A real tread from miss Amy Lane today for her monthly authors post , a bonus epilogue on her latest release Black John!!

Enjoy 🙂

Thanks Amy!

 

Bonus Epilogue for Black John

(Caution ***SPOILERS** ahead!)

 

At the end of The Graduate, Benjamin and Catharine are on the bus, she’s in her wedding dress, and they’re setting off on a wonderful life together after a tumultuous beginning and a grand gesture.

And then they look at each other and there’s that terrible question in their eyes: What now?

For me, even if I know “What now?” when I finish writing a book, I’ve always believed there’s value in letting the reader imagine that for his or herself.  Unless, of course, the “What now?” takes over my brain, and I absolutely have to write it, and then it becomes a sequel or something, and that’s fun too!

In this case, I was perfectly happy with the ending of Black John. For me, Galen’s meeting of John, unfettered by the cane and willing to make a healthy new start at a healthy new relationship, was the ultimate in hope—who needed a sequel, when they went through all that to get to the end?

But I read a review (dangerous, that—I don’t always recommend it!) that was like, “Well, that whole book beforehand was all very nice, but, you know. What now?”

And I thought about it—yes, the Happy Ever After was a given. They will be happy. Forever. After. But, what about that first trip into John’s house?

When do they transition from happy kissing reunion to two guys in the house alone with a soulless red-headed tomcat? (No, not John.)

 

And I thought that maybe, I could write that too.

 

So here you go—the epilogue the story doesn’t really need, but that was fun for me to imagine anyway.  Enjoy.

 

*  *   *

 

 

It was all well and good to make the grand gesture and show your boyfriend how healed you were, but the fact was, Galen had hauled himself and his carry on through three airports that day, and after the day spent at the park, standing to talk to all sorts of glorious looking models who were sincere in their congratulations, his leg ached like a beast, and he needed to sit the hell down.

John, using that odd intuition he had—maybe honed from years of trying to make guys feel comfortable in their own skin when they were about to have sex in public—told him to go inside and make himself comfy while he dealt with the luggage.

If Galen hadn’t ached so badly, he would have made himself comfy by taking off all his clothes and lying spread naked on John’s bed. John looked so good—still thin, but filling out with some runner’s muscle, tan from what appeared to be an unrelenting sun coupled with a judicious use of sun-block, and, most importantly, happy.  At the picnic, Galen had caught himself closing his eyes and just smelling that sun-warmed combination of zinc oxide and sweating red-head, thinking this was what happiness smelled like.

But he’d worked too damned hard to just catch a whiff of the BO of happiness.

There was some rustling behind him, and damned if he didn’t want a chance to go look around. The house was tiny, as John had proclaimed, but it looked cozy. Lots of green and brown, dark wood and high ceilings with teak colored ceiling fans.  Just walking into it, a part of him had relaxed. Oh yes—Nana’s place had been nice. Better than nice, actually—it had reminded him a little of his condo in Miami, because everything had been professionally decorated and maintained to the n’th degree.

This house wasn’t like that. The floors had some scuffs and the couch was well broken in. He’d watched their skype chats hungrily for glimpses of where John Carey lived, and what he’d seen had indicated… this. He lived here. He’d beaten off on this very couch and pleasured himself in the bedroom behind where Galen sat right now.

Galen wanted to feel his lover’s skin against his own.

For months of PT and rehab and getting comfortable with himself as an ex addict, that had been his driving force. A healthy man got a healthy relationship. John deserved a healthy relationship. Just one—one damned person in his life who wasn’t driven by any other impulse than the desire to be with Galen.

The idea was stunning in its simplicity.

And more difficult to execute than Galen had ever imagined.

He was startled from his thoughts by a high-energy plop onto the couch, and he opened his eyes to face a pair of startled gold feline peepers regarding him from close range.

“Hello, Chimp-baby, you furry bastard,” Galen murmured.  He’d seen the scratches on John’s scrawny legs. This cat was not the angel he was pretending to be.  Galen had been strategizing for this meeting since John had brought him home. Tentatively he reached out a single finger.  The kitten narrowed his eyes before extending his claws to capture the finger—then using his prize to smooth his whiskers.  Galen held still and let the cat use him repeatedly, until he curled up into a ball on the couch and started to purr.

Galen smiled at him, delighted, and continued to rub his whiskers and the spot between his eyes as he slept.

“John, your cat is psychotic. I think I love him a little.”

“Tell me that when you wake up with your throat slit,” John murmured from right next to his ear.  “Now lean forward.”  Galen complied, startled, and a lovely, soft heat source was placed between the small of his back and the couch.

“Oh my God,” Galen breathed.  He’d been concentrating so hard on the pain in his leg and injured foot that he hadn’t realized how fiercely his back was aching.  John came around to the front of the couch and drew up the matching green ottoman.  Without asking permission, he raised Galen’s game leg and removed his specialized loafer.  He stretched out his own leg so Galen could rest his foot while John rolled the leg of his linen trousers up to his knee.

He pulled some Ben-Gay out of his back pocket then and squirted it into his hand.

Galen felt tears start. His back muscles were releasing under the lovely heat, but to get his leg and foot rubbed with an analgesic… Oh Lord.

“You do love me,” he rasped around the lump of his throat.

John smiled sympathetically. “More than you’ll ever know. I don’t even like feet.” But his hands felt heavenly as he massaged Galen’s scarred foot, ankle, and calf.  He didn’t try to force anything, but when he felt a muscle group that was especially knotted he just applied gentle pressure on the spot again and again until it released.  Galen wiped under his eyes, the relief was so intense.

“You didn’t have to stand up the whole time,” John said quietly, rubbing some more. “You had me at, ‘I’m here!’”

Galen laughed a little. “Your boys aren’t any less better looking in person,” he admitted, feeling petty and insecure, but there it was.

“I hadn’t noticed,” John said dryly. “I was mostly just missing my boyfriend and trying not to fuck up my company.”

His hands found a particularly foul knot of scar tissue and musculature and Galen hissed.  John’s fingers grew gentle then, and Galen shuddered out some of the pain.

“Boyfriend here,” he said, eyes closed. “Company standing.  I just wanted to stand by you, is that so bad?”

“No,” John murmured.  “Not so bad at all.”  He worked Galen’s leg until his fingers must have ached, and Galen continued to melt into the couch. Right at the point when the rubbing stopped feeling good and started to irritate, he pulled a little packet of wet-wipes out of his pocket and cleaned off his fingers meticulously, and then shot the wipe into a small trash can under the computer desk in the corner.

“For two!” he cheered.

Galen smiled weakly back. “That’s a three –point shot at the very least.”

“You only say that because you think it might get you head,” John chided, and Galen smiled under his torpor.

“I am just offering myself up like this,” he half-kidded, eyes still half-closed. He was still sprawled on the couch, his foot propped on what had looked to be an old copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. His pose was that of wanton abandonment, mostly because he’d finally just allowed himself to sink into the pleasure of being cared for.

He lost the moment when John moved—and moved the cat off the couch– but suddenly his mouth covered Galen’s and in the zealous air conditioning of John’s little house, his mouth was warm and moist and wonderful.

Galen groaned and managed to fight against his lethargy to bury his hands in John’s slightly shaggy hair. He’d gotten it cut twice while they’d been separated, but Galen had never made love to the clean-cut John. He got the shaggy, goofy guy who bought stupid hats and whose mind wandered into unpredictable places.

He got the guy who would hand two people having public sex his card.

And who would buy a giant stuffed orangutan for a tiny, impish girl just so he could be her favorite.

John deserved to be somebody’s favorite—Galen had arrived hell bent on showing him that he had the job.

The kiss went on, Galen’s mouth being thoroughly tasted, explored, devoured.  Galen’s body, free from the worst of the pain, began to wake up. Hello! You’re in a man’s arms and he seems to want you! Do something!

John shoved a hand under his shirt and found his nipples, and hey, hello, That’s something! John’s chuckle sounded deep in his mouth, and Galen groaned, bucking his hips a little, because his cock had just awakened to the fact that that it was no longer on a train, plain, automobile, or in a park. They were in John’s house and John was showing Galen and his cock that they had been well missed.

Galen’s hands flailed a little, and John whispered in his ear.  “Shh… don’t worry. You can show me tomorrow. I’ll show you now.”

The permission grounded Galen, and he rested his hands on John’s shoulders. John pulled away and worked his way down Galen’s jaw, lingered a bit on his neck, and then urged him to raise his hands over his head.

His mouth on Galen’s ribs was too firm to tickle, and by the time he sucked hard on Galen’s nipple, Galen almost sobbed with arousal.

He grabbed John’s hair and tugged.

What had it been? Three months? Four?

“I will go off in my pants without you,” he said seriously.

“That is so hot,” John breathed against his stomach. And then he blew an air bubble, and while Galen was still gasping with the ticklishness, John undid his fly.

Tenderly, he had Galen lift his hips so he could shove his pants and underwear down. Galen was mostly naked on his lover’s couch, and the decadence of it made his cock swell more. Precome dripped around his cockhead, and John spread his tongue and licked it off.

Galen’s shuddered with everything, his ass muscles, stomach muscles, toes, and at the end of the shudder, John took him inside that hot, sweet mouth and started a glorious, slow mouthfuck.

“God, you suck!” Galen gasped, needing harder, faster, now!

John’s laughter around his cock was both arousing and infuriating. Galen whimpered and bucked some more. “Please, John,” he begged. “I need it—need you—so bad!”

A simple request. It was all John needed apparently because he wrapped his fingers around Galen’s shaft and put beautiful, hard pressure on the head, stroking with his mouth and fist in tandem to meet in the middle.

Galen squeezed his eyes closed until he saw white, and then the white exploded all through is body as he came.

John swallowed—probably a bit of professional pride in that—and then licked carefully around Galen’s balls, shaft, and crown to make sure he got everything.  When he straightened, the look in his murky green eyes was almost rapturous with happy.

“Pleased with yourself?” Galen asked, stroking his cheek.

“Pleased with you. Here. Where I can blow you.”

Galen smiled, not wanting to close his eyes in spite of how tired he was.  “I thought you would say something sappy right now.”

“Sappier than wanting to feed you?”

Galen laughed then, for real. “God, please? Something besides soy-veggie dogs?”  God—all those models had eaten soy-veggie dogs. Galen was finally seeing that downside to porn models John kept talking about.

“That’s just how much I love you,” John said, smiling wickedly.

Galen sobered. “This,” he said, rubbing a thumb across John’s come-glazed lips. “This is how much you love me.”

John cupped his cheek—his scarred cheek—and rubbed his cheekbone with a tender thumb. “This is how much you love me.” His thumb came away wet.

“You’re goddamned right it is,” Galen told him, his voice choked. He swallowed. It wasn’t even dark yet. He’d get sappy in bed, later, when John held him, skin to skin.  “Now go make us some real food and let me put on something comfy.”

He’d wanted to impress, wearing the suit and all. But he didn’t need to impress anymore. He was home.

John kissed him briefly and hopped up.  “It’s a deal. I left some sweat-shorts on the bed for you, and an old T-shirt.”

“I did bring clothes,” Galen said, laughing and accepting his hand to help him up.

John stopped and looked at him, running smooth hands down the outside of his arms.

“Yeah, but you’re not going to wear them for at least two days, okay?”

Galen nodded and kissed him back. “We’re going to live here and be happy,” he said softly, because this here, in this man’s home, this was real.

“Yeah,” John agreed. One more kiss, and then he was off, making Galen food, and kindness, and joy.

And home.

 

Black John is now available from Amazon, ARe and Dreamspinner Press