Puppy for Sale
by James Matthews
Chapter 40
The Storm That Brought More Than Rain
What is it to be a Dave? Do they know they are extremely attractive, or does it pass them by? It was a question I asked myself again and again as I stared as the selfie I had been sent a few minutes ago, with a caption that said, 'not long to wait now'. It could have almost come across as vain, but that just wasn't Dave. I knew what the message meant. He meant it in a way that explained why he had stayed away all this week.
He wanted our Saturday to be special, and so did I.
I sat looking at the teen section of Susan's clothing catalogue, trying to see if any of the boys featuring were as good looking as Dave. I don't know why, maybe I was just trying to supress my addiction to a boy who I saw as God in the looks department. There must be other Dave's out there, I mean, these people in this catalogue were selected for their good looks and clean cut smiles right? RIGHT?
But they just didn't compare.
I sighed as I got to the underwear section, seeing that nothing even stirred my groin area half as much as a four second thought about what was under Dave's exterior. Stupid really, because I didn't know. All I had was Steven's description, which was void of any detail.
I knew Dave was quite slim built, so I knew there were not going to be bulging muscles busting out of his shirt when it came off, but I didn't want that anyway. What I wanted was smooth and toned, because that's how I saw myself above the waist.
I felt guilty for thinking about the sexual parts of Dave all the time when he had such a fantastic personality. That's what drew me to him as well, his charming, smooth sounding voice, posh and very... Queen's English. It was like he grew up in a stately home or something... someone you might see on an antiques road-show. The way his eyes would narrow when he was thinking was a treat, and it was so hard not to connect a part of his personality with some cute and sexy facial expression.
"Find anything you like?" Susan said, pulling the vacuum into the lounge.
"Not really."
"Why, because they have clothes on?" Susan remarked, seeing I was still on the underwear page. I immediately went red as a beetroot and slammed shut the catalogue. "Oh, don't mind me. When I was a girl, I used to always look at the boys in my mum's Great Universal catalogue."
"I... I wasn't, I mean I was just..."
"Cat got your tongue?" She said, the side of her mouth forming a grin.
"Mum... Susan, what's it like to fall in love? I mean, what does it feel like?"
Susan let go of the Vacuum cleaner, and took a seat next to me. "It's a topic man has thought about and discussed for centuries Puppy, even a millennia." She sighed. "I don't think love is something you can give someone advice on Puppy. I really think that when it happens, you'll know. But, what I will say is, don't get confused between love and lust."
"What's the difference?"
"I might be wrong, but I think lust is purely a physical emotion, but love? Now that goes way deeper and has many dimensions. Are we talking about Dave here?"
"Am I that obvious?"
"Well your behaviour this week has been similar to a cat that's lost its kitten."
"I just miss him, and I know what you're thinking, that's crazy, I know."
"Hey, I'm not going to judge you, and I never have."
"Well I would think it's crazy if I were you," I said, dropping my head slightly.
"Puppy, I understand that these feelings are all new to you. I can't be inside your head and know exactly how you feel, but I do know, even for most boys your age, it's a difficult time. Add that with your rather unique background, well, it must be very strange and overwhelming."
"I just wish I knew where to put myself, does that make sense?"
Susan thought for a moment. I think I had just zoned her out, as Steven would say. "If I'm honest, no, not exactly." When then chuckled lightly.
"Well, its kinda like when you have a stomach ache, you don't know what way to lay down... like on your back, front or side."
"Ok, I think I'm getting you."
"Yeah, like my 'self' is a large rock I'm carrying around in a round room. I know I wanna place it down somewhere, but because the room is round, I don't know where."
"Yeah that explains it a bit better. So what you are saying is your soul feels restless?"
"EXACTLY!" I blurted, excited she found the words I couldn't.
"We all get like that from time to time, like have you ever had enough to drink and enough to eat but your body is telling you lack something, like a niggling lack of contentment?"
"No," I laughed, wondering how that related to anything. I think Susan suddenly wondered that too.
She placed a hand on my leg. "As Steven says, Puppy... much to my displeasure, sometimes, you just gotta let it all hang out. In certain situations that's true. The best people are those who embrace their feelings and face them head on. Don't ever be scared of who you are, or how you feel because there is never just a simple set of rules, remember that."
I smiled. "Thanks Susan. Would you like me to vacuum for you?"
"No, but you can feed the chickens if you like, that would be helpful."
"Don't you trust that I'd get all the bits?"
"Puppy, I learnt a long, long time ago that giving a vacuum cleaner to a man is like letting a woman do an oil change. It's usually cleaner before they do it."
"I don't understand what you are talking about so I am just going to quietly leave the room and hope you don't notice."
Susan folded her arms and looked at me. "God little man, look how far you have come. I always thought you would get cheeky before you came out to me, seems I was wrong." She said with a wink. I grinned and left the room, destination; chicken city.
"Mum, I'm home, what's for dinner," I heard Steven call, getting in from school. I was in the bedroom just getting a quick jack off done before I heard him coming up the stairs. I had felt horny most of the afternoon, but with Susan running around all over the house with that noisy vacuum cleaner and a duster I never knew if, and when, she might burst in to the bedroom.
I wrapped the small hand towel I had used for my deposit up into a ball and quickly shoved it under my bed just as Steven waltzed in. He stopped just before reaching his bed and turned round, eyeing me.
"I smell fresh spunk, and your face is red... been working out have we?"
"Might have, what's it to you?" I said defensively.
"Well as long as none of it came near my sheets, I really don't want the thought of laying in your dead tadpoles when I am just trying to nod off."
"Ha fucking ha, so how was school, did you see Dave?"
"Nope, and please stop asking every day."
"Hang on, what do you mean no... why not, where was he."
"Fuck look at you, you're like some hysterical budgie."
"Well?" I pressed, as he started emptying his bag for the week, as if forgetting what I asked.
"I don't know Jensen, and that's the truth, no one has seen him today. Maybe he's ill."
"Ill? Steven, he's your friend, and he can't be ill, he texted me."
"Then you know more than me," Steven replied, taking off his tie. "And like you say, I'm his friend, not his babysitter; I don't have a tracking device on him."
"I'm gonna text him, I don't know why he didn't tell me he wasn't at school."
"Give me that phone!" Steven Barked. "Give me that phone and sit the fuck down."
I went rigid and did as I was told, passing him the phone. "What's wrong?"
"Sit!" he commanded. Again, I complied. "You have GOT to stop this."
"Stop what?"
"THIS! Jensen you are becoming too possessive and too full on. Honestly, this week, I don't know whether I have been living with Jensen Stibbings or Kathy fucking Bates. If Dave ever got wind of how you have been acting he would run a mile. You are not his keeper, nor am I. We don't need to know why, or when he is not at school, that's his business. If he wants to tell us, then he can, but you know how things are with his family right now and I'm telling you to think about how you are acting before you fuck this up."
It was a sobering moment of reality. I felt angry at his tone and statement for a second before realising he was right. "Have I really been that bad?"
And who is Kathy Bates?
"Worse! Just... just chill out. Dave might be off school because his mother is acting up. How would you feel if that was the case and someone bombarded you with calls and texts asking you where you were. If he has told you anything about his home life, you would know that Dave being off school is not unusual."
"I'm... I'm sorry, I just didn't think."
"Don't apologise, just turn down the heat a bit."I eyed Steven's shoulders relax a little, his face soften. "Look, I didn't want all that to come out the way it did, but you have been pining all week and it's doing my brain in."
"Ok, I'm not gonna talk about it anymore, and I won't text him."
Steven sighed. "Jensen, text him all you want, just don't demand to know where he is, is all I'm saying. You don't need to now switch off completely."
"Its... it's just doing my head in too."
"I know, I can see that, but why?"
"I don't know, I was trying to explain this to mum earlier this morning, when you were at school. I just feel restless about him."
"Do you think he's not gonna turn up or something?"
"Yeah, that, and more, Its everything over nothing, I can see that when I stop and think, but then when I let myself go, it all gets out of control."
"He'll be here, he's reliable, ok?"
"Is he? What about school?"
"That's different, he sometimes needs time off because of his mother."
"And what if that happens tomorrow night?"
"There you go again," Steven laughed out of probable frustration at me. "Look, I know Dave has been looking forward to meeting with you, and I really think if there was a chance he was going to let you down, he would have seen it coming by now. Just trust him, He'll come through."
"I hope so," I muttered, more to myself.
"Anyway, I have news, that's if you deem anything non-Dave related as news?"
"Very funny. So what is it?"
"I think I might have a new girlfriend."
"You think?"
"Well she wants to meet up with me, it's more than I expected."
"Why?"
"Well, at lunch, she dropped a plate and I helped her clear it up before the Janitor got round to it and she said thanks, and stuff. So anyway, she looked quite pretty, so I asked her if she wanted to sit with me."
"At lunch?"
"Yeah."
"And did she?"
"Yeah, and then I asked her if she would consider having lunch with me on Monday."
"And will she?"
"She said yeah."
"So... sorry am I missing something? What else happened?"
"That's it," he said, confidently.
"Oh... so she's gonna have lunch with you, and you think that means she wants to go out with you?"
"Well if she didn't, why would she be having lunch with me next week?"
"Jesus, and you say I move too fast! Maybeeeee she was just being friendly... what's her name anyway?"
Steven shrugged. "I dunno."
I rolled my eyes. "So you are going to have lunch with a girl from school you don't know, and whose name you don't either."
"Life is full of mystery Jensen... and anyway, what makes you the sudden expert?"
"You don't need to be an expert to know how ludicrous that sounds. I may have been brought up in the kid prison but even I know that to have any connection with someone you usually have to know their name."
"Meh, watch this space, and look at it this way, even if I just get a fuck out of it, It's more than what I've had lately."
"You are more shallow than I realised. That girl has feelings you know."
"Yeah, and? You never know, that's all she might want out of me... now who do you feel sorry for?"
"Still her, she doesn't know what she's in for, whatever she wants.
"Asshole!"
An unexpected storm had rolled in by early evening, with wind and rain battering the house as Steven and I sat chatting in our bedroom. I got up off my bed and walked over to his computer desk and looked out of the window.
"Jesus, it's really bad out there, where did that come from," I asked, eyeing the trees outside struggling to cope with the onslaught.
"Yeah, big storm, are you scared?"
"Not really, just haven't seen this kind of wind before."
"Dad will love it. If anything comes down, it's good for business. Every fallen tree is a new pair of sneakers for us," He said grinning.
I was just about to head out to the bathroom when the lights flickered before completely going out, plunging the house into darkness.
"Oh for fuck sake, I was in the middle of my fucking essay there, thanks a lot Nature," Steven barked.
"Boys?"
"Yeah mum, we know, power cut." I called.
"Are you ok up there?"
"Yeah," Steven added, sarcastically.
"I need a pee," I remarked, adjusting my eyes to the new lack of light.
"Don't piss over the seat; I might need to go number two in a little while."
"Yeah thanks for that info."
Susan met me on the landing holding a torch just before I entered the bathroom. "Here, you might need this," she suggested, handing me the light.
I smiled and closed the door, holding the small torch in my mouth as I emptied my bladder. Just then, a huge bright light flashed inside the room followed by a crash of thunder, it felt like the whole storm was over our house.
"Fuck!" I muttered, jumping. The sudden jolt had disturbed my stream of piss, making some of it wet the flooring. Down on my hands and knees I got some toilet paper and wiped up what I could see. "So much for not pissing on the seat," I said to myself, flushing.
Back in the bedroom mum was sitting on my bed talking to Steven who had found a few camping candles under his bed, I saw.
"Is it ok if I light these?"
"Just make sure you put them on something non-flammable," Susan replied.
"I hope Max is ok," I remarked, sitting down next to her.
"He should be home soon, traffic is probably bad as everyone has to slow down. By the way, It might have to be sandwiches tonight boys, seeing as the lamb joint I was cooking has... well, stopped cooking.
"It might come back on soon," Steven said, lighting the last candle. There were four altogether and it was amazing how much light they actually generated. "By the way Jensen, mum doesn't like thunder, that's why she is hiding in here with us," he added, grinning at her.
"Oh hush... ok I admit it, I don't and never have. There is something very odd about thunder."
"It can't hurt you."
"Yes I know that Steven, I just don't like the sound it makes."
"I think it's cool," I remarked. "But it sucks we have no electricity."
"Susan, boys, I'm home, is everyone ok?"
"Hi Max, we're up here," Susan called back down to him. I heard Max coming up the stairs before he entered our room.
"Why are you all cooped up in here?" he asked, frowning.
"Oh honey look at you, your soaked, and it's all dripping on the carpet, get that coat off and put it in the bath."
"We're in here because mum is scared and I have the candles," Steven said, smirking. Max grinned and left, I assumed to carry out Susan's instructions.
"It's a sorry old evening out there," Max hollered from the bathroom. "I drove past two accidents on the way home; people just don't know how to drive in wet weather I swear. A few trees down as well, including a branch of that huge oak on the corner of Teller Street."
"Wow, do you think you'll get much work out of it," Susan answered back. Max appeared back in our room, drying his hair with a towel.
"Dunno yet, I'm gonna speak to Colin at the council, see if he wants to put anything my way. But to be honest, I'm still busy enough anyway, and the two other guys are flat out down at Cedar Park."
"Hmm, well don't burn yourself out. Oh, I was just saying to the boys, Max, we might be having cold sandwiches tonight, as the oven is dead."
"I can pull the generator off the van, but I don't think it will power more than the oven and a few lights."
"Dinner that important is it dad?"
"It certainly helps, Steven. Anyway I'll go get it and see how much it will take."
"Damn, I thought I had got out of cooking then," Susan chirped, before giggling.
It was now getting on for nine in the evening and dinner had indeed consisted of sandwiches after the oven was found to put too much strain on Max's small tool generator. It was however powering some lights and the TV downstairs. Steven and I had to make do with either our TV or Steven's PC, Max telling us we couldn't have both. Since I knew he had a school essay to get done for Monday, I was happy to go without any entertainment for one night in our bedroom.
Well, for the first five minutes anyway.
The rain was not easing up and the back yard looked completely sodden. I worried about the chickens, trying to look down the end of the garden. Everything appeared intact which meant at least they were dry, if a little scared I imagined.
"Will you sit down, you are making me nervous, not to mention putting me off this shitty fucking homework I have to complete."
"Sorry, just a bit bored, and restless."
"Go have a wank, or something."
"I already did that, remember?" I giggled, shyly. Steven rolled his eyes.
'Ding Dong'
Steven and I looked at each other. "Who is that, it's pretty late?" I asked.
"Probably a neighbour, perhaps they're wondering why our power is on."
I wandered out to the hallway landing and looked over the banister. I couldn't quite see the front door, but I did see Max approach and open it.
"Hey fella, oh my God what's wrong?" he asked, shock in his tone to whoever it was. I stood there silently, intrigued.
"C-c-can I come in?" The familiar voice asked, obviously emotional.
Dave?
"You don't have to ask... where is your key?"
"I... I left it at home. Mum took off with my brother with some guy. I don't know where she has gone and she told me to sort myself out something to eat. We... we have no power and there is nothing in the cupboards."
I put my hand up to my mouth as I heard him crying, my body lurching with its own emotion. Steven came out into the hallway and stood next to me.
"So who is it douche bag?"
"It's Dave, he sounds in a bad way." I whispered.
"Dave?"
"Yeah... I'm frightened to go down; I don't know what to say to him."
We both saw Dave come through the hallway downstairs. He had a large duffle bag slung over his shoulder and his rain coat on. The hood was covering his face so he didn't see us standing there, but Max did. Max stopped and gave us sign language to stay upstairs for a while, mouthing words that I made out to be, give me a few minutes with him.
Steven tugged at my arm to come back in the bedroom. He could see I was distressed by what I had seen. I allowed myself to be pulled back in the room, still staring out at the spot where Max had been. Steven closed our door.
"Look, don't worry. This is how it used to be all the time. Looks like his mum is really back on the bottle again. You get used to it."
"But he looks so upset."
"Yeah he is. He's probably tired and hungry. When his mum gets drunk she is a pretty useless mother. Sometimes Dave has to cook for him and his little brother she is so out of it."
"I'm surprised they never ended up somewhere like Greenstone you know."
"I think if Dave was a little younger they might have done, either that or in care. But Dave takes a lot on and manages things. I think he feels that as long as he can cope with looking after his brother when she gets in a state, then there is no need to do anything about it. I think tonight though, things have got to him. It happens every now and again."
"I really wanna go down there Steven."
"Me too, but you heard what dad said. I'm sure he will let us know when a good time is, he'll probably get fed first. Like I said, you will get used to this. I think mum and dad like to talk to him first to get him to calm down before they let me get involved."
"I wonder why?" I said, managing to smile, surprising myself. Steven playfully punched me on the arm.
About forty minutes had passed when I finally heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Steven had gone back to his essay as if it was a normal evening and I was going frantic like it was the most abnormal evening.
There was an ever so gentle knock on our door before it opened. Dave appeared looking really tired, but he did seem happier. Me? Well, I was standing in the middle of the room looking like some idiot, almost climbing the walls with worry.
"Hi," I said, gently smiling.
"Room for one more tonight?" Dave asked, his bag in hand.
"More the merrier Dave, come on in," Steven responded.
"Sorry to barge in on you guys. I do plan to sleep downstairs... and Jensen, this is not how I wanted our first night together to start, I feel gutted."
"Hey, no worries," Steven spoke for me.
"Its fine, Dave, is everything ok?" I asked, feeling immediately stupid asking, as he came fully into the room and sat on the edge of Steven's bed.
"A bit of a mess, but hey, that's my life occasionally."
I went over to give him a hug but he stopped me. "Don't do that, not yet, or I'll start crying again. Just please don't be nice to me."
I backed up, wondering why someone in his state would not want kindness.
"You, um... you don't have to sleep downstairs, not if you don't want to," I offered, sheepishly.
"Somehow Jensen, I don't think Dave will be in the mood for a fuck tonight."
"STEVEN!" I whipped round and hissed. Steven just chuckled away to himself. But it did cause Dave to smile, so I let it drop.
"So, um, it looks like your power is out too?"
"Yeah Dave, good spot, any other observations you think we ought to know?"
I was getting really annoyed with Steven. I wondered after what Dave had been through tonight, why he was being so... normal with him. A little bit of sympathy wouldn't have gone amiss, seeing as the poor guy had been crying a little under an hour ago.
Steven headed to the bathroom leaving me alone with Dave.
"I missed you," I uttered, unsure if that was a good thing to say.
"Yeah me too, I really didn't want you to see me like this."
"It's really ok, I've had a tough time myself as you know, I totally get it."
"Perhaps, but it's still a little embarrassing."
"You wanna talk about it?"
Dave sighed. "The question should be, do you want to hear about it?
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