The End #2
With a satisfied hum, he not-so-gently yanks me up and onto his lap, face down.
It’s a tight fit in the car, my knees bent and the top of my head touching the door, but I don’t give a fuck.
I squirm on his lap as he peels my pants down over my ass, and yelp a little when the denim scrapes over my erection.
He laughs roughly and my dick ends up between his thighs.
I expect him to say something, I’m not sure what. But he doesn’t waste time. His first spank is loud and hard, perfect and horrible and exactly what I wanted.
Gritting my teeth, I try to keep my noise inside, but a pained groan still escapes me. I bury my face in the car seat and my arms, needing more.
He gives me more. The crack of his palm on my naked ass, the sting and the ache, the burn and heat, all drives me deeper and deeper into that good-small headspace.
That corner-time haze. Every shift of my hips makes my dick rub between his legs and I whimper.
My ass hurts, fucking aches, but god, it’s so fucking good.
“Young-gi, D-daddy,” I gasp, losing control, sounding scared just like I always do.
He flips me over, slides me off his lap and bends over me. My spanked ass on the car seat stings like a motherfucker and it’s so intense that when he sucks my dick into his mouth, all I can do is succumb to the rush of pleasure and cum.
I jerk and writhe, all cramped in the car but perfect because he’s got me, and that’s all that matters. My throat feels achy with that just-fucked feeling, and I end up smiling, staring at the roof of the car.
Wait a second–
“Are we here?” I ask, because the car is idling, no longer moving.
“Yes. Have been for a few minutes. But we were busy.”
I flush, because even though the partition is soundproof and the window tint is literally illegally dark and mirrored, I have this feeling that there’s no way we got away with doing all that unseen. He chuffs a short laugh and cards his fingers through my hair, soothing me.
“No one saw. Let’s get you put together. We can’t go in there with you looking like this. This post-fuck sweet boy look is just for me.”
His possessive growl sends shivers through me, and I passively let him straighten our clothes. I stay lying on the seat, unwilling to sit up and look around. Unwilling to risk that strange anxiety.
“Baby,” he whispers, and bundles me into his arms. I close my eyes as he pulls me up and cuddles me. His lips press against mine and I sigh into the kiss, letting it soothe me. “Sweet boy, I know this must be frightening, but I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.” I keep my eyes closed and rest my face against his chest.
“I went looking for your birth family.”
I don’t flinch, don’t tense. Don’t react at all. I just keep breathing. My ass hurts so fucking much, and it keeps me from floating away into nothingness. So I’m present, fully aware, but somehow…unsurprised.
Did I recognize our surroundings? Is that why I was feeling so panicked and angry? Was my subconscious trying to repress these memories?
“Your mother and your grandmother are both inside an apartment here. They never stopped looking for you. I didn’t tell them I had you with me, just that I had some questions for them. We don’t have to go inside. I can send Yosef to ask a few questions.”
“Wh–” My voice falters. “What if they…”
When it’s clear I’m not going to keep talking, Young-gi offers me something else. “This might sound strange, but if you’d like, I can have Yosef tell them you died. They can get closure that way, and you’ll never have to reopen that door.”
I pull back so I can look into his eyes. He’s so serious and somber, his mouth so stern and his eyes so warm.
“I’ll go,” I whisper. “But I don’t…I don’t remember them much.”
“Such a brave boy,” he says, kissing my face. “It’s alright. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I know I should’ve told you, but I wanted to give this back to you, and I knew you would tell me not to if I didn’t keep it a secret.”
He’s right. If he’d asked me, I would have told him I didn’t want them found. I’d walked around Chicago before, but I’d never seen anything familiar. Or at least, I don’t think I did. Maybe I was kidding myself, even back then. I’ve been terrified all this time. Such a fucking coward–
“I have soap in the glovebox,” Young-gi warns, like he can read my mind. My sore ass throbs and I wince, shaking my head.
“I don’t need it.”
He hums, but doesn’t argue or rush me. He lets me sit there and tremble for a while, until finally I work myself up and jump out of the car in one burst of movement.
The sun is shining down on the street, on the building in front of us.
It’s an older complex, but not a dump. Windows have cheerful shutters, there are potted plants near the cracked sidewalks.
Cars are parked in a row down the quiet street.
I look around, and my stomach swoops while my heart gallops. “I don’t remember this place.”
“That’s okay,” Young-gi tells me, putting his hand on my lower back. “You don’t need to remember anything. This is about moving forward. The man that you killed doesn’t deserve to be the one that keeps you from ever making new memories with your family.”
Well, when he puts it like that…
I let him lead me around the building to some side stairs. I’m looking all around, and that’s when I see it.
A blue dumpster, off to the side, near a back-alley entrance. A few of the apartment doors open into that alley, and their windows overlook it.
I’m in a daze as I walk to it. Without even meaning to, I walk right up to the door I remember from my dreams. It was always cracked open in my dreams, so she could hear me. Her window curtains were always pulled back, so she could watch me.
I stare at the door, overwhelmed.
“We don’t have to,” Young-gi whispers to me, wrapping himself around me from behind, offering comfort. “Your safe word still applies, even here. Always. It’s up to you.”
“I’m–I’m green,” I whisper back. “Are they in here?”
“I asked them to be in your mother’s apartment upstairs. So I doubt it. Let’s go up.”
Part of me wants to stay, to go inside this apartment. I never had dreams about the inside, so I don’t know what it looks like. But there is a deep, yawning hole inside me that suddenly hurts, suddenly wants to be full of memories. Maybe if I could just see inside, I’ll remember something–
But I follow Young-gi up some stairs to a different door. This one is less familiar to me. I never had dreams about it. He knocks with confidence, which I don’t feel at all.
“Yes?” a female voice calls through the door. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Sokolov,” Young-gi says. “We spoke on the phone a few days ago. I have a few questions about your missing son.”
I listen as several locks are disengaged and have a full-body tingle of awareness because they sound so familiar. All of them. I remember that sound.
My eyes are tearing up when the door opens.
A woman stands there, and seeing her is like having the most intense deja-vu ever.
I don’t know her, but I feel like I recognize her.
Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun, the coarse, dark strands only barely starting to fade to grey.
She can’t be more than forty-five or so, if even that.
I wonder if she had me young. She’s wearing a faded chef’s uniform, as if she’s going to work soon, and I feel a pang of regret.
She had so many jobs when I was younger; all I remember about her is that she was always at work. She had to be.
Her eyes fall on me, and widen. We stare at each other.
“Um–” I choke, my voice failing.
“Tommy?” My mom sways on her feet. “Tommy? Tell me it’s you, tell me I’m not wrong.”
“It’s me,” I manage.
She pulls me inside and wraps me into a sobbing hug, her whole body shaking with the force of her emotions. “Tommy, Tommy!”
I hug her back, hesitant at first. I was so small when I knew her. This feels strange, being as tall as she is, bigger than she is. I don’t remember it. But it slowly starts to feel more natural, until my hug feels almost familiar.
“Ma!” my mom shrieks toward a hallway, not letting me go. She’s almost dragging me and my eyes widen helplessly at Young-gi, who is standing in the entrance, watching me. He looks amused at my helplessness, the bastard. I allow myself to be dragged in her bear hug to a bedroom door.
The apartment is unfamiliar, I don’t remember it, but I think…I think I remember that couch? Those mugs on the coffee table. Bits and pieces of this place. Bits and pieces of me.
We burst into a bedroom and my mom turns me around, not even breathing with all the yelling and crying she’s doing.
“Ma!” she sobs. “It’s Tommy!”
An elderly woman sits on a soft rocking chair, some knitting in her frail hands. She looks up at us, her mouth ajar. And her frizzy grey hair rocks me to my core. I remember that.
She reaches for me with one hand, and I fall to my knees by her chair.
She smells like cigars and lavender laundry detergent, just like my dream.
“Tommy?” she asks, like she’s making sure I’m real. She puts her hands on my shoulders, and suddenly she’s crying, too. “Tommy, Tommy, I’m so sorry. I was supposed to watch you, not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could tell you how sorry I am for that day–”
I shake my head and hug her. She feels smaller than I remember. “I’m alright,” I say. “I never blamed you.”
“Where have you been!?” my mom asks, getting to her knees beside me, clinging to me like I might disappear at any moment.
“It’s a long story,” I say hesitantly. “But, lately, I’ve been with Young-gi, my fiancé. He’s the one who found you guys again. I wouldn’t have known where to start.”
The two women look up and see Young-gi standing in the hallway, and he nods at them respectfully.
“Oh my,” my mother breathes. She pats my back and murmurs close to my ear. “Well done, baby. Good god, he’s fine. Fiancé, you say?”
I blush like crazy, torn between being horrified that my mother is saying that, and proud because fuck yeah I did good, he’s the finest man I’ve ever seen.
“Tracy,” my grandmother admonishes gently.
“What? I’m not blind.”
“Tracy,” I say suddenly, blinking at her. Like breadcrumbs, these little memories are slowly feeding the hungry, hollow space in my soul. “Your name is Tracy. I-I forgot. I’m sorry, I don’t remember much of anything before I–before I left. I don’t remember, Mom, I’m sorry–”
“It’s okay,” she rushes to soothe me, petting my hair. “That’s alright, baby. Let’s go have some tea or coffee and we can catch up, okay?”
I help them to their feet, and my grandmother smiles at me through her tears. “You’ve grown so big and strong, Tommy. You were such a little thing. I can’t believe how big you are!”
“So many years,” my mom chokes and puts her fingers over her mouth delicately, like she’s holding those lamentations inside herself.
She injects her voice with cheer, and I know there is so much grief for all of us to unpack, but she doesn’t want to focus on that right now.
“Do you drink tea, Tommy? Or you, Mr. Sokolov?”
“Tea is good,” I say for both of us.
“Thank you for bringing Tommy back to us.” My grandmother bustles forward in a cloud of lavender scent, taking Young-gi’s big hands in her small, wrinkled ones. “Thank you so, so much.”
“Of course.” His face is as brick-wall as ever, but my grandmother doesn’t seem put off by it. She pats his cheek and leads us back to the living room.
I stare at her back, adrift. My mother hovers at my side. I look at her. Blink a few times.
“Sorry, I…” I trail off.
“I understand,” she whispers to me, her voice tight and choked with emotions. “I understand, baby. It’s okay, Tommy.”
And then we sit, and I have tea with them. And Young-gi stays with me while the three of us cry and laugh and I listen to them talk. My mom calls out for her shift, not even trying to hide the fact that she’s found her long-lost son. It’s surreal.
I don’t know how to contain the enormity of what’s happening here.
But I think I’ll be alright.