RULE NUMBER ONE

   “How do I mourn what never lived?”

The song’s singer must have followed me the entirety of last week, since that was how I felt.

  I had known him for a total of three days. And it took me three seconds to drown in his eyes, and even less to get me hooked.

 His rough hands as he peeled my clothes off. The heat of his mouth as he captured my mouth in his. His soft groans as he ordered me to touch him. The feel of him against my hands.

I groan out loud. The memories had stirred something down there. I had never felt like this for anybody. My body naturally responded to the curve of his, when we laid in bed together, His large arms around me, we… fit.

 “This never happened.”

It did. My body that shook from thoughts of him reminded me.

 “Forget me.”

How could I possibly? It was the best three days of my life. I was able to be myself for those three days. He laughed at my jokes, completed some of them. He watched me like I was the best thing that ever happened to earth. He listened to me. I was more than someone who worked at the resort he happened to be staying at. I was a person.

 “How is it that looking at you gets me so hot and bothered?” He murmured one night as we cuddled in the dark. True to his words, he jumped, quickly filling. My mouth watered, and just before we went to sleep, I swallowed his seed.

 “How could I forget you?” My questioned came out small and pained, even to my ears.

The taste of him is still very vivid, the way he smelled-- pinewood, vanilla and a hint of something else that made my head spin. His laugh constantly plays at the back of my mind, a sound that filled me with joy I had never experienced before.

 My eyes land on the sheet of paper I found in the room, a ripped envelope actually, but I knew it had belonged to him.

A week ago, the day before the night he slipped out of the room, I had gone to get us drinks from downstairs. We both knew he could afford it, but I tossed on my uniform, even if I was using my accumulated vacation days, to get us free drinks.

 I came up to him with the assorted drinks I had in hand, a huge grin on my face, because I had gotten away with yet another thing under his influence. His brows had almost touched, a frown on his face as he read a letter of some sort. Once he noticed my presence, the letter and the frown vanished. I never found the letter, I never looked, but I found the envelope it came in.

 He was a mystery, but also a magnet. He drew me in so deep, I overlooked the fact that I never once saw him with an electronic device, and he got a mail, when he could have easily used an email. But it turned out to be my luck.

 After waking up to an empty bed, all the things he brought with him, were all gone, like I had imagined every second. I searched for him everywhere, even on the Internet, but Kennedy Downing remained unfound.

 I kept his room, he had paid for an entire month, so I stayed there, soaking up every last scent of him before it was all gone and I went back to my mundane job and even more boring life.

 Then I found the envelope. It was a sign, the one thing he didn’t get rid of, it had slipped between the table had been sitting on when I walked in, and the wall. The universe was helping me.

 “License and registration?”

They were doing it to all the cars that drove down here, something must have happened. I had never done anything bad until I met Kennedy, but I was still shaking when I took my hand away from the steering wheel to find my license and registration from my glove-box. It reminded me of something he said,

 “Always the good boy, Alec, always the good boy.”

I continued the rest of my journey, driving down the road, I should have used a plane, but I was moving, yes, I was moving to be with the man I knew for just three days. He said he loved my truck, the night we went for a drive, he laughed at the sound, and while I was embarrassed of it, he patted the hood, telling me it sounded just like me when I begged.

 My cheeks flamed again, not because I was embarrassed, but because he loved the sounds I made. He said he could listen to them forever and never tire.

 WELCOME TO KINSLEY.

The tension I had been feeling the entire drive slowly came back. I was going to see the man I wanted.

 “I heard you quit, took you long enough.” Mara, one of the other waitresses said when I cleared out my locker.

I must have had a creepy expression on my face, because she raised a brow, and then sucked on her mouth.

 “You are quitting because of that guy right? The super hot one that looked at you like you were a piece of meat.”

The description of how he looked at me, made me twitch inside of my briefs. I was no means a small man, I was six feet, and with the resort’s policy to be fit, I could hold my own, but the man made me feel like I was the piece of meat he wanted.

 “You’d better obey whatever he tells you.” She said as she wished me good luck.

That was the thing, I was planning on disobeying every single rule he set for me, starting with the first one; Forget me.

The company was easy to find, the best construction company in the state. I knew he worked in a dignified place, you couldn’t afford to stay at the resort for a day, not to talk of a month if you didn’t have the means.

 Now that I was here, in clothes I wore when I left, I managed to wash my face, and brush my teeth at a gas station, I was extremely nervous. What do I say when I saw him? He had the ability to make me lose my train of thought like I was a child. The confidence I had when I started this journey-- this very long journey, I drove for hours unend-- flew out the window along the way.

 “You can do this Alec, you have got this.” I muttered to myself before checking my reflection in the rear view mirror. My hair was fine, my face was fine, why was I stalling?

 Finally, I climb out of my truck, in my ear I could hear him egging me on,

“Like you own it little Alec. Like you ought to be there.” That was exactly what he said to be when he had me steal the golf cart keys, and we drove around laughing. He paid for everything, he could use his pass, but getting me to do things like that gave him a hard on.

 “Welcome to Shepherd Construction, how may I help you?” The receptionist asked with a smile that came with the job.

“I am looking for a Kennedy Downing, we uh have an appointment.”

Sticking to the lie I practiced for front desk. I even dressed in khaki’s to look the part. Still, the receptionist frowns.

 “Kennedy Downing?”

“Yes, we have an appointment for two O’clock?” I try to sound impatient.

She frowns, sucks in a breath,

“Are you sure it is at Shepherd Construction?”

The way she asked made me second guess myself, but the envelope was in the truck and I couldn’t go check it, however, the words were seared inside of my brain.

 SHEPHERD’S CONSTRUCTION. The logo was a home and a magic hand adding a glittering touch.

“Yes it is, why?”

She inhales as if trying to find the words,

“I’m afraid we don’t have any one by that name working here.”