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Someone knocked on the door several times in an off-kilter pattern. Felix’s eyes fluttered until he was fully awake. He lifted himself and sat on the edge of his full-size bed, yawning. Should he change out of his shorts into something decent? Or just throw on a T-shirt? Then again, maybe if whoever it was saw him shirtless and in this mood, they’d get the hint and leave him alone. Just because it was still his birthday didn’t mean he needed company. He’d already ignored his neighbors’ texts to go out to a bar as their way of cheering him up. They didn’t know Craig the way he did; they wouldn’t understand the grief.

Felix grabbed his phone from the nightstand and glanced at the screen. He’d napped for three hours. He might as well have gone to sleep for the whole night. He placed the phone back on the surface and stood up. He glanced at the large window just a few feet to his left in the center of the living space, the only window in the unit. The lamp posts shone the path for the horse-drawn vehicles that strolled down the brick road with routinely pristine pavement on either side. He managed a tiny, reminiscent smile at the times he and Craig had ridden a carriage, since motor vehicles were forbidden in town. They’d hung out at various places as a two-man adventure, especially in the woods at the main park, their favorite spot.

Another few knocks.

Felix rolled his eyes and trudged just feet away toward the entry door. If only he could afford a larger unit than his 300-square-foot one to fit more stuff, but the prices for the one- and two-bed chased his wallet away.

He stopped to rub his eyes from the temptation to crawl back into bed, and he let out another yawn.

More knocks.

He nearly jumped from the now-harder poundings as he neared. Incoherent grumbling from the other side of the door filled his ears, and he leaned toward the peephole.

A guy in a hoodie stood there with his head lowered and face hidden. That was a huge hoodie for someone who didn’t seem large enough to justify the size. He was about Felix’s height of five feet eleven inches, with exaggeratingly baggy jeans and worn sneakers, all dressed in black. Who was he?

Felix’s heart raced. Should he answer the door? Should he open it and take the risk?

More pounding.

He jumped. “Who…who is it?”

The guy grumbled something like earlier. What was he saying?

Felix bit his lower lip. “I’m not opening the door until you tell me who you are.”

“Fe-lix,” was all the guy said in a throaty tone.

Felix’s heart pounded harder than the door at the familiarity of the voice. No, no. It was impossible. It couldn’t be!

“Fe-lix.”

Felix took a few steps back, his eyes wide and his body quaking, and his breathing converting into a series of drawn-out puffs. No, no, no.

“Fe—”

No! He was supposed to be dead! But who else could that voice belong to? Sure, some people sounded the same as one another, but not in an uncanny way, right? There was only one person who had a voice like the love of Felix’s life, and that was…

Craig!

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“Goodnight.” He waved at both me and Elijah.

Elijah gave him a warm expression. “Goodnight, son. Sleep well.”

Ezra walked away, oblivious to how bummed I felt. He marched upstairs until the sound of his door closing confirmed the night was no longer young. He wasn’t careless or anything, and he was always good to me, but things often had to go his way. He probably didn’t realize it, but I did.

Elijah remained on the couch adjacent to mine, his cowboy hat still in place. His and Ezra’s resemblance to each other was much stronger than mine to Dad. He also had a deeper voice than Ezra’s, more like mine. “Ozzie, you don’t have to go to bed right away if you don’t want to. You can hang out here all night, as long as you don’t have the TV on too loud.”

I tried to smile, but feeling stupid soured my mood. “Alone?”

Elijah checked his old flip phone that fit perfectly in the palm of his large hand. “I guess I can join you for a while.”

“I mean…you don’t have to if you really don’t want to.”

“Nah, you’re fine. If anything, I figured you wouldn’t want to hang out with an old man like me.” He let out a low chuckle.

I took a thorough glimpse of him. He might’ve been in his forties, but he kept himself in way better shape than my big bear of a dad who was still in his thirties, not that Dad cared. Elijah was medium-built and toned in a wolfy kind of way, similar to Ezra’s build. Plus, he was actually hot for his age, something I’d come to realize only recently. He was also charming in a way I couldn’t explain, so warm and welcoming whenever I was around him.

My smile grew a bit stronger, but a twitch in my bulge also confused me. “You’re not old.”

“Hey, I had Ezra when I was going on thirty. Yeah, I’d say I’m pretty old.”

“But you’re not even fifty yet. So, no, you’re not that old.” Even if society said otherwise, I personally didn’t think so. Besides, wasn’t age just a number?

“I’ll take that as a compliment, then.” What a nice, toothy smile. Elijah definitely cared about his general hygiene, even if he was unshowered at the moment.

I laughed softly, then sighed after a moment of silence. “Not gonna lie, I kind of wish I could have another beer.”

“You want another?”

My eyebrows rose. “Really? I can have another bottle?”

Elijah shrugged. “It’s beer, not poison. Besides, you’re in my house where it’s safe. Just don’t tell your parents about it.” He winked.

“Please. I had to fight them to let me stay here in the first place. Why would I ruin the chance to stay again?”

“Good point.” Elijah got up, adjusted the front of his jeans like I didn’t notice, and headed to the kitchen.

For the first time without Ezra being here, my dick got erect. Why would Elijah need to adjust his bulge? Confusion filled my head. I didn’t know what it meant. I knew I wanted to be sexual with Ezra, but that was part of what the promise ring included. We’d be virgins until marriage, or so we’d promised.

Elijah returned with two bottles of beer. He handed me one, then took a seat back on the couch. He gave me another warm smile. “I can already hear Ezra snoring.”

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Ambling down the pristine pavement, I held the blue pot in my hands, its shape resting fittingly. I smiled at it, my only birthday gift this year. Maybe I could nickname it Herby with a silent H, just because. After all, the first plant to help decorate my barebones studio deserved a name. Thus, Herby it was.

But I had to give it a last name the way I did other plants. Herby wasn’t enough. How about Green? No, too obvious. But it should relate to the color green to help me remember the surname more easily. Think, think, think—ah! How about green in German? That’d be grün. But then, replace the umlauted U with double O to retain the pronunciation? Ooh…Groon! Different, but it worked.

Herby Groon.

I reached the apartment building and approached my unit upstairs. I scrambled to open the door while carrying the plant, and I rushed inside to set Herby on the wide ledge of the large window in the living space, the only window of my studio. I smiled at such a sight, my heart warming up with joy. Grabbing my aluminum watering can, I stepped into the kitchen and filled it with an appropriate amount of water, then rushed back to the plant with anticipation. Something about aiming the spout at the dark dirt and letting the water flow to help give Herby the life it needed calmed me. It was bound to be well fed and well taken care of. After all, its needs mattered just as much as a human’s.

I placed the watering can on the floor and licked my lips at Herby. How often did the poor plant need to sap its release? Did it have feelings? Studies showed that plants did indeed have necessary life, a kind of life many people looked at as invalid. Okay, none of it was rocket science, but it was still good information, if just to appreciate all flora.

No, Herby. Its life would never be invalid. It would sit there and become a part of my home, a member of my family that was more than a mere birthday gift.

I wrapped my fingers around the stem and gave it a few strokes, giggling. What was I doing? Well, if Dick could do it, so could I. But my first experience on my own differed from Dick’s demonstration. It took Herby three minutes to sap, and when it did, it overflowed with its sticky sweetness in a more copious amount and slightly faster speed than earlier.

I was struck with a foreign mesmerism forcing me to enter a transfixed state. A force of some kind gently pulled me closer to Herby, making me lean toward the tip of the stem. I stuck my tongue out and licked the sap, sometimes finding my lips puckering into uncontrollable kisses from the sweet seduction. I slurped every drop, licking around the shaft to capture the running streams, consuming all of Herby’s offering of savory juices.

Finished, I stroked Herby some more as soon as greed took over me. More. I wanted it. I needed it. Come on. More. More. More!

And there it was, but not nearly as much as before.

I swirled my tongue around the slit and sucked, refusing to let the sap run down the shaft like before. I stroked it again and again, waiting and waiting, and just a pearl of sap oozed. Oh, well. Maybe Herby had a refractory period like a human man.

Heaviness numbed my eyelids, and my twin-size bed called me. What was going on? It was too early to sleep. Nevertheless, I undressed myself without bothering to change into something else and slid naked under the sheets. A nap couldn’t hurt. No, a nap sounded just about right…

Deep grumbling. Rustling sounds. Was someone walking on the ground of a forest?

I blinked my eyes a few times, but the weight of my eyes still got to me. The warm sheets called me more loudly than the curiosity of the sounds.

More grumbling. Was that a critter? My apartment complex wasn’t supposed to have mice, but even then, they were more on the high-pitch side. What could it be?

“Wee-meck-fook…” 

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Bernie walked straight ahead and entered the dining room where a small bar with a marble surface was. The wide staircase was next to the archway, off to the right and also marble. The kitchen was to my left and past a narrow hallway. What a big place.

“We like to have some wine to relax a bit,” Edgar said. “Imported from numerous countries or purchased there whenever we travel, depending on our mood. We never drink the cheap kind, but we’ll buy the occasional wine from California.”

I just smiled politely since it was irrelevant to me. I was more of a brew guy, so a cold beer would do for me.

After Bernie returned with their glasses of red wine, they stood right near me with what looked like horny smiles. Bernie was closer to my left side, and Edgar was directly in front of me.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I said, “I can list all my fees for the services I provide and give you whatever details and exceptions there are. I even do some light BDSM if you’re into that. And you do know that I charge an hourly rate for my visit on top of additional fees for each service, right?”

“Yes, we do,” Edgar said. “But that might not be necessary since we told you we had an offer to make, a very big one, and we hope it’s more than enough for you to strongly consider it.”

Bernie’s eyes sparkled with anticipation. “We really hope you do.”

“Okay, what is it?” I asked.

“We understand you’re a rent boy,” Edgar said, “but we’d like to buy your way out. We have no issues with sex workers. This is solely based on a young man like you because you’re very much our type. You’ll never have to work for the rest of your life, unless you want to, of course. You’ll have a new car of your choice. I’m not sure if you’re in college, but we’ll take care of that too. We have a vacation home in both Germany and France, so rest assured we’ll never be in any financial trouble. We know how to budget and manage our finances.” He took a sip of his wine.

I had no idea what to say. They wanted to buy me? I’d be kept? This was definitely unexpected. I’d never had a client make such an offer. I suddenly felt like a rent boy to own.

Bernie finished a large sip of his wine. “In case you’re wondering what we do for a living, we manage a number of rental properties in multiple college towns across the country, including Hickeyhook, and a few in Germany and France. And, yes, we do speak a lot of German and French.”

“Makes our business lives easier. And the reason we live in Michigan is because it’s where we’re from, and we like to be discreet about our careers, so people generally don’t assume what we do living here compared to living in, say, New York or Paris.”

“Yeah, we don’t really talk about that outside of our close-knit friend group.”

“And we did bring this up to the private agency you work for,” Edgar said. “We’ll compensate them quite well. So, the choice is yours, Rodrigo.”

I inhaled and blew a big breath. “Wow, I…um…” I released a tiny laugh of astonishment, not knowing what else to say.

“We understand it’s a big offer, and if you need some time to think it over, we’ll give you that time. But do know that you will be coming here quite often because we already know we’ll enjoy you, and we’ll want you to come back here many times.”

Bernie nodded. “We’re going to be regulars even if you decline. We’re that into you.”

“So…I’d be wealthy,” I said in realization. “A kept guy, pretty much.” 

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