The Story of Us

by Barbara Elsborg

“Arranged what?”

  But the smile told Zed he was right.

  “Thank you.”

  Jackson nodded. “You’re very quick.” He smiled. “You have another visitor waiting. I was told he was coming to see you and I needed to speak to you first.”

  Zed froze. “I won’t see my father.”

  “No, not your father. Your brother.”

  “You haven’t arrested him?”

  “No.”

  There was something in the way Jackson said no that put Zed on edge. Not the definite no he’d have liked to hear.

  “I want you to speak to him, see what he knows,” Jackson said quietly.

  “And then tell you.”

  “I’d like to record the conversation.”

  Zed’s exhalation was shaky.

  “You think he’s done nothing wrong, so what do you have to worry about?” Jackson asked.

  Goose bumps shot down Zed’s arms.

  “We can’t use anything later in court that he might say to you now. It’s just to…tie up loose ends.”

  “Has he already been questioned?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he had no idea what Fahid was planning, that he had no idea if you knew.”

  Really? “Record it then.”

  Jackson took a small grey machine out of his pocket and slid it across the table under his hand. “Make sure you’re not seen. Tape it under the table by your thigh.”

  Zed checked they were unobserved before he did what Jackson had asked.

  “I’ll come back after he’s left. I’ll return these snacks then too. Not a good idea to let him wonder if you’ve had another visitor.”

  Zed couldn’t believe Tamaz would have known about the plot and not done anything. But for his brother to say he had no idea if Zed knew… Something about that pissed him off.

  The door opened and Tamaz came in with a prison officer. Zed pushed to his feet and his brother rushed over. The officer stayed by the door.

  “Zed!” Tamaz threw his arms around him, then pushed him back and held him by the shoulders to look at him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Zed wriggled free and dropped back into his seat.

  Tamaz sat opposite. “What happened?”

  Don’t you know? “I was in bed when I heard a loud crash. Two guys burst in with guns and yelled at me to get on the floor. I had no idea what was happening. I was so scared. They were shouting about Fahid. Where is he? Where’s he hiding? I thought he was asleep in his room but turned out he wasn’t in the house. I got taken to a police station and asked a lot of questions and…” He let out a little moan that wasn’t entirely put on. He had been scared. He still was.

  “Did you ask for a lawyer?”

  That was all his brother was bothered about? “No. I didn’t ask. I didn’t think I needed one, but they appointed a guy.” They had, sort of, though he worked for MI5. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “They must think you have or why remand you in custody?”

  “An accessory, I think they said.”

  “Did you tell them anything? What did they ask you?”

  “Tamaz! I was scared. I was dragged out of bed in the early hours of the morning and you don’t even sound concerned.”

  “Of course I am. You’re not the only one it happened to.”

  Zed made himself gasp. “You as well? Why?”

  “Because I’m a friend of Fahid’s.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why?”

  Zed was trying to give Tamaz every chance to say he had no idea what Fahid was up to. He didn’t want to be the first one of them to mention suicide bombers.

  “How did you meet him? Why is he your friend?”

  “I knew him from when we lived in Lewisham. He lived there then.”

  “Seven years? That long?”

  “He’s a good, kind man. Clever. A true Muslim. He went to get you from St Pancras because I was worried. He gave you somewhere to live. He fed you.”

  And he would have used me as a bomber if he’d thought he could. “So why are the police looking for him? Do you know where he is?”

  “I’ve no idea where he is. The police… They think he’s involved in a plot to plant bombs at the Olympics.”

  Zed put his head in his hands. He’d thought about how he’d react if Tamaz said it first. There was no right or wrong way. Maybe the only way was the truth. But modified. He looked straight at his brother.

  “I think he was,” Zed whispered.

  Tamaz widened his eyes and yet… Zed didn’t want to see anything other than disgust.

  “He took me with him when he went to see Parwez,” Zed said. “You remember Parwez?”

  “The moody one.”

  “Yeah. Well, Parwez was upset about something and… Things that were said made me wonder what they were planning. Jihad came up. I was with Parwez when he collected tickets for the Olympics. I suppose I’d started to put two and two together. I didn’t say anything to Fahid, but I was going to move out the next day.”

  “What have you said to the police?”

  You’re not shocked enough, brother. What are you mixed up in? Zed still didn’t want to believe it.

  “I don’t know anything. I haven’t told them anything. But I was living in Fahid’s house. They want to talk to him. Sure you don’t know where he is? Maybe this is all a mistake? Fahid doesn’t have to be involved. Though why would he run if he isn’t?”

  “Because the police have already decided he’s guilty. Just as they have you. But you haven’t done anything. They’ll have to let you go sooner or later. I’m sorry I asked Fahid to go and get you from the station.”

  That felt like the truth but Zed suspected Tamaz was hiding something.

  “Don’t tell Dad where I am,” Zed said. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

  “No.” Tamaz pushed to his feet. “This’ll all get sorted out. Don’t worry. When they let you out, come and live with me. We can squeeze you into the house.”

  “Thank you.” But no.

  Tamaz hugged him and left.

  Moments later, Jackson came back in with the vending machine snacks and surreptitiously retrieved the recording.

  “Were you listening as well?” Zed asked.

  “No. What do you think?”

  Zed took a deep breath. “I think you need to watch my brother.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Zed walked into the cell carrying the snacks Jackson had bought him and put them on the desk. “I was bought treats. We can share.”

  Caspian got up from the bed. “I got treats too.” He took Zed’s hand, pulled him over to the locker and opened it. “Three condoms and lube.”

  “I was hoping for food.”

  “We…don’t have to use them,” Caspian said.

  “Well…I don’t want to catch anything.”

  Caspian gaped at him, then laughed. “You little…”

  “How long until we’re locked in?”

  “Long enough for us to decide whether we want to use one, two, three or none.”

  Zed put his hand in his pocket and pulled out three condoms and some lube. “I made a detour on the way back from the visiting room.”

  Caspian chuckled. “We need to go back to Healthcare right now for more. Think how shocked and impressed Doctor Jones will be.”

  “Except he told me that if you ask for too many you get sanctioned.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I guess they might take away the TV.”

  “Shit. We have to choose between sex and the TV?”

  Zed laughed. How good it felt to be able to do that. “He told me that some prisons only give them out one at a time and you have to take a used one back before you get another.”

  “Ewww. Why?”

  “I guess because you can do other things with them.”

  Caspian frowned. “I suppose. Smuggle drugs. Or maybe fill them with sand or dirt and
use them as a weapon. Water balloon fight. Waterproof anything small enough to fit inside your arse. Cut them up and use them as elastic bands.”

  “Have you been thinking about it?”

  Caspian grinned. “Ever since I heard that a guy in South Africa made a bungee cord out of 18,500 condoms and jumped off a 100 foot tower.”

  “Wow. Did he die?”

  “No.”

  “Would you do a bungee jump?”

  “Not with a rope made out of condoms, but yeah.”

  Zed grabbed one of the chocolate bars, sat on the bed and opened it. “I don’t know if I could. I’d be thinking of everything that might go wrong. Rope too long, they might forget to tie me on, my eyes might get injured because of the increase in pressure, or I could hurt my neck or my back. What if the cord wrapped round my throat when I jumped? I’d hang myself.” He chewed a mouthful of chocolate and moaned. “Oh that’s nice. I’ve missed chocolate.”

  “When did you last eat it?”

  “A couple of days ago.”

  Caspian rolled his eyes. He picked up a bar and dropped onto the bed next to him.

  “I’m a wuss,” Zed said. “Sorry. I never got the chance to do anything exciting after my mother died. And not much before, to be honest. Don’t go near the edge, Hari. No roller skates for you. No skateboard. I’ve never been on a roller coaster, never climbed a mountain, never surfed, never skied, never even been abroad. I bet you’ve done all those.”

  “I’m not as brave as you think. I might have been abroad a lot but we always went to the same place, ate at the same restaurants, skied on the same slopes, swam and surfed off the same beach. You’re the brave one. You put up with an abusive father. You risked your life talking to MI5. You saved hundreds of people. Are you still in danger? Was it the MI5 guy who came to see you?”

  Zed screwed up the wrapper and lobbed it into the bin. It missed and he got up to put it in before settling back next to Caspian. “Yes, it was Jackson. They’ve not found Fahid yet. My brother came to see me too. Jackson wanted to record him talking to me.”

  Caspian sat up from his slouched position. “Oh fucking hell.”

  “I said yes. I was almost positive Tamaz would have had nothing to do with it and he didn’t say anything to contradict that.”

  “I heard the word almost and I sense a but.”

  Zed leaned against the wall and pulled his feet up onto the bed. “Yeah, there’s a but. The truth is, I’m just not sure about him and it kills something inside me to admit that. He wasn’t shocked enough or angry enough on my behalf. He didn’t ask to speak to my lawyer or rail against the injustice of me being in here. He’s definitely become more devout over the last few years. We used to joke about how strict our father was, and Tamaz stopped doing that. I don’t know anything for sure. He asked me if I wanted to go and stay with him when I get out. But I don’t. I didn’t tell him that.”

  Caspian took his hand. “When I get out, we can live together.”

  Zed smiled and then his smile faded. “I’m going to be out sooner than you.”

  “When I get out, we can live together,” Caspian repeated.

  “Yes. That would be great.”

  “Okay. That’s sorted. Now let’s make a list of everything we want to do.”

  “I bet you already have a list,” Zed said.

  Caspian grinned. “Maybe. Do you?”

  “Yep. Have my own piano. Buy a cello. Play the guitar. Learn to surf. See the northern lights. Stay in an ice hotel. Hike to the top of Kilimanjaro and look at the stars. Fly into space. Bike down a volcano in Hawaii.”

  “I want to do a parachute jump, visit a nudist beach and go skinny dipping, get a tattoo and a piercing, go scuba diving with sharks, invent something brilliant, invent something else brilliant. Wear eyeliner. See you in eyeliner. Get a blowjob. Give a blowjob. Get rimmed. Go rimming. Lose my virginity. And do all of those with my best friend.”

  Zed pouted. “Not with me?”

  “Ha ha.”

  A lump grew in Zed’s throat. “Er…no sharks.”

  “Okay. Forget the sharks.”

  “Not sure about the parachute jump.”

  Caspian sighed. “Okay, forget that as well. The rest?”

  “Where are you thinking of getting pierced? Ear?”

  “No.”

  “Nose? Please don’t.”

  “Not my nose.”

  Zed frowned. “Lip?”

  “No.”

  “Tongue?”

  Caspian shook his head.

  “Eyebrow?”

  “No.”

  “I’m running out of body parts. Oh nipple?””

  “My cock.”

  “Oh fuck.” Zed grimaced. “Really?”

  “Maybe.” Caspian put his mouth to Zed’s ear. “I can’t wait to be locked up tonight. Words I never thought I’d say.”

  They talked and talked, shared dreams, made plans. They tried to keep their hands off each other in case a prison officer looked into the cell, and it turned into a game.

  “You touched me,” Zed said in mock-horror.

  “No, you touched me.”

  “You touched me like this.” Zed brushed his fingers over Caspian’s hand.

  “More like this.” Caspian did it back.

  They laughed and teased and joked and Zed’s heart lightened to the point he felt he’d float. They were still in a mess, their immediate futures uncertain, but there was hope and they both clung to that. They emerged from the cell to eat dinner and collect their breakfast, then watched the Olympics for a while with the others in their wing, but they were both fidgeting, high on anticipation, fizzing with energy, both tugging down T-shirts to hide hard-ons. That Caspian was as nervous as him reassured Zed because he didn’t want to be the timid one. Having time to think about what they were going to do was good and bad.

  If Zed was being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he wanted to lose his virginity in a prison cell. He didn’t want to be worried about making a noise, about being disturbed. There were plenty of other things they could do they hadn’t tried. And yet, he wanted Caspian with all his heart.

  “Changed your mind?” Caspian whispered as the lock-up bell sounded and they returned to the cell.

  “No.”

  Caspian brushed his hand against Zed’s.

  The clank of doors closing made Zed jump. Locks engaged. Almost immediately the banging and calling started. It had freaked Zed out the first night he’d been in there. It still felt threatening. His chest tightened and he leaned against the wall by the door. “Why do they do that?”

  Caspian stood on the other side of the cell next to the window. “For attention. To ask for help—except help doesn’t always come in time. To aggravate the prison officers. And I guess they do it just because they can. Too many guys in here are bullies and like taunting those weaker than them. It’s all about power. Some of them think if they make themselves sound big, they won’t get picked on. But if you keep your head down and make yourself as small as you can, you might still get picked on. In the end you can’t win, whatever you do.”

  “You never told me how your face and neck got bruised.”

  “My former cellmate was ordered to teach me a lesson after I got mouthy about getting cigarettes for an older guy. He did this too.”

  Caspian lifted his T-shirt to reveal stitches at one end of a scar.

  “What the hell?”

  “I had to have my spleen taken out after the accident. My cellmate managed to cut me in the same place. I’ve forgotten what the doctor called it but I’ll heal. I’m sort of grateful it happened because as a result, I was put in here rather than going back to Mako wing.”

  “He could have killed you.”

  Caspian didn’t react to that. “You know you can watch TV until two in the morning? I wasn’t allowed to do that home.” Caspian tsked. “No porn channel though. There’s only crap or repeats on at that time of night.”

  You’re nervous. Maybe more
nervous than me. “What’s going through your head apart from what’s on TV?” Zed asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yeah I do.”

  “If I can make it all the way over to you, nine difficult steps, without stumbling? If I can touch you when you’re naked without coming? If my heart could beat any faster without exploding? What if I faint? Will you give me the kiss of life? Is it possible to feel any hotter without melting? Will my hands do what I tell them? Do you feel all of this too? Any of this? Will my fucking mouth stop babbling anytime soon?”

  Zed smiled. He walked across to Caspian and Caspian gave a little grin before spinning Zed round to face the wall. When Caspian pressed up against his back, Zed’s cock sprang the rest of the way to full attention.

  “Your nine steps saved me completing the cell marathon, and hey, guess what? I managed not to come in my clothes.” Caspian let out a shaky breath. “Oh fuck, I want this to be perfect. I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t know if I’m…”

  “If you’re ready?” Zed whispered and squirmed around to face him. “I don’t know either. We’re going to play, that’s all. Whatever we do, we both want or we don’t do it. Okay? I hadn’t figured my first time would be in a cell, so…”

  “It’d be something to tell the kids.”

  Zed laughed out loud. Then Caspian leaned in, and pressed his mouth into Zed’s smile, his hard cock rubbing against Zed’s hip as they rocked their bodies together. Oh fuck, coming in his jeans seemed more and more likely.

  This wasn’t a sweet kiss. This was a desperate invasion. This was licking, nipping, sucking, pulling at lips, teasing, eating at each other while Caspian’s hands roamed everywhere. Fingers wandered up and down Zed’s spine and across his shoulder blades, exploring the sharpness of his bones under his T-shirt, then back and forth over his stomach and chest, running along his ribs, sliding up his pecs, brushing his nipples, twisting, pinching—ouch, oh God, GOD—and down the back of his jeans onto the cheeks of his arse and squeezing hard before diving into the crease, which made Zed lurch violently against him.

  Zed’s breathing was all over the place, as if the inbuilt mechanism in his body had developed a temporary—hopefully—fault.

  “Can’t breathe,” Caspian gasped.