The apartment was quiet. Walter was sitting on the couch, taking a short break from pacing around the apartment. He’d met the guy–Jack–the guy who could allegedly lay down curses for a hefty fee–earlier in a cafe. He’d been, hesitant about Walter’s idea, but had agreed to do it, in the end. They’d come back here, and Jack had told him to go in and stay inside. Once Donny got home and entered the apartment, the curse would activate. Walter had tried to ask him details about what sort of spell he was planning, but Jack didn’t give him much. He said that his curses had a habit of taking on a life of their own, once they were let loose, so predicting what would happen was difficult. One thing Jack pressed, however, was that Walter do his best to not resist or fight the curse. The curse saw him as a tool. As long as he was helping further the curse, he would remain less affected, but if he resisted–the curse would likely reshape him into a tool it would find more useful. Whether he was telling the truth of feeding him bullshit, Walter couldn’t tell. He checked the clock again, and saw that Donny should be home in the next fifteen minutes or so, or at least, that’s when he usually arrived. Should he go through with this? It was more likely that nothing would happen at all, and he’d just been conned out of a couple thousand dollars. But if he didn’t even know what the spell was, then how would he even know if it was working? He thought back to Jack’s various warning about what he was doing, and his feet were starting to chill a bit–but Jack had said not to leave, or there was a chance the curse could trigger on him instead.
He really only had one option–wait until Donny got back. Chances are, nothing would happen anyway, and if something did happen? Well…this is what he wanted. He wanted Donny to suffer, sure, but more than anything, Walter wanted to be the one inflicting it himself. He wanted Donny to know that the reason his life was about to go down the tubes was because he’d decided to screw with the wrong daddy. He got up from the sofa and paced a bit more, pausing to look himself over in the mirror, wondering for the hundredth time why. He’d styled himself just how Donny had wanted him–full beard, a slicked back hairstyle he hated and which took too much maintenance, but which Donny assured him was perfectly on trend. Designer clothes which showed off his muscled body–which had gotten even larger, since Donny have become his workout partner. Should he have dyed his hair? Was he not giving him enough sex? It seemed like they fucked every other day. Why hadn’t it been enough? He needed some other reason beyond…beyond the fact that maybe Donny was just a money grubbing little shithead. At least if there was something wrong with him, he could have fixed it, but if this was just Donny being a horrible person–then it was Walter’s judgement that was off, and that hurt more.
He was still looking at himself when the door opened, and Donny came through the threshold, shaking his hand as he did, “Dang, that was weird..” he said to himself, “Hey daddy–sorry I’m a bit late. You ready to hit the gym?”
“Are you alright?” Walter asked, pointing at his hand.
“Just some static off the doorknob,” Donny said, “Oh, you aren’t ready for the gym yet?”
Walter almost always got home from work before Donny did, and he usually spent the extra time getting ready for their evening gym date, but the routine had completely slipped his mind. “Sorry, I got home kind of late too.”
“Well come on then, let’s get dressed and go.”
“He doesn’t care. He knows that you know, and he doesn’t even give a fuck.”
Walter shook his head. That had sounded…like a voice, or maybe it was more like a thought. It had come from his head, in any case, but it hadn’t felt like him. It was true, though. Donny had to have figured out by now, that Walter had intercepted some of his texts with his other guys, and he was just going to fucking pretend like it was nothing. Like it didn’t matter.
”Like you don’t even matter.”
He followed Donny into the bedroom, feeling even angrier than before.
”Confront him. Make him see you. Make yourself matter.”
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Donny?”
Donny was stripping off his work clothes, and shrugged. “I don’t think so. Is something on your mind?”
“You’re seriously going to do this? How fucking stupid do you think I am?”
Donny rolled his eyes, and Walter could almost see the response there, ready to roll off his tongue. That Walter should be thanking him. That Walter should have known this would happen, that no one like him could ever really satisfy a young stud like him. That he should appreciate the fact that he gets to taste Donny’s hot cock a few times a week at all. That if he can’t get on board with an open relationship, then Donny has plenty of other options open. He could see all of that in his younger lover’s eyes, in the sneer, in the stance…but then it faltered, and none of that came out. There was doubt in those eyes, maybe even a bit of fear. He tried to catch that fleeting confidence, but something had sucked it right out of him. “I…I mean…it was an accident.”
“An accident? You just accidentally fuck someone else? That happens a lot?”
Donny was stammering, unsure of how to recover. He’d been ready for this. He’d had a whole script, but something had pushed that right off the rails, and now he was scrambling for something say, for some excuse. He walked across the room towards his seething boyfriend. “Please, Walter, I’m sorry, I really–”
”He’s lying. Show him what happens when he lies to you.”
The force of the slap caught them both off guard. Never, in his life had Walter struck someone else, and never before had Donny been slapped. It sent him off balance and tumbling to the floor of the bedroom, stunned, cheek tingling, red with shame and embarrassment. Walter felt the power surging through him, out of his hands, and he realized, then, what Jack had been talking about–but it was far too late to turn back now.
Bracken's Corner 