The Story of Us

by Barbara Elsborg

They rested their foreheads together, inhaling and exhaling into each other’s faces.

  “We contract and relax our respiratory muscles about thirty thousand times a day,” Zed said panting.

  “Unless you’re sexed up, then it’s a lot more.”

  Zed smiled. “A billion times for a lifespan of ninety years.”

  “Two billion if I’m doing this with you.”

  The way Zed felt about Caspian scared him because it was beyond understanding, reason or comprehension. Fantasy had become reality. But he was scared of hurting him. He had stitches. This wasn’t the right time. And yet they kissed their way out of their T-shirts, barely breaking apart. If lips weren’t together, then hands were. Caspian licked his way from Zed’s mouth to his nipple and a bolt of sensation shot to Zed’s cock. He slammed his hand over his crotch and shocked his balls into painful submission.

  Trainers were toed off. Socks somehow discarded, and they kissed their way to another world where there were no bars at the window, no doors and no locks. The backing track of prison, the shouts, insults and sobs, the singing of nursery rhymes over and over, the slamming of doors, the authoritative voices of prison officers with their jangling keys telling them to pipe down—it all faded away.

  Caspian unfastened the button of Zed’s jeans, eased down the zip and Zed groaned with relief. He tugged down Caspian’s tracksuit bottoms until they pooled at his feet. Their cocks tented their underwear and they reached out at the same time to wrap their hand around each other’s length.

  “Hey,” Caspian whispered. “I’m thinking we should come at least three times before we try to do anything more than touch each other.”

  Zed laughed. Above Caspian’s black Y-fronts dark hair swept up to his navel, like a swirl of the magnetised iron filings they played with in physics. The scar under his left rib cage made Zed swallow hard.

  “I won’t break,” Caspian said.

  God, you’re already broken.

  Zed brushed his fingers over Caspian’s belly, squeezed his erection and was rewarded by a long groan.

  “Naked. Now,” Caspian gasped.

  As Caspian yanked off his underwear, Zed kicked off his jeans and pushed his boxers down his legs. Caspian took his hand, pulled him to the bed and sat down, tugging Zed to sit on his lap so his knees were either side of Caspian’s thighs. Zed arched toward him, then their chests were together, and so were their cocks and mouths and—oh fuck.

  Zed was sprinting toward release but he wanted Caspian to come at the same time. As he slid a hand between their bodies, Caspian did the same and with fingers slick with precum wrapped around their dicks, they squeezed them together until their kissing and rutting turned frenzied. Within seconds they were coming, gulping into each other’s mouths as cum spurted between them.

  They swallowed each other’s shuddering moans as they fell back from the high, and Caspian slid down to lie on his back, dragging Zed with him. When Zed worried Caspian couldn’t breathe under the weight of him, he rolled onto his back at Caspian’s side, his chest heaving.

  Their fingers threaded together, bellies sticky and hearts happy, they fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Caspian woke first and nudged Zed awake. “Shower.” He breathed the word into Zed’s ear.

  “Are we allowed?” Zed asked.

  “I don’t give a fuck.” He pulled Zed to his feet and into the small cubicle near the door where there was barely enough room for one let alone two.

  They’d hardly washed each other clean before a guard banged on the door. “No showers at this time of night,” he shouted through the slot.

  “How are—”

  Zed slapped his hand over Caspian’s mouth mid-yell and switched off the shower. The footsteps moved on past their pad and Zed took his hand away.

  “What were you going to say?” Zed asked.

  “How are we supposed to clean off our spunk?”

  Zed stifled a laugh. “Lick it off?”

  Caspian whined. “You could have told me that before.”

  When Zed started to step out of the shower, Caspian pulled him back.

  “What?” Zed asked.

  “I want to do something.”

  “What?”

  “I think you’ll like it.”

  “What? Oh fuck. I’m stuck on repeat. What, what, whaaaat.”

  Caspian had dropped to his knees and when he looked up at him, Zed gulped. One lick from Caspian’s hot, wet tongue along the length of Zed’s cock, which had been frisky from the moment he’d woken, and Zed turned to iron.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” Zed whispered.

  “What?” Caspian asked and sniggered.

  “Send me hard with one lick.”

  Zed had managed to lick his own cock a couple of times when he’d been smaller and more flexible but—Oh hell, this feels so good.

  One shove from Caspian and his back hit the wall. Caspian’s fingers encircled the base of Zed’s dick and Zed spread his hands flat on the tiles.

  “Tell me if I do something wrong,” Caspian whispered.

  “How would I know? How could any of this be wrong? Unless you bite. Don’t bite.”

  When Caspian tentatively wrapped his lips around the crest of his cock, Zed clenched his fists, unclenched them, then clenched them again before he grabbed Caspian’s hair. Zed couldn’t help bucking, wanting Caspian to take more and when Caspian widened his mouth and let him drive into him, Zed’s knees shook. He could feel Caspian’s tongue darting around the head of his cock, sliding around the ridge, pushing into the slit—Jesus, then he sucked hard before pulling away to let his cheek rest against Zed’s thigh as he got his breath back.

  “You okay?” Caspian panted.

  “What? Are you kidding? Your mouth, my cock, no biting—how could it not be okay?”

  Then Caspian’s mouth was back around him, sucking hard, sucking slow, sucking fast and every time Caspian glanced up at him, Zed’s heart physically hurt. Those dark eyes, that cheeky, crooked smile plus the sight of his cock disappearing into Caspian’s mouth made Zed shake like a jelly. Thank fuck for the wall because my knees… My cock.

  Think of something unsexy. Fast.

  Terminal velocity.

  Zed almost laughed. He was at terminal velocity. Falling faster and faster. Except no, that wasn’t right. He was falling at a constant rate which was… Oh, my balls. Caspian was licking them and his fingers were behind them stroking that strip of skin in front of his arsehole.

  “You know rimming was on my list… Can I?”

  “Oh fuck.” Zed twisted around in the small space to face the wall and the next moment, Caspian’s face was up against his backside, kissing him, licking, nipping and Zed let out a strangled sound that definitely wasn’t human. Don’t come. Don’t come. Please! When Caspian slid his tongue between the cheeks of his arse, Zed barely managed to get a hand to his balls in time, to push down, delay the inevitable. Try to delay it. Not so difficult when he was in charge of making himself come but impossible when he wasn’t.

  Caspian’s tongue. Every stop it made travelling down the seam of his backside had Zed quivering and whimpering. Each push against his hole forced him to grit his teeth to stop himself moaning. Caspian was elbowing his way between his legs to do what? And—oh fuck, inside me. His tongue is inside me! It felt like the best thing ever. Hot and wet. Long sweeps. Short jabs.

  Zed wanted this to last a lifetime.

  Yet couldn’t cope with another second of it. Five seconds of it. Oh Christ. He came all over his fingers. Short, hard spurts that made his gut clench and his heart ache with joy that it had happened and annoyance it hadn’t lasted longer. He hadn’t lasted longer.

  He turned the shower back on, tugged Caspian to his feet and kissed him. Caspian turned the shower off.

  “You want them to split us up?” he whispered.

  No, but it was going to happen anyway.

  They fell asleep tangled in each other’s arms.

  They woke
tangled in each other’s arms.

  Inside the cell they were inseparable, one part of them always remaining in contact with the other. Caspian kept trying to push back the knowledge that Zed was going to leave soon and he wasn’t. They talked about the future, but maybe Zed sensed Caspian’s heart wasn’t in it because Zed always let him change the subject. Yet that hurt.

  He’s going to leave me.

  Maybe they were both in their own ways getting ready to be parted. Not that it showed in what they did to each other. Caspian went hard thinking about it. They did everything except fuck. It was as if there was an unspoken agreement they wouldn’t go that far, that this wasn’t the right place. The condoms stayed in the locker.

  It’s not fair for me to take that first time from you.

  How long do we have?

  Caspian was waiting for the day that Jackson came again because he knew that marked the end. Perhaps of everything. Because once Zed had started a new life, he wouldn’t need him anymore. Not a guy who’d been in prison. Caspian wasn’t even sure he could leave the country once he had a criminal record. He’d google it except he wasn’t allowed to go online.

  Their kisses became more desperate. They came in each other’s hands and mouths as often as they could. It was as if they were trying to fit a lifetime into a few weeks.

  I am going to lose him.

  At night, long after Zed had fallen asleep in his arms, Caspian lay awake committing every inch of his body to memory. He did it time after time. Zed had told him he felt as if he was being examined like a stone, as if Caspian was finding the direction of the grain, looking for flaws. There are no flaws.

  Caspian made up poems, traced them and his name onto Zed’s skin with his tongue. Wrote over his back. Over the faint scars left by his father’s beatings. Over his heart. Wanting him to remember, knowing he had to let him go.

  Then one day, even before the call came for Zed to go to the visitor’s room, Caspian began to push him away. Not let him go, make him go.

  “It’s been fun.”

  “This has been great.”

  “You’re too good for me.”

  “You can be anything you want to be.”

  “I’ll hold you back.”

  “You have a future. I don’t.”

  “You have to go and be happy.”

  “Forget me.”

  Those were the two words that choked him. The two words that gave him away because his voice broke when he said them.

  Zed pulled him into his arms. “Shut up. I know what you’re doing. Don’t. Don’t tell yourself or me that it’s for my own good. Without you my future is nothing. I will never desert you. Don’t think that I will. This is our story. We can make it whatever we want it to be.”

  And I can make it what it needs to be.

  Zed went to see his visitor and when he walked back into the cell Caspian knew their time was up.

  “When?” he choked out.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Caspian nodded and bit his lip to hold back his sob.

  “Jackson has found a couple with no kids to take me.”

  “That’s great.”

  “The moment you get out,” Zed said, “we’ll make a life together.”

  How can I let you walk away from your future? He forced a smile to his face.

  “I’ll come and see you in here,” Zed told him.

  “Until you’re eighteen you have to be accompanied on visits.”

  “Oh. But I could get someone to bring me.”

  “I don’t want you to come. I think we should stop this now. There’s no point waiting for me. I suspect I’ll be spending years inside. I don’t want you to wait. Promise me you won’t.”

  He hated the look of disappointment on Zed’s face, but he wasn’t going to change his mind. Though Zed didn’t promise and that kept Caspian’s spark of hope still burning.

  Almost as if their bodies knew what was coming, they slept unentangled for the first time in two weeks. Caspian slipped into the other bed and lay watching Zed sleep knowing this was the end.

  Their last kiss was so chaste and sad that Caspian’s anger over what his brother and father had done bubbled into hatred. Zed walked out and Caspian slumped onto the bed.

  Fifteen minutes later Naughton came in and handed him an envelope. “GCSE results.”

  Caspian sat up and opened it.

  Cs in physics and Design and Technology. Ds and Es for the rest. He screwed up the paper and threw it at the bin. Missed. He was useless.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Zed hated leaving Caspian in prison, hated the way they’d parted. He’d expected to wake next to him that last morning but when he’d opened his eyes and Caspian lay on the other bed, he’d known what was going to happen. Zed wasn’t going to give up on him.

  Jackson collected him in person from Woodbury, told him Fahid had left the country. Zed would have preferred hearing they had him in custody. He walked with Jackson to his car, a black Honda. The relief in being free was spoiled because he’d had to leave Caspian behind.

  “So how was it?” Jackson asked as he set off. “Glad to be out?”

  “Yes.” And no. What about Tamaz? “So Fahid is definitely out of the country?” Zed felt bad that he needed Jackson to say it twice, but he did. He also wanted Jackson to volunteer information about Tamaz.

  “He took a flight to Pakistan. We have him on CCTV using a different passport at Heathrow.”

  “Okay.” Zed took a deep breath. “What about my brother? He wasn’t involved, right?

  “No.”

  Zed didn’t like the way Jackson had said no because it sounded a little too much like he might be.

  “How’s your friend?”

  Zed wasn’t going to answer that. He didn’t want to talk about Caspian with Jackson. There was too much risk of him blurting out the truth. “Where am I going now?”

  “Greenwich.”

  “That’s where I’m going to live?”

  “Yes. I’ll let Jonas explain everything. Jonas Mallinson. It’s his house.”

  “You know my brother asked me to go and live with him.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “No. But he’s going to want to know why I don’t.”

  “We’ll come up with a plausible story. Tell you what, why don’t you try to think of one?”

  “Is this a test?”

  Jackson laughed. “I have a feeling you’d ace any test we gave to an eighteen-year-old. See what you can come up with.”

  Zed thought about it. “I don’t want to be a burden to my brother who’s in the middle of his degree course. He can’t afford to look after me and it might make his relationship with our father difficult. I can’t go home and Tamaz will understand why not. The local authority would take me into care for the next couple of years enabling me to stay on at school and do A levels, but I was lucky there was a family who offered me a place to live close to a good school.”

  He glanced at Jackson.

  “Not bad. There is a slight issue however.”

  “The school’s not good?”

  “I think you’ll love the school.”

  Zed’s shoulders slumped. “My father.”

  “Yes.”

  “What has he said?”

  “He wants you home. He claims he’s always acted in your best interests and that things have been difficult between you since your mother died, but he feels you can rebuild your relationship.”

  Zed wrapped his arms around himself. “No, that won’t happen.”

  “He could decide to go to court to try and get you back.”

  “He…” Zed took a deep breath. “I think he’s bluffing. He doesn’t want me. He just wants to look as though he does. I won’t go back. I’m sixteen. He can’t make me do anything. Court’s not an option.”

  “What did he do?” Jackson asked in a quiet voice. “You wouldn’t tell me before. Will you now? Should we be thinking of involving the police?”

  “He beat
me. He kept a crop on top of the door and sometimes he used that. Other times it was his belt, his fists and feet.”

  “Because you’re gay?”

  “He doesn’t know that. He beat me for a lot of stuff but not because I’m gay.”

  “For what then?”

  “Not eating the food in front of me even though it would make me throw up and then I’d get beaten anyway. He hit me for being disrespectful. Islam commands that a child shows kindness, respect and humility to parents on a daily basis. No matter how hard I tried, I was never going to be the son he wanted. He hit me for not getting better marks. Not cleaning well enough. Forgetting to polish his shoes.”

  “Didn’t your teachers notice your bruises?”

  “Not often. He was careful to hit me where it couldn’t be seen. Usually my back or backside. When he got really angry, he forgot and hit my face. Sometimes I was asked what happened, and I always lied. He broke my arm a couple of years ago and didn’t even take me to hospital. Caspian told someone and then the police came and I had to lie and say some boys attacked me. I don’t know why my father would want me back. I don’t know why he hates me so much.”

  It was as if a dam had burst. Zed couldn’t stop talking. “He won’t let me play an instrument or study music because it’s haram. I could only do it at school without him knowing. I couldn’t choose the A levels I wanted. He chose them for me. He never gave me pocket money. I had to take a few coins from wherever I found them around the house. I rarely had new clothes, just Tamaz’s cast-offs. I wasn’t allowed to read fiction. He found me reading one of Caspian’s books and he ripped it to pieces. Things were better once he had a girlfriend because he paid me less attention, but life was still shit.” He sucked in a breath. “Sorry.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry. Okay. We’ll tackle a court case if it comes to it, but you’re right. He can’t make you go back and he won’t want you telling a judge why. Is there anything from your home that you want?”

  “The only things I wanted were in the bag at Fahid’s place.”

  “They’re now in Greenwich.”

  “Thank you. Tamaz said he’d send for my National Insurance Number. I don’t know if he did or if he just told me he was going to.”