I nod, not able to deny him anything.
He exhales as if he’s been holding his breath. “All right, sweetheart. Show me what it is you love so much about this place.”
Over the next two hours, I have more fun than I’ve had in years. Grant teases me, peppering me with questions, laughing at my answers as he provides a running commentary on the scenes we come across.
When we finally get to the exit I’m sad it’s over. Only it’s not. We walk hand in hand along Michigan Avenue. He asks if it’s okay to walk all the way home. I say yes, enthusiastically.
“So, tell me. If you barely get out to see the city, why exactly did you pick Chicago as your headquarters?”
He shrugs. “At the time, I was still writing my own stuff but it wasn’t a full time thing. Mainly I was writing software and programs to spec for various government entities all over the world. It’s a hell of lot more interesting than I thought it would be when I first started doing it at MIT. Although the latest build had me done with others looking over my shoulder and giving me orders. At the time I only had four programmers who went through my stuff, cleaned it up and went through an outside company to package and sell it. While I was here, giving a breakdown of my latest program I met Mayor Daley. After my presentation I was saying I was looking to put down roots to build a company of my own full time to someone else when they asked about my next project.
“Daley perked up, the man can work you for sure. He said he wanted me to make Chicago my home and offered an extremely appealing tax break to do it. I told him I didn’t know anything about Chicago, where to get people or rent space. By the end of the night, we’re talking only three hours later, he had an assistant for me and an appointment with a realtor to look at office space the next day. Within twenty-four hours I’d signed and had my first six employees. Only a week later I bought a condo in the Marina Towers.”
“Wow. Where would you have based it if it hadn’t been for meeting the mayor that day? Did you not want to start it in the city you were living in?”
“I wasn’t really living anywhere. During those years I went where the projects took me. I’d already let go the condo I’d been staying at in Virginia, while I worked on the DOD project.”
I’m shocked, it sounds crazy to me. “Seriously? You didn’t have, like, a home?”
He smiles at my amazement. “No. I spent five years at MIT getting my bachelors and then masters. When I finished there, I spent two years at Oxford University, mainly because I wanted to see how they did things. After that it was Lyon, France, for a project with Interpol. Then they just kind of blur together after that.”
“Liar.” I see the light in his eyes.
“Not really, no.”
I know I’m pushing it but I can’t help myself. “You didn’t want to go back to where you grew up? Seattle, wasn’t it?”
His eyes darken. “No, there was nothing to go back to. My parents were both dead before I turned twenty-one. Do you ever want to go back? Maybe check on your family, let them know you’re still alive.”
Well, I’d asked for it. “No. They don’t want to know if I’m still alive. When I tried to get help for Thomas after he was diagnosed with a heart defect only days after he was born, they hung up on me about seven times. They told Billy’s family to tell me I was to have nothing to do with them. My sins were visited on Thomas. His being sick was my fault and cross to bear alone.”
He stops, “Fuck.”
“Yeah. It actually helped in a way though, not at the time, of course. But it freed me from all the guilt and shame I had been carrying since the whole getting pregnant out of wedlock and being forced to marry someone they didn’t approve of thing.”
We come across a small fish and chips hole in the wall and wander inside. Grant smiles. “How bad would it be to have fish and chips after spending several hours roaming around the Shedd?”
I laugh, and just like that, the heaviness lifts. It’s a small place, the table large enough for our baskets of fried fish and french fries and not much else.
While we eat he tells me about the year he spent in Switzerland working with the World Health Organization developing specialized software to track and trace endemic diseases, when he was only twenty one. I’m fascinated by the complexity, and in awe of his ability to break down and build the tools to help with the problem. I want to hear more, but Grant demands I share one of the trips I’d taken from Boston. It’s in no way as interesting as his trip, only Grant makes it clear that to him it is. By the time we get home, the sun has set. I’m so happy I thank Grant again and again and again.
The next morning I’m awake before Grant, for the first time. I take full advantage of the moment. Running my fingertips over his limp cock, and like I have every time since I’ve seen him and touched him, I want to taste him. Finally, I give in to my need. I lick the tip of him, hesitantly. It’s not enough, not nearly enough. Licking around the head of his cock, my tongue swirls. Need builds and I suck the tip of his cock, at first gingerly then hungrily. Then he’s gone, pulling out of my mouth without any warning.
“I’m already regretting stopping, sweetheart. Only you’re changing the rules, your rules. We need to clarify the change.” He’s sitting up against the headboard, watching me intently.
Contrite, knowing he’s right doesn’t help the longing still inside me. “I just want to try. I’m sorry if I can’t finish or don’t want to do it again. Can’t I just try, please?”
He shakes his head. “Why have you never sucked a man’s cock before?”
The question slams me back into that moment. I hadn’t expected it, don’t want to go back there. I try to roll off the bed to run for the bathroom, Grant catches me. “Please, no. Just let it go.”
I’m wrapped tight in his arms, his hand in my hair. “Locking it up all these years hasn’t helped. I want my cock in your mouth a hell of a lot more than you do, my sweet. But until you talk, neither of us are getting what we want.”
Closing my eyes, I hate I’m back there again, the way I knew I would be. Back in the tiny little duplex, dull and dirty no matter how many times I cleaned it. Back on the battered couch where I had spent the days after my son died, because the tiny bedroom was full of his things that I couldn’t stand the sight of anymore.
“My ex-husband hadn’t been around for weeks before Thomas died during his second surgery. He was angry because during the first heart surgery, Thomas needed a blood transfusion.
“Even though it’s forbidden in our religion, I cared more about my son so I allowed it. It was an excuse anyway, both of us by then were no longer religious. We both wanted to leave all of that behind us, our religion and the way we were raised. He hadn’t been interested in me or Thomas since before Thomas was born. From that first week in Las Vegas Billy acted as if he found paradise. It started slowly but within weeks he wasn’t coming home at night then by us being there a year he was hardly ever home. He was there when Thomas was born and seemed excited until it became clear Thomas was sick. After that aside from a once a month visit to pay the rent and other bills he never came home.