20. Ned
T he day before Christmas Eve was known as Little Christmas Eve—another Swedish thing I’d known all my life but not quite understood until now, when we slid into December with a bang because people were making insane plans and most of our staff were heading home to their families for the holidays.
Living on site in the staff accommodation cottages was handy for the shift work. They were basic and cosy, did the job, but they were not a home. I didn’t blame anyone for packing up and trading this place for something different for a while. That included Violet, who was taking a break and heading to her sister’s place down south, which meant that it was me and me alone who would run this place over Christmas.
Even the thought of that was terrifying, but at the same time, I was a little bit proud that Violet trusted me to do it. We had a large number of dry cows who were getting ready to give birth in the new year—something we planned with care to ensure we could manage—but enough milkers left that our tankers would collect our allotted quota. I had everything in hand, and the local staff were all patting me on the back saying I could call them anytime. Anything I needed, they were just a phone call away.
So for now—as Violet laughed—I was the boss. Would be permanently one day because even though she wasn’t ready to hang up her overalls quite yet, that time would come, which meant I was also the guy who’d drawn the short straw and would be here on my own for three days from Little Christmas Eve.
I felt a little bit bad taking the afternoon off to go pick up a TV for Teddy, and this shipment of my stuff hadn’t turned up yet. The haulage company insisted it was on the back of a truck that would make its way here this evening. I trusted that as much as I trusted the Swedish weather.
It didn’t feel like Christmas, not at all. The earlier winter had truly fooled us. We had bright, sunny mornings, where the world was covered in frost, yet a few hours later, everything was dripping wet, muddy, and doing my head in. There were twinkling lights in the barns and Christmas music blaring from the speakers, but I still wasn’t in the mood, and I couldn’t put my finger on why, despite waking up every morning with a smile on my face. A smile that inevitably turned into a grimace as my wretched body remembered I no longer got to sit in a warm, dry office. Instead, I did a full ass-kicking, muscle-stretching, day-long workout that I still wasn’t quite on board with.
Teddy kept squeezing my arms and my pecs and telling me I was the sexiest man alive, words that felt strange coming out of his mouth, and he would blush and kiss me, and I would prance around and show off those silly muscles. I did look good. I knew that. Having never been much of a gym bunny, I now looked like one…apart from that my hands were scratched to hell and full of splinters. Bah.
Even my mom told me I looked good when I spoke to her on FaceTime, laughing in the Arizona sunshine with a healthy glow on her skin. I looked paler than pale but had rosy cheeks and crinkly eyes, Mom said, small things that made her happy because she could tell I was, and that was no lie.
This life agreed with me. Even when I slipped over and landed in mud and manure. Even when I shovelled bedding sand for heifers who mooed and slapped their tails in my face. I had bruises in places I had no idea how they’d gotten there. And I went to Teddy’s in the evenings, a place that no longer felt like just his in my head. I knew my way around his kitchen. The food I bought was in his cupboards. The cold cuts and cheeses I liked were neatly stocked on the shelves in the fridge .
It was no surprise that we still hadn’t moved the bed upstairs, which was slightly problematic when I remembered what was coming in the shipment later—something that made me send a sympathetic prayer of thanks to Teddy’s dad and his obsessive decluttering because at least I would have somewhere to put the stuff other than Shed 3, which had been Violet’s suggestion. I could set up my sofa at the back of the animal feed store, and there’d be a plug for my gaming set-up. She’d found it funny but this could all have gone so wrong. Looking back, I had no idea what I’d been thinking, but whatever had been going through my mind, I had accepted my fate. I was loving it. Embracing the crazy like the lunatic I was.
I got in Violet’s truck like I owned it and parked it neatly outside the supermarket in town that doubled as a post office and collection point and pharmacy delivery service and whatever else these country people thought up. It was all very civilised and friendly, and for someone like me…well, everyone seemed to know the insane American with the weird accent. Not many people remembered me from ten years ago, but they remembered me now, all right, because I was a friendly guy who talked too much and had turned Edward Backman’s boy queer.
Yeah, that sounded worse than it actually was because nobody meant it as a slur. In fact, people seemed pleased that I’d put a smile back on that boy’s face.
And here was Pete, flanked by a teenage boy with too much acne. Both of them in my space.
“Anderson,” Pete opened with, a smirk on his face. “You still around then?”
Like he didn’t know. I tried to step out of his way. He blocked me in.
“Live here. You of all people should know that. Violet even mentioned it at the meeting yesterday.”
He didn’t even act confused. Just did that thing where he made himself look bigger when in reality he was just a little man behaving like a child.
“Still corrupting Teddy Backman, I hear? We don’t need your sort here.”
“Dad, you’re being a dick.” That was the son. Same stance, better words.
“Thanks, kid. Pete, listen to your son. He’s clearly the better man here.”
“We’re all decent folk,” he started, but I shut him up with my hand in his face .
“If you were decent folk, you would have greeted me with a handshake and moved on. Nothing more, nothing less.” It was scary how Swedish I sounded, but I did, and then I walked off.
I had to laugh. If anyone was corrupting anyone, it was Teddy completely corrupting me.
Then someone else stopped me and shook my hand, asking if I was Violet’s boy, so whatever. I liked the labels. I liked that it was no big deal. I also liked that Thore behind the service desk didn’t ask my business, just waved his arm at me and told me to meet him in back so I could take delivery of our new TV.
“Big parcel,” he said as if it was a greeting.
“Yup. Christmas and all,” I agreed in fewer words than I would normally use. If I wasn’t careful, I would be communicating fully in grunts and weird hand gestures come summer. Another thing that made me shake my head and laugh to myself.
“Will take a lot of electricity, this thing,” Thore commented as he helped me load the box onto the bed of the truck.
I gave it a try. Grunted. He nodded. I was a real Swede, me. Despite the questionable accent and the weird smile and the fact that I couldn’t stop laughing at myself.
Insanity apparently went hand in hand with farming.
I was a dairy farmer. There was no going back now.
I popped back into the supermarket and picked up some thin steaks, a bag of oven chips and a box of those Christmas chocolates that everyone bought and nobody ever ate. I actually liked them. I planned to devour them in one sitting in front of our new TV, sitting on the sofa that I hoped would land on my doorstep in time for me to surprise Teddy…with a furnished home.
A year ago, I‘d been all about Grindr dates and nights out in bars. These days, I wanted to sit on that sofa with Teddy’s head on my lap while I ate an entire box of weird chocolates and stroked his hair and he mocked me for being a piglet.
Like the almost-grown-up person I had strangely become .
And as I drove down the hill towards our home, it felt like something else clicked into place. The stars hanging in the windows. The stalls and cars on the forecourt, people choosing trees and buying planters and overpaying for paper cups of mulled wine. Shop-bought ginger cookies. Christmas music playing from an old CD player someone had rigged up in one of the college buildings.
There was no snow, but there was something else. A feeling of…it was hard to describe. Belonging. A sense of home. Familiarity where I didn’t even hesitate to raise my hand and quietly greet strangers as I parked and unloaded my purchases.
Home.
A place where I got the fire burning, my food in the fridge, and one of the college kids to come help me carry the TV inside.
Christmas. I’d rarely been excited about it as a grown-up, but here I was, grinning like a kid.
And here was my Teddy, snaking his arms around my stomach as we stood on the porch watching a large truck make its way down the lane toward the house.
“Is this what I think it is, Kitten?” he whispered into my neck.
“You’ve gotta stop with the kitten.”
“Nah. I like it.”
I was actually teasing because I secretly loved that little nickname. The way he said it and stroked my hair like I was one of his cats. Like he loved me as much as he did those weird critters.
I was getting used to them, despite their habit of tipping things off the windowsills and scratching up boxes, and Fifi had once again pulled the blanket off the bed and ripped a hole in it.
The little shit.
It was a weird feeling, watching the familiar boxes being unloaded onto the porch because I realised I liked the house as it was. Cool and calming. Nothing there to clutter the space. It made it easy to think. Easy to clean? What had happened to the cool, easy-going guy called Ned? Here instead was some middle-aged dude who cringed at the sight of a massive packing box, which I remembered was full of my vinyl collection. I’d packed it. Paid to ship it all the way here. What the hell was I going to do with a shitload of vinyl in this godforsaken part of the world? Play vintage Donna Summer to the heifers? Violet would kill me.
This wasn’t good, and I almost burst into tears when we finally got it all inside and I found Teddy in the living room, surrounded by boxes and furniture and things. Things wrapped in other things. Things I didn’t even know were mine.
This wasn’t my life. These things had all belonged to some other guy called Ned, who I honestly had no idea who he was anymore. I wasn’t that person anymore. What the hell was I supposed to do with a dual-screen gaming set-up? I barely had the strength to brush my teeth in the evenings, let alone load up some shoot-em-up to blow off steam. I had other ways of releasing things.
Teddy climbed over stuff and grabbed me and gave me a hug because I needed one. This was just…
“It’s a lot of things,” he said. “Do you think some of it could go in the barn? Or upstairs? I don’t even know where to start.”
“I don’t know why I brought this stuff. It’s been months, and I’d almost forgotten about it all. Not sure what to do with it.”
“Well, I assume this is the sofa? A sofa is good.”
“It’ll go with the TV.”
He smiled. At least he was still smiling. I wasn’t.
“TV. I picked it up from town. It’s…” I looked around, pointed at some random box. “It’s in here.”
“We’ll get to it.”
“Teddy, I’m so sorry.”
“About what?”
I waved my hands about. “There’s like a million things I don’t need here, and I don’t know what I was thinking! All this stuff used to be mine, but I’m not that person anymore. I don’t even know…”
I loved when Teddy laughed at me. When he just wrapped me up in a hug. Kissed the top of my head.
“It’s just stuff. Take it upstairs or something. Clear away these boxes. Then we’ll sit on that sofa and figure shit out. ”
“Will we?”
“Yup. I’m on dinner duty. Found a packet of something in the fridge. I’m assuming you meant that for us? Steak…and what else?”
“I liked that bread you had in the freezer. Thought we could make steak sandwiches?”
“Fab. Let me grab a shower and I’ll cook.”
“I’ll move the boxes then.”
I carried as much as I could upstairs and dumped it in the empty room. A room that suddenly looked small. Unloved. It hurt my head; everything did. So I unwrapped the sofa and got some of my mojo back as I let myself sink down in the familiar position, my head leaning back into the soft leather. Home. This was weird, but maybe I could deal with that. Mesh the old Ned into this new me, who was full of butterflies as Teddy walked through the door wearing chunky socks and his dressing gown. Which meant…
“Teddy?” I said in my most seductive voice.
He grimaced. Yeah. I was doing it again.
“Come over here,” I demanded.
“Oh yeah?” he said, an eyebrow raised.
“Come,” I repeated, sitting up straighter. This. Like this. Him walking up to me. That dressing gown cord hanging loose.
“What do you need?” he asked in a voice that quivered a little.
I loved that it did. That I still had that power over him. That I could make him…fuck, yes. That was definitely some growth under the fabric. I grabbed his hips, wrapped the dressing gown cord around my fingers. His dick nicely filled out, standing straight up right there in front of me.
“I just thought,” I started gently. “I think I need an appetiser?”
“A what?”
“Something to whet my appetite.” I winked, licked a straight line up his dick from the root to the tip. Swirled around the slit at the top.
“You gonna give me a celebratory sofa blow job? ”
“Never blown you on this sofa. Thought we could start slow with this one. Not break the armrest on the first go.”
“You’d better not. Got a busload of pensioners from Sundsvall coming in tomorrow to buy planters. They’ve even pre-ordered coffee and cake, and I need to be…ahhhrgh.”
That’s how I shut him up, by taking him into my mouth, attempting a slick slide down to the root and completely underestimating my deep-throating skills. I’d never been good at it, which I proved by gagging on him and spitting saliva onto his leg.
Classy.
“Easy, Kitten,” he hummed as he stroked my hair and fed his cock back into my mouth. “Just a little bit’s good enough.”
What could I say back to that? He turned me on something silly just whispering totally normal words to me. Talking dirty, tangling that big hand of his in my hair as he filled my mouth and throat as far down as I could take him, my tongue working him slowly as I pulled back, let the tip of his dick linger on my lips and slowly let myself look at him.
He threw his head back, his neck exposed in the way that had me longing to get up there so I could kiss all that exposed skin, his stubble and the hair on his top lip. Those cheekbones so sharp they could cut glass. Him. Just the sheer size of him.
I swallowed him back down, making myself relax. I’d been better at this once, but I was out of practice and he was a little on the bigger side. A bit of a challenge, and I once again gagged on him, making him groan out loud. Tug at my hair.
Yeah, this was so my thing. Letting him control the movement, his hands guiding his dick a little further in. Letting me come back up for air before going…fuck. Deep. My dick was filling out nicely down below as he took back control.
I’d thought about that. I’d even asked him about it. How, when I felt a little lost, sometimes sex would put me back together, ground me into a calmer state where I didn’t have to try so hard. Like now, when he went deep, almost hitting the back of my throat, I could take it. I wanted to. The saliva ran down my cheek as he slid his thumb into the side of my mouth, whispered something I couldn’t make out and then fed me his cock.
No control. I felt like putting my hands behind my back, just letting him take everything from me, but then I would have fallen over, so I dug my fingernails into his legs as he once again made me gag and splutter all over the place.
“Tap out if it’s too much,” he whispered.
He never ceased to amaze me. How all that shy gentleness that was Teddy Backman disappeared when he got naked, because he was just who he was, and I would spend the rest of my life wanting all of him. The way he gently fucked into my mouth, how the sounds coming out of him made me wish I had a third hand so I could jerk myself off. I wanted to come. I wanted his mouth on me. I wanted the world to explode into darkness to be one with it, where all I could feel was pleasure and nothing else mattered.
He roared as he came, and one of the cats shot across the room. Somewhere at the edge of my consciousness, I heard Fifi screech in distress.
“She’s managed to get herself locked out,” he mumbled above me, taking a stumbling step backward as his semen dripped down my chin, my mouth full of him. My brain was still not fully switched back on, but he walked across the room with his dressing gown hanging open like a cape and let Fifi back in. Then came back and got down on his knees in front of me, grabbed my hips and yanked me into place. Got my pants down and my dick out, and then?
I think I must have lost my mind a long time ago. It felt like it as I shouted and let him completely take me apart with his mouth and his hand, working my balls as his tongue made me shiver and then it was all darkness and peace as he smiled and licked me clean.
It felt like ages before I came back to my senses, lying there in a messy heap on the sofa with him still on his knees in front of me, his arms leaning gently on my legs, smiling up at me as I threw my arm over my face.
“This is a nice sofa,” he said, smoothing his hand over the leather. “You do realise the cats will destroy it within days. I dread to think what they’ll do to it. I feel like I need to apologise in advance. ”
“Maybe.” I tried to swallow my tongue, but it had to be said. For once, I agreed with Flora. “Maybe it’s time to lock the cat flap. Get all these feral creatures back outside where they belong.”
“I know.” He cringed.
“Apart from Fifi. Fifi is my friend.”
“Fifi is a menace. Have you seen what she’s done to the blanket?”
“But she hates being outside. Maybe we should lock her in the laundry room when nobody’s home.”
“People come and go here all the time. She’d just get back in and sulk.”
“True.”
“And that old cat who keeps hiding under the kitchen sink?”
“That one? Maybe that one should be allowed to be inside too. Well…it keeps pooping on the table.”
“Disgusting thing. I think the barn is a better place for it.”
“You’re cruel. The half-blind old one needs to be inside too. She can’t feed herself outside.”
“True. I could take her up to shed four. It’s nice and warm up there, and the heifers don’t mind cats.”
“I know the cats are an issue…”
“Not an issue, but maybe Fifi is fine. Maybe we should…take control.”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t save everyone.”
“Well…I can save you?”
“From what?”
“Starvation, perhaps. Get yourself in the shower and then we’ll eat, and I guess we’ll have to get this TV installed another day because I want to go to bed. Lie there and hold you. What do you think?”
It sounded like heaven, but Ned Anderson wasn’t a man who would back down, and I had promised Teddy a TV all set up ready for Christmas. He was goddamn getting one .
“Listen, Ned,” he started slowly, his fingers on my stomach, playing with the dark hair there. Then he looked up, right at me. “Ned, you don’t always have to be the fun one. You don’t always have to make everyone laugh. It’s okay sometimes to not be totally okay. Trust me, because I know this. I’m a mess most of the time, but it’s exhausting trying to present yourself like everything is fine when I can see that you’re…you’re struggling sometimes.”
“I’m okay,” I whispered. Lies. I wasn’t totally okay, but he knew that. There was a big clue when someone was half-naked on a sofa crying, my stomach jumping with a held-back…something.
“You’re not. You’re trying to prove that you’re some kind of superhero. I know how terrified you are of failing because you burn the world around you when you do. Flee across the ocean to something you have no idea about, but that’s okay because I think you’re that goddamn superhero. For real. Much braver than anyone I’ve ever met, and that’s partly why I love you. You don’t have to pretend, not with me.”
“I’m…a little terrified,” I admitted, wiping some stupid wetness from my eyes. “Most of all that you’ll have enough of me and throw me out. Things were good, and then all this stuff turns up. I’d forgotten how much there was and how small your house is. I didn’t mean to do this to you.”
“It’s like masses of Christmas presents. I have no idea what we own now.”
“We?”
“You live here, don’t you?”
I grinned. Snorted. Well.
“Get up. Pull yourself together.”
He sounded like my dad. I wasn’t sure if I liked it, but then he grinned, and I kind of did.
“I’ll shower. You cook. Then this TV is getting unpacked and ready. It’s Christmas, Edward Backman, and I am giving you Christmas. With bells on top.”
“Are you now?”
“I am because I love you, and you? You deserve everything.”
“I don’t need anything.” He laughed. “What I didn’t have, you brought it. All of it.”
Then he turned around and walked out in the kitchen, tripping over another box as he went.
He wasn’t wrong. I’d pretty much brought my whole life here, and perhaps this would all be fine as well. What was a few boxes, after all?
Well, perhaps more than a few boxes as he tripped over something else in the kitchen.
“Ned, the box full of clothes in here—I hope there was nothing too fancy because I think the goddamn cat just toileted in there.”
Goddammit. The cats had to go.