Jon and Kit Stories
5. Friday…part two
Setting his mobile phone on the desktop, Jon picked up a mug of powerful canteen tea. He leaned back in the chair, resting his right foot on his left knee with the easy confident elegance that had fluttered the hearts of many of his young female students over the years, along with a sprinkling of male ones.
He sipped the tea thoughtfully. Kit switching off his mobile he could quite understand, he didn’t approve, but he understood. Kit not answering the house phone he could also understand. Him not answering the house phone when he’d been left a message on the answer machine specifically telling him to pick up and respond, he again understood, but what he understood didn’t please him at all. Kit wasn’t at home.
If he were home he would have answered. He would not have disobeyed a direct order. So where was he? Jon glanced at his watch. Kit finished work at half past four on a Friday and in abidance with ongoing discipline he should have been home, fed and abed by now. On the other hand, judging from the way his own appointments were spanning out this particular evening, he still had at least another hour to go. Hence the phone call to let Kit know that he was likely to be home much later than estimated.
Picking up his mobile again, he called Colin. Chances were that Kit was over there, not so much to air grievances but to take solace in sympathetic non-judgemental and supportive friendship. Kit didn’t need anyone to complain to about his lot. He was in the relationship he was in by choice and he wouldn’t change it, even when it rubbed him the wrong way up, as it had the previous evening. Nor did he need anyone telling him he was in the right or in the wrong; he was more than able to make that judgement for himself once he’d bypassed sulking. Kit was a prodigious sulker when the mood took him.
Colin provided an attentive ear and companionable distractions and he made Kit feel he was of importance. Jon didn’t begrudge Kit such things, far from it, he was pleased that his socially shy partner had forged a link and felt comfortable with one of his oldest friends. However, the fact remained, whether he was with Colin or not, Kit was deliberately breaking his curfew and Jon was not going to approve it under any circumstances.
Returning home that evening he knew from the quality of the silence on opening the front door that Kit still wasn’t home. He didn’t bother to step inside the house. He went to check the garage. Kit’s patella brace and safety helmet were in their usual place on the worktop, but his cycle was missing.
Jon was concerned, as well as annoyed. At face value Kit’s actions looked to be a continuance of his tantrum over the ruling made on the rabbit kits the evening before. When Kit had called to tell him that he wouldn’t be coming home, as he’d arranged to stay at the surgery overnight to feed some orphaned baby rabbits, Jon had calmly told him that on the contrary he would come home as usual. He coldly reminded him that he was in process of ongoing discipline.
Kit argued, saying he’d already promised he would do it and it was only one night, he could make up for it. Jon refused to negotiate. The answer was no. He would have to tell Diane that he couldn’t do it after all. He could say he had a prior commitment he’d overlooked, which was the truth. It was her job, regardless of her social life, to undertake such duties. Jon also told him that if necessary he would collect Kit in person from the surgery.
Kit was in darkling mood when he arrived home. It had been embarrassing having to tell Diane that he couldn’t do her job for her after all. She’d been upset and angry. Jon didn’t have much liking for Diane, in his opinion she, along with Tanya the vet, often took advantage of Kit’s kind heart and his shy eagerness to please. He told Kit that even if the circumstances had been different he would have considered him making a decision to stay all night at the surgery without prior consultation to be discourteous. As punishment he extended Kit’s early bedtime by another week. Kit had been dismayed to say the least.
Jon tried ringing Kit’s phone again, but it was still switched off. He got back in the car.
Copyright Cat/Fabian Black 2010