“You were…a little…excited, yeah–”
“Don’t try to make it sound better than it was.”
She bit her lip. Tough love, or kid gloves in this situation? She said, “Do you like me?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Do you like me?”
“Of course I like you. Why would you even ask that?”
“Did you…last night. Was that because you like…what we were about to do? Or because you like me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Both.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t sure how that made her feel.
He sat back a little in his chair, and reached into the pocket of the hoodie hooked onto the laddered back of it, coming out with a pack of smokes and a lighter. He fetched his saucer ashtray off the counter where she’d left it clean and shiny last night, lit up, settled at the table again.
“Okay,” he said after he’d had his first drag. “Here’s the thing. I’m a fucking pervert.”
“Kev!”
“No, just listen.” Another drag. Tapping of ash. “I really am. After what happened to me…what I did…” He shook his head and forced smoke through his nostrils. “I think about sex all the time, even when I don’t want it. I fixate on it.” Another head shake. “And the first time I saw you, a very big part of me was thinking about what I wanted to do to you.”
Her mouth went dry.
“And the longer I know you, the worse that feeling gets. Because I do like you. I more than like you.”
She tried to swallow.
“But because I’m a sick pervert, I would only hurt you, or scare you, or ruin everything.” His eyes, up ‘til now flicking across the table, lifted to her face, expression earnest. “So I’m not going to touch you again. Not like that.”
Why was that disappointing? “You weren’t hurting me,” she said. “You were just going a little fast.”
“Fast is my only setting. I’m a goddamn sex toy. I’m not even a person.”
“Don’t say that.”
He ignored her. “But part of getting better is learning how not to be a toy. And that means no sex. That means having some self-control.”
“Is that what your therapist told you?”
An inexplicable smile tweaked one corner of his mouth. “No. This is something I’ve decided for myself.”
“You’re not a sex toy,” she insisted.
He made a disagreeing face and looked away again, dragging on his cigarette.
“Wanting to be with somebody doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.”
He grinned, a nasty grin, like he was mocking himself. “Sure.”
“Kev–”
“You’re a good person,” he said, making eye contact again. “You are. One of the best people I know. I’m not gonna let my bullshit bleed all over you. I’m just not, Whitney. I want you to stay here as long as you need to. And I don’t want you to have to worry about what I might do.”
This conversation was giving her a headache. She dropped her forehead into her cupped palm and fought the lump in her throat, the burn of tears. “I can move out, if that’s what you really want.”
“No,” he said, at once. “That’s not what I want at all. I mean.” She heard him fidget. “Unless that’s what you want.”
“No. Eventually, yes, but not at the moment. I’ll have to find a place.”
“Oh. Well, you can stay here while you look for one.”
“Thanks.”
Her other hand was on the table, and she felt his cover it, his skin smooth save the years-old calluses he’d earned working on bikes at the Dartmoor garage.
“Whit,” he said, quietly, urgently. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
She nodded. “I know.”
They sat there for a long moment, before he finally pulled back. “I’m gonna wash the dishes.”
“I’ll help you.” When she picked her head up, he was giving her a crooked, hopeful smile, like he so badly didn’t want her to hate him.
She couldn’t help but return it.
~*~
Ian dreamed of home all the time now. Tonight, he went back to his old room, flopped down on the bed on his stomach, flipped open his sketch pad to a new page, and began to draw. Vague, light strokes at first, and then more detailed, getting darker, defining shapes and adding shading so that the figure looked more of a human and less of a mannequin. It was the man who’d showed up at the back of dance class tonight.
Ian had had one foot up at the barre, stretching alongside his classmates, enjoying the deep sense of pulling in his hamstring, when in the mirror he had seen a man standing against the far wall. He’d looked like a dancer: lithe, tall, narrow in the right places with just enough wideness in his shoulders to suggest strength. He had been older, perhaps forty, his face lined, though still handsome.
Handsome. Something Ian had started to associate with men. He’d begun to look at them, seeing features and finding them attractive. A dusting of hair on a wrist; a cleft in the chin; a nose sharp as a blade. He noticed things, so he noticed that this man was well-groomed, and nicely-formed, and that his eyes were sharp and glittering in his fine-featured face.
The man had spoken to Madame Clarice for a long time, so long that their warmup had ended and all the students had plopped gracefully down onto the floor to await further instructions.
When their meeting was over, the man walked away and Madame Clarice turned to the assemblage with unusually bright eyes. She clapped her hands too sharply and said, in a voice high with excitement, “First position!”
Ian had never seen her so exuberant.
After class, she had asked him to stay late; had called him into her office. It was an office as exacting as its mistress. Small wooden desk that she had sanded and refinished regularly; tidy file cabinets full of student information; spotless blotter; chrome cup full of pens and pencils; framed photos of her students, and of herself as a young student, done in tasteful black-and-white and framed in black on the walls. A pair of faded shoes hung behind the desk, tied to a decorative hook by their ribbons. It smelled like cedar and lemon. Because it was summer, the window was cracked and street-scented air slipped in, fragrant currents that stirred the pointe shoes.
“Have a seat, please,” Madame Clarice said, and Ian folded quickly into the chair opposite her desk. “You saw the man who was here?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
She pressed her lips together, face coloring as if she was pleased, but not wanting to demonstrate as such. “He’s a representative for a very prestigious ballet school.” A school that sent a representative to look at him, specifically.
Ian thought he might faint right off the chair. “They did?”
Madame Clarice nodded. “Yes, of course. You’re my best student.”
She told him, in her crisp, no-nonsense voice, that the man’s name was Mr. Brigg, and that he’d once been a dancer himself, and now worked as an instructor at the aforementioned prestigious academy. He was looking for new “raw talent” to add to the roster and he’d heard that there was “a very fine young dancer” at Madame Clarice’s he ought to observe.
“He wants to take you for an audition there,” Madame Clarice had said, a smile breaking through the cracks of her stern façade. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“But…I like dancing here.”
“Of course you do, my pet, and I would miss you terribly in my class. But you mustn’t waste such an opportunity.”
An opportunity. Would Mum and Dad see it as such? he wondered. It would mean driving him farther, weekend practices, a possibility of missed dinners.
He set his pencil aside and reached for the stick of charcoal at his elbow, for the darkest shadows, loving the powdery feel of it.
Two days later, Mr. Brigg was back at Madame Clarice’s, and Ian buzzed with excitement all through class, missing marks again and again, fumbling in his nervousness. Afterward, after Madame Clarice had told him to “pay better attention next time
,” Mr. Brigg stepped forward and asked if he might walk home with Ian.
Ian was delighted. He spent an extra five minutes in the changing room, running his fingers under the tap and adjusting his hair with water, wishing he didn’t look so flushed and warm and floppy-haired. His cheeks glowed pink, and his eyes seemed too wide, too bright, too caught between blue and green to be any real color. He was just so nervous.
If Mr. Brigg thought he was floppy-haired or strange, he didn’t let on. He greeted Ian with a warm smile. “Ready to go?” He had a faint touch of Irishman in his voice. A nice voice, deep and resonant.
“Yes!” Ian said with too much enthusiasm, and they set off.
Mr. Brigg told Ian to call him Sean, and he said that Ian shouldn’t be nervous, that being approached was as good as acceptance. If you were special enough to draw attention, it usually meant you were special enough to get into the school.
Ian wanted to talk about the school, but Mr. Brigg – Sean – wanted to know more about Ian. Where he went to real school, how many siblings he had, what were his mother and father like.
“They must be so proud of you,” he said.
Ian shrugged. “Maybe.” But he wasn’t sure of that at all. Dad thought he was some sort of fairy for wanting to do ballet. And Mum was too caught up in the social whirl to pay much attention to any of her three children. “My sister is,” he said, smiling as he thought of little Janie, grinning her gap-toothed smile at him, insisting he must be “the handsomest ballerina” in all of London. He loved her for that, and had told her so, often when she’d had a nightmare and crept down the hall to his room, rooting under his covers like a frightened little pug.
“She’ll miss you, then,” Sean said, warm smile shifting, growing almost somber. “All the time you’ll be spending away from home, dancing.”
Ian didn’t think much of that; he was too excited to worry about consequences.
Two days later, he was walking to Madame Clarice’s when a black bag dropped over his head, and he felt the sharp prick of a needle in the side of his neck.
He slept.
When he woke, he was surrounded by strangers. And Sean was there.
The dream that wasn’t a dream, that was really a memory, ended there, Sean’s deadened face fading to mist as Ian opened his eyes and gasped.
Darkness. Faint slatted patterns on the ceiling: ambient city light filtering through the vertical blinds. Gentle rush of breathing beside him. Alec. Perfect pink lower lip, little cleft in his chin, expressive, vulnerable brown eyes, taste of rose water in the hollow of his throat, beneath his collar, hidden, unless your tongue was searching for it.
“I’ve never been with a man before,” he’d whispered, hours ago, like a confession.
“Do you want to be with one?” Ian had asked, nipping at his ear, feeling his chest press against his own as Alec gasped. Shocked. Delighted. Afraid. Thrilled.
“Yes.”
There had been something sweet about the awkward, virginal fumbling, the blushing, the uncertainty. Something delicious in showing someone what he wanted for the first time.
Almost as delicious as it had been with Kev, years before.
Ian reached out blindly and found the half-full crystal glass of Cabernet Sauvignon he’d left on the nightstand. He lifted his head as he brought it to his lips, not spilling a drop on his expensive steel-colored sheets. He’d had lots of practice with this.
He’d had lots of practice with so, so many things.
Beside him, Alec stirred, kicking through the sheets, murmuring something.
Ian passed his knuckles down the hard knobs of his spine. “Go back to sleep, darling. It’s only a nightmare.”
Ten
Session 2
Mercy brought brownies. “Not the fun kind,” he explained with a grin, brows twitching. “Just the regular kind. But Ava put chocolate and peanut butter chips in them.” She’d also put them on a white ceramic cake stand with little scalloped edges and wrapped it carefully in Christmas themed cling wrap. Mercy set them down in the center of the coffee table and took the wrap off with surprising dexterity – at least, Tango had once thought it was surprising. He was long since used to the incredible gentleness of the big man.
“They look good,” Tango said.
“Yeah, I know. That’s why you’re going to eat one.” He sent him a meaningful look.
Tango sighed and leaned forward to snag one. His stomach cramped at the idea of sweets that weren’t alcohol, but he was serious, wasn’t he? About getting better? He could eat a damn brownie.
He nibbled a corner – it was delicious, a hint of cinnamon in the mix – and earned a nod of approval, just before Mercy devoured one in two efficient bites.
“Okay,” the Cajun said when he could. “You wanna pick up where we left off yesterday?”
Tango shrugged and nibbled a little more. Just two small bites, and he could already feel them solidifying in his stomach. “Seems as good a place as any.”
~*~
They were no longer in Georgia, Miss Carla informed him around ten the next morning, as the Cadillac barreled down the interstate. She was in the same dress as the day before, hair limp from hotel shampoo, as she turned to look at him in the back seat. Kev was getting really tired of the smile she kept giving him. The sight of it curled his little hands into fists and left him feeling energized…and violent. Like the urge to kick an anthill. Or cover his face during the scary parts of a movie.
“Where are we?” he asked. There was a dull, lifeless quality to his voice; his tongue felt heavy, his throat thick. He hadn’t cried, but he wanted to.
“Tennessee,” she said. “The great state of Tennessee.”
Tennessee looked much the same as Georgia, open fields and pine forest flashing past the window. But the soil, the open patches of it he could see, were paler, not that red Georgia clay that he used to build bunkers for his army men.
He wanted to go home.
The sun was in the middle of the sky when the Cadillac turned into the driveway of a house and the engine went quiet. Daddy and Miss Carla opened their doors and climbed out. The safety locks had been engaged the entire ride, so Kev had to wait for Miss Carla to open his door and invite him outside with a wave of her arm.
It was a real house, and not a trailer like where he and Mama lived, but it didn’t look fresh, and clean, and white like their trailer did. It didn’t look like any sort of place he would want to live. It had a long, uneven porch in front, and rooms and extensions boiled out in all directions, like warts, the shape of it messy, displeasing to the eye. The paint peeled in thick strips, like sunburned skin, and there were bars over the windows, thick as Kev’s wrist and crowded together.
Tall, shaggy trees shaded a yard that was mostly dirt, tufted with weeds. A high chain link fence surrounded the property, and in back, Kev glimpsed the wood boards of a privacy fence.
His gaze landed on small things: a Snickers bar wrapper caught in the links of the fence, a Styrofoam cup at the base of a tree, a crack in one window, just visible through the bars. He smelled…bad things. Dark, foul, frightening things. An odor he couldn’t identify, but which tickled the back of his conscience, told him there was danger near.
A turn of his head in both directions showed that the whole street was full of un-homey houses like this one. Lots of trees. Lots of shadows, even in daytime. He heard dogs barking in anger and fear. Heard a radio, dimly, from somewhere, the kind of music Mama never let him listen to.
Miss Carla’s hand clamped down on the back of his neck, her fingers cool, but damp. It was gross. It made him jump. “Come on, honey, don’t just stand there. Let’s go inside.”
Kev sent a pleading look toward Daddy, but Daddy didn’t seem to be coming, propping a hip against the window of the Cadillac and lighting a cigarette.
“Dad.”
“Go on, sport.” He didn’t glance up.
Miss Carla’s fingers tightened; he felt the sharp tips of her nails bite i
nto his skin. “Come on,” she said again, and propelled him forward to the door.
She pushed him up porch stairs that sounded like they might splinter, and unlocked the front door one-handed, hustling him through with the other.
His first impression was of darkness. A stale smell. Not enough sunlight.
The door closed and locked behind him with a resounding sequence of clicks.
His eyes adjusted to the light and he saw that the front door led into a narrow foyer, devoid of all furniture. A sequence of hooks on the left wall held jackets, hats, an umbrella.
“This way,” Miss Carla said behind him, and urged him forward.
They stepped into a wide, shadowy living room: TV, sofas, chairs, all of it sad, dark, dusty. A stairwell with wooden spindles led to an upper story, but Miss Carla steered him past it, and into the kitchen.
Buckled, checkered linoleum, peeling up at its yellow edges against the bases of the cabinets. Cabinets that might have been white, once, but now were the color of handprints and splattered grease. A stained cooktop; a coffee maker; a table stacked with magazines, one corner reserved for a standing mirror and a large black plastic case. The bars over the windows striped the floor with shadows and sunlight. It smelled like ripe garbage.
“Over here.” Miss Carla jangled her keys, selected several, and unlocked a door tucked beside the pantry with not one, but five deadbolt locks screwed into the wood.
Kev could smell it the second the door was open: a pit of humanity.
Miss Carla clicked on a light somewhere. Down they went, a narrow flight of wooden stairs, walls tight on either side. Click of her heels. Gentle sounds beyond the walls: voices, rustles, questions. Smell of people, of rats.
The basement was unfinished, concrete floor, block walls, exposed joists overhead, spangled with cobwebs that floated in air currents. Bedrooms, narrow bunks, pallets on the floor, boys. Lots of small, skinny boys, just like him, with girl-pretty faces. The walls of the bedrooms were bars. Cells. They were in cells. And Miss Carla had the keys.
Her clammy hand pinched the back of his neck until he whimpered. “Alright, Kev. Come meet your new brothers.”
Loverboy (Dartmoor Book 5) Page 11