SWNOVELS Good Behavior: Chapter 2
Why did I go out to the truck? Nacho didn’t need my warning. Hell, he’s been avoiding me for months now, ever since we ran into each other at the grand opening.
You know why you went out there.
Yes, I do. I had to put eyes on him, make sure he’s taking care of himself.
“Brother, what’s going on?” Levy asks, nudging me. “Dude, you dropped, like, half a shell in the eggs.”
My heart is still racing from the feel of his thick, black hair between my fingers and how quickly he sank back into his role, breathless as he said my name. My proper name.
Dr. Barlowe.
Nacho is very much his own man, but when we slip into this dynamic…Ignacio is all mine.
“Bram?”
I startle and look over at Levy, who’s pointing to the pan in front of me. I look down and mutter a curse before walking the pan to the trash can and dumping the contents.
“You okay, brother?” Levy asks, handing me the carton of eggs.
“I’m okay. I just didn’t sleep well last night. Gonna need some extra coffee to get through this day.”
I’m not somebody who easily lets people in, but my brother and I have always been close, even if we are complete opposites.
I’m starched collars and pressed slacks, he’s old band T-shirts and blue jeans. I go to the barber for a trim every other week, and Levy’s schedule for hair maintenance is spotty at best. I write lists, he writes poems. I like to dissect thought patterns, and he likes to let horses help people listen to themselves.
While we are different, neither of us looks at the other with judgment. I admire his free spirit, and he admires my practical attention to detail. We’ve always been there for each other, and finding this job was a stroke of luck and exactly what we needed.
As much as we are open with each other, I can’t imagine sharing what went on with Nacho in our prison sessions. I’ve always been the kind of person to take charge, but I’d never done anything like that with a patient or a lover. I don’t even know if I could describe it.
I liked telling him what to do.
Sounds like nothing, but in our limited time together, it was everything.
As I crack new eggs into the pan, I laugh, thinking about how naive I’d been to think a prison system would mesh with my need to keep order.
Nothing is orderly in a prison system.
Moments before I’d walked into that life-changing first session, I’d been informed one of my longtime patients had died by suicide. His parole had been denied again and, despite the fact we’d talked about that possibility, the moment he was placed in his cell, he grabbed the syringe he’d stolen from medical and took a massive overdose of his homemade prison meth.
I should’ve cancelled the session, but my newest prisoner assignment, Ignacio Rivera, had killed a known rapist in self-defense. He was on the shortlist for early release due to good behavior, and the warden wanted to verify we weren’t releasing a dangerous criminal into the wild.
I’d known from his records that he was a good man I could help, and I’d needed a fucking win. According to his file, he’d asked to be called Nacho, but when he’d defiantly flirted with me right out of the gate, something inside me snapped. I’d decided right then and there that Ignacio would listen to me. That this one would make something of his life, so help me, God.
As a therapist, I am painfully aware of how irrational my actions were, but I had to be right about Ignacio Rivera. Had to.
When Nacho was released, I realized I wasn’t built for prison therapy. Or maybe I just couldn’t keep returning to that depressing building, knowing I’d never see him again. I should have felt far more guilty about our dynamic, but if I’m honest with myself, I just missed it.
And him. God, I missed him.
In the meantime, Levy had been enjoying his work as an equine therapist with the educational programs in the Waco area but could never make a decent living. So, I quit my job at the prison and moved in with my brother. Lost in a holding pattern, I did PRN work for the local hospital network while waiting for a sign. A sign for what? I had no idea.
While helping non-incarcerated patients is, I guess, easier at some level, dealing with Big Medicine reminds me far too much of Big Prison. For the most part, the doctors and nurses want what’s best for the patients, but this country’s healthcare system doesn’t give a cold shit about the people under its care.
Having already fudged my ethics in prison, I found it easy to alter insurance paperwork so patients with severe mental health issues could get their medications and return to their families. On more than one occasion, I’d worked with our hospital chaplain to misdirect or delay an immigration officer to give a patient time to slip out the door.
My boss had warned me on several occasions that the local head of ICE was complaining about the hospital’s inability to hold on to undocumented patients. She often did this while pushing a problematic case folder across the desk to give me the opportunity to do it again.
When the county district attorney threatened to file charges, pertinent video tapes suddenly went missing and they had to withdraw their threats. To this day, I don’t know if the chaplain or my boss stole the tapes, and I’ve never asked.
Several months later, Charlie Wills reached out to Levy and offered him a job at an equine therapy center. Levy discovered Charlie also had an opening for an experienced trauma therapist, and it felt like my sign had finally shown up. I’d go with my brother and stop living this half-life.
Time to start over in a new place.
The fact I’d directed Nacho to apply for a job in the same area hadn’t swayed my decision in the slightest. Besides, I had no way of knowing if he’d gotten the job.
The interview with Charlie had gone better than expected. He’d offered us the positions on the spot, pending a background check. We come from a rough neighborhood, but neither of us has anything on our records, so it was a lock.
A new start for the therapy brothers.
While waiting on the official offer from Charlie, I casually perused Instagram and happened to find Nacho’s account. I’d been amazed at how quickly I verified he got the fencing job and was living just outside of Johnson City. Not that any of that is relevant.
From a professional standpoint, it’s completely, utterly irrelevant.
When our background checks came back, Charlie asked us out to the ranch for a quick talk. Not sure what to expect, we were still surprised by the setup of the therapy offices. They’re in the barn itself. Even if patients are not involved in equine therapy, they’ll still be around horses and other barn animals.
A white cat missing half an ear sits at the top of the stall and meows as Charlie invites us into his office.
“Don’t worry about Smokey. She likes to say hi to everyone.”
More surprising than the setup is the NDA he has us sign as we walk in the door. Before Charlie can bog us down with the niceties, Levy cuts straight to the point.
“Are you rescinding either of our job offers?”
“No. But a few things have changed, and I need to give you more of the broader picture so you can decide if this is still a good fit for you.”
It’s then that his stoic business partner, Erik, walks in, joined by a sweet-tempered bloodhound.
Levy sits and puts his forearms on Charlie’s desk. “This should be interesting.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Erik says, dropping into a chair next to Charlie. The dog, whose name tag says Moose, does a series of lazy circle eights between Charlie’s legs before lying down.
Charlie pauses while I sit next to Levy, then dives right in. “As you can well imagine, a community equine therapy center is not exactly a money-making machine,” he admits, grimacing a little. “And the search-and-rescue element is all volunteer.”
“I was wondering about that,” Levy responds, stroking his beard.
That’s funny because, of the two of us, you’d think I’d be the one concerned with the profitability of the business we signed up to work for. Turns out, I haven’t even considered it. The business isn’t what’s holding my attention.
“Erik and I fund this place with a private, high-end bounty hunting operation, have done for years. It’s all perfectly legal, but when you’re being paid by an oil tycoon to find their runaway middle child, you often find things you can’t unsee.”
“What things?” I ask, thinking I know the answer. Wealth reveals a person’s true nature, and human nature is often pretty fucked up.
I would know.
“Before I tell you, I’ll remind you that you’ve signed an NDA.”
Levy and I share a glance, then nod.
“A subsection of the mega-rich like to traffic humans. Erik and I started turning over whatever evidence we’d found to the appropriate authorities.”
Having counseled a number of trafficking victims through both the prison system and the hospital, I admire the man for the courage of his convictions.
Levy, knowing the futility of their plight, snorts. “Bet the appropriate authorities were chomping at the bit.”
“Sometimes it was enough to fire up the authorities, but far more frequently, they’d look the other way.” Charlie scowls, seeming to remember something specific. “But neither of us could’ve lived with ourselves had we ignored what we found. So we started going on self-funded rescue operations.”
Levy and I exchange a glance.
That takes balls.
“Doesn’t sound totally legal,” I note dryly.
Erik responds, “We don’t go out of our way to break the law, but we will do what needs to be done to save the people who’ve been swept up in this.”
“And it’s just you two?” I ask, wondering if I’m missing something.
Charlie clarifies, “Yes and no. Our main focus is the people who have been trafficked and enslaved. We try our best to direct the local authorities to the criminals running the operations, but we also don’t wait to help the people if the authorities are too busy ignoring traffickers and pedophile priests to go after trans kids.”
Facts.
“Okay, but do the criminals ever come after you?” Levy asks.
Charlie’s fingers go to a scar near his hairline. “I had a guy come after me here, but that didn’t go well for him.”
“Wait,” I say, leaning forward, tapping the desk. “Here as in here?”
“Yes. He broke into my house.”
“And…”
“It didn’t go so well for him,” Charlie repeats with a raised brow.
I have more questions, but Erik sends me a cut-it gesture while Levy goes in with another question.
“What if the authorities are on the take?”
“We now have contacts down the road in Wimberley who can take care of the traffickers extrajudicially if the authorities are somehow involved.”
‘Wimberley as in Wimberley, Texas? As in swimming holes and shopping Wimberley?”
Charlie grimaces. “Eh…the less you know about that, the better.”
“And what happens to the people in all of this?”
“We work with legitimate anti-trafficking organizations on the ground as much as possible, as they are the most equipped to help with reunification, transport, and immigration.”
“That’s admirable,” I respond, “but I’m curious as to why you’re telling us all this.”
“Sometimes the people being rescued fall through the cracks in the system. We find alternatives for them, which sometimes requires transitional housing. As much as we want to keep our anti-trafficking work separate from Wild Heart, we’re not going to throw someone to the wolves just because they don’t fit into some bureaucratic box.”
“So we’ll occasionally be working and living with victims of severe trauma,” Levy verifies, which checks with my understanding.
“Yes. In fact, we’ve recently had such a person join us, which prompted us to make sure you have the facts before you officially sign on.”
“Yeah, but this one’s not temporary,” Erik grunts. “He’s ours, and he’s here to stay.”
My eyes widen at the gruffness in his tone. “Uhhh…are you saying that you own him now?”
Erik sends me a look. “I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”
Levy laughs, and I discreetly elbow him.
“And no,” Erik answers brusquely. “Ant is ours, as in he’s been staying with my family for a while, and now he’s been set up with a local job, and we’re about to offer to have him live here at the bunkhouse in exchange for cleaning up after the horses.”
Moose lets out a low woof of agreement, and Erik rubs his head.
Levy and I share another look, and I lean in. “I have no problem providing emergency support for a temporary resident, but it’s considered unethical to provide therapy to a member of the same household.”
Guilt twinges my belly. Who appointed you the king of ethics?
“He’s refusing therapy at this time. But he’s a sweet guy and he needs friends.”
“Friends?” I ask, raising my brow.
“Yeah,” Charlie says, using his fingernail to scratch at something on his desk. “He’s still learning how to live as a free adult.”
“I don’t see any problem with that,” Levy says, knowing I agree.
“Good,” Charlie says, letting out a relieved breath. “So you’re still interested in the positions?”
I don’t even have to look at my brother to know his answer.
“Yes,” we say simultaneously.
While I’m happy about the prospect of working with my brother in his chosen field, the addition of these severe cases makes the years of feeling lost fall away.
These are people I can help.
“Bram?” Levy asks, and I have a feeling it’s not the first time he’s called my name.
I blink, realizing I’ve been staring out the window. He raises his brow, and I look down at the eggs, snarling at the burnt edges.
“Bram, what’s going on? This thing with Charlie and Justin got you in a knot too?”
“Uh, no. But I went out and talked to Nacho, and he seems upset as well.”
“He’s your patient from Waco, right?”
“Uh, yeah. I was asked to talk with him after a violent incident,” I say, omitting the more prurient details. “I didn’t work with him long. He didn’t have much time on his sentence and wanted to get out and do good wherever he landed.”
“Looks like he followed through. It’s nice to see the community accept him, even with his history,” Levy says, keeping his tone even.
He respects me enough not to pry, and hopefully, he’ll assume I’m keeping patient confidentiality, not that I’ve crossed major ethical lines.
Fuck. I’m not even sorry.
Just thinking about it, I can picture leaning over to strap Ignacio in, smelling his arousal mixed with the prison laundry soap in his always pristine clothes. It was all I could do not to sink my mouth onto his cloth-covered cock. I would push his chair under the table when I wanted him to access the underhang he could rub himself against, and I’d keep it back when I wanted him to sit there with no relief.
What we did was never about pain or humiliation. Even as I’d tighten the belt across his legs, I never locked it in place. He could’ve loosened the belt by simply parting his thighs, but he never did. He wanted someone to pay attention, to notice whether or not he complied.
And I’d noticed everything. I’d needed his breathless compliance, needed to soothe his upset heart, and needed his cheeky rebellion when he started feeling better. I loved instructing him on how to sit properly and impress potential employers with his words and ideas. We’d practice interview questions, and he could barely hide his satisfaction when I praised his hard work.
In our last session, I’d pushed our usual boundaries further than ever. I’d given him instructions about cleaning his cock thoroughly as I stepped up to him. He was seated, and I knew I was too close, yet I rocked forward as he turned to me. I could maybe fool myself into thinking it’d simply been a mistake, but I palmed the back of his head and rolled my hips, a split second of madness.
I suppose that doesn’t sound like much compared to how other people have abused their power, but I know what I did. He acted as if nothing had happened, but the sound of Ignacio inhaling my scent fueled many, many instances of self-pleasure in the days and weeks after.
Worse, that was the last time I saw him in prison.
By the time I found out the warden had approved Ignacio’s early release—which I’d signed off on—he was already gone. I certainly couldn’t admit that it felt like a profound loss. I’d swung from proud to distraught on a minute-by-minute basis, shocked to find I’d grown to need him as much as he needed me.
God, don’t be a creeper, Abraham.
I’ve mostly kept this to myself because I don’t want Levy implicated in any way, but maybe also because I want him to still think of me as his rule-follower brother.
What a joke.
Once I’ve managed to cook a pan of edible scrambled eggs, I allow myself to remember Ignacio’s beautiful smile. I don’t know if I can stand to be away from him again, knowing he’s so close.