Once I was out, I had my accounts to get me going.
Then I had my plans to work selling my art to keep me going.
Would I be living as large as I used to? No. But it would keep me from that world, keep me from becoming that man who could transform into some rage-monster without warning.
And it would keep from hurting my family when they realized what I had to become to get rid of the person they once knew.
I knew it would happen eventually, a run-in.
It was inevitable.
The town wasn't exactly small, but it wasn't a big city either.
I would see one of them.
And then I would have to rip their hearts out like I had needed to my own.
The difference was, theirs would mend. They would sew one another back together. They would be mostly whole again.
That simply wasn't in the cards for me.TWOAutumn"Is it another letter from Prison Blue Hottie?" my sister asked as I came through the front door with a small stack of bills in my hand.
Okay, so... I couldn't tell you why the hell I wrote him at all.
I really had no idea.
I mean, the first time was because I knew he loved his dog, and would want to know that he was okay. That was just the right thing to do.
I would have sent it sooner had I realized who he was. I had heard his name when he got arrested, but among rushing to get dog supplies, dealing with Randy, texting my sister to tell her we had a new pet, going to work, coming home to clean up the mess that Coop made, yeah, I had totally forgotten his name.
It wasn't until I was out with friends one night at Chaz's, celebrating the big three-two (every single year after thirty, in my humble opinion, called for adding 'big' before the actual number), I had seen a man walking around who looked a suspiciously lot like Coop's former owner. He had the same tall build, the dark hair, the light eyes.
Then someone had yelled out Hey, Mallick!
And the name flew right back into my head.
Eli Mallick.
That was his name.
And if you had a name, you could do a computer search that would tell you about his crime, his trial, and where he was going to prison.
It was maybe only a matter of days between getting the name and his letter being in circulation.
That letter I understood completely.
The second one? The Halloween one? Yeah, man. I had absolutely no idea where that came from.
Okay, fine.
It was maybe, just maybe born out of the fact that once I had his name back, and, ah, did a social media search, yeah... that gorgeous face and those amazing eyes - let's not even discuss the body because there was a poolside picture of water dripping down his abs that had nearly made my ovaries freaking explode - had been haunting me. They crept in in quiet moments. You know, between weighing the pros and cons of various floggers to a newbie to BDSM and having to explain to a set of obnoxious barely-eighteen-year-olds that, no, the Ben Wa balls were not for some weird BDSM beating, that they, in fact, got inserted into the vagina to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor, a fact that shut them up and had them promptly leaving the store.
In the moments when the store was quiet save for the music overhead, constantly set to an ever-growing sexy playlist because it would be weird to walk into a sex store to hear, I don't know, Taylor Swift playing.
Don't get me wrong, I love me some Swift, but yeah, it wasn't exactly the kind of music you wanted to hear while picking out your first Wand.
You had to keep it sexy.
Even if you heard the song about 'riding' for the four-hundred-and-thirty-thousandth time.
But yeah, when the store was still as it often was in the afternoon and early evening, he crept into my mind.
Blame sexual frustration while around a room full of toys meant to ease it.
I could have been fantasizing about the hot UPS guy and his little short shorts and muscular ass. I could have thought about the guy in the leather cut who said 'baby, fucking gorgeous' in a very matter-of-fact way as he passed me on the way out of She's Bean Around. I could have even gone back to my favorite go-to, the silver fox who once stopped - in his expensive suit! - and fixed my busted tire. I never even got the poor man's name. Boy, would he be surprised how many times I slipped on a finger vibe with his image in my head.
But they weren't where my mind went.
No.
It was all about those ocean eyes, that dark hair, that amazing bone structure, that smooth voice. And, well, the damn dripping abs too. They couldn't be left out.