thomas lodge
patreon
My First Year with Austin - Chapter 23
🕑 Added 2023-09-19 10:00:03 +0000 UTCMY FIRST YEAR WITH AUSTIN
Chapter 23: An epic love story
Ralph and Janice met each other in a prison’s parlour. Not the best start for a love story, I will grant you that.
… Unless it turns out to be an epic one!
Ralph was incarcerated for running a network of escort girls (the fancy name for prostitutes), and Janice was visiting her best friend (also known as… me) who had been sentenced to a year in prison for getting involved in money laundering on behalf of a drug dealer.
First impressions between the two were not that great.
Ralph thought that Janice had a fine ass but that she seemed a little uptight and even arrogant. Worse than that, when he winked flirtatiously at her, - he was a very horny inmate after all -, she reacted like she was afraid of him.
Ralph enjoyed to scare men away, not beautiful girls.
Janice was overall intimidated: by the place, by the inmates checking her out, by seeing me in my prison uniform for the first time, and also, indeed, by this huge beast of a man.
The bodybuilder was very tall, very broad, his biceps were the size of your average guy’s legs and he was making no effort at hiding that he was staring at her.
To be fair, she may have been uncomfortable but Janice could not deny her own libido manifesting.
A man like Ralph does not go unnoticed and if he had his eyes on her, Janice was definitely checking him out as well. I mean, the bulge of Ralph was pretty prominent, no matter what he was wearing, and the convict was exuding some undeniable sexual energy.
After her first visit, he was the only inmate who had left an impression on Janice.
Sure, part of it was a gross feeling; Ralph was very shameless and hands-on with the woman who had come to visit him.
Thanks to eight years spent at her job, - Janice was working in a rehabilitation centre for recovering addicts, - she had learned not be judgmental, but she was not naïve either.
She instantly knew that Ralph was one of these inmates who were managing to score girls even from his prison bunk bed, - a man like this always gets what he wants -, and who was fucking desperate women in search for a bad boy at any “conjugal visit” he could get.
Janice pitied the women who would be falling in this trap.
That being said, was she touching herself thinking about all the bad things Ralph could do to her when she went to bed that night? Definitely, she was! And she most definitely came while picturing the dirty inmate drilling her pussy.
Especially since she had been, once again, left alone as her boyfriend had to stay late “for work”.
What else was she supposed to do?
Richard was living up to his name. He was a real Dick.
When Janice thought he had to stay at the Trade Centre to secure a key investment – everybody knew that the men in fancy suits working in finance were doing crazy hours -, Richard was most likely wearing a superhero mask and twerking his hairy ass, receiving bills in his crack, at a gay club. But that, Janice did not know it yet…
Ralph and Janice got to see, and assess, each other a couple more times at the parlour until Janice learned that Ralph had somehow become a friend of mine.
I discovered many years later that as she was visiting me at the prison, Janice was getting increasingly curious (and horny) about Ralph.
I get that. The guy was manly, strong, and confident, it was probably our most natural prehistorical instinct to get fucked by him.
At least, that was how it worked for my gay ass while we were sharing a tiny cell!
But Janice had a boyfriend who seemed perfect for her. Richard was buying her flowers every day, was showering her with gifts, was making plans for growing their family… He was discreet but caring, always in control of himself. A mature man, very different from the losers Janice had dated before.
Sorry Luis if you are reading this, but you were cheating on her (including with me!) a couple months into your relationship with Janice. Those who had read My First Year in College will get the reference.
The only reason why Janice let herself indulge in her “inmate” fantasy with a shameless bodybuilder was because she was certain this would never ever happen, not in a million years.
In that sense, she did not feel like she was betraying Richard in any way, those were just harmless (nasty) thoughts.
The man was locked-up in prison and there was absolutely no reason why she would have to meet him again. Better touching herself thinking about him rather than one of her coworkers or someone else she knew “in real life”.
Well, that was discounting my intervention in the matter, of course.
Whether she had planned on it or not, I was about to make Ralph a part of Janice’s life.
Janice was only vaguely remembering the hot hunk from prison when she met Ralph again at my place.
She knew that I was seeing him from times to times, but she had not realized that it was for more than a drink to talk about the trial against warden Deen or Falcon. Ralph and I were actually becoming buddies and I was helping him with the development of his x-rated content online.
When she got to see him again, she was already engaged to Richard. He had proposed a couple months before and she had happily said yes.
I am not sure of how much this is true but lately, Janice has been pretending that she had never been in love with Richard to begin with.
He was checking all the boxes (on the surface), she was 30 and wanted to settle down, he was very much accepted and liked by her family and friends (to be fair, I did not like him that much, I had always found Richard rather boring), and she thought that it was the kind of relationships everyone should or would settle for. Love did not have much to do with that.
At some point in life, do you not just pick someone to be your partner for the long run? Is not it how that works?
Ironically, the night she saw Ralph again at a party at my house was also the night where Richard and she decided to advance their wedding date. They did not want to deal with the wedding planning anymore and they could not wait to get married.
We all know how this ended…
With all of us, Ralph cheered for the great news! Needless to say, he was shirtless and chugging beers at the same time. And again, Janice was not missing any of it.
For the first time, she was seeing the bare upper body of the man she had fantasied about during many sleepless nights. I can guarantee that she was not disappointed. After prison and while working on his social media and x-rated platforms, Ralph had never looked better and stronger.
Besides, the ex-con did not seem so intimidating anymore. He was plainly sexy and even… funny.
That was the certainly the hardest thing for Jan to admit, but Ralph’s shameless way of living his life, his straight forwardness, goofiness, and his redneck sense of humour was growing on her.
On paper, Ralph was everything she would not want as a boyfriend, he was the opposite to her “good all-around” fiancé.
Ralph had spent many years in prison and he did not seem remorseful about that. He was making a fool of himself at parties, was spending way too much time shirtless (or pantless), he was talking loudly, often acting as a macho, and now, he was even sharing sexual content online.
“The Nine Inches King”. That was just gross, right?
Any judgment from Janice about the adult content he was sharing would have been misplaced though.
First of all, as it turned out, Richard had been doing the same thing (and worse, acting as an actual gigolo) for years, only behind Janice’s and everyone’s back.
And secondly, Jan could hardly play the innocent card when she definitely had a subscription to Ralph’s page! Despite the fact that Ralph was now more or less part of her friends’ group, Janice had not stopped fantasied about him, especially since she had learned what he was packing between his legs.
Her excuse to indulge this time around? She was engaged and she would never consider anything serious with someone who would be otherwise known as “the Nine Inches King”.
What was the issue with looking at the filthy content the ex-inmate was gladly sharing everywhere online? And if she happened to be turned-on by it… So be it!
Even the raunchiest videos where Ralph was fingering himself, she found that hot.
Of course, she waited many years to confess this to me. She admitted that she was one of the first subscribers of the Nine Inches King’s page while she was drunk at the party for the launching of my first book.
It was a few days before she learned she was pregnant with their second child.
Funny how life turns out sometimes.
Anyway, things were looking impossible for Janice and Ralph at the time since she was about to have a cute, rather small, but very expansive summer wedding with perfect Richard.
That was, of course, until I had to ruin everything, once again!
You know the story. I found out that Richard was performing at the Man Cave and that he was the “Masked Hunk” everywhere online. Not only that, but Dick turned out to be a proper undiagnosed psychopath.
Looking back, I can confidently say that he was pathologically sick.
Not that it excuses his behavior, (the dude stabbed my boyfriend and myself, it would be difficult for me to have any compassion) but Richard had clearly been boiling up inside for years, living two separate lives, in a constant fear of being found out, of disappointing his fiancé and his close family…
He was probably wearing more of a mask when he had to play his “boyfriend” persona, rather than when he was the “Masked Hunk”. When I caught him up on his lies, his entire world collapsed. He could not handle being seen as a fraud.
He panicked. First, he tried to use sex – his preferred tool to get what he wanted – to get me, then, he tried to use guilt, and when none of those worked, he resorted to blackmail and violence.
To be fair, I really helped Janice dodge a bullet and, ironically again, Ralph had been the one to make it possible by driving me to the chapel.
I barged into the wedding. I told everything to Janice. We ran away to Greece. We made a pact not to go back with our ex-boyfriends. Sorry, Janice. I could not hold that one for very long… and Janice had to re-build herself from this.
She kept up the appearances, but it remains one of the biggest traumas in Janice’s life. Being betrayed this way, for so long, and learning this betrayal while you are wearing your wedding dress, surrounded by your family. Ouch. That has to hurt!
Of course, now that I know the full story, it is clear that it was the best thing that could have ever happened to her, but back then, Janice pretty much lost everything.
Being a runaway bride, leaving your closed-ones stunned behind you, having to move into a much smaller apartment with your best friend. And not only that, the attack in the club a few months later was awful for her.
She felt incredibly responsible and Janice stayed at my side for months when I was in the coma, all the while she thought I was hating her, (as if I could ever hate her!), and then, when I was slowly recovering.
All and all, it had been a very rough year for Janice.
The woman had the damn right to change her hair color (she has reverted back to brunette since then) and I guess that it made a lot of sense to find some comfort in the arms of an Adonis who was spending as much time as she was in my hospital bedroom.
Thinking of which, I should not have been surprised when I saw the footage of Ralph and Janice fucking in our king size bed.
Yet, I had not seen it coming! Janice and Ralph together sounded like such a surreal idea.
Maybe I had died in my coma, and I was living in the afterlife.
Was I?
No, I will not do that to you, my dear reader, this is not a “everything was a dream” twist. Janice and Ralph sleeping together was all real and I needed answers!
With the picture of both Austin and I’s engagement rings, I sent a text to the both of them:
“Hi lovers, we’re engaged! Turns out, Austin was planning his own proposal. (OMG – I know)!”
I wondered if they would pay attention to the “lovers” that I had sneaked in there.
Not really. They both ran to our hotel room and congratulated us as if nothing was going on between them. The nerves of those guys! I could not believe how naturally they were acting with us and with each other when they had fucked in the same room less than an hour prior!
Sergio and Allison came up to our room as well shortly after, they were both really surprised by the engagement, and it was neither the time nor place to mention the recording.
Austin and I were too much in our own world anyway. He fucked me senselessly afterwards and he let me fingered his beautiful ass. I was so close to fucking him. I came right between his ass cheeks (and licked my own sperm dripping from his butt afterwards).
Everyone has their own way to celebrate, right?!
We did make another big decision that night. But more on that later.
“How was your first night with your fiancé?” Janice enquired the next morning.
The nosy girl, she did not know what she was in for!
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How was your first night with your new lover?” I asked with a cheeky smile on my face.
“My new lover?”
How would she still not get the hint?! I thought I was being pretty obvious.
“Janice... Ralph messed up the recording of the proposal last night.”
“I’m not following you.”
She was drinking her coffee, checking the ring on my finger. If she did not pick up the clues I was laying down, I had to be more upfront about this.
“Ralph did not press record before we got into the room, but instead, he started recording when you were setting up the decor, with the camera… pointing right towards the bed.”
Janice’s face got redder as she finally understood where I was getting at. And not only that, she was putting together that I had seen it all! The full sextape!
“Oh no…” She put down her coffee.
I bursted out laughing.
“Janice! Getting at it with the Nine Inches King! Girl, what the hell?!”
“Oh please, don’t call him that. He’s just… He is a… An adult male performer.”
She had to laugh at the ridiculousness of her own comment, but she was hiding her face behind her hands.
“What did you drink last night to suddenly jump on him? In my own freaking bed on top of that! In front of a camera!”
“Of course, I did not know the camera was rolling! And to be clear, I did not drink anything.”
“So, you just decided that you wanted to taste the nine inches? Just like that!”
“Stop saying that, and, Tyler, you got it all wrong.”
“Unless you are about to tell me you have a blond twin sister who is here with us in Vegas, I’m not really sure how I could have gotten it wrong. The footage was pretty explicit!”
That would have been a funny twist as well, the Evil Twin, don’t you think? But that was not it.
“No… Obviously, we did have sex with each other. I’m not denying this. But you got it wrong thinking this was the first time…”
“JANICE!” I howled, spilling my own orange juice everywhere.
She smiled and rolled her eyes.
“I know…”
“Since when is this happening? You two are… I mean, I see you both all the time… How, when, where… WHY?!”
“When? While you were in the coma. How? I was feeling pretty bad about myself and lonely. I was very worried too. Ralph on the other hand was super optimistic, always here to cheer me up, and…”
“…He found a creative way to cheer you up!” I finished her sentence.
“Basically.”
“Good Lord, cheeky dirty Janice! Who would have thought?”
“What do you want me to say? He’s very hot, he knows what he’s doing, I did not think I could get attached. I thought it was harmless.”
I was most surprised by her last words.
“Wait… It’s not harmless anymore? Like, it could be serious between you two?”
“Are you from the police or what? Cut it off on the investigation.”
“I’m just a well-intentioned curious friend.”
She nodded her head.
“I don’t know, it’s still fresh…”
“I got out from my coma more than three months ago! From what you’ve just told me, you’ve been fucking this whole time, it’s not that fresh!”
“In my defense, it’s not easy to stop when you have found a way to enjoy yourself and release some of the pressure.” She smiled. “I really did not think we would still be… doing it… so many months later, but… here we are. And now, it’s no longer a secret… You know. Austin knows. Crap!”
“That does not change anything, Jan. Don’t put pressure over yourself because we know.”
“Still…”
I became a little more serious. I did not want her to feel bad.
“It’s definitely surprising but Ralph is a great guy, you’re amazing yourself, do whatever you want! It is not like I am in any position to judge you.”
“I guess, you’re right… But it was all just a fun thing when it was a secret but now, I feel like we have to make a decision, actually start dating or end this.”
“You can be sex friends! Who cares? You don’t need to put a label to whatever you two are doing. All I can say is that I did not know you were that flexible! The footage was quite enlightening.”
Janice played with her hair and rolled her eyes again.
“Ty, I don’t think that I want to be his sex friend.”
“Ok then.”
“No… I… I think I actually like him.”
I thought that the two of them having drunk sex in Vegas was pretty funny and a great excuse to tease Janice, however, what she was telling me at this point was way more than that. I had no idea.
“Let me have a second to process this. It’s not just that you’re having sex with Ralph. You like him?”
“You think that’s a mistake? I know that’s certainly is, but… He’s really different when we are together.” She said defensively.
“No, I don’t think that’s a mistake! I mean, I have no idea. Again, it’s all new to me, but if you feel like this could work, go for it. I’m really just surprised, that’s all.”
“I know that his job is sort of crazy, the way he performed, just last night… Sometimes, I wonder, what the hell am I doing? But see, he does not do anything with other girls, he… He sort of made it clear that he wanted for us to be serious. He was pressing me so we could tell you, but I was the one being reluctant.”
For a second there, the idea crossed my mind that Ralph might not have messed up with the recording…
Could it be possible that he had filmed his sextape with Janice on purpose? To this day, he swears that he did not.
“Look, Richard seemed too good to be true and he was the worst piece of shit. At least, with Ralph, you have it all on the table.” I pointed out.
“That’s for sure… He’s putting it all on display, no mask or anything.”
I smiled.
“I would be lying if I did not tell you that a part of me is worried that you might get something going between you two and then, break up. I love our little gang as it is and relationships between friends can end badly, but it could also work out! And, as it seems, you are already in too deep to go back to just being friends.”
“Probably... Oh God, it does feel good to be finally able to talk this with you! I was going to explode with this secret.”
“Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
“I was not sure how you would react, or if this was going anywhere at all. I know you share a special bond with Ralph. You were in prison with this guy. He told me all about the things you talked about during your audition last year… Including the things you had to do with the warden.”
Shit.
I did not expect my sexcapades with Ralph to come out at this point. Frankly, I had not even thought about that.
“Sometimes, sex really does not mean anything, and I can promise you, when Ralph did stuff with the warden, or when the warden made us do stuff with each other, it was definitely one of these meaningless moments.”
Janice put her hands back on her face to hide her eyes.
“I was thinking the other day. Luis fucked you while we were dating, Richard has tried to fuck you while we were engaged, and you’ve pretty much had sex with Ralph in prison.”
“Jesus Christ, Janice. Don’t put things this way!”
“That’s just the truth. We have a very weird friendship, Tyler, and you have very weird relationships with my boyfriends or ex-boyfriends.”
“Okay, but those were three completely different situations. And it does not change the fact that you’ve just called Ralph your boyfriend!” I called her out.
“Damn. I had not even noticed!”
Maybe that was a happy mistake that morning, but Ralph did become Janice’s boyfriend. And it was certainly not just a fling.
Not many people would have bet on Janice and Ralph to last on the long run.
But they did.
Once their secret was out, they decided to own it and their relationship felt instantly natural. I was maybe too busy with my own things going on, - the coma, the recovery, the proposal -, to notice but Ralph had changed in the past few months and Janice too. It just clicked.
And it has been clicking since then, to this very day when I am writing these lines, more than ten years later.
What I am about to say might sound cheesy, but let me have this, we are nearing the very-end of the story here. I am feeling very honoured and privileged to have gotten the opportunity to see them growing together, both as individuals and as a couple.
From their first “official” dates, to the moment they started to live together about six months after this Vegas trip, to their wedding one year later and the birth of each of their three children, I have only seen them being more fulfilled and happier year after year.
Ralph ended up getting the Vegas residency (who was surprised? He was nailing his performances) and later on, he set up his own stripping company. I worked with him on its development until I became too busy with my work as an author.
Sometimes loves is a mystery, and sometimes, you know just by seeing two people interact with each other that they were meant to be together.
If all the mistakes, mishaps, and wrong paths I had taken in my life had led to Janice and Ralph meeting each other and falling in love, I think that all of my messed-up adventures were worth it.
They often told me that they had practically zero chance to ever get together if it had not been for me ending-up in prison.
Maybe that is true, or maybe, their paths would have crossed anyway. Maybe they are soulmates, or maybe they just met at the right time and at the right place, when they were ready to commit into a truthful and genuine relationship.
Who freaking knows?
What about me, then? What about Austin?
As the rest of the group joined us at the breakfast table, it was time to share our own news. Austin and I had made a decision during the night!
“Guys, what do you think of staying one more night in this hotel?” I asked the others.
“Depends on who’s paying.” Ralph joked.
“We would.” I spoke. “Noone makes their guests pay to assist to their wedding, right?”
“What?!” Janice practically jumped from her seat.
Austin laughed.
“Neither Ty nor I want to spend months and tons of money planning a wedding. My family had already come to a wedding of mine and we all know that marriage ended badly.”
“The wedding ceremony does not matter to us, at all. We really just want to be married.” I added.
“Damn, guys, you’re really doing this?” Sergio said, excited.
“I think we are.”
“I mean, we’re already in Vegas! What better place for a shotgun wedding?!” Ralph cheered.
“They’re right! Let’s do this!” Allison raised her glass as well.
Were we really about to do this?
I guess you will still have to read one more chapter of this book to find out if this story ends with a happy ending…
*
[It is hard to believe that after three years, three books, and 71 chapters, we are so close to the finish line! I hope you have enjoyed learning about the fate of two of my favourite characters, I know this chapter was a bit different but I really wanted to tell the story with a different perspective. Now, it is time for the epic conclusion. Are Tyler and Austin really meant to be together? See you next week!]
Comments
thomas lodge
Not in this book but I may play with these characters in other stories. I think all three have a lot of potential. Especially Sergio and Carlos which I could explore more.
memo2dt
Janice does deserve a happy ever after, but now I see both she and Ralph in a different light. She has been banging his best friend for months and they made a choice to keep it from him. The person who helped him start making real money deserves better treatment than that, especially when he continued to do so even though his own boyfriend did not like it. I hope there is a resolution as to what ever happened to Richard. The lSt I remember is he was let our on bail. I am looking forward to how you end it. Will you finally write a true happily ever after. What ever it is I am sure you will do it justice.
Jaqc
Afraid this conclusion won’t include the NY visit of Ralph & Sergio’s teased reunion with Carlos :(
