Page 7 of Consumed
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Con spent the remainder of the afternoon in the lab, looking at things under the microscope and taking careful notes. The routine helped calm him a little, but his thoughts kept wandering to tomorrow’s mysterious meeting. It could be something entirely benign, such as a discussion over new equipment or the computer classes that Townsend had mentioned. But Con couldn’t shed the uneasy certainty that it was bad news. He just didn’t know what kind of bad news.
A little after six, when the worst of the evening commute would be past, he shut down his computer, locked up the cabinets, and gave the counters a final wipe-down. Then, cane in hand, he made his slow way to the parking garage where his Civic waited amid his colleagues’ cars, most of which were bigger and flashier.
It was only about twelve miles from HQ in Sherman Oaks to his little house in San Fernando, but there’d been a wreck on the 405, so the drive took almost forty-five minutes. He listened to public radio along the way, at least until the announcers began talking about American soldiers abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. That made him shudder, so he turned to the station that played Spanish hits. Since he didn’t understand more than a few words of Spanish and so had no idea what the songs were about, he didn’t experience his usual guilt about listening to people sing. No doubt his parents would still have disapproved.
He smiled when he finally reached his driveway.
His house was not remotely fancy, just a little two-bedroom bungalow in a modest neighborhood of similar houses, all of which had been constructed shortly after World War II. But it was plenty big enough for him, and it had two advantages. One was that it was all on one level so he didn’t have to negotiate stairs. The other was that almost the entire backyard was occupied by an in-ground swimming pool. A decade earlier, his physical therapist had urged him to take up swimming as the best way to get exercise without straining himself, and Con had found himself enjoying the relative freedom he felt while in the water. There was a lap pool at HQ, but he preferred swimming in private.
It was too late for swimming now, though. Besides, he was hungry and tired.
The interior of his house was… a little cluttered. He kept everything very clean, and there was a definite order to where things were placed, but there were quite a lot of things. One of his few pastimes was acquiring unique items from thrift shops and antique stores. Like the pair of midcentury-modern lamps in peacock hues of teal and green. Or the large ornately-framed painting of a Victorian woman in a garden. Or the scuffed leather recliner that cradled his aching body like a cloud; sometimes he even slept in it. Anyone with an aptitude for interior design would probably be aghast at Con’s décor, but he liked it. And anyway, nobody saw it but him.
He made himself a stir-fry. By the time he ate it and washed up, night had fallen in earnest. He showered, put on pajamas, and curled up in the recliner with a biography of Benjamin Franklin. The book had come from a thrift store too.
But tonight he couldn’t concentrate, thanks to Townsend. Con kept speculating about the upcoming meeting, even though he knew that doing so was pointless. Finally, annoyed with the chief and with himself, he went to bed.
Where he couldn’t sleep.
Alone in his bed in the dark, he allowed his hand to wander beneath the waistband of his pajama pants. His dick got hard almost at once, as if it had been waiting for his touch.
When Con was a boy, his parents had removed the doors from their children’s bedrooms. They would also time the children when they used the bathroom to make sure nothing was going on in there except excreting and cleaning. There were frequent lectures about the evils of what his parents called self-abuse. Warnings that masturbation was sinful because it weakened morals and inhibitions. Harangues about how the practice corrupted people and led them into worse actions.
And although Con knew better now, the emotional baggage remained. He felt guilty about a little harmless play, and even more so because his thoughts turned to men rather than women. But here he was anyway, stroking himself and imagining that he was being touched by someone else—someone who didn’t mind that Con was scarred and generally messed up.
He climaxed silently, cleaned himself up, and lay alone in his bed, hoping tonight would spare him the nightmares.
CHAPTER4
HQ was rarely a bustling place,at least not visibly so. But now in the early morning it felt almost completely abandoned except for the bored-looking man behind the lobby desk.
Con did a double-take and said in some surprise, “Des!” Desmond Hughes was in charge of the Bureau’s library; reception duty was not usually one of his tasks.
“Mornin’, Con.” Des’s voice retained a hint of his Belfast childhood. He cradled a mug in one hand, and there was a scattering of crumbs on the desktop in front of him. His smile was bright.
“What are you doing here?”
Des shrugged. “Kurt’s in Seattle on assignment, and the chief decided I needed to be occupied, so he dragged me here. I don’t mind. Change of pace.”
Kurt and Des had been a couple for years. Con tried not to envy them.
“I have a meeting with the chief,” Con said. “Is he here?”
“I expect he’s nearly always here.”
That was a valid point. It was rumored that Townsend lived in the building, and honestly, Con couldn’t picture him anywhere else. He tried, though, as he walked to the elevator and rode all the way up, imagining the chief in an apartment or condo, or a bungalow like Con’s, or a mansion in Beverly Hills. Nope. None of those fit.
After a few steadying breaths, Con opened the double doors to the chief’s office suite and entered the reception area. Agent Victor Holmes sat behind the desk in his wheelchair, glaring at a stack of papers. Long ago he’d been injured on the job even worse than Con—an encounter with ogres, reportedly—but he didn’t seem to have any feelings of kinship with Con. In fact, as far as Con could tell, Holmes detested everyone except the chief. And everyone except the chief was terrified of Holmes, although nobody could express exactly why. Something about the glint in his eyes, perhaps.
“The chief wanted to see me,” said Con after an awkward silence. He leaned his weight onto his cane.
Although Holmes didn’t glance up, he lifted his phone and barked into it. “He’s here.” Then he slammed down the receiver. “Go in.”
Well, at least Con wouldn’t be kept waiting.
Townsend’s office was large, but other than the windows that offered sweeping views of the Santa Susana Mountains, there was nothing particularly luxurious about the space. The furniture looked as if it had been imported directly from a 1950s police station, the space smelled of cigarettes and whiskey, and the desk and table were piled with papers and books. Townsend himself sat behind the oversized desk in his throne-like chair, digging into an enormous platter of food.
