“Alright boy, here we are!” Eli said. He didn’t slow down much on the street, as he peeled into the driveway and brought the sedan to a sudden halt, hard enough to catch Jean’s seatbelt. He noticed that he’d said it again–”boy”. His father had never called him that, ever, and yet after he’d returned home from his last house hunting venture out here, where he’d bought this house, he’d started using the diminutive with him more and more. It was far from the only change he’d noticed in his father, of course. He had a temper suddenly. Well, he’d always had a temper, but where before it would simmer, now his father was throwing plates and glasses at the wall. He’d started smoking, and he always seemed to have on those leather gloves of his, which he said he’d bought out here on a whim. He wouldn’t dare voice it, but he wasn’t quite sure this even…was his father, the disconnect was so sudden and sharp, but he hadn’t been able to pin his father down to discuss it. In fact, as soon as he’d returned from buying the house, he’d announced that he was moving the timetable up on their move by six months. They had planned on waiting for Thomas to finish the spring semester so they could move together during the summer, but now, all his father could talk about was this house, and how he wanted to move in right away.
Eli was already out of the car, hands shaking, fumbling for the house keys he’d picked up from the real estate agent on the way here. Jonas unbuckled himself, leaned forward and peered up at the house in front of him. It seemed…normal. From the way his dad had been describing it, he’d been expecting a luxurious manor, but it just looked like a reflection of every other house on the block. In fact, it was a reflection of every house on the block. It was a cookie cutter development, but every house they’d passed had the garage on the left, but theirs had it on the right. Someone must have mixed up the blueprints. He saw his dad waving at him, and urging him to follow, that…vein in his head popping out like it had started doing, when he was getting frustrated and about to blow. Jean got out of the car, went around the back for the bag he’d packed in the trunk.
“Just leave it in there boy!” Eli shouted at him, “and get in here! I want this place to see you!”
“What?” Jean asked, but his dad had already slipped through the front door, leaving it open for Jean to follow. Leaving his bag, he climbed the front steps to the porch and followed him inside.
“Fuck, it feels good to be home,” Eli said, heaving a heavy sigh of cigar smoke through the foyer. The house was empty of furniture, which was hardly surprising. They had barely started packing before this, and his father had insisted they let another company handle the moving, so they could focus on getting settled. Of course, how they were supposed to get settled here without any furniture was a mystery to Jean. Little did he know, that his father had canceled the moving truck entirely–he knew the house would provide everything they might need. His son would understand too, soon enough. Eli stared at his son’s reflection, longingly, his groin aching worse than at any point in the last week.
Jean, his younger son, was seventeen and heading into his senior year in high school, not that Eli would bother enrolling him down here. They would have other work to do, soon enough. Before, he’d always been…disappointed in his younger son. He had no ambition or discipline for anything other than football in the fall and soccer in the spring. His grades were barely enough to even allow him to play, and he had all of his eggs in athletic scholarships to various colleges, but fuck, looking at him now! His lithe, muscular body, coated in hair in all of the right places, and he fucking smelled so…sweet. Eli had, when his needs became too intense, stolen a pair of his son’s cleats and his jock, smelling them , jacking off into them, pushing smoke into them, staring at the mirror in his own bedroom, longing to be home. But the house needed him, needed to see him as much as he needed to see himself.
“Why don’t you explore a bit and pick a bedroom for yourself upstairs? I need to spend some time in my room for a bit.”
“Time doing what, dad?” Jean said, “Shouldn’t we, like, go buy some beds at least?”
“Go pick a damn room, boy!” Eli screamed at him, and Jean backed up to the mirrored wall of the foyer, his reflection leaning into him, sampling him. Jean felt the whisper of breath on the back of his neck, and spun around, facing himself. “Go find yourself a room,” Eli repeated, forcefully, sucking down smoke to calm himself down. Soon, he reminded himself. So soon.
“I’ll…go pick…a room…” Jean said, and without really understanding why, or how, he’d said that, he climbed the stairs slowly, and slipped into a room halfway down the hall. Eli, meanwhile, took the stairs two at a time, heart pounding with need, and entered his own room, the master suite, and there he was–there both of him were. His reflection, and that…other him. That him from before. He can barely remember anything about being him, and seeing him now, collared on his knees, beard and hair shaved off, covered with welts and cigar burns, Eli viscerally hated the very idea that there could have ever been a connection between them. Still, it was clear that the house had been busy, now that it had energy to power it. The room, which had been empty before, was now furnished. A king sized bed made up with leather sheets, a personal humidor, racks and shelves full of equipment, a closet full of gear–his gear.
“It’s good to be home,” Eli said, walked to the mirror as his reflection stepped forward, and he kissed himself, tasting his own smoke with relief.
Bracken's Corner 