Page 39 of Lost Little Boy
It had been a long road, but it was almost behind me. I would be taking over the Arlington Children’s Center in the Liberty Building, starting June first. Miss Daphne was having a baby in July, so she was stepping back from running the center and was only going to work with the preschool age kids until the baby came. She’d already planned not to come back, and I was going to miss her.
I had my dream job at the center, and I couldn’t believe how wonderful my life had turned out. Lady Luck truly did smile on me nearly every day.
I quickly closed the door of the dishwasher and rinsed the sponge before drying my hands and heading into the living room where Daddy had returned from getting yesterday’s mail.
We’d gone out to dinner the previous night with Aaron and his boyfriend, Kindall, and then we’d gone to a club in DC for some dancing. We’d returned home quite late, but not too late to make love.
I’d learned I wasn’t as stuffy as I thought I’d be when it came to the Daddy Dom/submissive boy lifestyle. Wex and I had experimented with ropes, breath play, impact play—certain types of it were fun and didn’t trigger me to thoughts of my past—and we’d ticked off things we didn’t enjoy, but we had a very healthy and joy-filled sex life that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
I walked into the living room to see a young woman standing in the doorway with Wex, who continued to glance between the two of us. “Hello. I’m Perry, Wex’s partner.”
She looked familiar, and I wondered if she was someone Wex worked with at Grassley. Since I wasn’t the janitor there anymore, I didn’t get to the other floors often. I really only knew the employees who had children enrolled at the center.
The young woman stepped forward and extended her hand. “I’m Liz Anderson. Pleasure to meet you.”
She had dark brown hair that was cut into a cute bob, and her eyes were brown. She was adorable and reminded me of someone I couldn’t quite place.
After we shook hands, I turned to Wex. “Should, uh, should I get you two some coffee?” I’d just cleaned the pot, but if Wex was having a business meeting at the house instead of going into the office, I would be grateful.
We’d purchased a house in Arlington about five miles from the Liberty Building. I loved the close location so I could walk to work or walk home if Wex had a dinner with clients.
We had three bedrooms, one we’d turned into a shared office and a playroom for me, though mostly it just displayed my toys. I hardly had time to play anymore, but ifI had a hard day, it was wonderful to come home and get out a racetrack and a couple of cars to pretend I was in a Formula One race.
Our beautiful backyard was where we liked to sit on the patio glider in the evenings with a drink to watch the sunset. We’d turn off the outdoor lights sometimes, put the back of the glider down, and make love under the stars, another of our favorite things to do. I’d fucked Wex a few times out there, but I preferred it when he took me and we slowly made love. Our life together was nearly perfect.
“Why don’t we sit down?” Wex took my hand and led me to the sofa after extending his hand for the young woman to sit in the chair next to the end of the couch.
She sat and clasped her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry to just barge in on your Saturday morning. I’m here because—”
“Sweet boy, this is your little sister, Elizabeth.”
“What?” I stared between the two of them waiting for the joke, but when my gaze fixed on the woman, I saw it. My mother. The woman in front of me was the epitome of the memories I had of my mother when I was a kid.
The dam broke. I fell to my knees on the area rug in the living room, fists on the floor to brace myself. “Is that true?”
My little Lizzy was all grown up and sitting in our living room.
Wex’s supportive hand was on my back as he knelt next to me. “Baby, she looked for you. She wanted to find you.”
I glanced up to see tears falling down her pink cheeks. She was nodding and crying. I crawled over to the chair and Lizzy dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around me, too.
“Oh, god, I’ve been looking for you for so long. Are you okay?” She placed both of her hands on my cheeks and kissed my forehead just below my widow’s peak, just as Wex always did… just as my father used to do before he went to work in the mine. How could I forget that?
“Papa used to kiss all of us there before he left for work, remember? The little kids don’t remember, but you and I do.”
We held onto each other and cried for an hour. Cried for the loss of our father who held us all together. Cried for the loss of our family bond. I cried for the loss of my childhood.
Finally, Wex got us up from the floor and urged us into the kitchen where he’d put out some lemonade and cookies that I’d made Thursday night while I was studying. It was absolutely the sweetest thing he could have done.
We sat down, and Wex opened a kitchen drawer and put a box of tissues on the table before he kissed the top of my head and disappeared. I filled each of our glasses and took the lid off the cookie jar.
“So, uh, you’re twenty-five, right?”
Lizzy laughed. “Look at you, using those math skills you used to hate so much.”
I was sure my face turned crimson because arithmetic was still my safeword. “I’m actually graduating in a couple of weeks with a degree in elementary education. I got my GED after…” The lump in my throat kept me from getting the rest of the words out.
Lizzy reached out and took my hand. “I know, after we were split up. I’m so glad you’re alive and thriving. I’ve thought of you often over the years. I just finished my first year of law school. Tricia’s just finishing her sophomore year at Tennessee State. Billy’s in the Marines, and Joey’s in culinary school in New York. He learned to cook from our adoptive mother.”
