Desperate Lovers by Adam Carpenter (good beach reads TXT) 📕

“What the hell?” Dane asked, suddenly rising from his chair.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s pure speculation at this point,” Rich said, “but if you look at the evidence from years ago—yes, blood stains are all over the living room of Number Two, still to this day, so some kind of violence occurred. For such a cover-up, I’d have to say someone died there. And look at who is still living—George, Danvers, and twenty-four-year-old Troy Saunders.

Who was fourteen at the time of the crime and who now happens to live with Danvers, claiming that Danvers is his uncle. What’s missing in this picture?”

“Saunders’s wife,” Aaron said. “Troy’s mother.”

“Precisely,” Rich said. “Edgar, care to share?”

“When Jack and I moved here, Number Two was already boarded up, and the other neighbors would not speak of why, they just clammed up,” Edgar said. “Except a man named Green. Gerald Green, who lived  with his family at Number One—where Dane and Sawyer now call home. The Greens were the first to leave Eldon Court, but not before he told me that he was envious of Jack and my life together, and from the faraway look in his eyes it seemed that he’d loved, lost, and maybe regretted the life he was leading. So my theory is that George and Gerry Green also had an affair—based on a photograph that Dane found tucked into the floorboards of their attic. So the gay life we have now in Wonderland is hardly new, it’s just so much more open now, and maybe it’s that way because of what happened. Living a lie, living in shame with secrets of forbidden love, it’s been the cause of many tragedies in this world, and one of them happened right here—on Eldon Court.”

“According to Wonderland’s extensive town records,” Rich said,

“which I’ve perused during my lunch hours at the bank, ten years ago Number Two Eldon Court was the residence of the Saunders family George, his wife, Elissa, and their young son, Troy. Then suddenly none of them lived there, and no one ever spoke their names again. George obviously still lives—if you want to call it that. Troy we now know is living in Carmel, at Converse’s estate. It’s almost like he’s living in forced seclusion. So who’s missing in this equation?”

“Elissa Saunders.”

“Right. And according to all I’ve been able to find, she doesn’t exist anymore.”

“She’s dead,” Dane said.

“Her blood splattered all over the walls of her home,” Rich said.

With growing frustration, Marc listening to this wild story, the speculation, details, truth, rumor, all of it swirling inside his brain, and at last he stood up with a dramatic scrape of his chair against the patio. All eyes turned to him with surprise.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve had enough of this.

Listen to us, we all sound like gossip-mongers, sending out judgment of others when we couldn’t possibly know what really happened. If it’s true, people have died, people have suffered their whole lives for the crime of wanting to love who they want to love. Frankly, we should feel lucky to be able to live like we do—and if we lose Eldon Court, so what. At least we have each other, our lovers and our partners and maybe someday our husbands, and isn’t that what matters most? To hell with the past, to hell with Danvers Converse and the Saunders family and whatever else you’ve learned. Rich, you’ve been immersed so much in saving our tomorrow, you barely care about today—about my art show, about our life, about anything other than getting your fucking rocks off…your words this morning, they meant nothing, just…empty promises, like New York.”

With that, Marc threw his glass to the ground, the remnants of his daiquiri splashing his nearest neighbors. He stormed off into the growing darkness, his heart pounding. He didn’t know where he was going and he didn’t care. He just knew he had to get away from the enveloping madness that was Eldon Court. My God, what would it take for them to go back to living normal lives? Did they too have to lose someone special in their lives for them to appreciate all they had?

Sitting in a wicker chair on his porch, a glass of red wine at his side, Parker St. John watched as a visibly emotional Marc Anderson walked with steely determination down the darkened Eldon Court, seemingly headed for the trail that would take him down to the beach. He considered going after the attractive blonde, seeing if he could entice him into what had been simmering between them since they had first met, but he decided something else was called for. Something more important than sex, and for an animal like Parker, hungry for male flesh, for the rush of orgasm, that was saying something. All night long he’d heard the sounds emanating from the pool party down the street, the rest of his neighbors on Eldon Court enjoying each other’s company, tossing back drinks, swimming in the pool, teasing and taunting with jovial abandon, like they were one pitcher of daiquiri’s away from a massive orgy. Parker felt his huge cock stirring at such a thought, of his joining them, of his being worshipped by them all, a line of men forming to each get a chance to suck his throbbing piece.

With his cock pressing hard against his shorts, he unzipped and let it out of its prison. He stroked it, once, twice, the rough skin of his hand not offering much lubricant. Dipping his fingers into his wine glass, he then returned to his cock and began to pump, pump, pump, its wide girth thick in his hand, the big head angry and red. He imagined all of his neighbors sucking him, unbuttoning his shirt and shooting their loads all over his chest, dousing his thick hair with gobs of oozy come. He paused to toss off his T-shirt, exposing his furred chest to the night air, the light rustling wind cool against the lush, dark mat that covered his hard body.

His