Office Hours, Open House by Jace Wilder - Bonus Chapter

The Apartment in Iowa City

A Bonus Chapter from Office Hours, Open House • by Jace Wilder

A scene too explicit for retailers. The four men, six months later. Free for readers.

⚠️ Heads Up

Adults only (18+). This bonus chapter takes place six months after the epilogue. Riley’s first weekend in his Iowa City apartment with all three of them — it is, at length and on purpose, the most explicit scene in the entire Office Hours, Open House project. Major spoilers if you haven’t read the book. Includes daddy kink, praise kink, full quad penetrative sex with Victor switching/bottoming for Jude with all four present, on-page galley-copy reveal of Riley’s first novel, and a great deal of the cottage bed Riley packed in a U-Haul. No new pairings. No conflict. Pure aftercare and unmaking.

The Apartment in Iowa City

Riley

It is the second weekend in January in Iowa City, and there are six inches of snow on the roof of my apartment.

The roof is corrugated tin. The apartment is the second floor of a 1923 two-story over a coffee shop on Linn Street, four blocks from the workshop building, with steam radiators that clank, and pine floors that creak in the third-bedroom doorway when anyone steps on the threshold, and a galley kitchen that opens into a long sitting room where, at four-fifteen in the afternoon on Saturday, the light is gone the specific blue of a Midwestern January at thirty-four degrees north latitude — which is to say, gone almost completely, with the small last gold edge of it caught on the window across from the bed I am sitting on.

The bed is the bed.

This is, in fact, the part I have been thinking about all day. The bed is the cottage bed. I packed it in August. I drove it to Iowa in a U-Haul with Jude in the passenger seat and Finn arguing with Victor on speaker for the entire I-80 stretch through Indiana about whether the bed was, technically, property of the chapter house alumni endowment and whether I, Riley Voss, was contractually entitled to take it with me, and Helen Ruiz had sent us off at six a.m. on a Wednesday in August on the front step of the cottage with a thermos of coffee and her witch’s-hat smile and a single sentence in her voice she uses when she is closing a deal —

Take the bed, Mr. Voss. The cottage will get a new one. The cottage is, I think, going to be all right.

So the bed is here. The boys are here.

The three of them flew into Cedar Rapids at two o’clock this afternoon. They are here for ten days. Hawthorne starts late in January, Jude does not have his first faculty meeting until the fifteenth, Finn has — for the first time in three years — a winter break that is fully his, because he is no longer in his MFA program, because he has been teaching his MFA program since September. And Victor — Victor has, since November, been on his second sabbatical of his career, the I just published the book and they are giving me a year to write the next one sabbatical.

The four of us are, for the first time in five months, in the same room.

I am sitting on the edge of the bed in pajama pants and a t-shirt of Jude’s and the wool socks Mami sent me at Christmas, holding a manila envelope that arrived in the post yesterday morning, and the manila envelope contains the galley copy of my first novel, which my editor sent up on UPS overnight at her own expense because she said, on the phone on Thursday — Riley. The boys need to be in the room when you open it.

The boys are in the room.

Victor is in the kitchen at the espresso machine. Finn is on the couch with a book of essays from one of the writers he is teaching this term. Jude is on the rug at the foot of the bed putting together a small ottoman with a screwdriver and the slow careful patience of a man who has registered, in the small radar he runs in this household, that I am about to do a thing.

I look at the manila envelope. I look at the boys. I open my mouth.

What comes out is —

“Daddy.”

Victor turns from the espresso machine. He turns slowly, the way he turns when I have used the word in a register that is not one of the playful ones — Victor sets the cup down on the counter and walks across the apartment floor in his bare feet and stops at the side of the bed.

“Yes, Riley.”

“It came.”

“Are you going to open it now.”

I look at Jude on the rug — Jude has set the screwdriver down soundlessly, sitting on his heels with his hands flat on his thighs, watching me. I look at Finn on the couch — Finn has put the book of essays face-down on the cushion without using a bookmark, which is the Finn version of an emergency stop.

“I want to read it to all three of you. Now. In bed.”

Victor smiles. “Yes, baby.”

“And after.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“I want all three of you on me. In me. On me. I want — Daddy. I want you on the bottom for Jude. The way you were in November. The way you were on the afternoon of the vote. I want you on the bottom for Jude with Finn at your chest and me at your throat, and I want all four of us in this bed, and I want — Daddy — I want to hear you when Jude is in you, in this bed, in this apartment, in this city I am alone in five days a week. Yes?”

Victor sits down beside me on the bed. He puts one hand at the small of my back, low, warm, and one hand at my chin. He tilts my chin up.

“Yes, Riley. I have wanted that since you came home for Christmas. Read me your dedication first.”

I open the envelope.

I open it slowly, because I have been imagining opening it for two months, and because the boys have, in the last sixty seconds, all moved without making a production of it — Jude to the foot of the bed, on his knees on the rug with his elbows on the quilt; Finn off the couch, padding over in his socks, settling on the bed at my other side with his cheek already going against my shoulder — and Victor is at my back now, with his chin on my shoulder.

I slide the galley out. It is a rectangle of bound proof pages in a cream cover, with the title in dark green —

THE HOUSE ACROSS THE GARDEN
A NOVEL
RILEY VOSS

I open the cover. I turn past the title page. I turn to the dedication. I read it aloud.

for the four men who taught me to stop saving the best part for everyone else.

The apartment goes still. It goes still for a count of, I would say, four.

Finn, against my shoulder, makes a small wet sound. “Voss.”

Jude, at the foot of the bed, has put his forehead down on the quilt. He lifts his head. His face is wet. “That is the line, Voss.”

Behind me, Victor presses his mouth, once, against the side of my throat. “You did the work, baby. I am very, very proud of you.”

I set the galley on the nightstand. Finn, beside me, says into my hair — “Voss. Stop fixing the lamp. You are managing. Stop managing. We are in this bed because you asked us to be. Lie down.”

I lie down.

The four of us undress in a sequence I will, later, not remember the order of.

Finn takes my t-shirt off slow, with his hands at the hem and his mouth at my throat. Jude pulls off his sweater (my sweater) and crawls up the bed slow with his eyes on my face, and Jude — when he gets to me — leans down and kisses me on the mouth, slow, full. Victor undresses himself, behind me, the way Victor does it — without ceremony, with the small folding of clothes on the nightstand, with the glasses off and the hair pushed back.

The four of us in the bed, naked, in the lamp light of an Iowa City apartment in January, with the snow on the roof, and Finn at my shoulder, and Jude up on his knees over me, and Victor at my other side.

Victor says — very quietly, into the room, in the lecture voice with the volume off — “All right. Tell me what we are doing.”

“Jude, fuck me first. Slow. Daddy is going to watch. And then — and then I am going to put Daddy on his back, and Jude — Jude, you are going to fuck Daddy. And Finn — Finn, you are going to be at Daddy’s chest. And I am going to be at Daddy’s mouth. Yes?”

Finn into my shoulder — “Voss.”

Jude over me, with his mouth two inches from mine — “Yes, Voss.”

Victor at my other side, with his hand still flat on my stomach — “Yes, Riley.”

Jude works me open slow with two fingers first, lubricant warmed in his palm before it touches me, with his eyes up the length of my body on my face, with the slow patient curl that Victor taught Jude to use on me in November and which Jude — when he is the one in the room with me alone — has refined into something I am not, on the evidence, going to be able to live without.

Finn, at my shoulder, has gone half on top of me, with his cheek on my chest and his palm flat over my heart and his mouth at the place under my ear, and Finn is — quietly, into my hair — Finn is praising me. This is the new thing. This is the thing Finn has, in the last four months, become able to do.

“Voss. You are doing well. You are taking him so well, Voss. Voss, you wrote a book, Voss. Voss. Take it. Take what we are giving you. Take the book. Take him. Take it.“

Across the bed, Victor — propped on one elbow on his side, watching us, with one hand on the inside of his own thigh, the other moving slow at the base of himself — “Yes, Finn. Tell him again.”

“Voss. You are good, Voss. You are so — fuck, Voss, you are so good.”

Jude, at my hip, with three fingers in me now, with the angle exactly right — “Voss. I’m coming in. Now.”

“Yes, Kane.”

He pushes in slow. I make a sound around it.

Victor across the bed, watching, in his low voice — “Yes, Riley. Open up for him.”

Jude pushes in to the hilt slow, with his forehead on my collarbone. When he is all the way in, he stops. “Voss. I missed you.”

Finn, at my shoulder, presses his mouth to the corner of my eye. “Move, Kane.”

Jude moves slow, with the long slow strokes that Jude does when Jude is, for the first time in five months, home in a body he has been thinking about for five months across three states. Finn is at my shoulder with his hand over my heart talking against my temple in a continuous low murmur that has gone, somewhere in the last two minutes, from words to the small specific sounds Finn makes in this bed when he has stopped narrating.

Victor, across the bed, has stopped working himself, because Victor is watching, because Victor is going to be the next thing in this room and is keeping himself off the edge for it, and Victor’s eyes — when I lift my head to look at him — Victor’s eyes are wet at the corners, and Victor is looking at me with the face he has, in eight months, only put on me three times, which is the face that says I love you in a way I am not, on this day, going to find a sentence for.

I come on Jude’s cock with Finn’s mouth at my temple and Victor watching me from across the bed, and I come hard, and I come with my eyes open, looking at Victor across the bed, and Victor — at the moment I come — Victor’s hand comes up off his own thigh and across the bed and finds my hand on the quilt and laces his fingers into mine, and Victor says — very low, against the bed, in the lamp light — “Yes. Riley. Good. There you go.”

I shake. I shake in Jude’s hands and Finn’s hands and Victor’s hand laced into mine, and Jude — without finishing himself — Jude works me through it slow.

I breathe. I open my eyes. I look at Jude.

“Switch.”

We rearrange the bed. Victor moves to the middle without comment, on his back, with his head on the pillow. Jude moves to the foot of the bed between Victor’s legs. Finn moves to Victor’s chest with his cheek already going down on Victor’s sternum. I move up to the head of the bed, behind Victor’s head, sit up against the pillows, and draw Victor’s head into my lap.

Victor looks up at me from my lap with the small soft careful face he uses only with me — the good morning face. “Hi, Riley.”

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Be at my mouth. Slow.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

I lean down. I kiss him upside down, with his face under mine, with his glasses gone and his hair pushed back and his mouth open under mine, and I kiss him slow, and Victor reaches up and his palm lands flat against the side of my face.

Jude, at his hip, says quietly — “Daddy. Look at me.”

Victor turns his face under mine. Victor looks down the length of his body at Jude. Jude is between his thighs. Jude has lubricant on his fingers.

“Daddy. Yes?”

“Yes, Jude. Take your time.”

Jude works Victor open slow with the same patience Victor taught Jude to use on me — slow, with attention, with three fingers in stages, with the long patient curl. Victor, in my lap, with his head against my thighs, with his arms out at his sides, with Finn at his chest — Victor is making sound. Victor is making the small low sound he makes only in this configuration, only when he is the one being worked on.

Finn, at his chest, is not lifting his mouth. Finn — with one hand flat over Victor’s heart and the other at Victor’s nipple — Finn is doing what Finn does, which is take a long time at the place that, in this household of four men, has, in eight months, become the place. Finn is praising him.

“Daddy. You are doing well, Daddy. You are doing very well, Daddy.”

Victor closes his eyes. A tear goes sideways across the bridge of his nose. I, with his head in my lap, lean down. I kiss the corner of his eye.

“Yes, Daddy. You are mine right now, Daddy.”

Jude pushes the third finger in. Victor, in my lap, makes a small low sound that is closer to a sob than a moan, and his hand has come up over his head, blindly, and laced its fingers into the hair at the back of my head, and his fingers are holding on.

I lean down. I press my forehead against his. I say, very quietly, into his mouth, upside down — “Daddy. Tell Jude you are ready.”

“Yes, Riley.”

I look down the length of Victor’s body at Jude. “Kane. Daddy is ready. Slow. And Jude — talk to him.”

“Yes, Voss.”

Jude pushes in slow with his forearms braced beside Victor’s hips, and his eyes on Victor’s face. Victor breathes out hard, once, and Victor — when Jude is all the way in him — Victor goes very still, and Victor’s hand in my hair at the back of my head tightens, and Victor’s other hand has found Finn’s hand at his chest and laced into it, and the three of us are holding him.

Jude says, quietly, between strokes that have not yet started — “Daddy. Look at me.”

Victor opens his eyes. He looks down the length of his body at Jude. “You are mine right now, Daddy.”

“Yes, Jude.”

“Good boy.”

Victor — in my lap, in our hands — Victor breaks. Victor breaks the way I have, in eight months, only seen him break twice, with the small soft sound he makes in this bed when he is, finally, being put down, and Victor’s hand in my hair tightens hard, and Victor’s other hand crushes Finn’s, and Finn lifts his head for one count and looks down the length of Victor’s body at Jude and says, very quietly — “Move, Kane.”

Jude moves.

It is — and I am admitting this in the privacy of my own head, with Victor’s head in my lap and Jude in him and Finn at his chest and the snow on the roof — it is the best sex I have ever been part of.

It is the best because it is slow. It is the best because it is, on its surface, quiet. It is the best because the four of us, in eight months, have learned that when we are doing the thing, we are not, in fact, performing it. We are with each other, in a small lit room, in a city that is mine, in a bed that is, in fact, the cottage bed.

The cottage came with me.

I lean down, and I kiss Victor on the mouth, and Victor is making the continuous small low sound that he makes when he is, in fact, on the bottom of a bed for a man he loves, and Finn is praising him, and Jude is talking to him, and I am — finally, the fourth voice in the room.

I say, against Victor’s mouth, upside down — “Daddy. You are doing well, Daddy. You are doing very well.”

“Riley, I am —”

“I know, Daddy.”

He comes. Victor comes with my mouth on his, with Jude in him, with Finn’s hand at his chest, with my hand at the back of his head, and Victor reaches up, blind, with his other hand, and his hand finds my face, and Victor says, against my mouth, in a sound that is not quite a word — “Riley. I love you. All three of you. I love —”

“I know, Daddy.”

He comes harder than I have, in eight months, seen him come, and Jude works him through it slow. “Yes, Daddy. Take your breath.”

Jude comes a minute later in Victor with his forehead on the inside of Victor’s thigh and his hand laced into Finn’s hand at Victor’s chest. Finn comes in his own hand, somewhere in the after, with his cheek on Victor’s chest and his face wet, the way Finn comes in this bed when Finn is the boy at the chest and not at the center.

I do not come a second time. I do not need to. I am — sitting up against the pillows, with Victor’s head in my lap, with the three of them tangled across me — I am full.

The four of us are arranged. Nobody says anything for a long time.

Outside, on Linn Street, a car goes past, slow, in the snow. A dog barks somewhere on the next block. The radiator clicks. The lamp on the nightstand throws gold across the cream cover of the galley I have set there, and the gold catches the embossed title — THE HOUSE ACROSS THE GARDEN — and the four of us lie in the bed and we look at it.

After a long time, Finn says, very quietly — “Voss. Read us another page.”

Victor opens one eye. “Yes, Riley. Read us a page, baby.”

I reach for the galley. I open it. I turn past the dedication and I turn to the first page of the first chapter. The first chapter of my novel begins —

I have been managing the kitchen of this chapter house for two years, and I have been managing it well, and I have been doing it, on the evidence, alone.

I read it aloud. I read it slow. The boys do not say anything. Victor’s eye, somewhere in the second paragraph, has closed. Jude’s breath, against Victor’s shoulder, has gone slow. Finn, with his hand laced into mine, has put his cheek against my hip.

I read for, I think, three pages. I read until my voice goes a little hoarse. I close the galley. I set it back on the nightstand. I look at the three of them. The three of them are asleep.

I sit up against the pillows in the lamplight with Victor’s head in my lap and Jude curled at his side and Finn against my hip with his hand still laced into mine, and I look at the three of them, and I think — very privately, in the small flat voice I am allowed to use only with myself —

I have, on the second weekend in January, in an apartment in Iowa City, on a bed I packed in August, with three men I am going to know for the rest of my life, the life I have been writing for. I have it in a galley. I have it in this room. I am writing the next one.

I do not say it. I just sit, in the lamp light, with the three of them.

I turn off the lamp. I lie down. I put my forehead against Victor’s, and Victor turns his face toward mine, and Jude tightens his arm across Victor’s waist, and Finn presses his hand harder into mine.

I close my eyes.

The four of us are in the bed. The bed is in the apartment. The apartment is in Iowa City, and Iowa City is mine, and the bed is the cottage bed, and the cottage came with me.

I sleep.

In the morning, when I wake at six-fifteen, Finn is still holding my hand, and Jude is still curled around Victor, and Victor’s eyes are open, looking at me across Finn, across the pillow, in the gray pre-dawn of an Iowa City Sunday.

Victor smiles at me with the small contained warmth at the corner of his mouth that he uses only with me, and Victor says, very quietly — “Hi, Riley.”

“Hi, Daddy.”

“You wrote a book.”

“I wrote a book.”

“It is a very good book. I am going to be writing about it for the rest of my life.”

“Daddy —”

“Stay in bed, baby. Stay in the bed.”

“I am, Daddy.”

“Good boy.”

I close my eyes, and I press my forehead against Finn’s shoulder, and I think — I am, finally, on the second Sunday in January, in a city that is mine, in a bed that is mine, with three men I am going to know for the rest of my life, in a body that has, in eight months, been put down, again, by the man whose voice I will hear in my head every time I write a line for the rest of my career.

I am home.

The radiator clicks. The apartment settles. I sleep again.

— Jace Wilder