The scene replayed itself over and over again in young Dalton's guilt-ridden mind…
Sky ducking to avoid being swatted by Hope Tomlinson's hand. The boy trips and falls over backwards. He hits his head on the edge of the coffee table. Blood pours from a cut on the back of his head.
Dalton shivered, on the verge of tears. It was all his fault. He’d started the fight that had gotten his mom enraged at their handsome young houseguest. And it began over something so STUPID. Sky claimed to have seen ghost-like mysterious figures luring about in the dark.
Dalton knew that it was also partially his own fault that his parents were currently arguing. He'd heard them when he'd passed their bedroom on his way down to the kitchen.
"Alright," He heard his mother say in a strained voice to his father, "Alright, so you spend time out with the guys playing cards and drinking and what have you. So you aren't satisfied with only my company at night--fine! The least you could have done was discuss all of this with me in the first place. Every time you leave out the door, I wonder where you're going . . . or who you're going to see. It's making me insane, Jordan! And I end up taking my anger out on Dalton, Austin and Sky. Did your father tell you what happened today?"
Dalton couldn't see him from where he was standing outside of their door, but he could visualize his father shaking his head with a shocked, affronted look on his dark face.
His mother continued, "I hurt Sky. I-I hit him, and he tripped and fell and cracked open his head. He's alright now, but that isn't the point. It's the things you do, Jordan. . . they make me crazy! All your goddamned secrets make me fucking crazy!"
What she wouldn’t admit… what she COULDN’T admit was that she was jealous of Sky.
Dalton was well aware that he mother was jealous of the eighteen-year-old the moment she peeked into the door of the den and found her husband dutifully sucking on their young houseguest’s toes! She never admitted that she’d seen her husband and her son’s best friend, but…
Sky had come to live with them upon the death of the grandmother who’d raised him. He and the Tomlinson’s son Dalton had been best friends for about a decade. Now both eighteen-year-olds were affable… and extremely handsome…young men.
And Sky was a young man with great feet. Dalton’s father Jordan, unfortunately, was a man with a repressed foot fetish. Dalton himself had learned to wear socks and slippers wherever he wasn’t wearing shoes in the house. The way that his father stole glances at HIS feet was more than a little disturbing.
The eighteen-year-old was still thinking about what a mess his life had become when he fell asleep that night.
Very early Saturday morning, which also happened to be Saint Valentine's Day, Dalton Tomlinson was up at four. He climbed down from the top bunk and made his way over to the bedroom window--he'd been hearing late-night creeping noises in the back yard for days--and when he saw what appeared to be a human figure skulking amongst his mother's carefully manicured gardens, he blinked his emerald-colored peepers in disbelief. Knuckling the sleep from his eyes, he peered outside again.
Some distance in the back yard beyond the willow tree he saw a figure dressed in a flowing black robe. This stranger moved across the expanse of the yard with a graceful glide and seemed unaware that he was being watched.
It's the robed stranger, just like Sky said! Dalton thought to himself, rushing to the glass doors which led out to the patio. Sliding them open, the emerald-eyed boy crept outside and boldly followed the stranger.
The mysterious figure was carrying something that was securely wrapped in a quilt. He moved very casually through the silvery moonlight. From the bundle draped over this stranger's shoulder, a human arm was dangling! Dalton gasped, but not loud enough for the robed figure to hear him. He watched as the stranger leaped over the wall leading to the backyard of the Domans (who were vacationing in Belgium) and vanish from his field of vision.
Dalton immediately dashed back to his bedroom, took the sleeping Sky by the shoulders and began shaking him.
"--ummm--" The raven-haired boy moaned, not even opening his eyes.
"Wake up, G!" cried Dalton. "I saw it, man! I saw the robed stranger! Wake up, we gotta go after him!" Even as the emerald-eyed boy was yelling he was dragging the groggy Sky out of bed.
"Huh? Whaa . . . ?" The raven-haired youth sputtered, awake now.
"Come on!"
"Come where?" Sky asked, stumbling along beside Dalton as the emerald-eyed boy searched frantically for his jacket. "What're you talking about?"
"The robed stranger! Put on your shoes and come on, he's getting away!"
Dalton's words finally seemed to penetrate his friend's sleep-fogged brain. "Oh, jeez, let's go!" the raven-haired youth cried, instantly alert. He slid into his trousers and jacket and stepped into his sneakers.
Once the duo were outside, they stuck very close to one another. They didn't speak much as they made their way to the brick wall that separated the Tomlinson's home from the Doman's, but they were practically holding onto one another's sleeves.
"Can't you hear it? The guy's on the other side doing something--burying that body I saw him carrying, I'll bet!" Dalton whispered, motioning towards the wall.
"But how can we tell for sure?" asked Sky.
After a moment, Dalton's emerald-colored eyes brightened with realization. "You weigh less than me, so stand up on my shoulders and look over the wall."
The raven-haired youth nodded in agreement to his friend, and Dalton bent down in fullback formation. Sky then stepped out of his sneakers and climbed carefully upon the emerald-eyed boy's shoulders. "Stand up slow, Dalton, I don't wanna fall off."
So Dalton raised himself an inch at a time, while Sky balanced precariously. Once the raven-haired youth's head was above the wall, he cried, "I see him! Oh, jeez, he does have a dead body in there! And he--oh, jeez!"
Sky leaped from his friend's shoulders and, without even retrieving his sneakers, made a mad dash back towards the Tomlinson home. Dalton, not waiting around for an explanation, took off after him. In fact, the emerald-eyed boy actually beat Sky to the house. The two youths came close to colliding head-on with both Hope and Jordan Tomlinson. Mrs. Tomlinson--having spotted her husband's Saab pulling into the driveway from her bedroom window--had come down to the kitchen in order to confront him when as he came in. Mr. Tomlinson, as usual, was making an attempt at sneaking in unnoticed.
But the couple put their inevitable fight on hold upon spotting Dalton and Sky running towards them.
"Pop!" Dalton instantly got his father into a bear-hug, embracing him with all his terrified might. He knew something was VERY wrong, for his half-grown son was clinging to him like a terrified toddler. What had he seen?
"What's going on, fellas?" Jordan Tomlinson asked, feeling his son's heart beating frantically against his chest as he held him. He also stole rather obvious glances at Sky’s now dirty bare feet.
Dalton tried to explain… but could only manage heaving gasps that seemed to border on hyperventilation. The emerald-eyed young man even doubled over for a few moments, fiercely gulping lungfuls of air.
Eventually Sky came skidding to a halt, clearly frightened out of his wits and his dark eyes as wide as hubcaps. He would have run to Jordan's protective arms, but the bald man was currently occupied with the task of comforting his son. Surprisingly, Mrs. Hope Tomlinson opened her arms wide to the terrified boy, and Sky was frightened enough to actually throw himself into them.
"Now, will somebody tell me what's going on?" Jordan asked.
Without answering, Sky began to weep. Hope Tomlinson held him in her arms and stroked his hair with a soothing tenderness that neither her husband nor her son had ever expected. She and Jordan gently led the two boys back into the house.
And once he got them into the house Jordan couldn’t help but to take advantage of having to “help” the young men with changing from their begrimed pajamas into fresh ones.
He even helped Sky to wash his feet.
His size eleven, perfectly formed, long-toed, smooth-soled feet.
Dalton saw that, while his father used a soapy wet rag to cleanse Sky’s beautiful Bare feet, his sire was fighting every urge to just go down on the eighteen-year-old’s toes and hungrily suck them into his mouth.
He was surprised that Jordan Tomlinson was actually able to wash and dry the youth’s feet without succumbing to the temptation that was destroying his family.
To be continued…,
