Daddy's Best Boy

His name is Steve; he prefers that I address him as Son, or Daddy’s Boy.

Steve moved from the eastern seaboard to accept a job at a big hospital here in town. A friend of mine gave him my email address when he found out we lived only ten minutes apart; we’ve seen each other irregularly for a year, since, when his busy hospital schedule can accommodate a meeting. Much of his furniture’s still in storage, making his apartment a little sparse.

I’m not there to see the furniture, though.

The moment the door’s closed, he’s on me, moving my hands into his loose clothing. “Oh fuck, daddy,” he tells me. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, son,” I whisper when I manage to tear my mouth from his.

“Do I look okay, daddy?" He's not pretending, with this question. He's earnest, and even worried a little. "I want to look good for you. I want to make you proud of me.”

Steve always looks great. His face has the strong chin, easy grin, and jock-like good features of a sportswear model. Sometimes he’ll greet me wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and tight underwear, or a tank top and some slack sweatpants. Sometimes he'll be wearing nothing. Today he's greeted me in a black jock and a tight-fitting wife-beater. “Oh yes,” I hiss, pushing him in the direction of the air mattress lying on his bedroom floor. He's still not managed to take the time to buy a bed. “You look very, very good, boy. I want you to show me how good you look.”

It’s ridiculous, this roleplay. He’s almost the same age as I. With his salt and pepper hair and dark brown eyes, he might even look older. No matter. He insinuates himself into my lap and has me slap his ass until it’s red, and snap the elastic of his jock to raise angry welts across his butt as he moans and writhes.

It would take only one word to break the illusion we sharing together. One word, one refusal, one mistimed snort of disbelief. “I want to make my daddy feel good,” he tells me, pushing me onto my back and straddling my hips. “I want to be daddy’s best boy.”

“Oh, you are daddy’s best boy,” I say. His hole is already lubed, loose, and ready. I wrap my fist around my cock and support it as he lowers himself down. Then I sigh as I sink deep into his warm, soft flesh. “You are making your daddy very proud, son.”

His eyes widen as they stare into mine, then close entirely. His mouth drops into a gasp. His head jerks backwards, and he says nothing more. Not for a long, long while. This is the payoff, for me. I wear the daddy mask just for this moment, when I see him so lost in the bliss of his fantasy, beyond words and the cares of the everyday, that his body shakes with pleasure.

After our long lovemaking, yesterday afternoon, I was drinking cold water from a glass mug as I looked at the largest of the photographs sitting atop his dresser. They're the only decoration I've ever seen in his spartan apartment; he must have dug them out fairly recently. The photo was of a young man with medium-length blond hair, handsome as hell, standing in a park with a hound at his side. The dog’s silky coat was glistening in the sunlight, falling around the dog's body like a pair of shaggy, bell-bottomed pajamas. There were matching glints in the young man’s wire-rimmed spectacles. “Is that you?” I asked Steve, letting the water soothe my raw and ragged throat.

“That’s me,” he replied, settling down by my side on the air mattress. He picked up the frame and studied the photograph. His face wore the somewhat sad, somewhat wistful expression of a man looking at the picture of an old friend he once loved but hadn’t seen in some time.

“The dog’s beautiful,” I told him.

“She really was,” he said. “She really was.” He paused, lost in thought, while I waited for more. “Sally was her name. She was an afghan. I had two afghans, once. Both were beautiful dogs. Total couch hogs. If they wanted up next to you when you were watching TV, they got their way. But they were my babies. Then I had to have one of them put to sleep because she had cancer.”

“I’m really sorry.” I waited a moment. “How old were you in that photo?”

“Twenty. . . .” He calculated on his fingers. “Between twenty-four and twenty-six. I forget exactly. Almost twenty years ago. Yeah, the first dog died of cancer just as I was at the end of my relationship with my first serious boyfriend. He was twenty years older than me. A librarian. We were living in Texas and he had two job opportunities—one in Ann Arbor, at the University of Michigan, you know, and the other in Seattle. So I went to Seattle with him and I realized . . . well, it was kind of strange. I realized I didn’t want to be with him any more. He was so settled and I was just young, you know. I wanted to travel and see things. I thought that's what it would mean to live my life. Going to Seattle to his home, with his furniture and his paintings and decorations—none of it mine—made me realize how much I was missing.

“So I told him that I was sorry, but I wanted to move out and see the world. He didn’t realize at first what I was saying. He thought he could kind of keep the home fires burning and that when I was tired of going new places, I’d come back and we’d live happily ever after. I kept telling him that I wouldn’t be coming back, but I don’t think he ever really believed me.

“When I'd left Texas to join my boyfriend, I’d boarded Sally with a woman I knew, just for a little bit until I could ship her to Seattle. When I picked her up, she told me, ‘Hey, your girl is a sweetheart and a real beauty. If you ever want to sell, I know just the guy who would love to have her.’ She named a name and I said, ‘Hey, I know Tom!’ He was a guy I knew pretty well who had an afghan already. So I knew he’d take really good care of her. I couldn’t leave Sally with my boyfriend, you see. He didn’t like dogs. He never remembered to feed them when I was out late at school or anything. The afghans were totally my babies. So I called Tom, my friend, and we talked, and he was thrilled to buy Sally from me. It gave me just a little cash, you know, for moving expenses, and I knew he’d love her just as much as I did."

He was silent for a while. At last I rested my hand atop his. When he spoke again, it was with a shaky tremolo.

“So I said goodbye, and saw her off. That night my boyfriend came home. ‘Where’s the dog?’ he asked, and I told him Sally was gone.” Steve got quiet for a moment. “He was just standing there with his briefcase, and then he dropped it to the floor. It fell open and all his papers fell out. Then he burst into tears. Because it hit him right then, for the first time, that I was leaving and wasn’t coming back and that our relationship was really . . . over.”

I reached out and pulled Steve close to me, until his head rested on my shoulder. I was afraid to speak, but after a moment of respectful hush I murmured, “How did you feel, giving up your baby?”

“I knew Sally was going to a good home, and there was just no way I could take her with me, so. . . .” His voice trailed off into silence. “I still miss that dog.” He draped his arm over my chest, and kissed my nipple. “I don’t know why I told you that story. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone about my baby, before.”

I kissed the daddy’s boy on the head, and held him close while we both stared at the photograph in the darkening room.