Matteo had enjoyed what he would call an incredible night. After leaving the home of Paul and Ivan, he had gone to see his fling and they’d spent the night together doing everything that Matteo had wanted and more. When he left the following morning to start his usual routine it was with a little extra spring in his step.
Still up early even on a Monday morning, he went into his usual routine by heading to the gym, grabbing a quick breakfast after the workout, and then making his way back to Paul and Ivan’s for an abridged work day. The guys paid him well to come by most days, and since it was supposed to be another scorcher today having access to the pool would be an added bonus.
Using the side gate that squealed loudly, he stepped into the yard.
He’d only taken a few steps before he was greeted by a familiar voice
“Mornin’ Matt!” Russ greeting him with a friendly smile on his face visible over the fence.
“Hey Russ! Morning!” Matteo said with an equally brilliant smile.
“Oh, someone’s in a good mood this morning!” Russ noted with an easy grin.
Matteo winked at the older man “You know it. What about you? I saw you hanging out with that hunk of a friend of yours.” Matteo grinned back.
Russ’s face fell a bit and Matteo felt a little immediate twinge of regret.
“Ah, uh. That’s just Mark. He- ” Russ glanced over his shoulder to make sure Mark wasn’t suddenly within ear shot. “He’s having… a little trouble with his husband.”
“Oh??” Matteo was always curious about others' dramas.
“Don’t worry about it too much.” Russ said with a shake of his head and a nervous laugh worked it’s way into his voice. “They’re one of the strongest couples I know.” Russ’s voice didn’t sound as confident as it would have a day or more ago.
“Mhm…” Matteo intoned back.
Russ laughed genuinely. “Anyway, happy Monday.” Russ said before disappearing back into his own world.
Matteo chuckled. “You too.” With a wink, he turned and got down to business.
Stripping down to a speedo Matteo got to work as the sun began to rise higher in the sky, the world filling with noise as more neighbors woke up, birds chirped, and before long Ivan and Paul were on their back porch having breakfast and eyeing Matteo in all his physical glory.
The morning carried on in its usual patterns from there, with Matteo taking care of the needed chores around the backyard and scooping the pool clean with a net for things the pool’s filter didn’t catch. Just as he was finishing up that task, Paul and Ivan came outside again, dressed in very little - ready to hit the pool.
“Looking good there, Daddies.” Matteo cat-called at them, knowing that both of them enjoyed the gentle flirtations.
Ivan laughed, “Glad you like what you see.”
“Why don’t you join us for a dip?” Paul greedily eyed Matteo.
“Sure.” Matteo said with a stretch meant to emphasize his physique, which drew their eyes in the way that Matteo loved to be seen. “Let me finish up taking out the trash.” On Sunday’s Matteo also took their trash to the curb, and he knew he only had around a half hour before the pick up would happen.
Paul and Ivan settled themselves into the pool, unaware that the amount of water they displaced went rushing into their pool’s filtration system, making it suddenly a much less hospitable place than it had been for one exhausted fly.
After dumping the contents of the net into the large gray garbage bin, Matteo returned after remembering the debris catch needed to be emptied. He made a show of bending over in front of the pool to unlatch the plastic top, which he used like a lid to keep the contents of the little plastic cage in place.
Without bothering to look within the debris catch, Matteo walked over to the nearly full garbage bin, and turned over the contents of the wet plastic container into the garbage, tapping the edge against the bin to remove the last bits of debris. He couldn’t know that as he closed the lid on the garbage bin a fly had tried desperately to escape only to have the world shut off from it again, albeit in a larger container.
Matteo rolled the garbage bin out to the curb, and he could see a city garbage truck slowly making its way down the hill toward the curb in front of his employers' home. “Good timing,” Matteo commented, before turning back to the house - ready for some fun with its owners.
Only 30 minutes earlier, the shrill squeak of a rusty hinge on the garden gate woke Brad from a near comatose state.
More than 12 hours stuck in the mesh plastic trap had left him exhausted. After his horrible dream of his flyswatter-wielding husband, Brad had written off trying to rest.
For all its previously boundless energy, the large wasp had exhausted itself and fallen down among the wet leaves, conifer needles, twigs and other insect corpses.
Dimly, he credited his human intellect with helping him survive the night. He had known the importance of climbing the twig and then conserving his energies. Brad reminded himself that he wasn’t a mindless bug. He wasn’t!
But even in his denial he felt panic creeping closer.
Brad vowed he would beat this like he always did!
The gate slapped back into place with a dull thwack as Matteo stepped inside the pool area behind the home shared by Paul and Ivan.
Brad began to mobilize his energy, letting his wings buzz lightly.
“Open the trap! Please, just open the trap!” Brad hoped as his wings continued to buzz.
“Mornin’ Matteo!”
Brad recognized Russ’s deep, sultry voice and listened as a younger, strong voice with equal masculine overtones responded.
“Hey Russ! Morning!”
Brad heard Russ respond with “...someone’s in a good mood this morning!”
“You know it! What about you? I saw you hanging out with that hunk of a friend of yours.”
Brad listened to the rumbling, discordant words.
He heard Russ mention his husband’s name before his neighbor went on to add, “He’s having… a little trouble with his husband.”
“Oh??”
Was it Brad’s imagination or did the other giant sound eager.
“Don’t worry about it too much.”
Brad launched himself into flight, banging on the roof and the sides of the trap.
“Russ! Help! I’m here!” Brad screamed wordlessly as he battered against the confines of his prison.
During his desperate attempt to get help, Brad missed some of the conversation, but he heard Russ’s booming laughter filter into the trap.
“Anyway, happy Monday.”
Brad heard the other man chuckle and add, “You too!”
Everything then fell silent except for the feeble buzz of Brad’s wings.
“No!” Brad cried, having failed once again to gain notice of the giants. He returned, defeated, to his precarious perch on the twig.
Brad listened to the slosh of waves in the pool, the mechanical hum of the filtration pump, and the wet slapping of a giant’s feet on the concrete around the swimming pool. He was forced to stare at the gruesome sight of soggy insect corpses scattered among wet leaves and pine needles.
He welcomed the diversion of voices outside the trap to distract him from dark thoughts about the possibility that he might join the other bug victims in their sacrifice to human recreation.
“Looking good there, Daddies.”
Brad heard the voice of the young man. The sunbather with the fantastic butt, he surmised.
“Glad you like what you see.”
Was that Paul? Ivan? Brad wasn’t sure. He couldn’t match the voices to his two neighbors.
“Why don’t you join us for a dip?” Another male voice suggested. Brad could almost hear the degree of flirtation in the invite.
“Sure. Let me finish up taking out the trash.”
Brad’s wings buzzed excitedly. This was it! He would need to be ready to escape the instant the giant removed the lid.
He would fly directly home, to Mark, to the hope of salvation that rested behind his closed laboratory door…
Paul and Ivan settled themselves into the pool, unaware that the amount of water they displaced had been sent rushing into their pool’s filtration system, making it suddenly a much less hospitable place than it had been for one exhausted fly.
Water surged into the small plastic mesh chamber, smashed into Brad, pulled him from his perch on the twig, and sucked him into a stale maelstrom of debris comprised of tattered leaves and twigs, battered beetles and other bug corpses.
Brad, battered and unprepared, heard the grinding noise as the giant unlatched the plastic lid, but the giant pool keeper didn’t remove the lid. He’d had too much experience of some of the trapped flying insects escaping in that manner.
Instead, he used the lid to keep all the trash and worthless items collected in the little plastic cage in place until he dumped everything into a nearly full garbage bin parked next to the fence adjacent to a small gardening shed.
Inside the trap, one tiny wet, black fly clung by its six legs to the side of the mesh plastic in a desperate bid to avoid its fate. The valiant effort was thwarted by a simple tap of the mesh trap against the side of the garbage bin to make sure everything, including one unnoticed insect, dropped into the rest of the trash.
Brad’s eyes looked up in time to see a muscular arm close the lid on the garbage bin and plunge him back into darkness. Brad crawled over the corpse of the wasp and tried to force his wings to work. The soggy appendages vibrated feebly but refused to work.
And then all hell broke loose inside the bin as the giant began rolling the bin to the curb. The turmoil ended abruptly.
“Good timing.”
The loud comment drifted through the plastic walls of the garbage bin. Satisfied, Matteo tapped the lid with his hand before he headed back to join his employers for some fun in the pool.
Brad crawled over mounds of repulsive garbage that had shifted in the short trip to the curb. He strained his six tiny legs to try to leap into flight, but his waterlogged wings remained uncooperative.
But his fly senses did detect something else that Brad’s new body desperately needed.
Food! His proboscis dipped into a slimy pool of decay. Brad felt a wave of revulsion, but the fly sucked up the rotting nutrients in order to recharge its biological batteries.
He was still feeding on succulent but rotting garbage when he heard the loud beeps and the harsh sound of brakes as a large truck backed up to the curb.