The Trombone Player

From Part 4

 My poor Tom.  What had happened to him, and why did I think his brother and sisters had something to do with it?

The next month was hell for me; I cannot imagine what it was like for Tom.  When he was hospitalized, I wasn’t allowed to see or visit him for two weeks.  That turned into three weeks.  I tried to keep busy by working extra and searching for a place for us.  Of course, not knowing whether he would still want a small farm weighed heavily on me, and I wondered if I were wasting my time.  I had tried to go back to see his grandparents’ place to take some photos, but the lock had been changed, and I decided to avoid the place.

During week four I was asked to participate in a group therapy session with Tom’s siblings.  My therapist had advised me not to anticipate the discussion topics and to realize that the other participants may have differing views of events with Tom.  “Don’t assume that someone is lying because he or she tells what seems like a completely different story from someone else.  Remember we often see the past through the filter of who we are as well as who we were at the time.

I asked for medication to reduce my anxiety but changed my mind when I realized it might affect my focus.

When I arrived for the session at Dr. Everly’s office, Ray, Emily, and Carolyn were already present.  I shook hands with each, babbled something about how it was nice to see them again.  I noted that Ray looked worried, and Carolyn appeared angry.  Emily appeared to have been crying.

“You’ve already met each other, then.  Good.”  Dr. Everly had been standing at the doorway behind the desk.

I nodded and took a deep breath.

We followed the doctor into the room to find chairs arranged in a circle.  A notepad with a name on it lay upon the seat of each chair.  I found mine and sat.  I was between Emily and Carolyn and across from Ray.  Everly sat between Ray and Carolyn.  He passed out pens.

“The pens kept rolling off the chairs,” he chuckled.

I felt my eyes mist up.

“We are here to discuss events that have become known to me during the sessions with Dr. Tom Spencer.  This session will be recorded and may be used in the treatment of Dr. Spencer.  Present today are his brother Ray Spencer and his sisters Dr. Carolyn Spencer-Edwards and Emily Spencer as well as his domestic partner Steve Hopkins.

“Domestic partner?” scoffed Carolyn.  “I understood that they’ve known each other for a month and haven’t even fucked.”

I bit my lip.

Dr. Everly spoke up.  “That’s the designation that Tom made on his paperwork.  We aren’t here to debate it.”

Carolyn made some type of sound and adjusted herself in her chair.

I fought back my emotions.  He listed me as his domestic partner.  That’s one step away from husband.  He did love me as much as I thought he did.  I closed my eyes and slowly took a deep breath.

“Now,” continued Dr. Everly.  “I want to explain what we are here to accomplish.  During his treatment, Tom has mentioned several events.  You are not here to verify those events.  You are here to add additional information to the events if you have any.  If you remember additional events, please tell me.  Depending on the time, we may discuss them, or we may hold off discussing them at another time.”

I’m not sure what I truly expected, but at that moment, I thought I was about to be subjected to a boring timeline of Tom’s life with little anecdotes added by his siblings.

“The first event I want to bring up is also the first memory that Tom has.  He thinks he was about six.  He remembers his grandfather calling him a woman and then hurting him.”

“Oh, fuck,” said Ray.

Carolyn looked at the ground, and Emily looked from her brother to her sister with a lack of comprehension on her face.

“You remember that incident, Ray?” asked the doctor.

Ray’s lips quivered.

“Was that the day the grandpa said it was time for your check-up, and when you said ‘no,’ he said it was time to break the woman.  He grabbed you and Tom and took you outside?”

Ray squeaked a ‘yes.’

“Are you able to tell me about it?” asked the doctor.

Ray continued to look away.

Emily stood up.  “I don’t want to hear this.”  She left the room.

“It’s out now, Ray.  Tell him.”  It was Carolyn.

Ray began.

“My grandfather had done prostate checks on me for as long as I could remember.  He’d put Vaseline on his finger and then stick his finger in my ass.  He’d find the spot and make me feel good.  While he did it, he'd say things like, 'yeah, that feels healthy or it's growing the way it should.  Oh, God help me, I feel dirty.”

In a soothing voice, Dr. Everly said, “That wasn’t your fault which means the guilt you’re feeling is not warranted.”

“On that day, I didn’t want him to do it, so I said no.  He said then I’ll need to use the woman.  He picked up Tom and grabbed me by the neck and took us out to the room upstairs in the barn.  He locked the door the way he always did when it was just the two of us.  For privacy, he would say.  He put Tom on the cot and told me to bring the Vaseline.  Tom was naked on the cot; I don’t remember how; his clothes were neatly placed on a chair.

“Grandpa put his hand on Tom’s privates and said, When I first saw you, I was sure you were a girl.  I still do.  Your parents want to pretend that you’re a boy, but you’re just a girl whose first pussy is very tiny.  So we’ll use your spare pussy.  Tom was terrified; I could tell.  I should have protected him.  I should have stopped it.  He put a pillow on Tom’s face and pushed his dick inside him.  Tom struggled for a while and then just laid there.

When he was done, he stood up and slapped me.  I could have shown you how to feel really good, he said.  I got up and got the door unlocked and went down the stairs.  Carolyn was there.  She didn’t say anything.

“I grabbed a pitchfork.  Carolyn asked me what I was going to do.  I told her I was going to kill him.  Carolyn grabbed the pitchfork; she told me I couldn’t kill him.

“Then we heard him laughing.  He was at the top of the stairs.  He said I was too much of a pussy to hurt anyone.  Then I heard Tommy; he was screaming, ‘you hurt me.’  Suddenly, grandpa was falling down the stairs, and the pitchfork had gone through him.”  Ray began to sob.

Carolyn stood up and walked over to Ray and put her hand on his shoulder.  “Grandpa was right.  Ray doesn’t have it in him to kill anyone.  But that bastard had hurt Ray and had hurt Tommy.  But I believe that in his glee over that he lost his footing and fell.  Maybe Tommy scared him, but it was God who took care of his evil.  He was dead at the bottom of the stairs.  I sent Ray to get Grandma, and I got Tommy.  We promised we’d never tell anyone.

“When Tom never mentioned it again, we thought he’d gotten over it.  You know, he’d put it in the past and just didn’t look back.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Ray.

“It’s understandable that you would think that,” said Dr. Everly.  “But it doesn’t usually work that way.  You’re both going to need to talk to someone to help you deal with this.  Emily should talk to someone, too.  The family dynamic changed because of this.  And all of you, and I’m including you, Steve, will deal with a different Tom.”

The doctor was correct.  A different Tom sat on the bench under some trees as I pulled up to the hospital.  He was smiling before he saw me, and when he noticed me as I pulled the car into the closest space, he stood and ran to me.  His smile was the biggest I’d ever seen.  His arms closed around me.

“I’ve missed you,” I whispered into his ear.

“And I love you,” he whispered into mine.  He threw his suitcase into the back seat next to two others.  “What’s this?”

“Freshly packed bags.  We’re going on a trip,” I announced.

“I’ve just been on a trip,” he replied.

“But that was without me.  This one is with me.”

I drove us to the airport while he told me about the people he’d met.  We were early to the gate, and he rested his head on my shoulder as we waited to board.  The ride to Corpus was bumpy, but Tom didn’t seem to mind.  I told him that we were going to walk on the beach and relax.  I let him know that I had purchased matching swim trunks.  The landing was smooth, and it didn’t take long before we’d checked into our room.  The clerk directed us to a little food shack just off the beach that was within walking distance.  We changed into trunks, a t-shirt, and sandals and headed off.

We held hands as we walked; the late afternoon sun moved down to our right.  Both of us ordered fried shrimp and diet Dr. Peppers before finding a place nearby at a picnic table.

“This is beautiful,” Tom slid a little closer to me.

“You’re beautiful,” I announced as I kissed him then fed him a shrimp.  He held it between his lips before pulling it into his mouth and savoring it.

“Thanks for standing with me.”  He looked over at me and into my eyes.

I’d not noticed the darkness of his lashes before that moment.  “It’s what you do when you’re in love.”

“I’m supposed to remind myself not to be embarrassed when I talk about what happened.”

“That’s right,” I nodded.  “None of it was your fault.”

“I know that in my head, but my heart wants to play the ‘what-if’ game, you know?”

I leaned over and kissed his ear.  “I know.  That’s human nature.”

Tom took a gulp of his drink.  “It bothers me that I’m not a virgin for you.”

“I don’t understand.  Tom-tom.”  I knew what he meant, and it tore me up inside that he was thinking that.

“I wanted you to be my first.”

“Has someone made love to you before?” I asked.

“You know what happened,” he replied.

“I do.  No one has ever loved you the way the two people are supposed to love one another and physically joined with you.  When I’m inside you, I’ll be the first person to do that.”

“But the other…”

“That wasn’t love,” I said softly.  “That doesn’t count.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“It doesn’t,” I repeated.

“Let’s go back to the room.  We can walk on the beach tomorrow morning.”  Tom stood up and led me back to our room.  He pulled my t-shirt off and removed his.  With his hands on my ears, he kissed me, deeply and repeatedly.  Our pecs rubbed together, and I felt his hardness push against the cloth of his trunks.  He smiled and rubbed himself against my thigh.

I pushed him back and onto the bed.  I licked his nipples and then sucked the hardening buds into my mouth.  Tom squirmed and moaned beneath me.  I moved my mouth over the tent that formed in his trunks by his erection.  I clamped my lips over it and held his penis.  Trapped by the fabric, his cock flinched each time I moved my mouth even slightly.

I sat back on my haunches and pulled his trunks down. I immediately went down on him again.  I sucked the entire penis into my mouth with such suction that Tom’s shoulders raised from the bed as he gasped for air.  My lips moved up and down his shaft as I increased the suction.  It didn’t take long for his hands to grab my head and his pelvis to tilt up.  His ejaculate forcefully squirted into my mouth.  I swallowed most of it.

My mouth moved down to his pucker and I forced the remaining cum into his hole.  I ran my tongue around the circular muscle that formed the entrance.  My dick throbbed within my trunks.  I stood off the bed and pulled them off.  A string of precum was pulled from the end of my hard dick.  I grabbed some lube from where I’d place it earlier and made sure there was plenty on my cock.  I gently fingered Tom to lube his hole.  Previously he’d responded negatively to the action.  Today he moaned.

Moving forward to place the head of my dick against his hole, I looked into his eyes and whispered, “Thomas Eugene Spencer, I love you.”

His lips parted and a smile formed on his handsome face.  “Steve insert middle name here Hopkins, I love you.”

“I don’t have a middle name, you silly fucker; otherwise, you’d know it.”  I kissed him as I pressed my shaft against his hole.  Moving back and forth slowly, I worked my way into him.  Several times his eyes opened wide and he gasped.  I felt his pelvis tilt and thrust; he was humping me from beneath, and I loved it.  I wanted to make love to him like this all night, but he excited me so that I was unable to hold back.  My seed filled him and leaked out onto the sheets.  I positioned myself next to him and kissed him.  He sucked my tongue into his mouth, and I reveled in the way his tongue flicked against mine as he held it between his teeth.

He finally released me from his grip.  “I want to do this again and again.”

“Anytime you want to, just tell me,” I laughed.  “I love you, you know.”

“I do.  I’ve been thinking.  What would you say if we looked into a farm that’s only a few hours from the beach, near a town that needs a lawyer?  Maybe we could even get a little travel trailer so we can make love in our own bed no matter where we are.”

“I’ll do anything you want, Tom-tom.  Will you do something for me?”

“Sure.”

“Make an honest man of me.”

"If you'll let me play my trombone at our wedding," laughed Tom.

"And you promise to play with my trombone after the wedding?"

We both laughed then and every day after.