Lost and found chapter 7

Nobody likes Fred Garagan. He's way overweight with a large head and sagging pendulous jowls and a hangdog look that belies just how cruel he can be. Rosie hates him.

My dad didn't much like him either but there are times, times when you really need to know things, when you gotta use someone like Fred. I met him in the middle of my office, frankly not wanting him to sit in one of the chairs. It's like he leaves some weird sort of residue, a lingering sense of him.

He didn't try to shake hands; he seems to know that no one will want to touch him.

"You heard about the accident my boyfriend was involved in?" He didn't actually smirk, not at least that you could see, it was more something that I could feel.

"I heard."

"James Parthing...........here's his name, address, etcetera. I want everything but Fred............hurt no one!" He seemed disappointed.

He shifted his bulk from one leg to the other. "How deep you want me to go?"

"Birth!"

Fred grinned. Not a pretty sight. "Can I ask why you think that he might have done something"

I decided to lie rather than explain. "No, there's nothing to tell, at least as far as I know but if I'm missing something I want you to find it."

"And if I find something?" A sickening grin.

"If you find something bring it to me. Again...............hurt no one!" Strangely enough Fred is obedient. I've never known him to go against my dad's wishes or mine.

Fred waddled out of my office and Rosie edged in as soon as the elevator door closed on Fred. "Boss, you makin a mistake usin that man. He's some kind of a piece of work. Why you use him? I coulda gotten you all the info you need on the guy that hit Michael."

"I know, Rosie, I know that you can." But, of course, she couldn't, not all the info. I walk over to her and wrapped my arms around her and laid my head on her shoulder. "I heard something at the police station, something that was out of place. When I was talking to the Chief there was something that I heard in the background, something that one of the cops said and for the life of me I can't remember it. All that I could think of was getting back to Michael and now it's gone. But it was something about James Parthing something that didn't sound right, that was out of place."

I let go of Rosie and start cramming papers into a briefcase. "I'm going to the hospital, I'll take the limo." I was so tired, tired on to death, the thought of any kind of physical exertion seemed odious. As I was walking out of the office I turned to Rosie and lifted my hand to my forehead. "Rosie, maybe we better............."

She beat me to it. "I already done it boss! Security at the hospital and the house."

I stare at her. "Am I being nuts, is this too much?"

"The thing is, Boss..............we don't know, let's hope so." She walked over and touched my arm. "You need to spend some time with Michael. He shouldn't be alone now."

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We almost never need security. Well, maybe like once a year or so some nutjob will call us with a threat and fortunately we have a really good little security company in our area, mostly a bunch of retired cops and FBI guys. Since they're the only high-end security company in the area everyone who needs security uses them. They own their market.

There was one guy in the lobby watching people and another standing next to the door to Michael's room. The guy in front of the room was wearing a stethoscope around his neck but I recognized him from a job he did for us the year before.

I walked up to him. "Hi Tommy. You look like a doc."

"Oh hi, Mr. Palmer. That's the general idea, blend in." He didn't really blend in but then how could he, he looked like a retire cop. He would have blended in at a retired cop convention.

"Tommy, everything that we know about this says that it was an accident and that Michael is in no danger whatever." I stared into his gray eyes for a moment. "But something is nagging at me, my instincts tell me that there's more goin on here, that there's something we don't know." His stocky body shifted. "This takes priority over everything, Tommy. If you need more men call em in. I don't care if it takes a fucking army but I want Michael protected." I didn't tell him about what I couldn't remember hearing at the police station.

Tommy shoved his hands in his pockets. "You think somebody's after him, that they'd try to get him here?"

I stared at the floor for a moment and then looked up at him. "Yeah. I'm not sure..................they may be trying to get at me through him..............or who the fuck knows. I just want coverage."

"Well," Tommy said, "if you really want coverage we should have a guy outside and a guy near the main nurses station on this floor."

"Do it." I turned towards the door to Michael's room and then turned back to Tommy. "How is he?"

Tommy smiled. "Mad.............mad that it happened, mad that he feels like shit, mad that they won't let him work...............just fucking mad."

I grinned at him. "He pissed at me?"

"He's been wondering where you were at." That could mean anything.

How could I explain that I was afraid, not afraid for my safety or anything like that but afraid that I might lose him? That he might die and I wouldn't be able to stop it.

I grunted and pushed open the door to Michael's room.

Michael was sitting up in bed and turned his head towards me as I opened the door.

"Where the fuck have you been?" His left arm had a cast on it and there were some bandages on his neck. Nobody had bothered to comb his hair.

He looked so battered. I walked slowly over to the side of his bed. I reached out and touched his face with the back of my knuckles. "There was stuff, stuff about the accident that had to be taken care of." His look softened. "I shoulda called you but it's not like you were, well...............alert." I bent down and slowly pressed my mouth to his. After a moment I could feel something inside of him give way and he parted his lips and let my tongue inside. He made a little sound at that back of his throat.

I pulled away and looked into his eyes. "Don't fucking cry! If you start I'll start and I might not fucking stop."

Michael lay back in bed, blinked and smiled up at me. "Nice to know that that sensitive exterior is backed up by a sloppy soft interior." He was holding my hand.

I held his hand but had to look away for a moment. "Oh fuck! You scared me so fucking bad."

"I didn't mean to, Jeff."

"No...........I know." I lifted up the covers and then slowly lifted the side of his gown and looked at his body. "Jesus!" I know, it was a gasp but I couldn't help it, he was one big dark ugly bruise.

Michael grabbed the edge my jacket with his broken arm and tugged at it until I sat on the bed. His voice was soft. "It's not as bad as it looks, Jeff." I wanted to wrap him up in my arms and just hold him but he was so battered that I was afraid to touch him.

"Oh no..............I'm sure you're feeling just great!" I put the heels of my hands to my eyes and rubbed them and then turned back to Michael.

"This guy that hit you...............you think that he meant to?"

"Jeff, why the hell would anyone want to smash their car into me.............or into anything?"

"No...............I don't suppose anyone would."

"Besides, Jeff, it really was the fault of the guy in front of me, he's the one that stopped short."

There was a quiet knocking on the door and I walked over and pulled the door open.

"Ralph! What are you doing here?"

"Mr. Palmer, Rosie thought that you and Mr. Worthington might enjoy having dinner together this evening and I'm certain that the food in the hospital can't be all that good."
He was walking slowly into the room carrying a large picnic basket. I wondered that they would let him in with food but then Ralph was a man of immense dignity and would only get stopped by the bravest nurse or doctor.

"Ralph how'd you get in with the food?"

He laughed quietly. "Sir, you always have to remember to factor in Rosie. Most institutions have found that it's much easier just to say yes to her." He walked over to the side of Michael's bed.

Looking down at Michael he said. "Sir, I hope that you like roast duck." There were tears forming in the corners of Michael's eyes.

Ralph reached out slowly and touched his arm. "Now, Sir, don't you worry about anything. You need to save your strength for getting well and you're gonna have a lotta folks helping you."

Dinner started with a pecan and Rocquefort salad and was followed by crispy roast duck with sweet potato's that had been mashed and mixed with caramelized onions and bacon. For something green there was also steamed and sauteed haricots verts.

Ralph said. "This, of course, should have a wine with it but I thought that I might be pushing my luck."

Michael looked at Ralph with tears still in his eyes and his mouth full. "It's wonderful, Ralph. This is the best meal I've ever eaten." He was pathetic, eating with one hand and constantly wincing.

I heard Rosie when she was probably still fifty feet away. All that I heard was, "You ain't telling me what I can do. Don't you EVEN try to go there!"

She banged through the door and made straight for Michael. "My Lord! They makin you try and eat with your one good arm?" She shot me a dirty look.

It took her less than a minute to get things organized to her liking and Michael was really eating without having to lift anything. Rosie never stopped talking.

"You scared the crap outta him you know. Not that he don't deserve it. Probably takes you for granted. Don't have to tell me, I know the name of that tune. He'd have me working twenty-four hours a day I givem the chance. Not that he don't have his good side cause he does, though sometimes yall gotta strain to see it. Anyway, he was plenty worried...........plenty."

Michael was chewing, swallowing and looking up at Rosie. Once she got her rhythm going he couldn't have talked if he had to.

I walked over and stood next to her. "Rosie, I was thinking.................."

"I already took care of it, Boss. When yall are done eating they gonna move you to a private suite upstairs. You'll be able to stay too. I already had fresh clothes put up there for you."

"What about going.........................................?"

"Tomorrow, as long as he keeps getting better. I already arranged for nurses to come to the house. But you can't be fussin with him too much tonight cause they wantin him all rested before they gonna let em go."

I smiled at Michael and winked. "Hear that, no fussin! You know how you get."

Then it dawned on me what Michael had said earlier.

Lost and found chapter 6

I staggered into the bathroom with my eyes barely open and even rebelling at that modest effort. Somehow I found the toilet, lifted the lid aimed my cock and began to piss. Halfway through, Michael wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and laid his head on my shoulder.

His voice was thick with sleep and his chest warm against my back. "Want me to hold your dick?"

"Nope, you'll make me pee on my foot." There was something comforting about the sound of the heavy steam of urine hitting the water.

I turned my head slightly and kissed Michael's head. He seemed dead asleep but then mumbled. "How come we're up so early?"

I was fighting to keep my eyes open. "Dunno. "How," I yawned and shuddered, "how early is it?"

"Like five." He tightened his grip around my waist until I grunted. "What woke you up?"

I was too tired to move so we just stood there, me with my dick in my hand leaning back against Michael who was leaning forward against me. "Phone...................think that I thought I heard the phone..............I dunno..........maybe that."

Michael snuggled his chin into my neck and mumbled. "We ever movin off this spot?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and then forced them open. "Shower.........we could do that."

He kissed the side of my neck and muttered. "S'all the way over there."

My eyes were closing. "Five feet, Michael, just five feet.............I know that we can do this."

We kinda duckwalked over to the shower and I leaned forward and turned it on. The shower is automatically set to 101 degrees and then rises slowly to 103.

"Ohhhhh fuck!" Michael leaned against the shower wall and let the hot water wash over him. His hair looked almost black when wet and his hazel eyes were flashing. "That feels fucking wonderful!"

I put my hands on either side of his head and leaned in and kissed him. "You feel fucking wonderful." Michael's hands were holding my butt and then his fingers were playing with my asshole.

"Hmmmmmm, feels good but what about you being a confirmed bottom?" I leaned forward and kissed his nose as the water pounded against us.

"Well........your dick in my ass is my favorite thing but.......well........you have a really great ass."

I started kissing my way down Michael's jawline to the spot right under his right ear. "I think that I need you in me............but go slow."

He got a little boy gleam in his eyes and the next thing that I knew he was fucking me. He was gentle and slow and sensuous and it felt soooooo good. I shot up against the tile wall a few seconds after I felt Michael's contractions that pumped his semen into my ass.

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"What should I wear with this suit? Burgundy tie?" He was standing in our bedroom wearing just the pants of a charcoal gray suit. The pants were open and I could just see the top line of his dark pubic hair and then through the thin fabric the bulge of his cock.

I handed him a mug of steaming hot coffee. "Blue shirt, gold tie." I smiled and shook my head slowly. "You just do that cause ya know that I'll be thinking about it all day."

He said. "Whadya mean?" Then he smiled.

"You know exactly what I mean. Before you met me I bet you never in your whole life went to work without wearing underwear."

Michael walked over to me and laid his arms on my shoulders and snuggled my neck and whispered in my ear. "Sometimes when I'm sitting at my desk I start thinking about how my cock and balls feel crushed between my leg and the fabric of this suit and then I think about how much I'd love to have you fucking me at that very moment. To feel your balls slapping my ass."

I leaned my head against his and sighed. "You're killing me, Michael."

"He turned his head and kissed the side of my neck. "Eeeeeze my job!" He laughed and then rubbed his forehead against mine. "I'm suppose to keep you horny." He pulled his head back and his eyes were glistening. He spoke softly. "I don't want you forgetting how much I love you."

I pulled on a pair of slacks and leaned over and kissed him. "Could I interest you in some breakfast?"

Michael slid his hands down the front of my pants and grabbed my cock through the material. "You could interest me in some cock."

"No, I think that you've already had your share of that, at least for this morning. But let's go downstairs and have something to eat."

I love seeing Michael all dressed in the morning, looking like a new penny with his crisp white shirts and his beautiful hair all perfectly in place. He's such a perfect male, handsome and smart and zero attitude. When I look at his hard butt as he's pouring us both coffee I'm overwhelmed once again by the thought that he's mine. I love every part of him, every mood, from the elation of completing a complicated legal brief, to the tears that fill his eyes when we're watching a sad movie. They're all part of the man that is Michael, the man who's handing me my morning coffee.

"Gonna be a bitch today! Your buddy Joe is going to be sitting in on my presentation to a client today. Like I wouldn't be nervous enough."

"That was what you were working on last night?"

"Yeah, it started out being a fairly straightforward purchase of this small company. It was gonna be for cash, which simplifies things, and it all was gonna be just...........well, tidy. But now their accountant has told them to set it up as a limited partnership with them as the general partner and while that's certainly not unusual they've never done it before so I'm gonna get like a million questions."

Minutes later I was kissing him goodbye. I kissed him and then pressed my face to his, his eyelashes fluttering against my cheek.

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I was dressed and even in my top coat and was just finishing my last cup off coffee when the long black limo pulled into my driveway. It was ours. Well, anyway, it belonged to the company. I never used it and couldn't even remember the last time that I had been in it. The driver, Paul, was an excon. Paul had gone to jail for being a bad boy with a baseball bat. Rosie said that he was a professional driver, like in getaway cars but that since he'd found Jesus he was perfect for me because of the unlikely event that someone might try to nab me. Frankly, I chalked it up to Rosie owing someone a favor and I'd learned long ago not to mess with Rosie's web.

I was about to open the front door and yell to Paul asking him what he was doing here when my cell phone rang.

It was Rosie. "Now Boss I want you to get a grip! Just try to stay calm."

I knew that tone and my body went rigid. "Tell me!"

"Michael had an accident." Her voice was so soft.

"Tell me!! Tell me all of it!!" Not Michael!!! Not that innocent man!! Take me! Take fucking me! I'm guilty of fucking everything!

"He's hurt bad, Boss but they've taken him to the hospital. I sent the limo cause you sure shouldn't be drivin. You just let Paul take care a you. Okay? Just let Paul do it."

I opened the front door while talking to Rosie and Paul stepped in and picked up my briefcase sitting by the front door. I was leaning against the wall and staring at the floor. I looked down at my hand and saw that the phone was turned off.

Oh fucking Jeff! Get it fucking together! Act! Paul touched my arm. "We should go now, Sir." I let my self be put into the back seat of the limo and then I seemed to click into gear.

"How fast can we get to the hospital?"

Paul started to answer but I dumped a handful of cash onto the front seat of the car. "Make it faster." The car leapt forward.

I grabbed the car phone and pushed the button for Rosie. "Okay, I got a grip, now tell me."

Rosie said. "He was turning onto the highway just south of Madison, the other guy just plowed into him. Broken left leg, broken left arm, broken ribs, skull fracture and something with his heart, that's the bad one. It's the bad one cause we don't know exactly what's wrong."

"Who's on it, Rosie?"

"Everybody, Boss. I got somebody at the hospital and they just told me they finished setting his arm and leg but they want him to recover a bit before they do anything with the heart."

"Find the best, Rosie. Get em here. Call whoever ya gotta call but get em.

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The sheet felt cool against my face, cool and slightly stiff with starch. I was sitting in a chair next to Michael's bed in the ICU, the fingers of his right hand were intertwined with mine. His hand was warm but unmoving, still. I didn't open my eyes but turned my head and kissed his fingers.

When I looked up I could see Rosie three panes of glass away yelling at somebody. She had a way of strutting and tossing her head as she talked. Somebody was getting a tongue lashing. Rosie liked people to do as she asked.

He looked dead. That was the problem. Not the reality but just the way he looked. Sometimes we can know a thing for sure, no doubts at all but somehow it looks different and it's the looks we believe, deep down anyway.

Broken leg, broken arm, broken ribs, the whole head thing, concussion I guess and then the heart thing. I know that it's not sane but I kept thinking. "He's only got a thirty inch waist, he's tiny! How the fuck do you expect him to deal with all that? Huh, God? Just how's he suppose to heal all that shit?" I felt a tear run down my face. It went all the way down my cheek over my jaw down my neck and into the collar of my shirt.

On the far side of the room, on the wall, was a crucifix. Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe a bribe was possible. I'd build a church! No! A cathedral! The biggest fucking cathedral that the whole fucking world had ever seen! What's the catch you say? Well, God, I just want you to deal with this little matter of healing Michael. Nothing for you! A snap of the fingers! Just point at him and say, "Rise!" Simple! You did basically the same thing in the Sistine Chapel. Okay, okay, so you got a really nice mural outtta that. I can do that! I've got money, God! Pope Gregory has nothing on me!

The coma was freaking me out. Okay, maybe it wasn't technically a coma. I don't really know what a coma is but he wasn't waking up. Well we would wake up for like seconds but then his eyes would close like it was all more than he could deal with and he'd be gone for hours. Fucking hours!

Suddenly I heard. "Water." In this rigid, filtered little voice that sounded like it was coming from somewhere else. "Water."

Suddenly the room was filled with nurses and doctors and I got pushed outta the way. I've never felt so tired as I walked over to the wall and slumped against it.

"Boss?" It was Rosie touching my arm. "I got the info, Boss."