his time. Naughty, bisexual, and without morals, the man’s worst nightmare was his heart meds, because they took away the use of his cock.”
Empathizing, Whitt grunts in pain.
“Before I go on, I need to know if you know who Grant’s father is.”
“Jackson? Daniel?” Whitt doesn’t even bat an eyelash at my question. “I was the little kid hiding in the draperies. If you don’t think I saw Jackson and Priscilla making out, or Jackson hugging Daniel, and Daniel looking confused, like he was being boiled alive… I’ve asked Daniel more than a hundred times, and I even went to the source– Priscilla. But I always get a different answer each time.”
“Really?” My wheels begin spinning again, giving me a migraine. “Grant always assumed it was Jackson. Anyway, since he couldn’t get it up, Jackson found more cerebral pursuits.”
“BDSM?”
“Yes, and I’m pretty sure Daniel’s boiled alive expression was due to the fact that if he had let him, Jackson would have been more than happy to live a life of incest because it was the most perverse thing the dying man could do. As I said, Jackson was a hellraiser, living every moment on the edge, and that’s about as far off the edge as one can get. Grant was always thankful Jack’s cock didn’t work, because he feared him manipulating Daniel in the bedroom.”
“Manipulating Daniel?” Whitt sounds incredulous as all get out. “Pfft… yeah, right.”
“Daniel is… a complicated man. A scholar thirsting for knowledge to make up for his lack in sex drive, which is why he asked the who/what/where/why/when/how about you being gay. Daniel is incapable of feeling arousal. While he loves Priscilla romantically, it’s not sexual. So he’s all mixed up in the head, finding affection to be a form of sexuality, which is how Jackson could have abused and manipulated him.”
“What?” Whitt’s jaw drops. “Come again?” 
“Daniel is asexual.”
“Dammit!” Whitt’s fist hits the edge of the tabletop, never looking or sounding more like Jackson and Daniel. “Now it will be impossible to hate that man.”
“I warned you,” I remind Whitt, not even bothering to hide my smile at his befuddled reaction. “Grant told me via Jackson how a very bad man got a hold of Daniel when he was a boy, and it fucked him up. He had no sexual urges at all, and can’t distinguish between affection and sex, so he doesn’t do affection except with Priscilla because she’s his wife and that’s par for the course.”
“Daniel doesn’t like sex?” Poor kid looks faintly ill. “At all? I mean, that is life’s greatest gift.”
“No sex drive. No urge. No looking at a woman or man and getting hard. Daniel sees masturbation as another body function to be performed daily, and sex a duty you do with your wife. But Grant assured me that Daniel enjoys the act itself, just doesn’t have an on-switch to tell him to engage in it.”
“The only time Daniel has ever touched me was the one time he slapped me.” Whitt’s revelation hurts my heart. “But like clockwork, about ten minutes before Niel gets out of school, Daniel is practically vibrating with need. He greets Whitney and Prissy, and looks genuinely happy to see them, but he acts like I have the plague. Niel– I’ve never wanted to be jealous of the most important person in my life, but when Daniel takes Niel into a huge hug and kisses his forehead, I die a little bit on the inside each time.”
“Jesus,” I whisper, eyes slipping shut from the pain etched across Whitt’s Grant-like features, then realization strikes. “I don’t even need to see my son to know he’s growing up to look similar to Jackson. So while I find looking at you to be a comfort, I can’t imagine how Daniel feels to look at you, or to look in the mirror and see what he’s lost.”
“Regina,” Whitt cries out, and he hardly ever calls me by name. “That makes me feel worse. You suck in the comfort department.”
“I wasn’t finished.” I reach for his hand, both of us forgetting the pretense of eating breakfast. “Jackson was Daniel’s safe haven. But more so, the day Jackson died, Daniel and I had a conversation about good versus bad touch, and I taught him how to touch Niel. I had him hold Niel, using it to abate his grief. I gave Daniel permission to touch my son, and he took me at my word, and pushed all of the loneliness he must feel over Jackson and Grant into Niel.”
“How am I to continue hating him?” Whitt hangs his head, looking sadder by the second. “The injustice kept me going.”
“Hate Daniel on his actions, not for his inaction. As for you looking like Grant, it wasn’t until Grant turned twenty-one that Daniel began touching him, realizing he was old enough and big enough to tell him no. Daniel’s terrified he’ll inadvertently violate one of you. You’re not there yet, Whitt. So if you want Daniel’s affection, then you have to stop looking at him like he’s the Antichrist and just give him a hug.”
“I don’t… I don’t think my balls are big enough yet.” Whitt looks down at his hands. “Every day since you left, I’ve hated Daniel for making you leave. I was hiding in the draperies when Marcus told Daniel, and I was still in the study when you were told.”
“That’s–” sob lodged in my throat, I nearly suffocate until I choke it out. “That’s how you found out your dad died?”
“Yeah, but see…” Whitt closes his eyes, unable to look at me. “You lost Grant that day, and had to give up Niel, but I lost my dad… and you. Daniel broke after Adelaide dragged you out. We all lost you both, and he couldn’t handle it. He even begged Ade to bring you back, and had Albert looking all over Dominion for you. But you never came back, so I can’t forgive Daniel, no matter how fucked up in the head he may be.”
“Ade never– Fuck!” I suck in a large amount of air, filling my lungs to bursting, and then let the agony out with my exhalation. “I was in a bad place myself, truly believing Daniel was right about ‘a son for a son’, to the point I doubt I would have come back if Ade had asked. Some days, I still think I’m punishing myself. Other days, I feel like I was never enough. For a few seconds a day, I feel like I lost the life I was meant to lead, and I’m just wandering aimlessly.”
Whitt’s laughter has my eyelids popping open. Quickly drying the tears on my cheeks, I begin to wonder over his sanity.
“I was raised in a motherfucking castle as the throwaway son, watching my little brother be treated like a pampered prince. Overlooked, my birthright was torn from me, and I’m so enraged I can barely breathe most days. Whittenhower Estates and all its holdings should have been mine. Jackson to Grant. With Grant’s death, Daniel would have been a placeholder until I reached the age of majority. But with all these secrets and lies, my legacy is gone. Take that for aimless wandering.”
Breathing through the pain, I slide the plates in front of me out of the way and to the side, then I slump forward with my forearms on the tabletop. “Did you want it in the first place?”
“Yes, goddamnit!” Whitt states with great passion. “We always want what we’ve been denied, especially when it was ours in the first place. So what if I’m gay? I don’t need to make a kid when I can use the Whittenhower prince and princesses as my heirs. Jumping over me wasn’t a way to avoid the inevitable, but a slap to the fucking face. Just as it was Jackson’s decision to give the reigns to Daniel, it’s mine for when Niel gets control.”
“You need to ask yourself if you truly want the burden, if you’re capable of shouldering it, or if you’re just being spiteful because you were denied.”
“My roots were torn out of the family tree, Regina. Do you get that? Imagine Curtis and Ella Regal without your name beneath theirs.”
“Whitt, I understand that more than you could ever know.” Resting my head on my forearms, I speak to the tabletop. “My own son isn’t even in my family tree.”
“Bullshit,” Whitt spits. “I’m not going to do the ‘who has it worse game’ with you, but I can assure you Niel’s real birth certificate is in the safe in the study, and it has yours and Grant’s names on it. When I was snooping for it, I found my own birth records instead. So I’m not going to debate whether I want or deserve what’s mine, because it’s rightfully mine, and that’s all there is to say about it.”
“Agreed,” I mutter in defeat, unable to process all Whitt just said.
“As I said before, Niel is my favorite person on the planet, but it doesn’t lessen the hurt that I was somehow deemed unfit at the age of five for my own legacy, while the very thought of a baby yet to be conceived was. It negates all the good I remember from Jackson and Grant, and highlights the cold relationship I have with the man who is legally my father. I just–”
After several long moments, I ask, “What?” assuming Whitt is waiting for me to coax him to continue.
“It’s not about greed or power– I just want to prove I’m worthy. Then, when I’m ready, I’ll pass the torch to a Whittenhower who is ready and willing, and it doesn’t mean it has to be Niel, or my kid if I ever choose to have one. Hell, it could be Ella even. I don’t believe in the way our family has been run so far, and that is what I want the most.”
“The power to change our lives for the better?” I perk up, feeling the first stirrings of positivity in my belly, the addictive surge of power.
“Yes.” Whitt’s eyes glint as if succumbing to the same high I’m experiencing. “There is shit going on around us that I don’t understand. There are more skeletons in Misery Castle than we have closets. Everything in my world is built on secrets and lies, and I want to tear it down to the very foundation and rebuild it again. But I need help– your help, Queen.”
“What’s your game plan on the Whittenhower front? Because I can help with some of the secrets and lies and the shit going on around us we don’t understand.”
“Thank you!” Not only is relief etched across Whitt’s features, it’s prominent in his voice. “I’ve been going through life alone, Queen. Other. I see Niel, Whitney, Prissy, and Ella as a group together, and the rest of my family in neat little boxes. But then there is just me. All alone.”
Reaching across the table for Whitt’s hand, I assuage his fears. “You’re not alone anymore, Sunshine, and you never were. I promise.”
“The heir to the Whittenhower throne matures at the age of twenty-four. Daniel believes he has another decade to rule from his brother’s seat, not realizing I know who I am and where I came from. So that means I have a little over four years to take my legacy back, and I need your help.”
“How?”
“I am the unknown heir apparent, and I need to become the guardian of the heir presumptive to ensure the welfare of every Whittenhower, those who are employed by us, and those who rely on us. I can’t sit back and allow Daniel to take control, or my baby brother who is not ready by any stretch of the imagination. So I need you to help me become the guardian to my own heirs.”
“What?” I slur. “I haven’t been schooled in the finer points of primogeniture since I was in utero.”
“You said Jackson, Daniel, and Grant bypassed me for your son because they wanted me to have a different sort of life. But what about what Prissy wants? Daniel is already looking at who to betroth to Whitney and Niel, and they’ve yet to reach fourteen. What about their lives and wants? What if Niel wants to sit in a dark room all day and write anime? Whitney is so serious, she could probably make a better politician than the asshat Daniel and Kent would try to marry her off to. She shouldn’t be the first lady of anything, but the lady.”
“I get that, and I’m on board with helping you so that every one of our family members can be who they should organically evolve into, not who they are predestined to become.”
“Good, then I hope you won’t tear my head off when you hear the solution.” 
“Out with it,” I demand.
“By law of primogeniture, Jackson had three heirs: Me. Niel. Ella. If anything were to happen to us, the line moves to Daniel as Jackson’s only brother. With no sons, the line would fall to Katie, leaving Whitney and Prissy to be the heirs. But that’s neither here nor there since I still breathe, and I will fight to my last breath to make sure my brother and sister are healthy.”
“Whitt,” I warn. “Stop with the foreplay, and spit it out.”
“I need to be the guardian of my own heirs, Regina.” Eyes darting away, Whitt refuses to look at me. “If they were my children instead of my siblings… I found Niel’s birth certificate, and I have it on my person to give back to you, to give you your son back. You are in possession of Ella. Technically Daniel has no hold over Niel, except for the fact that he is his grandfather, and would probably die without him.”
“Daniel!” I use Whitt’s given name to get him to get to the point.
“There’s method to my madness as to why I said you needed to have sex with me– why I kept guaranteeing you would.” Taking a deep breath, Whitt finally drops the bombshell. “Because you’ll have to consummate our marriage to make it legal. After we marry, after you allow me to adopt my brother and sister– my heirs –we will be King and Queen of the Whittenhowers, and no one will ever be forced to marry, or make children, or go into a profession that isn’t their passion. We need to do this for the greater good of our family.”
Heart beating out of my chest, a cold sweat beads along my spine. “Now I understand why Marcus was petrified of you.” Slumping forward, I cover my face with my palms. “I… I’m at a loss for words, Whitt.”
Leaning over the table, Whitt whispers so softly I have to struggle to hear. “I know Grant loved you, and I know you’ve been beside yourself with grief and loss. But Grant was far from perfect. He never treated you how you deserved.”
“Whitt,” I mutter weakly, heart breaking for a billion and one reasons, but mostly for the lie I’ve told myself for the past eighteen months, only because it hurts less to lie to myself than to accept the truth.
“My father was a coward. If I had been in his position, with you loving me as a man does a woman, I would have married you before God Himself, and every person I’ve ever come into contact with.”
“Grant’s not you,” I try to remind him.
“I know– thank God. But I am not a coward, and I know you will never marry me as a woman does a man. But it doesn’t matter, because I wouldn’t be as proud to call you my wife as much as I would be to call myself your husband.” 

Checkmate (M&M #7): soon-to-be re-released in both ebook & paperback. Also available in the Queen Omnibus edition. 

“You’re doing great, Mrs. Hoffman,” I encourage as I steady the woman, placing my hand firmly on her back to remind her not to slouch while performing squats. “One more rep– you can do it.”
“If you say so.” With an exerting grunt, the forty-something woman tries to finish a set for the first time. “My God, Brennan, how you push me.”
Chuckling sardonically, I help the woman to her feet, then hand her a towel to wipe away the sweat beading along her neck and enhanced décolletage. I do what any red-blooded man would do, pretend I’m the cloth as it wicks away the moisture.
“Thank you, Brennan.” Mrs. Hoffman blushes a beautiful shade of pink while I flatter her with my appreciative gaze. Breasts swelling more as her breathing deepens, her nipples bud against her sports bra.
“Hard work should always be admired.” Voice light, I can’t help the flirty tone from sneaking in. “You’ve improved since I’ve taken you under my tender loving care.”
“Tender?” Mrs. Hoffman’s lips slide into a smirk. “It’s a good thing my husband is willing to give me a massage after our workouts.” Swatting me with the damp towel playfully, she calls me a beast.
“Mr. Hoffman appreciates the results.” I waggle my eyebrows exaggeratedly and preen a bit when she pats my torso.
“Charmer,” is her parting comment as she sashays her firm ass to the locker room, where Mr. Hoffman is waiting to ravish his wife.
“Playing cupid again, are we?” Tony hops on the Stairmaster, a taunt and a challenge in his actions. My coworker is equally jealous and covetous of me. “That old man is gonna have a heart attack one of these days after you get his wife’s motor running.”
Gazing heavenward, I grab a clean cloth to wipe down the equipment in my area. “You know nothing of marriage, bud.” With a swift kick, I eject him from my machine, ignoring how amazing his calves look. “Most people cheat because they are missing something inside of themselves, not within their marriage. Mrs. Hoffman is crazy over her husband. She just needed her confidence built back up so she felt what Mr. Hoffman was already trying to tell her.”
 “Then what’s wrong with your marriage, bud?” To add insult to injury, Tony whips off his shirt, showing off years and years of hard work turned into muscular perfection. Professionally, Tony is a work of art, but he doesn’t even get a twitch out of my dick, which is why he’s perpetually pissed at me.
Working in a gym is a blessing and a curse. As the resident bisexual, it’s my job to make sure everyone feels good about themselves. Surprisingly, even the straight guys ask if they’re looking good enough to date.
Morgantown, West Virginia is like an oxymoron. As a college town, we’re not as backward as Rusty Knob. Most of the clientele of Sweat it Out are students or those employed with a degree. They’re a bit more open-minded than the folks in my hometown, but not by much. The fact that I’m a man’s man who still loves pussy puts their minds at ease. They simply ignore the other half of my persuasion until they ask for advice on what to wear– how the fuck should I know?
I’m the only one who knows Tony wears women’s underwear underneath those tiny shorts and craves sucking dick. His cowardice outweighs his physical strength.
I won’t deny it; the fit women have my tongue dragging on the ground. Roundness: tits swaying in sports bras as they jog on the treadmill and bubble butts jiggling in yoga pants as they tackle the Stairmaster. Don’t even get me started on the visceral reaction I get from camel toe– gross to everyone who doesn’t want to get in those pants.
On the flip side, I have a thing for the geeky guys who look like I used to. Awkward, unsure, a bit insecure, and it makes me feel like the man when they come to me for guidance. But in the end, their hard work makes me proud yet sad when my geeky clients evolve, especially those who turn into muscle-heads. The bodybuilders don’t do a thing for me– it’s not what flips my switch. Even I wish I had backed off a while back. Now when I look in the mirror, I feel like my excess size is trying to compensate for my lack of height.
When I was soft, my wife didn’t want me. Now that I’m hard, she doesn’t want me either.
No shit, right?
Perils of falling in love and marrying a lesbian. I’m pretty sure if I grew a vagina, Jesse still wouldn’t have me. Every time my dad looks me in the eye, he’s biting back, “Son, I told you so.”
I haven’t been laid since we found out our daughter was conceived, since I’ll forever pretend that I didn’t cheat on Jesse the night before we got married. It would take a heinous motherfucker to do such a deplorable thing.
Never happened.
Ever.
It was a goodbye.
For now.
I never talk about Jesse– our relationship is sacred. “My marriage is what it is.” I shrug one shoulder, counting the minutes until the end of my shift. I love my job, just not the cock-measuring politics. “I don’t wear the ring because I have to create an illusion, just like servers–”
“And strippers and whores.” Tony raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to deny it.
No can do.
“For the Mrs. Hoffmans of the world, I’ll gladly put up with being solicited day in and day out.” Tilting my head to the side, I size up Tony. “I’ve never been unfaithful to my wife. I can look my fill and make my clients feel desired and wanted, but I never act on it.”
“More’s the pity.” Tony’s checking me out at the same time, tiny shorts failing to disguise the reaction he has to me –nothing on my end.
Raising an eyebrow like a villain, “Challenge?”
“Fuck, yes!” Tony shouts, startling nearby patrons. “You’re such a fucking cock-tease, Bren.” He snaps my ass with a towel. “If you hadn’t bulked up, you would have found yourself on the wrong end of a bad situation.”
“Laps?” I lope off toward the exit with Tony following me like a faithful puppy. “Is there a right end of a bad situation?”
“Yeah,” Tony answers both of my questions. “Being the assailant.”
“Jesus,” I hiss, feet padding quickly down the stairs. “You’re a sick fuck, bro. A real sick fuck.”
With a wink, Tony brushes by me, making sure too much of his body comes in direct contact with mine. “I’m always up for who can do the most laps, because even if I lose, it’s still a win for me.”
“How so?”
Walking backward, wearing the most devious grin I’ve ever witnessed, Tony terrifies me sometimes. “You. Soaking wet. In nothing but a Speedo.” Laughing evilly, he hammers the final nail in the creepy coffin. “I let you win just so I can watch those powerful thighs and arms move you through the water, and how your round girly ass sticks up like a shark fin.”
“Bro, I’ma drown you.” I warn with a lunge.
 
-*-
 
It took half a semester before I realized higher education wasn’t for me. I’m more of a guy who likes to work with my hands– use my body as a machine. After this personal trainer gig is up, I’ll be apprenticing at Kennedy Construction. Sitting in lecture halls, discussing things that I’ll never apply in real life, it felt like I had fire ants crawling on my flesh.
I am a married father, a homeowner, with a fulltime job I adore– I don’t need a degree to prove my worth, and I sure as shit don’t need a degree to be happy.
I’m not Kade– Mr. I’m Going to Stay in College Until I have a billion PhDs. My brother is more worried about appearances than just accepting who he is and being happy. Kade was qualified for whatever job he wanted two years ago, yet he won’t go home and stay home.
For the past four years, I’ve been working as a personal trainer and stay-at-home dad. Right after high school graduation, I’d bought a house for Jesse, me, and the baby, with a room for Kade to sleep. It took even less time for Kade to vacate our place, which he was only using three times a week while he worked on his graduate degree, than it did for me to turn college-dropout. By the third awkward night, Kade had found an apartment to call his own. It didn’t take long before Wynn and Jack decided dorm life was too claustrophobic, after having all of Rusty Knob as their domain, before they invaded Kade’s efficiency apartment and made it their own.
Poor Kade– it’s Wynn and Jack’s apartment now, but Kade pays for it, which means I’m actually paying for it.
If it wasn’t for those idiots, I would have moved back to Rusty Knob, forcing Jesse and our daughter to follow me. I’m just biding my time until Wynn graduates next month, then I’m moving home, with or without them.
But not without my daughter.
“You’re late,” is my wife’s barked greeting as I walk in the front door after a ten-hour shift at the gym. “I missed my art class earlier because Becca was sick and couldn’t babysit. Answer your phone next time– it could have been an emergency.”
Sighing deeply, I think to myself how this is exactly what a man wants to walk into when he comes home. But then I remember this was my choice, and I pushed Jesse into it. After how I was raised, I dreamed of a nuclear family.
My mom died, taking my baby sister with her, and then our lives turned to hell when the Probsts set their sights on us. Using extortion to gain control of our family’s wrongful death settlement, the last hope of me ever having a mom, dad, and siblings went out the window. Now my family tree is exactly the stereotypical bullshit people use against West Virginian natives.
Since I didn’t have it as a kid, I wanted it as an adult– a wife being the only person I’d ever touched sexually or loved, with a gaggle of kids who were happy to see me when I came home from work.
I wanted it, yet I failed to give that to myself or my daughter.
‘Treat the wife as if she’s always right, even when she’s wrong’ is not my usual style. If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. A happy wife is a happy life. I don’t subscribe to any of that unbalanced thinking, because it breeds bad behavior I don’t want my daughter to witness. Jesse is my best friend more so than my wife, and we don’t do that enabling bullshit. But, tonight, I’m too tired to argue.
“You’re right, Jesse.” I step into our living room, shutting the front door behind me, then allow my gym bag to drop to the floor with a harsh sound of finality. “A class you attend at the YMCA is more important than the job that’s paying our bills.”
My petty, passive-aggressive bullshit causes fury to radiate from my wife’s cold, blue eyes– I know I’ve overstepped our boundaries. Jesse contributes financially, and her art does matter. I just don’t have the time to deal with her tonight.
“It’s not like–”
“Don’t!” I warn, raising a single fingertip, instinctively knowing my wife will bring up how none of us need to work.
Blood money.
Goddamn blood money I’d give back in a heartbeat if it meant I could bring my mom, unborn baby sister, and granddaddy back to life. They died, and the money we received brought nothing but terror into our lives. At first, everyone had their hand out, saying they were Kennedys so they deserved their cut.
My dad was a shell of a man– a walking zombie –and Uncle Donny was no better. To lose one person, you grieve. To lose the heart, the future, and the patriarch of your family, that is debilitating. I was a small child who grew up way too quickly, because I had a job to do– someone had to take care of my dad and uncle by showing them life was still worth living. Then we had the bright idea to do good with our unwelcome wealth, and we began revitalizing Rusty Knob and educating its natives.
Probsts.
Every time Jesse brings up how neither one of us has to work, I see red– the crimson wash of blood staining my hands. It was only a blink really– a two-second view of an object tearing my dad apart. Dad was larger than life to me until that very moment. A superhero brought down by the villain I thought was an ally. With the scent of terror and piss filling the air, that blink in time will last a lifetime. Blood ran down Dad’s body to pool on the floor around his knees, with Sean’s sated cock laying against Dad’s thigh– that destructive piece of flesh painted with my father’s blood and shit.
Sean, the guy who wanted me to call him Uncle Sean– the guy who would laugh and play with me– he had committed the most heinous crime one human could do to another, with the added torture of doing so in front of the man’s brother, woman, son, and best friend.
Blink.
It only takes a blink to change the trajectory of your life.
A car exploding into a fiery ball on a freeway, with blood money to erase the loss, as if human life has a monetary value.
Blink.
The terror of a ‘not a boy, yet not a man’ having to make the decision to leave his father to protect the twins, then run into the night, using the Kennedy blood running in his veins to direct him across their land and through the woods to Gillette Holler.
Blink.
A sight that can never be unseen, removing all traces of innocence and altering how sex is viewed as a weapon, violence– an act of dominance instead of an act of love.
Blink.
Every time anyone brings up how much money I have, I remember the metallic flash of a gun butted against the nape of Dad’s neck, and the sheer terror on Uncle Donny and Willa’s stunned faces. White as a sheet is just a saying– one we visualize. But one can’t truly know the horrific impact of seeing a loved one’s complexion turned to a shade of death unless they witness it firsthand.
Blink.
The loud crack of gunfire next to my ear, where it took seconds in the ringing silence to realize Dad was still a live, and it was just Corbin meting out justice.
For nearly a decade, I’ve hidden the nightmares spawned by the red-wash as the front of Sean’s head exploded outward, painting the sofa, spraying across the floor, and blowing all the way to the kitchen cabinets, with his brain matter splattering Dad’s back and Uncle Donny and Willa’s faces.
Blink– I had to blink dozens of times until my mind brought reality into focus, because at first I couldn’t compute the macabre scene.
Why?
The lust and greed of green.
If the Probsts would’ve brought Octavia forward, telling Dad and Uncle Donny how Granddaddy had been naughty by getting another man’s wife knocked up, none of that would have happened.
Kennedys are an honorable people, and Octavia would’ve been given a third of Granddaddy’s money without hesitation. But the Probsts were greedy, violent people, and they didn’t want their own half-sister to have her cut– they wanted it all.
Money is the root of all evil, and even the attempt by my wife to bring it up almost drops me to my knees.
On the verge of throwing up, I issue weakly, “Just go.”
Without a backward glance, Jesse leaves our home, with her blonde ponytail the last thing I see. Slumping down onto the sofa, I stare at the door she just exited.
Passing ships in the night.
I work days at the gym while Jesse stays home with our daughter. Our next door neighbor’s home-schooled foster kid pops in once a day when Jesse wants to run errands or help out during art classes at the YMCA. As soon as I come home from work, I’m a stay-at-home dad. Jesse bolts like lightning, not coming back until the wee hours of the morning just before I head out to work.
Jesse works until last-call at an artist bar. She sets up her easel, along with a few other artists, and they paint while being observed. The patrons drink and eat to make the house a profit. The finished pieces are sold, and the artists are tipped– combined, the tips and the sale of their paintings are the wages. Some of Jesse’s pieces have sold for a pretty penny.
Jesse is damned good, and I’m proud of her, but I miss her more. 
I was home late tonight because I don’t have the luxury of a babysitter doing my duty for hours on end during the day. I took an hour for myself to challenge Tony to let off some steam, then he and I just sat in the sauna and stared at the insides of our eyelids to de-stress.
For eighteen years of my life, Jesse was my best friend. Just Jesse, Franny, and me. Jackson and Wynn hovered on the outside, never truly wanting in, with a few of our basketball buddies breaching the surface from time to time.
We lost Francis to California, where he’s finishing his design degree and will never look back. Jesse was just as artistic, but her medium was oils instead of fabric.
I’m not sure what I added to our friendship besides being the one who posed in Frantastic Designs while Jesse memorialized the moment. The weakling is now the brawn, without an ounce of artistic ability, and the only common denominator between us is my purple stripe on the rainbow.
Small town. Small circles. No common threads needed besides proximity. With the distance of time separating us, highlighting how truly different we are, we’ve slowly drifted apart.
It didn’t used to be like this. When we were first married, Jesse and I shared a bed but not sex, many laughs, and a life– a future.
We were closer than close, able to tell the other anything, no matter how damaging it may have been. I’m only faithful in our marriage because of my beliefs, which have nothing to do with Jesse. Never once did I ask her to remain celibate, and this was without judgment or explanation.
I’m Jesse’s husband.
I used to be her life-long best friend and sometimes lover.
I am not her father.
 But in the past few months, Jesse has turned into a nag who expects me to be a mind-reader. To read a mind Jesse doesn’t even understand herself.
 Just as I told Tony, a cheater cheats because of something within them. When Mrs. Hoffman began training with me, she refused to voice her issues. She felt undesirable, completely blinding herself to the actions of her adoring husband. While training, she would express how he wasn’t attentive enough, but it was her inability to see outside of her insecurity to notice what Mr. Hoffman was actually providing. He could have doted on her hand and foot and she would have been dismissive and oblivious. It took me flirting with her to light a spark, when neither of us truly wanted the other. With the spark lit, Mr. Hoffman’s fire engulfed the insecurities until it was too hot to dismiss.
I’m not blind, nor deaf, nor dumb. Jesse’s the one pulling that bullshit now. I never judged, nor will I ever. Jesse’s resentment, her assumptions of how I feel without asking me or hearing me, that is on her.
My wife is one of the reasons I celebrate my bisexuality, because I can’t stand head-games with people who don’t even realize they’re playing them. Just like Mrs. Hoffman, why should their partner have to solve them like a broken Rubik’s Cube? Most men are exactly what they seem. The ones who aren’t, I don’t plan on fucking anyway. As for the emotionally stunted women, no fucking way. Never again. I won’t allow my daughter to grow up to be like that.
Most fathers worry about having a daughter who is promiscuous, while I’m worried she’ll be a manipulative head-case. I don’t care who my daughter has sex with as long as she doesn’t jerk him around on a leash, mess with his head, and make him feel like a moron.
My dad was my mom’s ‘yes man’, and I will never go down that road. Willa and Dad seem to draw strength off of each other, and that’s what I want out of my partner.
The wife is always right, no matter what, and we’re all to tee-hee and blush and feel guilty, even when she’s dead wrong, because God forbid the wife got upset. Meanwhile, I’m not exactly sure how my wife, who is three months younger than me, who has grown up in the same town, went to the same schools, and has had the same life experience as I have, suddenly became wise beyond her years while I remained an idiot the instant we were married.
I will not raise my daughter to mother her misfortunate husband, unlike how Jesse was raised to treat me. Immediately after we married, I was no longer the friend, but the bumbling husband without a brain in his head, and my friend was suddenly a genius wife who is always right.
I may not have a mother, but I refuse to allow my wife to treat me like her son. It’s been a struggle I’ve refused to relent on, because my self-respect is involved.
Our marriage was supposed to be built on friendship and our mutual adoration for our daughter. Regardless of the bizarre balance Jesse thinks we should have, our marriage won’t crumble because of our sexual orientations, or from one of us finding someone we want to be with instead. It will crumble because one of us refuses to communicate with the other.
To admit my depression is to admit defeat. The end of my marriage won’t be the failure; the dissolution of our friendship will be.
That’s all on Jesse, because Lord knows I’ve tried.
A light thud has me on my feet in an instant. Without hesitation, I find myself down the short hallway, standing outside of my daughter’s bedroom door. Resting my ear to the wooden panel, I listen to her chat animatedly with her doll babies.
All stress dissolves with the sweet cadence of Honor’s voice.