Crossroads Read online

  MASTER & APPRENTICE

  Book One:

  Crossroads

  By Ty Marton

  Copyright 2013 Ty Marton and APC Publishing

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The following story is a work of adult erotic fiction written as fantasy for mature readers. It contains graphic sexual acts between consenting adult males as well as scenes of intense bondage and sadomasochism. Anyone offended by this kind of material should stop reading now.

  All characters depicted are ABOVE THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN, and completely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is strictly coincidence.

  -TM

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  for Geoff

  Chapter 1

  Colby heard the truck a long time before he saw it. Walking down a particularly lonely stretch of Highway 15, surrounded by flat, empty farmland, there simply wasn’t a whole lot else for him to hear.

  Just keep looking forward, he thought to himself as he slowly lifted his arm and extended his thumb, doing his best not to get his hopes up. It had been almost twenty minutes since a car had passed, and with a distinct chill in the morning air, Colby was eager just to get in from the cold for a bit. All the same, he kept his eyes straight ahead; turning around to make eye contact simply felt too desperate for his tastes. Eye contact was a critical part of getting oncoming traffic to stop and give you a lift, but from his experience, it tended to backfire with vehicles coming from the rear.

  If anyone knew the ins and outs of hitch-hiking, it was Colby. He had spent the past four weeks walking the blue highways, the forgotten back roads of the age of interstates, slowly making his way eastward from California, drifting with the wind. He felt at home on the empty, dusty pavement, the long, winding roads that cut through the back country and offered him the promise of a million possible destinations. Colby didn’t particularly care where he ended up. He just wanted to get somewhere.

  He was taking a break from college – more of a stay of execution than anything else, really. Three years in, just one year away from graduating, and he still had no idea of what he wanted to do with his life, or of who he wanted to be. Everyone else seemed content to give it their best guess, and just march confidently forward. Not Colby. He was stalling, searching for something, for anything. He just wished he knew what it was. So, he hit the road, nothing more than a sleeping bag and a knapsack strapped to his back, hoping to figure out what it was he was supposed to be looking for. Twenty-five days and five states later, he still couldn’t tell you. Bill, the friendly trucker who had gotten him across half of Utah, had spent the entire drive pleasantly befuddled by the young man. “You’re trying to, I dunno, find yourself or something?” he had asked during one of their first conversations. “Ain’t that the whole point of college?”

  Colby really couldn’t blame him for his confusion. It wasn’t as if his destinationless journey made much sense to him either. He was living off of his instincts, not his rationale, and his instincts told him to get walking. Whatever it was he needed to find, he’d know it when he found it, and college would still be there when he got back. Or something like that, anyway.

  The truck drew near, and Colby heard the unmistakable sound of brakes being applied. It was a sound that every experienced hitch-hiker knew well, as it sent a Pavlovian rush of excitement spinning through the brain. Colby had found himself a lift.

  So finally, he turned, taking his first look at the old, rugged red Chevy and its driver. Despite his close shave and neatly combed hair, he had a rough, sandpapery look about him - the tanned, weathered appearance of somebody well-versed with work, somebody good with his hands. Colby wondered if he was a farmer. As he pulled to a stop beside the tall young man, leaning over to roll down the passenger window, the two met eyes, sizing each other up.

  “Where you headed?” the man asked.

  Colby shrugged. “Don’t really know,” he admitted.

  The corner of the man’s mouth gave the slightest hint of movement. If it was a smile, it was a record-breaker for subtlety. Without a word, he reached over and pushed the creaky door open for Colby, who climbed in, happy just to rest his tired feet for a bit.

  “So, you some kind of drifter or something?” the man asked, reaching forward and cranking the heat up.

  Colby smiled at the question. Drifter… It was just such a perfectly fitting word for him.

  “I guess that’s exactly what I am,” he answered.

  “Uh-huh,” the man replied, eyes narrowed in thought. “So, whereabouts are you drifting to?”

  “Doesn’t really matter,” Colby sighed. “I guess I’m just trying to head east.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The two sat in silence for a mile or two. Something was different about this man, Colby quickly realized. He was quiet, and he didn’t bother with the usual, superficial getting-to-know-you type questions that most motorists tended to ask. He hadn’t even asked Colby for his name. But that wasn’t to say that he came across as detached or disinterested – on the contrary, something about him seemed sly, almost devious. He held his cards close to his chest, but only because he was holding cards worth concealing.

  “You’re a lot quieter than most of the folks who give me a ride.”

  The man shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. “That bother you?”

  “No,” Colby quickly said, “But it does make you mysterious.”

  The subtle, microscopic smile returned to the man’s face. “I guess I’m just comfortable with silences. Lots of people aren’t.”

  Colby nodded, still puzzling over this strange man. Up close, he looked a lot younger than Colby had originally assumed from the age of the truck – he guessed that he couldn’t be more than forty, tops. And he was handsome, with dark, narrow eyes and a strong, weathered jaw that looked like it might as well have been carved out of wood with a rusty knife. Colby had always found older men attractive, often seeing them as templates for himself, examples of the kind of man he might someday choose to be. He envied their knowledge, their experience, their wisdom, and couldn’t help but gravitate to them.

  So Colby pushed, hoping to get to know this particular man better.

  “I’m Colby, by the way,” he said.

  The man turned, smiling, and held out his hand.

  “John,” he said, shaking Colby’s hand.

  “And what do you do, John?”

  “I’m a teacher at the local trade school,” he replied, eyes back on the road. “I teach industrial arts to young folk about your age.”

  “Industrial arts?”

  “Construction stuff,” he explained. “Carpentry, basic home repairs, how to fix a leaky roof, install a light switch. Stuff like that.”

  “Wow,” Colby said with a slight smile, impressed. “Wouldn’t have pegged you as the teaching type.”

  “Wouldn’t have pegged you as the drifting type,” John responded. “What are you drifting away from, anyway?”

  Colby smiled. “Everything,” he said. “Life was just moving a little too fast for me.”

  John nodded softly. “I guess we’ve all been there.”


  Slowly, John turned the wheel and brought the truck to a stop at the side of the highway. For a moment, Colby tensed, wondering if John was about to make a move on him, try and kiss him or something. It wouldn’t be the first time he had come across a repressed, closeted soul, and John, with his mysterious, quiet energy, seemed to fit the profile. Usually, Colby shied away from such illicit encounters, politely finding ways to decline and go about his way, even if it meant forgoing a much-needed ride. It wasn’t that he was prudish, or scared of casual intimacy – Colby was simply searching for meaning, and couldn’t see how he’d ever find it through meaningless sex.

  But still, he wondered how he’d react if John did, in fact, make some kind of advance. Unlike all the other times, he honestly didn’t know. His instincts, usually among his best assets, were spinning in a thousand different directions, like a broken compass.

  “Is everything all right…?”

  “Everything’s fine,” John answered, pointing out through the windshield. “That turn up there, State Route 86, that’s me. I live another eight miles south, and you said you were headed east…”

  “Oh,” Colby, replied, surprised to find himself deflating a little. “So this is where I get out of the truck then…”

  John craned his neck, a strange variation on a shrug.

  “Well, maybe. You eat yet today?” he asked. “I’d be willing to send you off with a hot meal, if you’d like that.”

  John turned, sizing Colby up as he considered the offer, reading the layers of temptation in the boy’s eyes. He was clearly hungry… and yet there was reluctance, fear even…

  Interesting.

  The offer was more tempting than John realized. Colby had spent the night before tucked away in his sleeping bag in a ditch, and hadn’t eaten since well before that. He was sore, hungry, and exhausted, and a warm, home-cooked meal… well, quite honestly, nothing sounded better.

  And, of course, there was the odd, magnetic appeal of this man…

  “Sure,” Colby answered with a smile, “that’s so generous, thank you.”

  John smiled back.

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  **********

  John’s home was rustic and peaceful – a small ranch-style house in the middle of the Nebraskan farmland.

  “Nearest city is about another six miles south,” John said with an air of pride as they pulled into the rocky driveway. “Can’t beat the privacy out here.”

  John showed Colby inside, giving him a quick tour of the homey, simply-furnished house, leading him to take a seat at the kitchen table while he fried some eggs and bacon.

  “When’s the last time you ate?”

  Colby laughed, embarrassed. “Don’t even ask.”

  John nodded knowingly as the bacon sizzled and popped. “Must be tough out there on the road, all by yourself.”

  Colby shrugged through a sip of orange juice. “I actually really like the solitude. Gives me plenty of time to think.”

  “I can understand that,” John said. “It’s one of the reasons I like living here outside the town limits.”

  “So you’re a loner?”

  John smiled, flipping the eggs. “I wouldn’t go that far. But I am a very private person.”

  “Private… Is that because you’re protecting something? Hiding something?”

  John turned to Colby, his eyes narrowed, a wry smile curling his lips.

  “You ask a lot of big questions.”

  Colby looked down at the table, a sheepish smile across his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I took a psych class last semester – must have picked up some bad habits.”

  John scooped the food onto plates and joined Colby at the table.

  “I wouldn’t quite call it a bad habit,” he said, neatly folding a napkin across his lap, his eyes inspecting the young man sitting before him. “But an interesting one, no doubt.”

  Colby was starving, and his stomach was screaming at him to grab his fork and tear into the hot food sitting in front of him. Nonetheless, he sat frozen, unable to look away from John’s piercing gaze from across the table, a gaze that demanded attention.

  “Interesting… how?” he asked.

  John relented, turning down to his food as he spoke, and Colby eagerly did the same, a strange feeling of gratitude washing over him, almost as if John had somehow given him permission to begin eating.

  “Well,” John said, pausing to chew at a piece of bacon, “most people are afraid of big questions. Big questions tend to come with big answers.”

  “So you’re saying there’s a big answer to my big question?”

  “Are you saying you really want to know?”

  The two locked eyes again, an electricity beginning to pass between them. Colby had only known this man a little over an hour, and knew next to nothing about him, and yet there was an energy, mysterious and oddly playful, that passed between the two of them like electricity through the air. Colby realized that he was scared of him, scared of not knowing who this man really was, scared of not knowing what he really wanted…

  And, with his dick inexplicably rock hard beneath the table, Colby was scared of the way this man made him feel.

  In the end, Colby’s awkward hesitation was all the answer John needed to hear.

  “Hurry up and finish your food,” he said, taking another bite. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  **********

  Chapter 2

  John led Colby out through the back door into the yard, where the two were greeted by an eager, brown-haired pit bull mutt, its tongue hanging happily out of its mouth as it came to sniff the newcomer.

  “This is Leo,” John said, giving the dog a thorough scratch behind the ears. “One of the best pups I’ve ever had. Say hello to Colby, Leo.”

  Leo barked, and John quickly took the dog’s left ear in his fingers, giving it a gentle stroke. “Good boy,” he said, his voice rich with affection.

  “Why’d you grab his ear like that?” Colby asked. “Does he like that?”

  John grinned. “Actually, when I first found him as a stray, he hated it. If I ever went anywhere near his ears he’d try to bite me. So I took it as a challenge, and started training him – whenever I’d give him a treat or tell him he was good, I’d rub his ear, too. Eventually, he came to see it as a reward, and now, he’ll come and sit at my feet, licking my boots, just waiting for me to reach out and give his ear a rub.”

  Colby nodded, impressed. “Smart.”

  “Leo’s the smart one,” John said with a smile. “Real fast learner. But then again, most strays I’ve come across tend to be fairly intelligent. You have to be if you want to survive on your own in the wild. The interesting thing is molding that raw, independent instinct into a loving, dependent creature.”

  Colby couldn’t help but smile, finding himself strangely drawn to this side of John. “Looks like you’re pretty good at it.”

  “You could say that,” John said, a twinkle in his eye. “But come on – back this way.”

  John led Colby back through the yard to what looked like a larger-than-average-sized garage, opening the door and gesturing for Colby to enter.

  “Welcome to my studio,” he said, flicking on a light.

  Stepping inside, Colby found a sizable workshop filled with power tools, workbenches, and lumber, a thin layer of sawdust coating the ground. Several projects in various states of completion sat in different parts of the room. Judging from the ones that were already almost finished, John was a master talent. Colby found himself gravitating towards one piece in particular, a solid oak rocking chair in the corner of the room. It sat strong and sturdy, with intricate patterns etched into the curved wood of the arm rests. Aside from those, the chair was almost utilitarian in its elegant minimalism. The focus was clearly on function, in a way that seemed to suit a man like John quite perfectly.

  “You make all these?” Colby asked, running his hand over
the wood.

  John stood back, proudly watching Colby take it all in.

  “Each and every stick. That rocker is my current baby – hand carved each piece. Just need to stain it and it’ll be ready. Gonna be a retirement present for one of my friends on the faculty.”

  Colby could hardly bring himself to look away from the chair, transfixed by its craftsmanship. “How long did this take you, John?”

  “Well, I started it right when school broke for the summer, so I guess it’s been almost a month now. Helps me to fill the time on these hot summer days.”

  Colby just shook his head in amazement, looking around the room at the various pieces.

  “This is incredible. How’d you learn to do all this?”

  “My daddy was a carpenter. Learned it all from him when I was about your age, maybe a bit younger perhaps.”

  Colby gave a soft snort, shaking his head some more. “Three years of college and tens of thousands of dollars of debt… I don’t think I could’ve learned to do anything this amazing.”

  John stepped in beside him, offering Colby a pat on the shoulder, letting his hand linger with a firm, paternal squeeze.

  “Well, education is important. But education comes in many forms. You have to be open to whatever comes your way.”

  Colby bit the inside of his cheek at the feel of John’s lingering grip. “I guess that’s why I hit the road…” he said.

  John nodded, finally removing his hand from Colby’s shoulder and crossing his arms in front of his chest. Immediately, Colby found himself wanting more of the mysterious man’s touch. There was a sort of electricity that seemed to flow between them – he only wondered if John felt it, as well… Probably not, he told himself…