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Release


Ludub

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I think I get far too engrossed into your plots its almost too much too say :lol: I really hope that you do finish Spiked and I say carry on writing even if its not on here because you really are good. Don't let your talent turn into Driftwoo Oh dam this winky face its drifted into the middle of the word lol:wink:d

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You know you've got my full support on this. It's not about running out of ideas or having writers block, it's about knowing people are enjoying it, what you could do better and what people want more of etc.

As you know I haven't read this, because I haven't yet finished Caged, but I will be sad to not have this finished for when I do get there. Hopefully you can still finish it and send it to me when you're ready :wink: 

 

Everyone take note - please.

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I understand what you're saying.I'm kind of half and half.Part of me writes because I enjoy it, from which perspective anything else is a bonus.But I do agree that when you post something online, you're hoping to get a reaction to it and it can be disheartening when you're met with thudding silence or generic comments, not just on BTTB but in general.That said, I think if two or three people are enjoying reading a story (or maybe even if you've just got one person who is obviously really involved in and following it) then for me that's enough.There have been times in the past when I've just been relieved to see the view counter going up even if no-one's commenting: Fortunately, that hasn't happened in a long time.I do appreciate your comments on my fics, I've tried to personalise my comments in return.There have been times when I've read a chapter of a fic (not yours) and thought that I haven't really got anything to say about it, or at least not anything different from what three other people have already put, in which case I won't bother.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, this is embarrassing! :blush::lol: Think I may have gotten just a little over-emotional the other week and ended up throwing my toys out of the pram! lol! Really sorry guys! I was having a very bad few days, and I guess I just threw a bit of a tantrum. I probably sounded very ungrateful and childish.

Red, you definitely have a point. I should really be content if even a few people are following. I didn't mean to sound ungrateful for your comments, they're always much appreciated. 

I do have another chapter of Release written (if anyone still wants to read it).  Again, sorry for the strop! :blush:

 

Chapter 4

 

2 weeks ago…

 

Constable Harkins peered out from behind the bullet proof glass at the scene unfolding by the door. It had been a relatively quiet Friday night up to now. Just a couple of drunks and a minor fistfight so far. Right now, there was an older man sitting on the plastic chairs who’d come to pick up his graffiti-tagging teenage son, and a woman there to get her drunk-driving husband. Other than that, he’d had a few people in to make robbery reports. Not much to write home about really. A surprisingly quiet Friday night for a city centre police station. Not that he was complaining! But here were two nice looking young women carrying a cardboard box and dithering by the door.  He could see that they were having a hushed but heated conversation and arguing over the contents of the cardboard box. One seemed to want to leave while the other was trying to come forward to the desk. It wasn’t an unfamiliar scene in the police station on any given day. Probably just an argument over property, he thought. They got that a lot. “Can I help you?” he asked over the intercom, with what he hoped was a friendly smile.

“No! It’s fine!” he heard one of them call out to him as she motioned to her companion to leave, “We were just going!” She pushed the door open and stood waiting for her friend to follow her. “Chloe? Come on!” she coaxed.

“I have to do this!” whispered Chloe, “We have to do this! You know it’s the right thing!”

Harkins couldn’t hear the conversation but he could see the look of indecision on the blonde one’s face. He couldn’t help wondering what was in the box.

“Oh, my God!” groaned the darker haired one, in a way that said ‘This is mortifying!’ “I Can’t believe you’re seriously going to do this!” she whined.

“Gina! Can you just grow up?!” snapped the blonde, “We’re both adults… You can’t seriously be so embarrassed about this that you’d let someone…”

“It is embarrassing!” complained Gina, “Is it so weird that I don’t want people knowing about my private business?!”

“Yeah, Gina… You know what?! It is!” she answered.

“It’s embarrassing!” moaned Gina, “I don’t want people to know what we do!”

“You’re so embarrassed by ‘us’ that you’d let someone suffer like that?!” she asked with an expression of disappointment on her face, “I thought I knew you better than that!”

“I can’t see why you couldn’t have just mailed it in anonymously?!” whispered Gina, “We didn’t need to come down here and humiliate ourselves like this! What do you think these ‘good old boys’ are gonna say when you show them that thing?!”

“I don’t care!” said Chloe, but her face betrayed her true feelings. She hadn’t really thought much further than marching in here. Having to talk to a male police officer was going to be embarrassing to say the least! She was cringing a little already.

“Well I do!” argued Gina, “This whole thing was your idea in the first place!”

“Oh, like you didn’t want to try it?!” snorted Chloe, “You were all like ‘When’s it gonna get here?! How long’s it gonna take?!’ …I don’t know how many times you checked that postal tracker thing!”

“Yeah… but you’re the one that ordered it!” huffed Gina, “It was your idea!”

“God, how repressed can you be?!” snapped Chloe.

“I wondered how long it would be before you said something like that!” snarled Gina, “Just because I don’t go telling everyone who’ll listen… You know what my parents are like!”

“Ugghhh!” groaned Chloe, “So, that’s what this is about, is it?! Your dad?!”

“Yeah… you know what?!” she replied a little bitterly, “I don’t want my dad to know about this! I don’t!”

“So, what?!” demanded Chloe, “You’re gonna hide it from him forever?! Pretend to be what he wants you to be?! Marry a man to make him happy?!”

“He just… He doesn’t need to find out like this!” said Gina, “Not like this!”

“Then how?” asked Chloe, “Because I don’t see you telling him ever!”

“I just… I need time” sighed Gina, “I don’t get how you don’t understand that!”

Harkins was watching intently and desperately trying to understand what was being said. He saw the blonde glance at him over her shoulder in a way that said she was beginning to back down. She was obviously considering leaving with her friend. “Are you sure I can’t help you?” he asked again, deliberately interrupting their conversation, “Did you have something you wanted to report?”

The blonde one turned to look at him and then looked down at the box in her hands. It was clear that there was something in there that she wanted the police to see. She looked a little guilty too.

“Chloe?! Please don’t do this?!” begged Gina, “My dad will disown me!”

“Babe, I’m sorry… but I have to!” she replied, as she started to move towards the window, “I couldn’t sleep at night if I don’t!”

“It’s probably just a hoax?!” reasoned Gina as she continued to dither in the doorway, “…Some sicko playing a trick on people?!” She’d gone an even deeper shade of red. “It’s probably not true!” she insisted, in a last-ditch effort to convince her.

“We don’t know that!” said Chloe, turning to look at her again, “If it is true… and someone put it in this box, then it’s our duty to get help for them!”

“Okay but…” Gina started to say.

“Girls?!” interrupted Harkins. He’d heard the word ‘box’ multiple times now and was beginning to worry. Could there be a bomb in there?! “You need to tell me what’s in the box?” he said, getting to his feet. He had his hand hovering over the panic button.

Chloe dithered for a moment more, before giving a decisive little nod and turning back toward the policeman. “Yes… I um… I need to make a report” she said, as she took a few more faltering steps towards him and then placed the box on the little ledge in front of his window, “We need to speak to a… to a detective or something?”

“Okay?” he asked a little questioningly, as his eyes fell on the brown cardboard box now sitting in front of him, “Can you tell me what it’s in relation to?!”

“We um… we bought something online” said Chloe, as her face flushed a little red, “And we were… well… when we opened it to use it last night… we found something inside…”

“Okay?” he coaxed, “…and it’s something that we need to see?”

She gave a nod and stared down at the box. “We found a note…” she said, “Tucked inside… Inside the… well, inside the thing… in the bit where you put the batteries… and…”

“We need someone to see it.” said Gina, taking hold of her girlfriend’s hand. She’d obviously decided that they would have to face up to it together, even if she wasn’t at all happy about it.  She still looked like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. “We need someone to look into it and see if it’s for real.” she added.

“Okay?” said Harkins, looking down at the box, “Can you open it for me? Let me see what’s inside?”

“I’d uh… We’d prefer to do it somewhere private” said Chloe as she glanced at some of the other people in the waiting area. She was almost as red in the face as her girlfriend now.

“It’s a little embarrassing” said Gina, leaning in to speak quietly into the microphone, “Can you take us to a private room?”

“I’m sorry girls” he said, “…but I can’t let you through to the back without seeing what’s in the box”. His curiosity was really spiked now. What could possibly be in the box that would have them so red-faced?!

Chloe glanced at Gina in an embarrassed sort of way and then at the other people sitting around the waiting area. Everyone was watching now and waiting with baited breath to see what was inside. This is exactly what Gina had feared when they’d come down here. Gina gave her a shrug that said ‘well, we’re here now…’

“Um… okay” she said, as she slowly opened the box and tilted it towards him. Gina looked up at the ceiling in a ‘God, please let this be over!’ kind of way. They were both absolutely mortified!

He stared at the contents for a moment with his mouth hanging open and then looked up at the crimson-faced girls standing in front of him. He was doing everything in his power not to start laughing but it was a losing battle. “I’ll uh… I’ll get the Sarge!” he snorted, as he walked to the door. His shoulders were heaving up and down as he tried to stifle his laughter but it wasn’t working very well. He just hadn’t been expecting that! “Sarge!” he shouted out into the office, “You… uh… You need to see this!”

Fifteen minutes later and the two girls were sitting in a private interview room with the contents of their box laid out on the table in front of them. Sergeant Clementi was staring down at the handwritten note in front of him with a furrowed brow.

“And you found this note inside the… well… inside the battery compartment” he asked, as he eyed the large black dildo on the table. It had a leather belt that allowed it to be worn around the waist.

“Yeah” said a very sheepish looking Chloe, “I opened it to put the batteries in and this little… I don’t know… little ‘ball’ of paper fell out… and then we looked up the name...”

He nodded and read the note again. It was worrying alright. Especially since the girls had already done a little research and it looked like there could actually be some truth behind it. He ran his eye over the print out from the internet that they'd brought with them and glanced again at the Senior Constable sitting beside him. It all seemed a bit too specific to just be a hoax. She obviously shared his view. “And you said that this… this package came from an Australian website for… well… for these sorts of things.”

“An adult site” confirmed Gina, “Yes.... We didn't know it was gonna come from China.”

“Mmm-hmm” he said, as he slid a piece of paper across the table towards her, “Can you write the website down for me? We’ll need to see if we can trace their suppliers.”

Gina began to write it down, glancing in an embarrassed sort of way at the other officer who was watching with interest. She slid the piece of paper with www.eroticnights.com’ scribbled on it.

“So, you think you’ll be able to find him?” asked Chloe, “I mean… the guy that wrote that note?”

“I don’t know” admitted Sergeant Clementi, “I don’t even really know who to escalate this to… With it being… well… in another country.”

“But you have to do something!” said Chloe, “You can’t just ignore it!”

“I didn’t say I was going to ignore it” said Clementi, “I’m just not sure who would deal with something like this…”

“Can’t you find out?” asked Gina, “I mean, it sounds like this guy and his family are in serious trouble…”

Clementi read the note again and gave a little nod. “All I can promise” he said, “…is that I’ll do my best to make sure it finds its way into the right hands… You did the right thing bringing it in.”

“But you’ll let us know what happens?” asked Chloe, as she watched him slip the little piece of paper and the paper printout inside an evidence bag, “I mean, you will let us know if you find him?”

“I will” he said, with a little smile.

“Can we go now?” asked Gina. She’d had quite enough of this for one night. The female cop sitting at the table with them kept smirking. She obviously found this whole thing very amusing.

“You can” he said, as he started to get up from the interview table, “…but we might need to ask you a few more questions… so don’t go far.”

 

*****

 

Present Day…

 

Kyle was sitting on the edge of the decking, strumming at his guitar, and looking out across the back garden. He’d brought a six-pack of beer out with him and was on his third bottle at this stage. He did know that he shouldn’t be drinking heavily with his anti-rejection medication but he felt like he needed to unwind tonight. He’d certainly feel it tomorrow, he knew that, and he’d definitely get it in the neck from Ben later. He could just hear him now! ‘Why do you do this?! You’re a dad now! You can’t take those kind of risks with your health!’ He knew he was right of course! He was always right! He couldn’t really argue with a nephrology nurse, now could he? He saw the look of disapproval on Josh’s face as he saw him approaching and shrugged in recognition of it as held a beer out to him.

“You okay?” asked Josh, accepting the bottle as he sat down beside him. “I mean… you okay with all of this?” Ricky and Cameron were laughing loudly inside and could be seen in the doorway getting more than a little amorous. He knew that it was upsetting Kyle a little, even if he was trying to hide it.

“Yeah, I’m good…” sighed Kyle. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground and continued softly strumming at the guitar.

Everyone had done their best to look suitably excited for Ricky, even breaking out the bubbly and toasting the happy couple. It wasn’t like it had really been a surprise, but it was still hard to take, and Heath and Kyle hadn’t been able to hide their hurt, not for the whole night. Heath had made his excuses and left a little early, whereas Kyle had managed to slink outside for a few drinks while Ben put the kids to bed. If they hadn’t already agreed to stay the night, they would have left some time ago. It was all a little awkward.

“You seem a bit…” said Josh, trying to find a word that wouldn’t offend him, “I mean… It’s okay if you’re not okay with this…”

 “It was kind of inevitable…” he said, with a shrug of resignation, “Wasn’t it? …I mean… I can’t blame her…”

“Yeah, I guess…” said Josh, nodding in agreement, even if there was something in Kyle’s tone that said he wasn’t being honest.

“I’m happy for her” nodded Kyle, “I really am.” It was like he was trying to convince himself more than he was Josh. His voice caught a little on the final word.

“Yeah” said Josh, sounding less than convinced, “I know… Me too…”

Kyle turned to look at him for a moment with teary looking eyes before looking away again. “I am” he repeated, again with forced emphasis, “Ric’s the best woman I know… She deserves to have love in her life… and Cameron’s a good guy.”

“Yeah…” said Josh, “He is…” That wasn’t untrue but he knew that this was just killing the boys.

Kyle gave a little snort and shook his head. It was like he’d just said in his own head ‘but he’s not Brax!’

“I know it’s hard” said Josh, “I know it is… for you and Heath…”

“What?! To let Ricky hook up with someone else?!” he asked, before downing the contents of his beer bottle, “…just let her move on with some other guy, when for all we know, Brax could be…”

“I don’t think he’s coming back, Kyle…” sighed Josh, “I’m sorry… but I don’t think he is…”

“We don’t know that” he said, shaking his head, “That’s the problem… If I could just know for sure that he was gone, that he was dead… and that he wasn’t just gonna walk through that door someday… then I guess I’d be a lot more okay with it… If I knew that he wasn’t coming back I mean… But I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know if he’s alive or not… None of us do!” He gave a heavy sigh and shrugged his shoulders again. “It’s the not knowing… It drives me crazy sometimes… I mean… what if he’s out there, just locked up in some basement somewhere… with…”

“With Mick Harris?” said Josh, grimacing a little.

“Yeah… I mean… what if that’s really what happened?” said Kyle, his voice breaking a little with emotion. “What if he’s locked up somewhere and we just give up on him?!”

“I think they’d have found him by now” replied Josh, “I don’t think they could keep him all this time… Not for ten years… I mean, he’d be what? 45 now?”

“47” replied Kyle.

“I don’t think that’s where he is” said Josh, trying to reassure him, “I don’t want to say it, Kyle… but I think he’s dead…” Somehow that seemed like a much more appealing prospect than being used as a sex slave for over ten years. He knew that Kyle would think so too.

Kyle lifted another beer and took a drink from the bottle. He was just staring down at the ground in a pensive sort of way.

“I think…” continued Josh, in a cautious tone of voice, “I think… deep down… you think that too?”

“I don’t know” sighed Kyle, “I have days when I think that, and I try to let him go… to find some peace… and then there are days like today where I just think ‘What would Brax think of all this?!’ I can’t help feeling like I’m betraying him… Like, if I like Cameron, or laugh at one of his jokes, I’m being… I don’t know unfair to Brax or something? …It just… it doesn’t get any easier.”

“Yeah… I know” said Josh.

They sat in silence for a little while as Kyle played ‘Redemption Song’ softly on his guitar. It was a nice night tonight, with a full moon and very visible stars. Josh stared up at the sky with a sad little smile. Being able to be outside at night-time was still very much a novelty for him.

“How’s work?” asked Kyle, in an effort to change the subject. They hadn’t caught up for a couple of weeks and he could see that something was bothering him.

“Uhhh… yeah… it’s…” stammered Josh, “It’s… yeah, it’s uhhh… No, it’s okay.”

“What’s up?” asked Kyle, setting the guitar down beside him and turning to look at him with concern. Josh only became this inarticulate when there was something really bothering him. They’d spent enough time together to know each other’s tells.

“Nothing” said Josh, with an embarrassed little shrug.

“Come on, mate?” asked Kyle, “What’s wrong? That guy giving you a hard time again?”

“What? …uhhh… no” replied Josh, “It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Well… They want me to put in an application for a promotion” said Josh, chewing at one of his finger nails, “For a Project Leader”.

“Okay?” said Kyle, failing to see what the problem was, “So?”

“Sooooo… I don’t know if I want to…” he said, “I mean… I don’t think I’m good enough… and I don’t know… I mean, what if I mess things up? …If I get the job, I’d have to do presentations and… and stuff like that…”

“Come on, Josh!” said Kyle, with an encouraging little smile, “You know you’re good! They obviously think you’re good… I mean, why do you think they asked you?”

“I don’t know” he said, with a shrug, “…but I mean… Can you really see me doing all that stuff… having people looking at me, asking questions…? I’m not one of thosepeople…”

“You don’t think you’d be able to answer the questions?” asked Kyle, “I mean… aren’t you the one that does all the… all the hard stuff… and the prep work for the meetings? You know all the background… probably better than the guy presenting it?” He wasn’t entirely clear on what Josh did for the company he worked for, but it seemed to involve a lot of schematic drawings that looked a lot like blueprints. As far as he understood it, he did the hard work, while some guy in a fancy suit took all the credit and got the big bucks for it. From the sounds of things, this was his chance to move up the ladder. Why wouldn’t he take it?!

“Yeah” sighed Josh, “But right now, I get to sit at my desk where no-one bothers me… I don’t have to talk to anyone… and I kind of like that… I mean…this would be… It would be a big leap… and I don’t… I don’t think I’m ready for something like that.”

“So, you’re gonna say no?” asked Kyle. He hated to think that he would hold himself back like this. His employers had obviously seen something promising in him if they’d asked him to put himself forward.

Josh sat for a moment and stared at the ground. “I guess...” he said eventually, “…I don’t know…”

“Josh, come on?” said Kyle, turning to look when he saw Ricky and Cameron coming out into the garden to join them, “You owe it to yourself to try. You spent 7 years not really living, and now you’re getting an opportunity to make something of yourself…”

“Shhh” warned Josh. He didn’t want them to overhear their conversation, but it was clearly too late.

“What’s this?” asked Cameron, with a look of interest.

“Nothing” said Josh, “Just work stuff.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Ricky as she pulled Cameron’s arms around her waist from behind and leaned back into him, “What’s up?”

“Nothing” repeated Josh, “It doesn’t matter…”

“Come on, mate?” said Ricky, with a little smile, “Maybe we can help?”

“I’m fine!” he insisted, “Really Ric, it’s just some work stuff… Nothing for you to worry about.”

“I heard ‘opportunity’?” she asked, with a hopeful sort of smile, “What opportunity?”

He gave a frustrated sigh as he looked up at her and Cameron. He obviously wasn’t going to get out of this. They’d just keep pecking at him until he told them. “Yeah, look there’s a role coming up…” he said, “…and I’m thinking about applying for it… but I haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh wow! Josh! That’s fantastic!” smiled Ricky, “You should definitely go for it? What is it? Is it more money?!”

“Yeah, it is” he said frowning at Kyle. He hadn’t wanted them to know. In fact, he hadn’t even wanted to tell Kyle, so he really didn’t know how he’d ended up here. He’d just been trying to avoid a conversation about Debbie. That would have been even worse! “I don’t know if I’m gonna apply though” he said, “I haven’t decided.”

“Oh, come on, Josh?!” argued Ricky, “You have to apply! Why wouldn’t you?!”

“I don’t know” he answered, with a non-committal shrug, “I guess I just… I don’t have a CV or anything like that… I wouldn’t even know how to do the application.”

“I can help, if you want?” said Cameron, “Seriously, I’m good at all that stuff!”

“Really?” he asked, looking up at him in surprise, “You’d do that?”

“Yeah, why not?” laughed Cameron, “I can help you practice for the interview too, if you want? …I’ve interviewed a lot of people…”

“See the man I’m marrying?!” giggled Ricky, as she glanced up at him and he leaned down to give her a little kiss on the cheek, “So many talents!”

“If you don’t mind?” asked Josh, wondering what he was getting himself into, “I mean… I don’t want to put you out…”

“Course!” laughed Cameron, “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to do it! Come over tomorrow night, or Sunday, and we’ll go through it.”

Josh gave an embarrassed little shrug and glanced at Kyle who just nodded his encouragement. He couldn’t really say no, could he?! “Okay… thanks” he said, giving a little nod, “I really appreciate it.”

Just then there was a loud beep and Cameron pulled his phone out of his pocket to look at it. He frowned a little when he saw the message on his screen. “Sorry, babe” he said to Ricky, “I gotta go make a phone call… kay?”

She smiled as she watched him walk back towards the house. “His work” she explained, as she looked back down at the two boys, “He’s so dedicated!”

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Great chapter and I'm so happy that you've updated. I wonder if it was Brax that sent that message, I hope it was as then he would be alive but I hope he hasn't been through too much. IT would be tragic if he had and I'm not sure if he would be the same if he had, he probably wouldn't. If it was him I hope he gets home to his family soon, It's obvious that Kyle misses him, The last time he saw him was when he was locked up and I'm sure everyone else will miss him as well. Poor Kyle is obviously struggling to see Ricky move on with someone else and that fact that he feels guilty for liking Cameron and laughing at his jokes breaks my heart. He must love Brax so much that he feels like he's betraying him. I'm not completely sure but I have a bad feeling about Cameron. I just think that he's cheating on Ricky. The leaving for the phone call just seemed a little bit suspisious. Can't wait for the next chapter. Please update soon. 

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I don't know wheather to say or not but I feel like I just have to ask

Spoiler

Is Brax dildo man? :lol: He can't be dead that guy has nine lives doesn't he?

There were quite the few hints in that chapter and that very odd important phonecall that Cameron got there at the end... Hmmm I wonder what thats all about?

Oh and lets just say there was trouble of production with this story. Like they do sometimes with the movies :lol:

Glad to finally be reading its returning release

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1 hour ago, Kristen said:

 

I'm really intrigued to find out who sent the note in the dildo.

 

Haha I never thought I would ever read a line like that especally on a H&A fourm :lol: Very funny Oh Ludub thanks for your stories they do make me laugh

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