- Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:

Oooo - this chapter is sooooo good! And it's dedicated to my co-author and friend, SunshineSally, in honor of her birthday. Hope it was a good one, my dear! Enjoy! TAG

 

Chapter 24 - Not Your Toy.



“I promise, I did NOT set this whole thing up, Brian,” I swore, holding up my hands in a gesture of surrender.


Brian continued to glare at me and it felt almost as if his eyes were literally boring into my skull, it was that intense.


“Okay . . . Daphne and I DID talk a little bit about how to help you with your OCD stuff, and she suggested you might benefit from going on some kind of meds, but I told her that was probably a no go since I don’t think you’re fond of the idea of a trip to see any doctors, and then she said maybe she could get a friend of hers to come see you, but at the time I thought that was all just wishful thinking and I seriously didn’t think she meant she was going to do it so soon, and if I had been in on this, I would have warned you a lot earlier and . . .” I realized I was nervously babbling out a complete confession that was exactly the opposite of what I’d just declared, so I made myself stop talking and just sat there feeling guilty.


“Justin’s right - I didn’t tell him I was bringing Marcy here tonight,” Daphne tried to back me up. “I only just bumped into Marcy in the employee lounge as I was getting ready to leave the hospital and it all happened sorta spur of the moment.”


“But Justin and Daphne aren’t wrong that you could use some help, are they, Brian?” Marcy stepped in and pointedly took over the conversation in that doctory way all members of the medical profession seem to have. “I noticed that you haven’t joined us eating this pizza and I saw all the cleaning you did before. That’s probably just the tip of the iceberg, isn’t it?”


Marcy paused and stared at Brian - all of us waiting in an uncomfortable silence and me holding my breath to see what would happen - until at last Brian responded with a sigh and a grudging half-shrug. That was probably all she would ever get. In fact, I was impressed that he’d given her that much, considering the way he’d been blindsided by all this. I bit at my bottom lip worriedly as I watched Brian’s withdrawn reaction, hoping against hope that he’d open up and accept the help that was being offered.


“From what Daphne’s told me - third hand, I assume - you have all the classic symptoms of OCD. Stop me if I miss anything.” She began to tick off items on her fingers as she recited. “You don’t like dirt and have a fear of germs. You compensate for this by cleaning excessively. You avoid touching anything that’s already been touched by another person. Your obsessive cleaning might have even evolved into a series of rituals that have become increasingly complex and lengthy over time but which you feel you can’t do without. You have an extreme need for order which results in you getting upset when anything in your space is out of place. From what I can see, your fear of germs and contamination has morphed into a fear of people in general and, because of that, you’ve isolated yourself to the ridiculous extent that you live in a huge, empty building, all alone. I’m betting you haven’t been out of this place in years, am I right?”


Brian looked away, not meeting anyone’s eyes, his beautiful lips screwed up in an ugly pucker, but he didn’t deny anything Marcy had said, either.


“I’m not accusing you of anything, Brian,” Marcy continued empathically. “None of those things are ‘wrong’ per se. It’s only when that type of behavior becomes obsessive and starts to control your life that it becomes a problem. But it’s a condition that can be managed with therapy and medication. You don’t have to let your OCD control you.”


“It doesn’t ‘control’ me. I’m fine. I don’t need to be fixed,” Brian responded in clipped, insistent tones.


“Really? Are you saying you’ve always been agoraphobic and not being able to leave your home doesn’t bother you?” Marcy asked, looking like she knew the answer to her question already. “I’m assuming that you weren’t always trapped in here. You probably went to school like any other kid and had friends and a life outside these walls. Right?”


Brian nodded, not giving her anything more.


“So, when did it change? When did it start to become too much to handle?” Marcy asked, echoing my own curiosity and voicing one of the questions I hadn’t yet had the guts to ask.


Brian didn’t answer for so long that I was worried he wouldn’t say anything at all but, after a good two or three full minutes, he finally spoke up. “My grandfather - the person who raised me after my parents died - got sick the year I started college. Lung cancer. It was nasty. By the time the old bastard got around to going to see the doctor about why he was feeling so crappy, it was already stage four, so there wasn’t anything much they could do about it. Unfortunately, the stubborn old coot didn’t just up and die like he should have. He lingered. For nine fucking months. And, of course, the cheapskate refused to waste money on nurses, so I got the honor of cleaning up after him as he slowly pissed and shitted and coughed himself to death. Fun times . . .” Brian’s voice faded out at the end of this little declaration and I could see from the distant look in his eyes that he was mentally reliving that awful time. Then he finally spoke up again. “I ended up having to drop out of school to take care of him and somehow I just never went back. And, since I’d lost contact with most of my acquaintances during that time, I suppose it was . . . easy . . . to just disappear afterwards.”


He shrugged again at the end of his story, trying to seem nonchalant, but I could tell he was hurting something bad. I wanted to get up and go to him so badly it was almost painful to hold myself back. But I knew that he wouldn’t welcome any more attention just then. It was obviously hard enough for him to even talk about this shit, and dealing with the added anxiety of my unwelcome touching wouldn’t help matters. Because I couldn’t hug him, though, I ended up wrapping my arms around my own waist and, in effect, hugging myself, hoping that the transitive power of caring would somehow project that embrace onto Brian.


“That makes sense,” Marcy, who didn’t seem as fazed by the sadness of Brian’s story as I was, continued. “The trauma of seeing your grandfather - your primary caregiver from your youth - die, and having to deal with what sounds like a long and messy illness, was probably the initial trigger for your OCD. I’m also assuming you haven’t ever sought treatment for the condition?”


Brian gave a tiny negative shake of his head.


“So, you’ve basically been trapped here like this for what? Ten years or so? And you still say it doesn’t control you?” Marcy pressed.


Brian was completely silent, staring at the carpet and refusing to make eye contact with anyone.


“It doesn’t have to be like this, Brian. What you’re experiencing isn’t particularly rare. Doctors understand OCD pretty well these days, and we fairly routinely treat it with therapy and drugs, allowing most patients to successfully manage the condition. You could go back to living a more normal life. Is that something you’d like to pursue?” Marcy asked, then calmly waited for a reply.

 

Brian eventually lifted his gaze from his contemplation of the floral pattern on his oriental carpet and our eyes met. I didn’t say anything, but I’m sure my face gave away pretty much everything I was thinking - it always has. I didn’t want him to feel like I was pressuring him to do this. I didn’t want him to think I was ashamed of him or that I judged him for his condition. I knew it wasn’t something he could control. I had felt attracted to Brian from the moment I got that first, brief, glance of him standing at his window, and the fact of his OCD had never diluted that attraction. I would continue to want to be with him, OCD or not, so it didn’t really affect that part of what we were building. But I couldn’t help wanting more - not more FROM him, but more FOR him. I wanted him to be able to leave this building occasionally, to see the world and enjoy being outside. I wanted him to be able to eat a piece of fucking pizza without it being some huge struggle. And, hell, I wanted him to be able to touch me; I wanted that so much I sometimes felt like I would burst. So, if there was some way to effectuate that process more quickly, I suppose I was all for trying whatever we could.


I’m not sure what, exactly, was communicated between us for the minute or two we stared into each others eyes, but somehow it felt profound. Like we’d somehow come to a meeting of the minds without saying a word. It felt like he was silently questioning me and reading the answers directly from my brain. But whatever the mechanism, it seemed to work, and in the end, he turned towards Marcy, sat up a little straighter in his chair, squared his shoulders as if he was about to take on some gargantuan task, and nodded.


“What would you suggest?” Brian asked quietly but with determination.


And so, by the time the girls left about an hour later, Marcy had promised to phone in a prescription for Anafranil to the pharmacy Brian said would deliver. It would take about two weeks to ramp the medication up to a level where my hermit might start to feel some effects, but that didn’t seem very long considering the years he’d been suffering already. The plan was to wait and see how much the meds would help, and then potentially pair that up with in-person therapy once Brian was resigned to the idea of leaving his tower. Or at least that was Marcy‘s plan; Brian, meanwhile, hadn’t said much, let alone made any promises.


My personal plan had been to stick around after the ladies left and try to placate my disgruntled boyfriend. I knew that, even if Brian had eventually capitulated to the idea of going on anti-anxiety meds, he was still less than happy with the way it had all come about. So, after I let the girls out and locked the lobby door, I ran back up the stairs to Brian‘s room, only to find a sullen and withdrawn grouch in his place.


Taking a stand right in front of the armchair were he was still sitting - a spot where he wouldn’t be able to simply ignore me - I planted my fists on my hips and tried to assume what I thought was a determined pose. “Okay, I realize that I probably shouldn’t have been discussing you with Daphne behind your back. I should, at the very least, have told you about it before Daphne and Marcy just showed up here like that. I realize you’re pissed off at me, and rightly so . . .”


“Ya think?”


“Ugh! Fine. Just tell me what it’s gonna take to get you to forgive me,” I implored. “I’m happy to apologize again. I’ll even apologize in writing, if that’s what you need. Hell, I’m not above begging even . . .” There was still no real response from the stalwart stylite sitting in front of me. “You really are stubborn.” I huffed with exasperation, shook my head, and held up my right hand as if I were pledging allegiance to something. “Alright - final offer - I swear to be your sex slave for life if you’ll just forgive me already. Please, Eggy? Please.” Then I hit him with my best innocent puppy dog look combined with my irresistible eyelash batting technique, and waited.


He must have been more angry than I’d thought, because it took a full thirty seconds before he began to smile a tiny bit - just at the corners of his mouth, mind you - but it was a smile nonetheless and I knew we’d be okay.


“Why would I want a total brat for a sex slave. You’d be a nightmare to discipline.”


“True . . . I guess you’ll have to be my sex slave instead then.”


“Don’t push your luck, kid,” he pretended to give me a domineering look but I could tell his heart wasn’t behind it.


“Ooooo - can we count this as our first official argument? Cuz you know what comes after the argument, right? We get to kiss and make up!” I proposed.


Egbert scoffed but it wasn’t any more believable than his stern look was before. “. . . Fucking pushy burglars . . .”


And just like that my sins were forgotten and we were better than ever.



Because of my stupid sprained ankle I’d missed out on a lot of work opportunities over Christmas break, so I was more than happy when one of the other waiters at the Liberty Diner came down with the flu the day after our medical intervention with Egbert. I happily agreed to go in and work a nice long shift when Debbie called. However, it sorta ended up being an epidemic and the rest of the staff dropped one by one over the course of the following forty-eight hours. By Saturday, I was trying to run the whole Diner single-handedly, with only the cook to back me up. I did a double-and-a-half shift that day and then went home and collapsed in my bed for twelve full hours. The money was great; the exhaustion, not so much. Needless to say, I didn’t have time to get back to Eggy’s until Sunday afternoon, when Deb announced she was finally functional enough to head back to work.


“Hey, Gorgeous! Miss me?” I asked when Brian let me in through the lobby doors.


“Brat.”


“You know . . . you say ‘Brat’, but I always hear ‘Beautiful’,” I teased.


“Delusional Brat,” he amended, but this time with a smile.


“See? Now, kiss me, you sweet talker you!” I demanded, undeterred by all his grumbling.


Eggy was getting so good at this kissing thing that he barely hesitated at all before leaning down, beard and all, to leave a nice, warm kiss on my lips. Of course, I wasn’t satisfied with that, and reached up, a hand buried in scratchy beard hair on each side of his face, and pulled him closer. He didn’t struggle. I thoroughly kissed him, even adding a little tongue to make things interesting, and he since he didn’t object, I counted it as a win. When I finally let him go, we were both a bit out of breath but happy.


“It’s too early in the day for you to be here begging for the use of one of my beds, and you just missed lunch,” my hermit teased as soon as the kissing had stopped. “So, to what do I owe the honor of this visit, Mr. Brat?”


“I can’t just pop in for a kiss or two?”


“You could . . . but with you I always suspect ulterior motives.”


“You’re right,” I sighed. “I confess; I’m only interested in you for your building.”


“I thought so.”


“It’s true. I’m ridiculously turned on by secret rooms and tunnels.” He gave me a look intimating that I was crazy. “Hey, no kink-shaming! I can’t help it if mold and dust get me hard.”


“You’re fucking insane. You know that, right?”


“That’s why you love me, though, because you can’t figure me out. Plus, I’m the best kisser you know. Face it, you can’t live without me,” I declared, earning myself a small huff of amusement. “But seriously, I really did come for your basement today. And I brought this . . .” I held up a small black plastic case, unzipping it to reveal a set of several metal-tipped implements. “Did you know you can buy a lock pick kit for less than $20 at Home Depot?”



“What the fuck? What do you plan to do with that?” Brian asked, looking worried.


“You laugh about me being a burglar, but did I ever tell you about that time back in High School when I did my science project on how locks work and how to pick them?” I grinned at his shocked disbelief. “It’s kinda fascinating, actually. The mechanisms in most locks aren’t that complicated. It’s just a question of getting all the metal pins to line up the right way. And I’m betting an ancient lock like the one on that door in that tunnel will be a piece of cake.”


“You can’t fucking be serious.” Brian started to protest but, apparently, when he saw my look of determination he knew I really was. “Fuck! Well, don’t expect me to bail you out when you’re arrested.”


“I won’t be arrested. I already asked the Crazy Mocha people and nobody there knows squat about any tunnels in their basement, so how are they gonna know if I break in through the tunnel door? I’m betting it leads to another hidden room over there. Besides, I’m not gonna steal anything or cause any damage. I just want a peek. Nobody in the building will even know I’m there. It’ll be fine.”


“Famous fucking last words,” Brian complained, crossing his arms and shaking his head at me.


“Come on, Eggy. You know you’re just as curious as I am at this point,” I cajoled. “And the sooner we know where these doorways and tunnels lead, the sooner I’ll have the mystery solved and we can finally forget about all this stuff that wigs you out, right?”


He actually growled at me, causing me to laugh out loud. I was really pushing his comfort zone with this, but I could tell he wasn’t going to try and stop me. Still, I thought it prudent to offer another small kiss to placate my beast. And it seemed to work too, because as our lips parted, he handed over the keys to the pizza place so I could get into the basement. I don’t like to brag or anything, but do I know my Eggy or what?


I made my way down to the hidden basement room, with Eggy nervously following, and let myself in through the hidden door. Brian hovered while trying not to touch anything. I pushed the chest away from the tunnel door and then gave a cheery wave to my man before I set off down the tunnel once again, my phone held high with the flashlight function activated so I could see where I was going. By that point I was getting pretty good at navigating the piles of rubble so it didn’t take me long to get to the westward bend, and then down that leg, all the way to the door under Crazy Mocha.


Things got a little complicated then because I had to set my phone down in order to open the lockpick kit. I used a loose brick to prop the phone up in a way that gave me some light, and then got to work on that lock. To start with, I inserted the long metal tension tool at the bottom of the lock, using that to apply a small amount of torsion to the internal cylinder. Then I tried a couple of different picks until I found one that seemed to fit best in the mechanism. This lock was old and probably not mass produced, so I wasn’t sure how many pins it had. I had to play it by ear - literally - listening carefully as I fiddled with my pick, trying to detect the small internal clicking as I ran my pick past each individual pin. By trial and error, I determined there were only four pins. It took a little playing around after that, experimenting with two different raked picks, before I figured out the right combination. Eventually, though, I felt the tension tool giving way and I knew I’d done it. I torqued the tension tool all the way in a clockwise direction and smiled when I heard the satisfying, loud, clank as the lock gave. The handle turned easily after that and, before you knew it, I had open access to the room behind the door.


“Success! Hang tight a minute, Egbert. I’m going in!” I yelled back down the tunnel so my waiting worrywort would know what was going on.


“Be careful!” he shouted back and I could hear the edge of concern in his voice.


But by then I was already inside the room. The meager light from my phone didn’t do much to illuminate the area at first; it seemed like a much bigger space than the cozy little room in Eggy’s basement. All I could see in the distance was open space and vague dark shapes indicating some kind of furniture. I flashed my phone light around the immediate vicinity of the doorway though, and was surprised to find an old-fashioned, round, metal light switch affixed to the wall by my right shoulder. I reached over and flicked the switch, holding my breath until a huge glass light fixture in the middle of the ceiling sparked to life, revealing by it’s glow a large room arranged much like a modern day tavern.

 

 


“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” I muttered to myself.


I switched off the flashlight app on my phone and used it instead to snap a couple of quick pictures from various angles. The room was musty and obviously hadn’t been used in decades, judging by the dust on everything, but under that dust it seemed to be quite richly decorated. There was a dark cherry wood wainscoting that stretched around the entire circumference of the room, matching the full-height cabinetry that took up the entire far wall as well as the wooden bar and shelving that lined the right-hand side of the room. Unfortunately the shelves were completely empty and I suspected the bar itself would have been long since cleared of anything useful as well. I didn’t see a second door leading out into the building, but suspected there might be some hidden egress in the one stretch of fairly bare wall between the end of the bar and the wall of cabinets. The upper walls and ceiling appeared to be composed of old plaster which was stained and wet in areas but still showed the burgundy-red paint that had originally been used. A few chairs, a battered old sofa, and a couple of bar stools were still in evidence, but none of them looked all that sturdy. In the corner there was a pile of old crates stacked against the wall next to what looked like empty liquor bottles. The floor was decorated with black and white checkered tiles. All in all, it must have been quite the elegant space back in the day, and I could easily see the young dandies of the era enjoying a pint or two here.


I made my way to the far end of the room first because I was curious about the stuff I could see inside the glass-fronted doors of the cabinets there. I thought it strange - especially if this room was basically forgotten by those who used the building above - that whoever had previously used this room would have left anything down here, but what did I know? Whatever it was, though, I figured it merited at least a quick look.


The first cabinet I came across looked like it was stocked with individual pewter steins - each one with a name etched into the front. That was kinda cool, I supposed; each member of this club having his own cup to use when he was in attendance was pretty nifty. There were quite a number of these cups, too, which seemed to indicate that, whomever had been frequenting this hidden tavern, there had to have been a lot of them.


The second cupboard held additional bar accessories. There were two really large bulbed glasses, about a meter tall, each with its own wooden stand, an assortment of stemmed glasses that appeared to be made of cut crystal, some metal shaker thingies, an entire wooden tray full of different sized cork screws, and a lot more I didn’t really recognize. These guys had obviously been serious about their drinking.


In the next cupboard over, the shelves were stocked with books. At first, I only barely glanced through the glass at those; I wasn’t really all that interested in dusty old books. But then I noted a title I recognized . . . ‘Le Kama Soutra’. I immediately pulled open the door to the cupboard and retrieved the battered-looking book. My High School French was a little rusty, so I wasn’t likely to read the text, but the pictures were self-explanatory. Only, this particular version of the famous ancient Indian sex manual seemed different than most. Instead of pictures of men and women together, all the pictures in this volume were of men!



“I KNEW IT!” I whooped happily, proud to have my theories of a secret homosexual sex ring proven right.


Apparently I’d yelled loudly enough that my voice had carried all the way down the tunnel because I heard a faint echo calling my name. “Justin? You okay?”


“I’m fine. Give me a few more minutes, Eggy!” I yelled and then went back to scanning the titles of the books.


Yep, every single one of the books there were about sex. Quite a few of the books were in foreign languages, which was intriguing but useless. And most were about just plain, old, vanilla heterosexual stuff, of course - I didn’t think the LGBTQ publishers of the Victorian Era were very prolific - but enough of the titles were either ambiguous or specifically about men that I could just tell it was all meant for a homosexual clientele.


On the bottom shelf of the cabinet there was also a section of small leatherbound books that didn’t have titles imprinted on them. I pulled one of these out and opened it, only to discover it appeared to be a personal journal. I scanned it but couldn’t really tell much, mostly because the scrawling handwriting inside was almost indecipherable. The next one was the same. However, the third one I pulled out seemed much more legible. I thought about taking it with me to read later at my leisure, thinking it might be informational.


Before I pocketed the book I intended to abscond with, though, I flipped back to the inside front cover and gasped at the name I saw written in dark ink at the very top: William J. Carnegie, Anno Domini: 1885.


“Woohoo! Fucking pay dirt!” I congratulated myself on my fortuitous find and immediately put the notebook into the back pocket of my jeans.


“Justin! Haven’t you been gone long enough?” Brian’s anxious voice interrupted my moment of triumph.


“Coming!” I hollered back at him.


Before I took off, however, I decided to sneak a brief look inside the lower level cupboards - the ones which had solid wooden doors blocking my view - just to satisfy my curiosity. The first one was filled with what appeared to be janitorial supplies: brushes, a small hand broom and dust pan, some rusty metal containers filled with I-don’t-know-what, and a bunch of other boring shit. I immediately moved on to the next cupboard, which was stuffed full of forgotten towels, napkins and moldering old linens. This part of my search was beginning to look like a bust. But, because I was nothing if not thorough, I moved on to the last set of cupboard doors and was surprised to discover that this cabinet was locked. Very odd, wouldn’t you say?


I knew Eggy was probably freaking out by that point, but how was I supposed to pass up yet another mystery? Come on. Tell me you wouldn’t have been dying to see what was so important it was kept locked in a locked and hidden room at the end of a hidden tunnel in what seemed to be a closed off basement room? Yeah, I didn’t think you could pass something like that up either! Of course I had to pull out my lockpick set and go to work on that cupboard forthwith!


Luckily, it turned out that particular lock was more for show than anything else, and I was able to get it opened in under thirty seconds. I pulled open the doors and discovered a rack of drawers inside. Okay, not what I was expecting. I started with the top drawer - which had a fairly shallow drawer box adorned with beautifully milled metal pulls - tugging at it expectantly. It stuck a little, the wood probably swollen after decades of disuse in that damp, old basement, but with a little extra elbow grease I finally managed to pull it towards me. Then I marvelled at the treasures I found inside.


The drawer was filled with an assortment of clearly recognizable, yet decidedly ancient, sex toys! Eureka! THIS is what I’m talking about, Boys!



Now, I wasn’t exactly a history buff, nor was I a specialist in the bygone days of sex toys, so I was actually pretty surprised by this find. I mean, all my toys are plastic or latex, and I’d never before even heard of a dildo made out of what appeared to be ivory, but there it was, nestled in a little trough of it’s own lined with heavy royal blue velvet, and looking beautiful in it’s artistry. Surrounding this beauty, were other little trays of various sizes, all filled with an array of wonders. There were several sizes of butt plugs, ranging from ‘cute’ to ‘ouch’, some metal rings not all that different from the cock ring I had in my own drawer back home, some beads that looked to be composed of polished rock, something that looked like a cage for a man’s penis, and so many other things that I didn’t quite understand the use of that I couldn’t count them. There was even a section of the drawer containing a pile of what appeared to be old sheepskin condoms, now all yellowed and brittle with age, but perfectly recognizable.


Like, wow, right?


I giddily inspected the next two drawers and discovered more of the same. It was a virtual treasure trove of sex toys. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning; albeit a gay kid with a really advanced interest in anal sex, but whatever. This was probably the coolest thing I could ever imagine finding! All you other treasure seekers can have your pirate chests full of gold doubloons - give me a cupboard full of dildos any day!


I would have loved to stay and investigate further but I heard Brian calling again, more insistent than ever, and I knew I had to get back. I quickly snapped pictures of each of the drawers so I could share with my hermit. When I came to the bottom drawer though - the deepest of all the drawers, taking up more than a third of the height of the cabinet all by itself - I was yet again surprised and confused. This drawer contained some kind of bizarre and possibly painful gadget that I couldn’t even begin to understand. All I knew was that it had something that looked like a long rubber phallus attached, via a piston mechanism, to an intricate contraption comprised of wheels and tubes. I could guess what it’s purpose was but . . . can you say ow! These Victorian Era fags must have been seriously masochistic or something. I took a picture of the device and then gladly closed that particular drawer, happy to have the torture implement it contained out of sight.



Boy did I have a lot to share with my stylite after this adventure.


I knew that this discovery more than clinched my Secret Sodomite Society theory. And man were those 1880s guys kinky too. No wonder the local churches were ragging on them. Of course, that only made me love Peebles, his Billy and all the rest of them even more.


 

Chapter End Notes:

4/26/19 - (Not Your) Toy by Netta. Just in case you, like Justin, are curious about how to open locked doors, here’s a fun video teaching you how to pick a lock: How To Pick A Lock. And, just to assure you that we take our duties as authors seriously, we did research dildos to make sure it would be realistic for Justin to find one in the hidden barroom, and it turns out people have been putting things in their bodily orifices for over 30,000 years, so . . . History of Dildos. Sometimes being a writer is not only fun but also educational! LOL. Hope you like it! TAG

You must login (register) to review.