To Serve and Protect II
 A Change of Venue

By: BJ Williams
(© 2013-2014 by the author)
Edited by: Gerry Young

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Introduction of the Characters

Andrew Butler, 35, and life partner with…

Michael Brady, 35, and Andy’s Neanderthal man.

David, age 20 is Michael’s biological son from a past adventure when he was 13 and a foster child at the girl’s parent’s house.

Thomas Sullivan, 52, is life partner to…

Dr. Aaron Smyth, 49, head of the Medical Center of Vermont

Shane and Adam Sullivan-Smyth, age 18, are identical twins that Thomas and Aaron adopted because they were orphaned.

Jonathon Davis, 20, son of Billy Davis

Theodore (Teddy) Vandercamp, 29, Andy’s neighbor and pretending boyfriend

Chapter 3 

Andy awoke … he was startled to find that he had cried himself asleep, and that it was already the next morning. He felt as if he had not slept a wink as he rose from the bed. He heard voices … his voice to be exact, and his heart raced all over again … as did the pain assail his heart with Michael’s accusations and doubts from the day before.

He was not going to run downstairs as if thrilled to see him. He left the guest room and went back to his own bedroom. He showered, took his time dressing, and forty-five minutes later, he ambled down the stairs ... to face him.

“I see that you came back … did you perhaps forget something?” His voice was carefree and it held not a sign of the hurt his heart was feeling.

“I did … our talk, Andy; we need to talk,” Michael reminded Andy.

“I thought we talked ourselves out last night, Michael. After all, you were quite adamant about your feelings toward me.”

“Can we not rehash last night? I came to just talk, no accusations or whatever else you feel I am guilty of.”

“Guilty of … my God, Michael, I don’t have to tell you what you are guilty of, you already know. And, as for talking, skip it … go back to your world in Massachusetts and forget that I ever existed.”

Andy turned and walked carefree out to the deck, leaving Michael with Jonathon. He heard Michael’s familiar growl.

“Grrrrrr, does he always get up this disagreeable, Jonathon?”

“Not really, it must be you and the things that you said, because he’s usually quite pleasant in the morning,” Jonathon said and left.

Michael had considered leaving also, but he had had a purpose when he came up to Vermont … he wanted Andy to do the movie with him. He poured another cup of coffee, one for Andy also, and walked out to the deck where he found Andy … gone.

“What the fuck …” he leaned against the rail and looked down at the lake, Andy was stepping out of the last of his clothes. “Damn but you got better with time, babe,” he whispered as he watched a naked Andy run and dive into the water.

He loved watching Andy swim, especially when he did it naked. He had that ‘all over’ tan, not a single tan line on his body and he moved like the water … as if one with it. He felt a stirring in his groin, but he concentrated and willed it down.

‘I know that you are watching me, you could never resist me when I swam nude,’ Andy thought as he moved effortlessly through the cool water. ‘Now don’t you wish you had come after me?’

Michael growled, his plane left at two, and already it was after eleven. He turned, descended the stairs that lead to the beach below, and motioned to Andy.

“We need to talk, Andy … please,” he yelled to him.

“I’m talked out … write me a letter explaining what you wish to say and maybe … I’ll answer it, but then, there is no guarantee.”

“Will you stop being stubborn and come to shore so we can talk like rational adults?”

“Rational adults,” he began as he walked from the water, his body glistening as the water sluiced down the length of him.

Michael reached for the towel on a rock, but Andy grabbed it first and began drying himself off.

“You move like a dolphin, Andy … God, how I missed that,” he said huskily.

“I bet you do, but then, it was you who pushed me away, so regret it all you want.”

“Please, Andy, can’t we just talk and let the past be just that, be the past?”

“I can, but after last night, I see that you cannot, Michael,” he said as he dropped his towel and slid on his shorts. “I’ll give you ten minutes to say what you feel is so important to say and then … you leave. Am I clear about this?” he asked and reluctantly, Michael nodded.

Michael stood there quietly and watched as Andy finished dressing.

“Ah … the clock is ticking away, so you had best begin talking, because you have nine minutes left.”

Michael shook his head, lifting his hands in a typical Michael gesture Andy knew all to well.

“I guess I had thought to find you … I don’t know … more agreeable this morning,” he said.

“Why is that, Michael, after those awful things you said and accused me of, you really thought I would be forgiving?”

“Maybe … but then you weren’t exactly amicable either.”

“My, my, how your vocabulary has grown, Michael, amicable, I would have never associated that word with your Neanderthal vocabulary.”

“I guess I deserve that much, but …”

“But nothing, you deserve not one fucking thing from me … then, now or ever.”

Andy hurried past him and felt as if he had seen and heard the last of him, when Michael grabbed him by the arm. He turned Andy so fast, that Andy hadn’t the chance to struggle, as Michael pulled his damp body to his.

“Alright, I’ll admit that I have my doubts about you and Billy still, and the night that he died. But that is neither here nor there; we are all entitled to our feelings. But if the truth be told, I’ll even admit that I am still very much in love with you; in fact, I never stopped loving you.”

There it was, the words that Andy had wanted to hear, Michael was still in love with him, as he was with Michael. But, and it was a very large but, he knew that Michael would always have his suspicions and doubts concerning that night that Billy died. Could he live with those doubts, would there always be a wedge between them, or could Michael ever let them go and move on with him, Andy asked himself.

“I won’t deny it, Michael, I’m still very much in love with you also, but sometimes, like now, love is just not enough. I won’t go back to you, not while you think me a cheat, a liar … and a murderer. I won’t do it; it hurts way too much. It will always be like that old saying about an elephant in the room.”

“Then let’s set our past aside and learn to love again as we once did,” he suggested.

“I want that more than the air that I breathe, but I doubt that you do. I’m sorry Michael, but a future with you would be far too painful for me.”

Andy pushed away, turned and left him standing there on the beach. He so wanted to turn and run back to Michael, to say that he was sorry for everything, but his pride, his wounded pride, forbade it.

“Then let’s do this, Andy. Come back to Springfield and do the movie with me. If when it’s over, and if we still feel as we do now, then I won’t try to stop you from leaving.”

Andy didn’t want to do the movie, and it wasn’t because of Michael; it was because of Andy’s father, Travis. He’d been the first victim of this psychotic killer and he hadn’t wished to relive that pain.

“I can’t, Michael. It’s nothing to do with you … us; it’ll be too painful reliving it all over again. I lost my father and indirectly, my mother to that monster.”

“I know that babe …”

“Please … do not call me that, not now, Michael.”

“Sorry, but I know that it’s going to be painful for you; it will be for me, also. I lost some good friends to him, friends that meant the world to me, but I’m doing it because it’ll keep their memory alive as well as your father’s. The director assured me that the picture is being made from the victim’s perspective and not the killer’s. He’s promised to make and keep him the monster he was, not to immortalize him like a lot of movies do about villains, humanizing him. I’m not asking you to come back to me, I know that is not even a possibility, but … but do it for your dad. You may not know this, but I loved him as a person also. He never looked down at me like trash under his feet, but he showed me respect, so I am doing this for his memory also.”

Andy was openly crying when he had finished talking. Michael pulled him into a warm embrace and held him. Andy was shivering, although the temperature had already reached the eighties.

“Alright, Michael, you win, I’ll do the damn fucking movie,” he pushed back some to look at his face as he continued, “But, and I mean this, if I even feel that the movie is making light of what he did to my father and the others, I walk away and I won’t come back.”

“I will do the same, I promise,” he said.

Michael, before Andy could walk away, pulled Andy back to him and kissed him. It was not a fleeting kiss, but one of passion and love, Andy forgot himself and leaned in, returning the kiss.

“No, Michael … I won’t take this that far,” he said as he pushed against his chest.

“I love you, Andrew Butler … I love you so fucking much it hurts.”

“I love you, too, Michael … but this time, love is not enough,” Andy whispered, disengaged himself from Michael’s arms, and walked away.

“You will still come; right?” he yelled up to Andy. “You and Jonathon will stay at the house.”

“Michael, will your latest conquest be at the house?”

“James? Why? Is that a problem if he were?”

“Would it be a problem if I brought along a fuck buddy, say … Teddy?” he countered.

“Point taken; no. I’ll have him stay at his own apartment … promise.”

“And he’ll be good with that?” Andy was sure that if the roles had been reversed, there would be no way that he would let Michael’s ex-husband stay in the same house while he pined away elsewhere.

“No, because if you think me the jealous type, you should meet him, he could give me lessons on jealousy,” he mused.

“No thank you, Michael; one jealous man is more than enough, besides; jealousy is one of your traits that I loathed about you.”

“I see, but you did agree to come and do the movie … right?”

“Yes, I agreed to come to Springfield and do the movie.”

Andy was somewhat startled by the expression he caught in Michael’s eyes before he blinked, thick, lush lashes seeming to sweep away whatever Andy had thought he saw. Michael had really wanted him to come. This hadn’t just been a polite and determined attempt on behalf of the movie; it was important to him that Andy be there … in Springfield.

“I’ll book a hotel room today at the Marriot so James can stay with you and he can enjoy his privacy with you. Teddy and I will be …”

“The hell you will,” he interrupted. “You will stay at our house in Longmeadow; end of discussion,” he demanded.

“Listen, you may own the house, but you don’t own me. Nor will you dictate to me what I will and will not do. If that be the case, Michael, I simply won’t come … movie or not, I’ll just stay home and put you where you belong … out of my life.”

“Why can’t you be reasonable, Andy, and stay at our house?”

“Why Michael, because it is no longer our house but yours, it stopped being our house the night that I left you.”

“God … how I hate your stubbornness, Andy,” he growled.

“I speak the truth and you know it, but to you, truth and stubbornness were always the same when it came to me. Now if you can’t agree to me staying at the Marriot, then I guess there is no point in me coming to do a ridiculous movie.”

“Grrrrrr, alright, you win, not fairly, but you do win. Now I need to go, my plane leaves in just over an hour, and I still need to get through that dreaded scanning station, where they treat everyone as a potential terrorist.”

Michael closed the space between and placed his hands on Andy’s hips.

“One last kiss … you know, for old time’s sake?” he asked, Andy hesitated, but Michael refused to wait for his answer, he pulled Andy against him, crushing Andy’s mouth with his. “I love you, even if you don’t believe me,” Michael said and walked off.

But then he paused, when he remembered an important fact that he needed to tell Andy.

“Before I forget, they begin shooting this coming Monday,” he said and hurried on before Andy could further argue with him.

He hadn’t been totally truthful about the shooting on Monday, they were beginning on Monday, but only shooting the city itself, not those who would be in the movie.

“That’s just fucking great, Michael,” he shouted, but Michael was already in the house. “Monday … but today is Thursday,” he yelled, knowing that Michael had not heard him.

As angry as Andy was, he put his fingers to his mouth, feeling the lingering warmth and bruising roughness of their kiss, long after Michael had gone.

“So I take it that we going to go, Dad,” Jonathon asked from the deck, looking down the stairs at him.

“It goes against my better judgment, but, yes, we are going. Now we need to pack for the trip, because Michael said that the director wants to begin shooting on Monday. Also, make sure that you bring enough clothes, because, God only knows when we’ll be back.”

“I had already planned on that much, Dad, because I know how lengthy a movie can be from the time that they begin filming to the end. And not only that, but you’ll be expected to be at the premier as well,” he told, and Andy instantly got a mental picture of him and Michael walking together on some luxurious red carpet.”

“Grrrrrr, just what I didn’t need, notoriety from the press and paparazzi,” he grumbled.

“Now you sound like him with that growling.”

“Stop being a wise ass and go pack,” Andy growled again, but he smiled, he knew that he had picked up a thing or two from having lived with Michael, even if a few of them were not good.

*       *       *

Later that evening, Andy stood looking out the window at the lake. It was true that he had misgivings about going back … home, but then, Michael’s house had once been his also, and he did want to stay there, even if it were in a separate bedroom.

He thought back to their last few months together. Michael had become tense after Billy’s death. Sometimes then, Andy had thought he didn’t know him at all. He hadn’t been able to reach Michael; Andy had felt … as if Michael had died with Billy.

Andy had lost him, lost all the trust and belief. He didn’t want to think back, and his first reaction had been the right one … he did not want to go back to Springfield. But it would be good to see Thom and Aaron again, as well as the boys. How they must have grown, he thought.

But he was doing it … going back. He was setting himself up for a knife in the heart. Michael’s house … once their house had been his home also until he left for Vermont. He knew every nook and cranny of the place, knew the legends about the people who had once lived there, because they had been Thom’s family and ancestors. He could picture the view from the backyard at night … stars in an ebony sky and the lights from downtown Springfield striking the water blackened by the night and rippling with a breeze.

Behind the pool where the guest house had been … he paused as the picture in his mind became vivid … the earth had seemed parched and burned there, though the skeletal remnants had been cleared away.

‘Had he rebuilt the guest house?’  he pondered. ‘Does it really matter anymore? It’s his house, not ours, any longer.’  He turned away from the window and closed his last suitcase with a heavy sigh. Their plane would leave at seven the next morning.

*       *       *

Michael leaned against the window next to him on the plane, looking out at the clouds … the landscape below, whenever the skies had been clear, remembering …

His mind took him back to when he and Andy had been partners on the police force and how each knew without asking the other, that their backs were protected. He trusted him and he had loved him more than life itself … then. Then everything had changed when he had shown up that night at their door. Billy. He had changed everything the second that he had stepped through the door and into Andy’s life. Yes Andy’s, because he had never been a part of Michael’s life, he did not trust him, so he had closed the door to friendship with Billy.

Then he remembered the day that he moved in, with that cute little boy, Jonathon, in tow. He had been so pretty for a boy, what with his soft, curly blonde hair and startling blue eyes. They had taken an instant liking to one another, although, Michael hadn’t wanted anything to do with whatever was Billy or his world. But Michael’s heart had a different thought or two when it came to the boy … he fell in love with him almost instantly and David had as well with Jonathon. The three had formed a secret bond together.

Staring out of the window as the last of Lake Champlain disappeared from view; he remembered Andy’s reaction when he had first brought him to Vermont. He had never been out of the Springfield area, so the rich colors of fall amazed him, even though they had colors in Massachusetts. To Andy, they weren’t as vivid and varied as Vermont’s were. Michael had taken him to Battery Park that day; it looked out over the area below, as well as the lake; they each wore gloves and lambskin jacket, because the air was cold.

“The colors, Michael, they’re so bright and look at that tree … it’s red is brighter than any red that I’ve seen in Massachusetts,” Andy had remarked as he scooped up a handful of leaves and tossed them into the air above them.

“You are really getting into all this, aren’t you,” he had asked and Andy’s reply had been a second hand full of crimson leaves over Michael’s head.

He smiled when he remembered how he had tackled Andy, sending them both falling into the leaves. They kissed, long, deep and passionate, and a couple walking by had made some remark about them being in love.

“We were in love, weren’t we, babe?” he softly asked.

“I’m sorry, did you say something to me?” a fellow passenger beside him asked and Michael only shook his head.

“No, sir; I was talking to myself,” he told him.

He could still remember Andy’s face, how embarrassed he had been to be caught kissing in public. He had blushed as red as the autumn leaves around him.

“Oh, God, what they must think,” he had whispered as he buried his face against Michael’s chest.

“This is Vermont, babe; we don’t have to hide our love here, because most of the people here accept us and our way of life,” he had assured him.

So long ago; strange; Michael had been the serious one then, the down-to-earth one — and Andy … he had been so quick to explore, to laugh. The first snows of the coming winter season had already fallen on Mt. Mansfield, and it amazed Andy that snow could come so early to Vermont, when it was still months away in Massachusetts. Michael had smoked in those days and Andy had set the finger of his glove on fire when he had tried to light his cigarette for him. They’d both ripped the glove off his hand, had crashed into one another while stomping on it and had laughed and rolled in the leaves until they were both dizzy with giddiness.

Then they had made love in the park’s men’s room, in a stall while men came and went, none the wiser of what went on behind that closed stall door. Andy hadn’t wanted to, but Michael had persuaded him that no one would catch them as long as they remained quiet. Michael laughed loudly when a special remembrance came to his mind.

“Excuse me,” Michael muttered to the man next to him.

He had been thinking of that day, Andy had knelt on the toilet seat while Michael fucked him from behind. It had all been well and good until Michael had quickened his thrusts, which knocked Andy off balance and sent one of Andy’s knees into the water of the commode. He had yelled so loud that a man at the urinal had asked if he was alright. Again he had blushed.

Then his thoughts went to their house in Massachusetts, and once there, the memories never left him. They had just been married. He thought about the house now, Andy had remained in every room… still. He had decorated the place, and he had done it so perfectly. Certain rooms had a certain mood, he had told him. One, the living room, it had been done in various shades of yellow, with two pale blue wing chairs, one on each side of the fireplace. The kitchen was Vermont farmhouse, with the heavy beamed ceiling with Andy’s copper bottom pans hanging from one as well as other bric-brac as Michael had referred to them. Then there had been the den, which had been his one room to do with as he pleased. He softly chuckled when he remembered how Andy had gasped with he lead him into the room. It had been painted black, the walls, ceiling and woodwork, and even the carpet was black. But what he had done was, he had hung pieces of Andy’s artwork on the walls, with recessed lighting illuminating them. He even had a black sofa group, black tables with those cutesy lamps that one found in chic bars. He had even redone the closet, having turned it into a hidden bar.

‘Hmmm, my one attempt at decorating,’  he thought.

But he had felt that Andy’s wild side had influenced their bedroom. He had covered the walls with bamboo and a thatched material covered the ceiling, giving the room a thatched hut look. Even their bed had been suspended from the ceiling, with silk vines entwined around the chains that held it.

‘Me Tarzan you Cheetah,’ Andy had said to him.

‘Hey … you have me a fucking chimpanzee, Andy,’ he had replied.

‘Would you have rather been, Jane?”

‘I’ll be Tarzan and you’ll be my forever,’ he had said which totally made Andy cry.

How they had made love in the swinging bed, which ended up crashing to the floor during their second round of love making, bringing plaster down on them. Back then, Andy laughed when things went wrong, but not that night! He did not laugh … he left.

But Andy had left it all behind, everything that had been his, everything that he, they, had loved … left it forever. Michael didn’t know just what his feelings had been at first, but shock had been a part of them; his pride had been severely wounded, and he’d been bitter. So much so that he’d assured his lawyers he wanted no waiting time since reconciliation was out of the question, Andy could have had almost anything he wanted as long as they got it all settled as quickly as possible. So all that time married had ended in a matter of weeks. Andy, when served the papers of divorce, had simply signed them and had the deliverer of them, take them back … uncontested. That alone had shocked Michael and made him more bitter … because Andy wanted nothing from him or the house, as if neither had ever existed to him.

But he did take the lake house in Vermont and erased Michael, their marriage and everything else in between from his mind and heart, so he had said when he left … so Michael had thought.

Michael had always known he could be difficult to live with at times, but Andy had managed to cope with that before. He’d known there had been times when Andy hadn’t felt secure anymore, but Michael hadn’t been able to assure him … he’d never gotten past that night of the fire …

‘Because I hadn’t known what you had known, Andy. I hadn’t known whether you had been intimate with Billy the night he had died, or whether you had kept silent because we’d been arguing so fiercely … and because Billy had actually been the subject of a few of those arguments. I just hadn’t known if you had …’

Killed Billy? He taunted himself; he hadn’t believed it then or now for a second. In fact, he didn’t know that anyone had killed Billy. Billy, it was later determined had a near fatal dose of heroine in his blood and it had been that drug, that had rendered Billy unconscious. The medical examiner had determined that smoke inhalation had killed him before he’d burned, that the drugs hadn’t brought about his demise. Still, the scandal had rocked the police force, destroyed friendships, hurt, betrayal; they were anguished by it, Michael and Andy. But in the back of Michael’s mind, where doubt lived and seethed, he remembered the figure that he had seen running to the guest house just minutes before the fire had consumed it. The figure that no one else believed existed … or admitted to being … the figure he had thought at first to be … Andy.

Michael closed his eyes, hoping to lock out a sudden onslaught of pain that should have died almost ten years ago with Billy. Nothing had been clear; they had been fighting.

And there had been the inquest; he had stated that he was certain he had seen someone running to the guest house from the main house. No one had supported him; no one had believed him, because the only people staying at the main house had been like family to him and Andy … Thom, Aaron and the boys, as well as Jonathon. There had been a few cop friends of his, but everyone talked about last seeing Billy alive … at the party. Then Michael had to come out with what he’d seen, because Billy had died that night … long after the party had ended. Michael had to know if Andy had been running to Billy … and why. He’d asked Andy pointblank if it had been him,  and he had denied it, reminding Michael that he had been there when he’d been about to burst into the fire. Michael had believed him … or he’d claimed to believe him. But no one else had come forward, and so the doubts had haunted him, and to this day … he still didn’t know the truth.

Friends told him that he was overwrought; he had doubted his own sanity. Indeed, he had backed Andy into a wall, though Andy had never understood just quite what it was he meant to shake from him. He hadn’t known himself. He’d been afraid to voice his worst suspicion … that Billy had been murdered. Even though he would have made a prime suspect of himself, because they argued constantly over Andy, and Billy had, when in a private setting with just them present, had admitted to wanting Andy.

What had been so amazing was that Billy’s death had, at first, made them incredibly close. Then they had split apart, as if unable to bear one another any longer.

‘Because something hadn’t been right that night,’ Michael thought.

He’d quit everything, the police force and even life itself. He had started his own business, a private detective agency, in hopes of discovering the truth.

But with everything aside, the doubts and accusations, one other thing angered him beyond all reason … the phone calls.

‘Don’t let a movie be made; don’t let him come back,’ the first call had said, and he’d written it off as a prank.

Then, less than a week later, came the second call, this one had been to his cell phone … ‘Let the dead stay dead and buried. Do you know what happens when the dead come back to life? They take others with them.’

He’d thought again that it had been just a prank, but he’d stayed up nights on end, trying to go back, to remember, trying to think. He’d even thought that he should just drop and forget everything. But then he’d gotten even angrier, when he’d realized that he’d lost his marriage because there had been something more to Billy’s death than they had known, and he’d decided not to let Billy lie in the earth un-avenged … even if he hadn’t ever liked the man.

And then, there had been the last call that came the day before he left to go see Andy … the caller’s voice had been different, camouflaged … Michael didn’t know.

‘The truth is what will set you free, right? The truth has to come out or someone else might be in danger. Remember the smell of the fire, of the burning … flesh? Michael, you’re the only one who can do something,’ the caller had said.

Then a click …

That night, he’d called Thom, a seasoned detective with the Springfield police department, he and Thom had sat in Michael’s den, enjoying a beer later that night.

‘Michael, there’s not much anyone can do about phone threats like that. It is just a prank,’ Thom was convinced of.

‘But Thom, something was wrong back then, I did see a figure enter the guest house before it went up in flames.’

‘Anyone might have been with him, and whoever it was, was afraid to admit it after he died, obviously. Do you seriously think Billy was murdered? The coroner’s report stated he’d taken enough heroine to render him unconscious, that he died of smoke inhalation before the fire ever touched him. Come on buddy, even the fire marshal determined that the fire was caused by careless disposal of whatever he’d been smoking.’

‘Even if that was true and it caused the fire, could it have made the flames grow so quickly?’

Thom had shrugged his shoulders, ‘Both of us, Michael, we went over all the reports at the time and the fire marshal’s alone said that there had been no sign of arson.’

‘But what about his body? The only proof that it had been Billy, was mine and Andy’s assurance that Billy had been the only one staying in the guest house at the time of the fire. What if …’

‘Enough, Michael, there are no ‘what ifs’ to consider. Sad as it was, Billy died from his own neglect, and the phone calls … they’re just a prank because of the movie. Why? Now … THAT … I don’t know, because the time span between the two is too great to make a connection. Now, Aaron is waiting for me and I really need to get going.’

Thom had left, but he had forgotten something … he forgot to take Michael’s doubts and suspicions with him.

“Would you please return all trays and seats to their upright position and fasten your seatbelts? We’ll be landing shortly,” a stewardess announced.

Michael watched out the window as the tarmac rose quickly to meet the descending plane. He sat quietly while the rest of the passengers disembarked. He was home, but a home it wasn’t, nor had it been for ten years.

He inhaled sharply, suddenly praying that he was going to do the right thing for Billy … as well as Andy. Maybe he was putting Andy into danger, all but forcing him to come down to Massachusetts. And if not maybe he’d just be putting the two of them through a wretched stretch … like last night.

‘God it still hurts,’ he thought as he finally disembarked the plane.

To be continued…

Posted: 03/07/14