Burdens & Riding With The Wind
Burdens & Riding With The Wind
A pair of short stories featuring couple Phin and Adam ~
Previously published separately and also as part of the anthology -‘The Corridor and Other Stories’ Revised in this edition.
Fabian Black
Copyright © Fabian Black 2013
Smashwords Edition
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Gay romance stories with a D/s theme -
Fiction for lovers of M/M and spanking romance stories
Chastise Books
Note: this book has been formatted using U.K. English - please check the default language on your reading device and adjust accordingly.
Contents:
Burdens
Riding With The Wind
Burdens
The flowers were numerous and beautiful, but somehow threatening. The combined scents hung in the air like a prophecy of things to come. Sitting on the edge of his chair, hands tightly clasped between his knees, Adam stared hard at the floor concentrating on keeping his thoughts from racing too far ahead. He needed to get through this difficult day before other days and their awful possibilities could be taken into account.
The room was crowded with friends and relatives of his father, come to pay their last respects, but there was no sound. A few attempts at conversation had been made and abandoned. Silence reigned, silence and the sad sickly stench of funeral flowers.
Adam’s tie felt like a tourniquet around his neck. His fingers reached impulsively to drag the knot loose, but a hand intercepted his hand and pushed it back to his lap. He gave a ghost of a smile. When it came to ties and knots it was usually his hand doing the intercepting. His partner Phin loathed wearing a tie.
A voice shattered the tense silence.
“They’re here, Adam. It’s time.”
The sombre atmosphere deepened further as two dark-suited men from the funeral directors stepped into the lounge, bringing an air of finality. One began to gather up the tributes to take out to the hearse. The other looked to Adam for permission to place the lid on his father’s open coffin He managed a nod and then sat mesmerised as the oak lid with its brief inscription was positioned and screwed down. He felt a chill sweep over him, as if he’d been doused in iced water. Tremors racked his body. This was it, the last stage.
People began filing out of the room. They gathered outside the vicarage to wait for the coffin to be brought out and for the solemn procession from the vicarage to the church to begin.
A hand under his elbow helped raise Adam to a standing position. His knees were shaking so much he didn’t think they could support him. “I can’t,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Phin, I can’t. Let the undertakers do it. I can’t.”
“You can, of course you can,” Phineas gently squeezed his partner’s arm, “and you will, because you loved him and you owe him this last respect.”
Adam nodded, forcing back a desire to fling himself into Phin’s arms and sob like a child, to ask for all responsibility to be removed from him in this matter. Phin was right. He had to play his part for his own peace of mind as much as anything else.
He stood up straighter as the undertakers approached to ask if he were ready. Again he nodded. He then braced himself for the saddest, most unwelcome and yet most honourable tribute a son can pay a father - to be his chief mourner and pallbearer.
He knew a little of what to expect. They’d had a practice run with an empty coffin the day before, though the undertaker had warned him it would be much heavier once his father’s remains were interred within. The path to be walked bearing this sad burden was a fair length.
The almond trees shading the route were in full blossom. Their pale petals fell as tears on the funeral procession making its way from the vicarage to the ancient country church Adam’s cleric father had served for thirty-two years. It had been his dying wish to make one last journey down the leafy track he’d loved so much, and which he had travelled every day of those years.
Adam remembered running down the lane as a child in the springtime, laughing and trying to catch the myriad petals as they drifted on the sun spangled air, and again in winter, his hand held snugly in his father’s, never imagining that one day he would be walking it in circumstances such as this. A child’s mind carries no spectre of death. Adam knew that forever after the almond blossom would be tinged with sorrow for him.
He did his duty as one of his father’s pallbearers strengthened by Phin’s presence beside him. He managed the readings in church and delivered a eulogy without breaking down, something he’d dreaded. He shook countless hands, thanked people for their respects and condolences and listened to their reminiscences, while keeping his own emotions at bay.
In the crematorium he watched the dark green velvet curtains begin to draw around the coffin of the father he’d loved. Their relationship had not always been ideal, not once Adam had come out anyway. His father hadn’t felt able to accept his homosexuality. He didn’t know how to square it with the tenets of his faith and his calling. In the eyes of the church he served his son was a sinner destined for damnation. He shut Adam out of his life for almost ten years. There were no letters, no phone calls, and no visits. Then out of the blue reconciliation had been sought. Forgiveness was asked, and given.
Long painful months had followed, as Adam and his father struggled to rebuild a relationship and come to terms with each other again. Those months had been hard, not just for Adam, but also for Phineas who had to put up with the outpourings, the agonising, and the shedding of bitterness. He did so with patience, though he was always endearingly willing to point out when soul searching and peace seeking had crossed the line into self-pity or unfair assessment.
Just as Adam and his father were reaching a stage of ease with each other, at times almost bordering the happy relationship of childhood, his father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and six short weeks later he was gone.
The curtains drew together shielding the coffin from view and for a single second Adam felt like the whole world had stopped turning. A thorn of truth pierced him to the bone. He would never see his father again, all that had been left unsaid between them, would remain unsaid. A sound issued from his throat and his grief became public. Tears he would have preferred to keep private spilled down his face.
Phin’s arms immediately came around him, holding and comforting him. “You had your moments with your dad,” he said quietly. “He said he loved you. You said you loved him. Hold onto those words. They’re more than some people ever say.”
Afterwards, while speaking with some of his father’s parishioners and thanking them for attending the funeral, Adam spotted Phin reviewing the floral tributes spread on trestle tables outside the crematorium chapel. There was a look on his face that made Adam’s stomach turn over. It tinged his grief for his father with guilt for indulging his emotions, and something else, fear, which he ruthlessly crushed. It was time to start taking those other days into account and dealing with whatever possibilities they contained.
Walking over to Phin he took his hand. “It’s okay.” He made his voice sound confident. “It’s going to be okay, love. I know it.”
“You reckon?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said, I know it. I’m never wrong.�
��
“So modest.” Phin smiled, then sobered. “I’ll be fine, as long as you’re with me.”
Adam squeezed his hand. “I’ll be with you, darling, all the way.”
One Week Earlier
“Cold beer, hot pizza and Saturday night.” Phin gave a happy sigh. “My favourite combination.” He drained the bottle he was drinking from and stood up. “Another beer, Ad?”
“Not yet, and you should slow down. Why do you have to do everything at top speed? You’re two slices of pizza ahead of me as it is.”
“Drink it cold, eat it hot, and do it fast is my motto in life.”
The television saved Adam from making a pithy reply. The picture suddenly cut out.
“Shit.” Phin stared at the blank screen. “What happened there?”
“I bet the local transmitter has been hit by lightening again. I thought I saw a flicker of it in the sky when I was paying the pizza guy. It’s been threatening to storm all day.” Adam plucked the remote from the coffee table and aimed it at the set, flicking from channel to channel, getting ghostly figures and crackling static on some and nothing at all on others.
“As good a time as any to go to the loo I suppose. I’ll get a beer on the way back. Are you sure you don’t want one?”
“Later.”
Phin went to the bathroom leaving Adam flicking through TV channels.
Walking up the hall on his return from the kitchen, beer in hand, Phin grinned as he heard Adam’s voice filter from the living room.
“What a bloody fool! Honestly, some people.”
There were other sounds too. The TV was obviously working again.
“Who’s a bloody fool?” Phin walked into the room, taking a swig of his beer.
“That berk on the motorbike.” Adam jabbed an irritable finger at the telly screen. “How irresponsible idiots like him get deemed fit to drive in the first place is beyond me. He’s been clocked going over one hundred and forty miles an hour. According to the commentator it’s taken the traffic police more than twenty minutes to get him to pull over. I hope they throw the book at him.”
Phin turned to look at the screen and froze, his blood running colder than the Czech beer he was drinking when he saw the traffic cop reality show Adam was watching. The TV camera was panning in on the bike and its owner as well as the arresting officer walking towards him. He spoke quickly. “Why are you watching this?” He set his beer down on the table. “You hate these programmes. They send your blood pressure up. Turn it off. Where’s the remote.” He scanned around for it, but couldn’t see it.
“It’s the only channel working. It’s this or nothing.” Adam reached for a slice of pizza from the box on the coffee table. He didn’t pick it up. His hand paused in midair. “Good God.” He moved to the edge of the sofa. “That bike, it…”
“I’ll turn it off.” Phin moved in front of the television set, trying to block Adam’s view prior to switching it off manually. It was too late.
“MOVE!” Adam barked the order in his best Dom’s voice.
Phin reluctantly obeyed.
Adam, a look of pure shock on his face, leaned closer towards the television set as the biker on the TV removed his crash helmet. The look of shock intensified. His jaw dropped open.
Closing his eyes Phineas silently beseeched Jesus to intercede for him with God. He prayed for the television transmitter to be struck again, so as to put an end to the sensationalist documentary that had Adam riveted to the screen.
It didn’t happen. His church attendance record clearly lacked the points necessary for prayer granting. The floor also failed to oblige him by swallowing him whole. Adam, his face set in lines the Chinese might call inscrutable extracted the remote from the side of the cushion he was sitting on. He turned off the TV set and stood up.
Phin was a bare inch taller than his partner, but at that moment he felt a good deal smaller. Adam seemed to tower over him. Panic set in. Snatching up the pizza box he thrust it under Adam’s nose, gabbling. “Eat it before it goes cold. It would be a shame for it to waste, especially as it’s your favourite ham and mushroom. Are you ready for another beer yet, and how about some ice cream as well? I’ll get them. You stay here.”
Taking the box from Phin’s hands, Adam closed the lid and dropped it back on the coffee table. “Sit.”
Phin sat down, testing out an ingratiating smile as he did so, but it was like offering a starving polar bear a stale sardine in the hope it would choose to make a sandwich with it instead of ripping out your throat for fresh meat.
“Tell me, Phineas.” Adam’s voice was smooth. “Have I just experienced some kind of hallucination, or was it really you taking a starring role in that ghastly programme?”
Gulping back a desire to start screaming, Phin hazarded, “I must admit he did look rather like me, but I’m not as tall. He looked much taller than me, don’t you think, love, and his hair was longer.”
“He had the same bike with the same licence plate. He had your features. He spoke with your voice, but I know it can’t have been you, because,” Adam gave a cut glass smile, “you would never behave in such a moronic way. And I know that even if you had, you would never withhold it from me, nor fail to tell me about the four hundred pounds fine such behaviour incurred, not to mention the points on your licence.” The smile snapped off. “WOULD you, Phineas?”
Phin pulled his gaze away from the eyes that were burning holes in his face. He picked at a spot of pizza sauce on the knee of his jeans. “I was going to tell you. At the right moment.”
“When? When were you going to tell me? On your deathbed, as a last confession, was that the right moment you were thinking of?”
“Sorry, okay, I’m sorry.”
“No, it is not okay.” Adam paced across the room and back again. “It is not okay at all. I can’t believe you did this, and you didn’t tell me.”
Standing up, Phin shoved his hands in the pocket of his jeans, figuring the weekend could only get better and nothing worse could happen. After all, what could be worse than having your past sins aired on primetime TV in front of not only the nation, but the partner you’d kind of not confessed the sin to in the first place.
In fact, Phin admitted the truth to himself, the partner he’d gone to considerable lengths to conceal it from, knowing fine well what his reaction was likely to be. He thought he’d gotten away with it. Heaven knows he’d done his best to forget about it.
At the time of the crime he’d been so high from having pushed his powerful new bike to a record breaking, as well as law breaking, one hundred and seventy miles an hour that he hadn’t noticed that the traffic cop who halted his joyride had a salivating documentary film crew in tow.
The policeman, who had a nice arse, had politely asked him if he was aware he’d hit speeds in excess of one hundred and forty mph on a busy motorway where the limit was seventy mph?
Phin, grinning cockily at the camera, had informed PC Nice Arse that in fact he’d peaked at one hundred and seventy. He had to admit after seeing it played back on film he didn’t look much like the hero he’d felt at the time. He looked more like a brainless tosser. Still, he tried to excuse himself.
“I’m sorry, Adam, really I am. It happened over six months ago. I didn’t see any reason to bother you with it at the time.”
“I bet you didn’t.” Adam’s dark brows registered disgust, coming together in a critical frown. “For your information, when it happened is immaterial. The fact it happened at all is the only cogent point here.”
Phin’s weekend suddenly took a further downturn.
“Go and get your bike keys.”
Phin’s mouth went into smart mode. “I’ve had a few beers, Adam. I’m in no condition to take us out for a nice bike ride. There’s laws about drink-driving you know, maybe tomorrow, if you behave yourself.”
His weekend hit the earth’s surface like a meteorite, burrowing itself several miles deep and dragging his heart with it, as Adam countered. “Fo
rget the keys for the time being. We’ll take this discussion upstairs.”
“It was six months ago for Christ’s sake. Six fucking months!”
“For you it might have happened six months ago. For me it happened less than five minutes ago. Anyway, do you really imagine it being six months in the past makes it any the less wrong, or any the less punishable?”
“I was punished. I was fined and point penalised.”
“In my opinion your licence should have been revoked altogether after that disgusting display. You’re not fit to be allowed the privilege of driving. You ought to be bloody ashamed.”
Stung by the words Phin allowed his smart mouth to exercise again. “Well, we all know you make Judge Dredd look like a bleeding heart liberal. You’d bring back hanging for litter offences and dog fouling if you could.”
Ignoring the remarks, Adam said coldly, “the law might have seen fit to deal with you leniently, but don’t expect the same from me. How dare you withhold something of this magnitude from me? We’re partners. We’re not supposed to have dirty little secrets.”
Phin tried to keep the whine out of his voice, but it crept in anyway. “You would have disciplined me if I’d told you.”
“Do you think you deserved to be disciplined?”
“Then, maybe, but not now, not six months later. It isn’t fair. It’s done with.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned. Do you think it’s fair you broke your promise to confine your fetish for speed to the track, where it’s permissible? Do you think it's fair I’ve discovered this in the way I have? Most of the people in my office watch this ghastly programme. I can guarantee who’s going to be the subject of gossip and sniggers come Monday morning.”
Adam raked his fingers through his hair. “Christ! I hate that you do that kind of thing on a track designed for it, but to drive like that on a public road is beyond the pale, and what the HELL were you thinking, Phineas, giving permission for them to show your face on camera without pixelating it?”