Chapter 5 Reed
REED
“We’ll be in touch soon with our decision,” says Erin Pond, a white, mid-sixties woman with a British accent who has been interviewing—more like grilling—me for the last hour for a housesitting gig I’m desperate to get.
“Thank you for your time and consideration,” I say with a wide smile.
The video chat window closes before I even get all the words out.
I sigh, tug off my one-and-only necktie, and pull my earphones out.
I expect to hear Mom rustling around in her room, but then I remember that she’s been gone for nearly three months, and now I’m alone.
Grief is easy to close the door on when you’re busy, but like a childhood monster, it chooses the quietest moments to creak open the closet door and remind you that it’s always watching.
The two-bedroom mobile home I grew up in at Mountain View Trailer Park in Gillette, Wyoming, is even sadder without a second person living in it.
The floors are scratched, the windows leak, and the cinderblocks it stands on seem to be sinking into the earth.
With any luck, a hole will appear and swallow the house with me in it.
My laptop remains open on the rickety yellow linoleum table. I refresh my email inbox, hoping by “soon” Ms. Pond meant “immediately.” I could seriously use some good news after several months of total suck.
I switch from my normal email inbox to a grouping of tabs kept open in a private internet browser.
I’m logged into various burner accounts on different social media sites where I only follow one person, Wendell Blitz, the CEO of the e-commerce chain Arrow Mart. I scroll, but so far, no updates today.
Disappointed, I slump back on the vinyl booth built into the wall and feel a hard lump in the seat.
I reach into a crack in the cushion where fluff has been coming out for at least the last ten years.
My mom never minded a mess and never bothered to fix a thing.
Now she’s dead, and everything in here is mine to sort through, deal with, and in the case of my paternity, uncover the truth of.
The truth of the liquor bottle I pull out from the depths of the diner-style booth is obvious. Some people are taken by cancer. Others by freak accidents. My mom was taken by a longtime love affair with Jack Daniels. Her brain started to go before we knew about the true state of her liver.
Mom used to hide these bottles all over the house when I was young, and I made a game of finding them, but I haven’t lived here since leaving for college four years ago. I guess it was never only about hiding the evidence from me. She was also hiding it from herself.
For half a minute, with no new emails and no new Wendell Blitz speaking engagements to look forward to, I think about uncapping this bottle and tipping it to my lips, despite swearing off brown liquor.
In my college days, I drank beer or vodka with a mixer, and that was it.
I couldn’t stomach the taste of the drink my mom washed her life away with.
But now, what life do I even have to preserve?
My friends all moved away after college graduation, and my job prospects, aside from a side quest into housesitting, are nonexistent.
All I have to my name are this trailer—which I’d rather burn down for the potential insurance check than sleep another night inside of—and an overflowing storage unit of my mom’s old belongings that may hold the key to finally learning who my father is.
While both of those things happening would be ideal, neither seems plausible. Luck has never been a friend of mine.
Feeling as low as possible, I almost pour myself a glass of Jack, but a beep from my phone stops me.
Come over to my place tonight?
The message is from Hank Richards. If I were looking for proof that there’s life after death, this message is Exhibit A.
After that incredible night in my dorm room where he took my BDSM virginity, he completely ghosted me.
I’m used to rejection, but his stung worse than most. Now here he is, slinking out of the mental graveyard I’d buried him in, not dissimilar from the real one I buried my mom in a few months ago.
I set the bottle of Jack down and read the text again.
Was this meant for someone else? I’ve tried to connect with him several times since, especially when things started looking grim with my mom.
I needed an outlet away from her brain fog, delusions, and swollen legs that made it hard for her to walk on her own.
But he ignored every one of my messages.
Though I’m certain he had no idea his read receipts were on, given he’s in his forties.
I could at least forgive him for those wounding little check marks and time stamps.
I place the phone next to the bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the chipped tabletop. Side by side, they look like my only two choices. Sink deeper into my finicky grief or take the big, calloused hand offered to me. Tonight, I could let Hank Richards fuck the loneliness right out of me.
Only one of those choices comes with a guaranteed release, so I text back.
I’m free. How does 7 sound?
When I arrive at Hank Richards’s door, my knuckles refuse to knock.
Nervousness twists my insides. Beneath my sweatpants and sweatshirt, I’m wearing the Nova Ranger suit Hank instructed me to wear.
I had to dig it out of a box from under my bed, where I shoved it when I moved back after college.
My curly blond hair is still damp from my shower, even though it took me over three hours to get here.
So maybe it’s not shower dew, but anxious sweat.
I stare down at my scuffed-up white sneakers, wondering if I look okay, if it’s too late to back out.
It’s not that I don’t want to do this. My pulsing semi struggling against three layers of fabric is proof that I do.
I really do. It’s just that after the last time, Hank’s ghosting really pushed me into a deep funk.
I thought we had a real connection, and if it reprises itself here, I’m liable to fall for him even harder.
Especially when I’m as vulnerable as I am right now.
Is that a risk I’m willing to take?
I’m about to turn away when the door creaks open.
Hank must’ve seen me pull up outside. His bright-green eyes rake over my body.
It’s clear he likes what he sees from the upward shot of his eyebrows.
He tugs me into the apartment by the strings of my hoodie.
Without preamble, he says, “Strip for me, Nova.”
His deep, rich voice closes the curtains on the outside world. In my car, I was Reed Thompson. In here, I’m Nova Ranger at the mercy of the powerful mad scientist Dr. Nebula.
I winnow down to the spandex Nova Ranger suit as instructed.
It’s the same one worn by the actor Chase Miller in the Nova Ranger live-action movie trilogy based on the comic books I loved as a kid.
The blue, white, and yellow ensemble is accessorized by a pair of briefs on the bottom and a shooting star emblem on the chest. The fabric clings to my contours, showing off my chiseled physique.
“The helmet and cape are in my bag,” I say, gesturing back to the door where I dropped it.
“Nova Ranger, so good of you to accept my invitation,” Hank says, getting into his character. He’s embodied Dr. Nebula by wearing all black, and it suits him, highlighting the streaks of distinguished gray in his dark hair and even darker beard.
When we first met, I made him work to get me to comply. This time, I sink to my knees in presentation. “I cede to your command, Dr. Nebula,” I say in a monotone. “Your mind control scheme has overpowered me.”
Something I’ve always loved about being a submissive in a Dom/sub scene is letting my mind go blank.
I allow my Dom to take me places I wouldn’t have considered on my own.
As Reed Thompson, I’m not exactly living the high life, but as a character in a kink scene, at least for a while, I can pretend to inhabit another existence, a different universe.
Hank’s teeth sink into his full bottom lip. The front of his pants shows the distinct outline of a hefty cock. He must not be wearing any underwear under those tight jeans. Darkness—familiar yet still exciting—flashes in his eyes. “Did I tell you to get on your knees, Nova?”
I shake my head slowly as if in a trance.
“Use your words, Nova,” he says. “While you still can.”
“No,” I utter.
“No, what?” he asks, impatient.
“No, Sir.”
“That’s Doctor to you,” he snaps. He grabs a fistful of hair at the base of my neck and hauls me back to standing.
It takes me a moment to find my feet. My suit is doing nothing to conceal my cock, which grows harder the more Hank holds me there.
Hank adorns me with the helmet and cape from my bag before saying, “There. Now you can properly submit to my influence.”
Hank crushes my mouth in a blistering kiss.
His tongue darts out for a second and scrapes the edge of my upper teeth, twirls along my lips as if he’s savoring the taste of my favorite cherry ChapStick.
By the end of the night, I expect my lips will be wet, rosy, and well-worn out from Hank’s—Doctor’s—impressive cock.
He guides me by the ear to the bedroom. His queen-sized mattress is covered with a waterproof vinyl play sheet. The lights are turned low. The air is rich with a woodsy, spiced scent from a lit bundle of incense in front of which a wooden box sits. Its label showcases the fragrance name, Karma.
Stacks of wound-up red ropes are a shock against all the dark-stained furniture in the room. My mind runs wild with all the different positions he can bind me in. Only question is: where will he begin?
“You work for me now, Nova, understood?” he asks. “I will use your powers for villainy and your body for my own personal pleasure.” He gropes the front of his pants, which are doing a poor job of concealing the exact curve of his juicy cock. My mouth waters.