The Story of Us

by Barbara Elsborg

  Zed’s shoulders dropped and the rubbing stopped. Caspian held back his whine of disappointment.

  “But I’ve been thinking. My father isn’t leaving for a few weeks. He has work commitments. I could do something that stops me getting sent with my mother and sisters, then go later with him.”

  “Do what?”

  “Tell him I’m gay.”

  Zed sucked in a breath. “You’re gay?”

  Caspian laughed.

  “You’re braver than me,” Zed said. “I’m never going to tell my father. He’d kill me. If you tell yours, maybe he’ll definitely send you to France on Friday.”

  “He won’t want me out of his sight until he’s talked sense into me.”

  Zed raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? He’d think he could talk you into being straight?”

  Caspian shrugged. “He’d try. I’ve never tried to hide what I am, but no one’s ever guessed. Well, maybe Lachlan but he’s a dickhead. Maybe he doesn’t realise his name calling is accurate. I’m sixteen. It’s time I stood up for myself. I’ve never cared what people think about me. I don’t care that they know I’m gay.”

  “Except if you come out, you’ll probably drag me out too. You might not care what people think, what your family thinks but I can’t afford not to. When I said my father would kill me, I meant it. I remember seeing on the news about someone who killed his son for being gay, he pushed him down the stairs, and my father said, “I’d do the same.” He’d rather spend the rest of his life in prison than be shamed by what his peers and community would think of him having a gay son.”

  “I’ll stay quiet for another year then.” Caspian saw the relief spread through Zed.

  “My father has no idea about me but maybe some people have guessed,” Zed said. “Mr Carter, my music teacher, for a start. Just something about the way he treats me that makes me wonder. Not in a pervy way but a concerned one. Though he knows my father is difficult and anti-music. Maybe that’s all it is. I get called names at school but like with your brother, I don’t know whether they’re just going for anything that might hurt rather than calling me an arse licker because they think I lick arses.”

  “Are you an arse licker?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  Caspian laughed. “Want to add that to the list of things to do before Friday?”

  “I’d rather start with lips.” Zed pushed him over onto his back and stared down at him.

  “That’s fine by me.” Caspian pulled him down until their foreheads were pressed together. Their noses nudged, then Zed’s eyes fluttered closed as he pressed his mouth to Caspian’s.

  They both moaned, the soft sounds barely audible, as their open mouths brushed back and forth, over and over, not quite kissing, more teasing, but fucking hot. And when Zed’s weight settled on him, Caspian’s cock shot to attention. Zed’s was the same. He threaded his fingers in Zed’s hair as Zed slid his tongue deeper into his mouth. Caspian sucked on it and heat flooded his body, made his balls tingle. Oh hell. Do not fucking come. Not yet.

  Zed moved from gentle nibbles to full-on consumption and Caspian loved it. It was all fantastic. They broke only for air before claiming each other again. Their moans grew louder and Caspian wanted to yell out for the sheer joy of it. Their tongues tangled and played in endless ways, and when Zed thrust his tongue in and out of Caspian’s mouth as if he were fucking him, Caspian felt like he was a space shuttle on countdown.

  “Oh, oh, oh, I’m going to come,” Zed whispered.

  “Not yet.” Caspian wriggled from beneath him and lay on his side facing him. “Undo your shorts.”

  They looked down at their hands and Caspian held his breath as their fingers swapped places, Zed’s hand shoving down the waist of his boxers, his doing the same with Zed’s. Then for the first time in Caspian’s life, a hand that wasn’t his wrapped around his cock. And for the first time in his life, he wrapped his hand around another guy’s cock. It wasn’t just his cock that threatened to explode, but his heart.

  “We try…for ten minutes…right,” Caspian gasped.

  “Be realistic. Ten seconds.”

  A few moments later, and Caspian hadn’t counted, they were coming all over each other’s fingers and his heart was beating hard enough to break and he didn’t care if it did because this was the best thing that had ever happened to him, probably forever. They dropped onto their backs, chests heaving, sticky fingers threaded together and Caspian knew there was no way to stop this fall. That was fine by him.

  For the few days they had left, from nine in the morning to six in the evening, they were inseparable. They played together and worked together. To his amazement, Caspian began to grasp concepts of maths and physics that had so far eluded him. Zed made it fun, made the rewards for getting it right a lot more than fun. It was hard to keep their hands off each other.

  Caspian discovered that happiness came when he least expected it. Like when they were walking three miles to buy chips, came back eating them, then slipped into a field to exchange salty kisses—and gentle caresses. Happiness came when Zed sneaked out one night and they lay on their backs, invisible to the world, looking up into a star splattered sky. Caspian was thrilled that he could teach Zed a few constellations: Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Draco, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor. Zed taught him about declination and ascension.

  They made a rope swing in the woods.

  They tried to make a go kart.

  They made an unsteady zip line.

  They made each other happy. That feeling in the chest when everything fell into place and you felt at your most alive, that was what Caspian felt and it was the greatest thing of all.

  He took Zed to his house when everyone was out and Zed discovered the piano that everyone but Caspian had mastered. When he saw Zed’s face, heard him play, he knew he’d always have to share Zed with music. Zed played from the heart, played with his entire body, better than anyone Caspian had ever heard before. He stood mesmerised as the world stopped turning for a while.

  Zed made him feel different, made him want to be different, better, made him want to bring out the best in himself and in Zed. When he was with Zed everything fit, everything.

  “You are the most important person in my world,” Caspian whispered.

  “You are all that I have,” Zed told him.

  Caspian felt the weight of it and embraced it. “I will never let you down.”

  The rest of Zed’s summer could only be a disappointment. Caspian had told him the chances of seeing him in October were small. Christmas was to be spent in Aspen. Easter in France. How will you revise? Zed had asked and Caspian had laughed.

  But the following summer and every summer after that would be theirs because they were going to run.

  Even the news that Zed’s father and his girlfriend were going on holiday to Italy for two weeks didn’t make up for the disappointment of not having Caspian around. His father told him he had to go and stay with Tamaz and Zed hadn’t minded because there was nothing to keep him in Upper Barton when Caspian wasn’t there.

  Tamaz collected him and his small bag on Saturday night.

  “Sorry you got lumbered with me,” Zed muttered.

  “I’m looking forward to having you around, little brother. We’re going to London for the weekend and back to Canterbury on Monday morning.”

  “Where are we going to stay?”

  “With friends.”

  When Zed followed his brother into the house in Islington, he had feeling of foreboding. Tamaz had a key and he wondered why. A broad-shouldered, bearded man wearing a shalwar kameez, loose trousers and a long shirt, his big muscles straining the material around his arms and shoulders came out of a room on the right. He smiled when he saw them. “Asalaamu alaikum.”

  “Wa alaikum assalam,” Tamaz replied. “This is my brother Hvarechaeshman. Everyone calls him Zed. Zed meet Fahid.”

  “Zed.” Fahid drew Zed into a cologne-scented embrace that sucked the air from his lungs, and Zed instantly
disliked him.

  “Just in time for prayers,” Fahid said.

  Now he really disliked him. Zed hoped it was a joke, but it wasn’t. He went with them to the mosque because he didn’t want to let his brother down, but he stumbled his way through everything. He heard Tamaz sigh, felt Fahid’s disapproval and tried harder, pretending to believe.

  “Has it been a long time since you attended a mosque?” Fahid asked when prayers were over.

  “There isn’t one anywhere near where I live,” Zed said.

  “So you pray at home.” Fahid nodded and Zed kept quiet.

  Two other guys returned with them to Fahid’s place. One who looked to be in his late twenties who wore a shalwar kameez, the other a little older than Zed, who wore jeans. Fahid ordered lahmacun, Turkish pizza, for them all and after it arrived, he sat next to Zed to eat and hardly stopped talking.

  Fahid tackled everything—the situation in Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Uzbekistan. The others joined in. Well, Tamaz and the older guy, Wasim, but the younger one, Parwez, was as quiet as Zed. Though it didn’t appear to be through lack of interest. Parwez stared at Fahid as if he was the answer to everything as well as having the answer. Zed tried to sound interested, but he wasn’t. Well, not beyond wishing people could just let other people live their lives without interfering.

  Fahid painted everything black and white and Zed knew life wasn’t that simple. When he attempted any sort of disagreement, Fahid just talked more at him and louder, and eventually Zed gave up and let it all wash over him. He was an expert at in one ear and out the other.

  “Your little brother is very quiet,” Fahid said.

  “And you’re not.” Tamaz laughed and Fahid grinned, though his smile looked a bit tight.

  When Tamaz showed him where he was sleeping, a small storage room with a pull-out bed, Zed said he was tired and he’d stay up there. He didn’t like these men with their religious talk. He didn’t like that Tamaz seemed to enjoy their company. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he wanted to go home.

  But the next day, Tamaz took him on the London Eye. Zed thought it looked as if it was about to lift into the air and spin away like some UFO. But it brought them safely back to earth. They went to the aquarium and ate at Borough Market and Tamaz bought him new jeans and they laughed and had fun and everything was all right again. Zed’s world wasn’t complete but next summer it would be. He and Caspian would be together.

  SUMMER THREE

  Chapter Seven

  2012

  Every exam was over. The continual tests and constant revising had taken their toll and left Zed drained. He never wanted to take another exam as long as he lived. He was almost glad he didn’t have a burning desire to be a lawyer or a doctor or anything that required A levels and a degree. He didn’t try to fool himself into thinking he could earn a living through music. He was more likely to get a job in retail, but music would always be part of his life.

  He thought he’d done okay. Maybe more than okay but he’d never say that out loud. He was neither someone who boasted questions were easy—though they sometimes were, nor someone who whined and moaned about not finishing—because he always did. He hadn’t emerged from any exam thinking he’d messed up, though he couldn’t be sure of that until the results were out. Hopefully by then, he and Caspian would have a place of their own, somewhere school could send his certificates.

  It had been a long, difficult year. He was always on edge with his father, trying not to draw his attention, trying to be good even though Zed knew he’d never be the perfect son his father wanted. Zed and Tamaz had grown further apart. Tamaz came home less and less frequently and when he did, he talked too much about Islam with their father. Zed missed Caspian. It hurt to think about him and yet that pain made Zed feel alive, kept him hoping.

  Would he have felt the same about Caspian if he’d had a normal family? A father who loved him, supported him? A father who didn’t hit him? Yes, I would. Caspian meant everything to him. The whole of the past two years thinking about Caspian had been what kept him going until his sixteenth birthday.

  Is it love?

  How can I tell?

  Zed was a sensible boy. Words that appeared on his report time after time. He’d rarely thought about love unless it was to feel the lack of it. He’d loved his mother and he missed her, but what he felt now was something different. A kind of madness. A sort of craziness. Every time he thought about Caspian, his heart beat faster. Knowing he’d soon see him made his heart jump and his cock twitch.

  But love?

  Was it?

  Did he?

  Could he?

  Was he confusing friendship with love?

  Probably. Possibly.

  Zed had scored distinctions at grade eight in both cello and piano. Five marks short of a perfect score in both instruments. The best anyone had ever done at his school. Mr Carter had been more excited than Zed. He’d had to beg his teacher not to tell anyone, not to let it be announced in assembly because if his father had found out, there would have been so much trouble. Mr Carter was the only teacher Zed would miss. He’d told Zed he was the best pupil he’d ever had and he was under the impression that Zed was going to do A level music in his spare time. Zed felt bad he couldn’t even say goodbye to him.

  Over the year, Zed had saved over two hundred pounds by not having school lunches and by spending less than his father gave him to buy things he needed. He’d peeled the reduced stickers off food and clothes to make it look as though he’d paid more. Deliberately lost a few receipts that would have betrayed him. His money, which he’d changed into notes at the post office, was hidden in the garage under a pyramid of paint cans. Every time he went to check it was still there, his gaze landed on the chain his father had used to keep him in his room. As if he needed a reminder.

  Zed hadn’t packed a bag. Safer to wait until the last minute, though he had put everything together so he’d be ready to leave the moment Caspian was too. He fretted because he hadn’t been able to find his birth certificate. No sign of it in his father’s study, though Tamaz’s was there along with their father’s and their mother’s and her death certificate. It didn’t make sense that Zed’s wasn’t there too. He’d even looked in his father’s clothes and in the bathroom cupboard.

  The pack of condoms he’d found there—ribbed for her pleasure—had shocked him. Apart from the fact that devout Muslims didn’t agree with their use, the idea of his father having sex with anyone made him feel ill. His father was such a hypocrite. He went on and on about being a good Muslim and he wasn’t. Sex before marriage was haram.

  Zed eventually gave up hunting for the birth certificate. He’d looked online at school and found he could order a replacement and pay by postal order, since he didn’t have a credit or debit card, but he needed an address so he had to wait until he and Caspian had found somewhere to live. But without proof of his identity, he couldn’t get a National Insurance number and without that he couldn’t work—well, not legally and without a job, finding a place to live would be hard.

  His stomach and heart lurched between excitement and worry. He and Caspian had to find work as soon as they could. Zed hoped they could work together. In a café? A shop? Zed could have busked if had an instrument. He had enough money to buy a cheap cello though the sound wouldn’t be good and having a place to live and food was more important.

  He was counting down the days until Caspian returned home. Zed had written to tell him he’d be in the treehouse on the twenty-fifth of June, the day after his last exam, but instead he’d been forced to go to Maidstone to work for his father then accompany him to the mosque.

  Today his father had taken his girlfriend to Brighton, so Zed went straight to the treehouse. There was no message from Caspian but there were new books on the shelf since the last time he’d been there. He laid on the mattress and read The Hunger Games, but Caspian didn’t turn up. Zed left a message saying he’d come every day that he co
uld and took Catching Fire home. Caspian had left his phone number and Zed memorised it, but he had no way to call him. It was too much of a risk to do it from home. There was no longer a public phone in Upper or Lower Barton.

  Zed was surprised to find Tamaz’s car parked outside the house when he got home. He slipped the book into the pocket of his winter jacket that hung by the door before he went into the kitchen.

  “Hi,” Zed said.

  “Hi, not so little brother.”

  Tamaz hugged him and once Zed had overcome his shock, he melted into his brother’s embrace.

  “You’re too thin.” Tamaz let him go and turned to the stove.

  He was cooking the meal Zed was supposed to have prepared. Kotlets—potato and mince rissoles, a yoghurt dip, and Shirazi salad made from onions, cucumbers and tomatoes. Zed’s mouth watered.

  “Does he starve you as well as beat you? He’s a cruel man. Not a good Muslim.”

  Zed froze.

  “I should have done more to help you,” Tamaz said quietly.

  “He’d have beaten you too.”

  “Even so.”

  Zed swallowed hard. “Why do you think he hates me so much?”

  “I don’t know.” Tamaz set the salad aside.

  Zed wasn’t sure he wanted to know anyway. He’d had a thought when he’d been unable to find his birth certificate that maybe he wasn’t his father’s son, though it was probably wishful thinking.

  “What have you been up to?” Tamaz asked.

  “Exams, exams and more exams. I worked in the pharmacy yesterday and went to the mosque.”

  Tamaz nodded. “A good Muslim should try to gather in a congregation to worship on as many days of the week as he can.”

  Zed frowned. Since when did Tamaz spout religion at him without a little smile? “I am not going to work in the pharmacy every day. There’s only so many times a shelf can be dusted. Anyway, since I seem to annoy Dad by even breathing in his vicinity, I think it’ll be a once a week thing.” But it wouldn’t be because he was leaving.