Another Man's Treasure

by J. A. Rock

  He started to roll onto his side. A sharp pull on the laces. His cinched skin burned, and his cock throbbed, dangerously close to spilling.

  God, he needed to see Patrick’s sweet face. His kind eyes. Patrick could jerk off over him like Mikhail had the day he’d come home with the piercing. Patrick would be shy and ashamed, more ashamed that Ilia, and Mikhail would be firm. “Do it, Patrick. Come on him.”

  No.

  He curled into himself, angry and afraid. It was Mikhail he loved, not Patrick. Mikhail’s touch he craved. Patrick ought to get the fuck out of their home.

  “Stop,” he said sharply. “Stop, stop, stop.”

  At the same time, he felt Patrick draw away. Heard Patrick say, “I can’t do this.”

  IV

  “It was good,” Ilia said hoarsely. “I don’t know what happened. It was good.”

  He and Mikhail were in bed. Mikhail was rubbing his back, fingertips skimming the laces.

  “Was it the pain?” Mikhail traced one of the rings.

  Ilia shook his head. Might as well come clean. “It was him.”

  “You didn’t like him?”

  Shame spilled over him again in a dark wave. “Liked him too much.”

  Mikhail laughed.

  “It’s not funny!”

  “Why not?” Mikhail tipped Ilia’s face up. “I could see you liked him.”

  Mikhail didn’t know. Hadn’t been in Ilia’s head and heard what he was thinking. Ilia shifted, agitated. “I like you.”

  “You’re still human.”

  “I’m not supposed to like anyone else. I have you.”

  Mikhail kissed him. “You can have whatever you want, Ilie. You know this. You want me to invite Patrick to join us in bed some night?”

  Ilia studied Mikhail, wanting to make sure he was kidding. “I don’t want that.”

  Mikhail laughed again. “He was very beautiful. What did you like about him?”

  Ilia thought for a moment. “I liked that he was afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “He’s not like John. Or any of your friends. He’s not so confident, and maybe I think that’s kind of fucking beautiful.”

  Years ago, Ilia had been afraid. He thought he’d hidden it better than Patrick, but maybe not. Maybe that was what Mikhail had seen, what he’d first fallen in love with: a cocky kid, claiming he was up for anything and then coming undone when Mikhail first guided his legs apart.

  “I think he was afraid of hurting you,” Mikhail said. “Because you are so beautiful.”

  Ilia smiled. Of course Mikhail would think that Patrick’s nervousness came from the fact that Ilia was so precious. Not from the fact that the poor guy had suddenly found himself standing in the same room as Mikhail Kadyrov.

  “You want him?” Mikhail traced his finger along the tattoo on Ilia’s left upper arm, one of the first products of Ilia’s teenage rebellious streak. Not the last. “You want to show the redhead how to be confident?”

  “I...I don’t know.”

  “I would like to see you seduce him, Ilia,” Mikhail said, his expression serious. “The way you seduced me.”

  Ilia snorted. “As if I seduced you!”

  “Wait. Wait, um...I can’t...I can’t...”

  “Ilie. We have time. It doesn’t have to be now.”

  “I want to! Fuck, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m being stupid.”

  He’d intended to seduce Mikhail. And he’d thought he’d seen enough porn to know how getting fucked worked. But he’d gotten nervous when it counted, then angry about being nervous. They laughed about it now, but the memory still embarrassed Ilia. Eighteen years old. Punk kid. Weak, like his father had always said.

  “Ah, but you did,” Mikhail murmured. He kissed Ilia again, his tongue playing along his bottom lip. “The moment I saw you, you seduced me.”

  Ilia had been a barista. Nine-hour shifts, with a fake smile plastered on his face, and sore feet and steam burns. Busy shifts were the worst. He’d hated the way the line stretched out the door, and every single person in it wanted their order now. It had been easy to get mixed up.

  “This is not the coffee I ordered.”

  “What?” he’d snapped. “What did you order?”

  The man had looked at him, offering a slight smile. “Not this.”

  “Then just tell me...” And he’d belatedly realized who the hell he was speaking to. A chill ran through him. “Um, sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “You work for tips?”

  “Yes.” He’d steeled himself for a dressing down in front of a shop full of customers. For worse, even though he couldn’t imagine what Mikhail Kadyrov could do to him in a public place. Something. He was sure there was something.

  “I’ll give you a tip.” The man had leaned in across the counter, and Ilia’s breath had caught in his throat. “If you come to dinner with me tonight, you won’t regret it.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  There had been something unexpected in the man’s eyes. Honesty. A touch of humor. And just like that, Ilia hadn’t been afraid, or at least he hadn’t let his fear rule him. Rebelliousness had stirred in his gut, a variation of the same reckless attitude he’d been fostering since his early teens. The tattoos, the earrings, the party drugs, the “boyfriends”—all part of a cheap clichéd Fuck you, Dad. But this, this would be the ultimate.

  What time are you picking me up?”

  Now, Ilia could hardly believe there was a time he’d been afraid; a time in his life when Mikhail hadn’t been his entire universe. Knowing Mikhail like this, in the quiet, in the night, was like knowing a secret the rest of the world never would. How gentle Mikhail was, how loving.

  “I’ll do it,” Ilia murmured.

  Mikhail drew his fingers down Ilia’s back. The ribbon dipped and snagged against his fingers, and every nerve in Ilia’s body lit up. “You’ll do what, Ilie?”

  “I’ll seduce him.” Ilia closed his eyes. Clawed the sheets like a cat as Mikhail toyed with the ribbon. “I want to suck him off while you watch.”

  Mikhail groaned. “Ah, my beautiful boy. You are my light.”

  Ilia turned his head and kissed Mikhail’s chest. Let his lips linger there as he fumbled for the courage to say what he wanted to say. “I felt like a whore.” His voice was barely audible.

  “Hmm?”

  “Thinking about him like I did. I felt like a whore. Wanted him to make me one. Wanted him to fuck me.”

  Mikhail’s hand stilled.

  “Not really,” Ilia said quickly, easing his head back onto the pillow so he could see Mikhail’s face. “I want you—just you. But I thought about it.”

  Mikhail leaned over him. His breath moved the hair on Ilia’s neck. “Anything you want. We will make it happen.”

  Ilia laughed, more nervous relief than anything. Confessing to Mikhail snapped whatever thread still connected Ilia to Patrick, to his earlier fantasies. Left him feeling relaxed and free. “This is good,” he whispered, stretching and then falling limp. He sighed into the pillow. “I don’t really want to be a whore.”

  Mikhail kissed his shoulder. “Never. You could never be.” He kissed Ilia again. “But if you want to feel like one…” He chuckled against Ilia’s skin. “Ohhhh, I would play that game.”

  Ilia exhaled slowly. “Oh, shit. Maybe.”

  Mikhail nuzzled him. “We will invite that boy back. See what happens.”

  Ilia lay still for several minutes. He’d never imagined he’d end up with anyone so...anyone who could make him feel normal and rare at the same time. A treasure, but not an aberration. “Love you,” he murmured.

  “I love you too, Ilia.” Mikhail’s fingers pressed against the lengths of ribbon as though they were the keys of a piano, and Ilia shuddered under his touch.

  V

  He had to piss.

  Barefoot on the carpet, one arm out. Fingers brushing against the wall in the darkness to find his way. He was s
ore, tired, pulled from sleep by his throbbing bladder. Yawning; not awake. He rolled his shoulders to ease the muscles now that the ribbon had been loosened for bed. Sniffed as he pissed, and found himself humming that song:

  Oh red painted soldier,

  The wounds you feel are mine.

  He turned on the tap too fast, and water splashed against the basin and back up onto his pants. Not enough to jolt him into wakefulness. Hand on the wall again, heading back to bed.

  Sudden noise and light shattered the stillness. The front door burst open. Heavy footsteps in the living room.

  Ilia turned blindly, panicked. “Mikhail! Mikhail!”

  There was a figure in the hall. A black shape, running at him.

  “Mikhail!” Ilia hit the floor under the man’s weight. Boots trampled past him.

  “Police! Get down! Police!”

  Ilia struggled under the man, crying out.

  “Ilia!” Mikhail shouted from the bedroom. “Ilia!”

  “Drop the weapon! Drop it!”

  A single shot.

  “No!” Ilia screamed. “No! Mikhail! Mikhail!”

  But nobody answered him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I

  “You will be safe here,” Mikhail had told him when he’d given him the key. “This will be our sanctuary, yes?”

  Yes.

  Ilia sat on the living room floor. The door to the apartment door was open. Uniforms and suits walked in and out. Men and women in gloves and crime scene booties. Cameras clicked in the bedroom.

  It might have been five minutes or five hours, Ilia couldn’t tell. It was no surprise when the man came and knelt in front of him. The uniform, the assault rifle, the familiar fucking face.

  “Did you take the shot?” Ilia asked. He didn’t even know where he found his voice. “Did you kill Mikhail?”

  “I can’t talk about that with you.”

  “Then why the fuck are you here?”

  “Give me your hands.”

  No.

  Don’t.

  I don’t want you to touch me. I’ll break if you do.

  But Ilia couldn’t refuse.

  Every time. He remembered when he was six and fell off his bike. He’d run crying to him then, wanting to be held until his hurt went away. His first few years spent secure in the knowledge that this man would always protect him, until it all changed. Until security felt stifling, and suddenly Ilia couldn’t do a fucking thing right, and it was too much effort to try and prove him wrong, so he kept fucking up to show that it didn’t matter to him what anyone thought.

  What he thought, most of all.

  “Dad,” he whispered, his hands shaking. His father drew his arms straight. Ilia almost leaned toward him before he realized this wasn’t an embrace. His father twisted his arms outward, running his gloved hands up Ilia’s forearms. Sliding the sleeves of his baggy shirt upward. Poking his fingers in the creases of his elbows.

  He was looking for track marks.

  Ilia wrenched his arms back. Buried his face in them.

  “Captain Porter?” someone called.

  His father stood and walked away.

  “This will be our sanctuary, yes?”

  Ilia’s shoulders heaved.

  II

  A laminate table with peeling edges and coffee stains.

  A stark fluorescent bulb that kept flickering.

  A vague sense of astonishment that he’d ever been impressed with this place. Proud of his connection to it. Proud that his dad was a cop.

  “I want to see him,” Ilia said.

  The woman had a face that was too old for her. Maybe it was the way she pulled back her hair. “Your father?”

  Ilia’s guts knotted. He shook his head. “I want to see Mikhail.”

  The woman’s mouth pressed into a thin line before she spoke. “No,” she said at last. “You really don’t.”

  III

  “What is all this? What did he do to you?”

  Ilia tugged his shirt back down. Stared at the table and thought of the song about the little red painted soldier that took him straight back to the piercing studio.

  Svsshhhh.

  For him.

  He shivered.

  “What the hell am I supposed to tell your mother?”

  A burst of anger. His mother? He didn’t give a fuck what his dad told his mother. What did it even matter? What was a question like that even supposed to mean? It didn’t make sense. Nothing did.

  Mikhail was dead.

  That didn’t make sense most of all.

  Mikhail was his universe.

  Ilia blinked, and saw stars collapsing. Saw a black hole, consuming everything. Spiraling ribbons of gas and dust pulled into the center.

  Svsshhhh.

  “Eli! Eli, you look at me! Fucking look at me!”

  He turned his head sharply. “That’s not my name.”

  Had the satisfaction of seeing the look of shock on his father’s face. “What are you talking about?”

  “My name is Ilia.”

  IV

  Cheap.

  Ilia had never thought much about the meaning of the word. When he was young, it had meant the discount supermarket—low prices, bruised produce. Or the clothing store his mom had liked, with its constant red dot sales on shirts with tiny holes in them. Jeans that faded and wore thin too soon.

  “You should get a winter coat now,” his mother had said. “You’re not going to find them much cheaper.”

  It had been the spring Ilia finished high school. He wasn’t thinking about winter coats. And he sure as fuck didn’t want to be out shopping with his mother.

  He’d gotten his first tattoo the week before. Loved to see his dad glare at it. He was maybe never gonna wear long sleeves again. A tattoo, fuck, that was nothing special, but he wanted to show the world all the ways he’d become what his father hated. Wanted to wear short sleeves in winter and let the cold turn him pale, tinge him gray, so that the colors on the sunflower on his arm stood out—something that was his, loud, feminine; bright defiance of the dull man his father would have preferred as a son.

  He shook his head so that his long earrings swept his jaw.

  “No?” his mother said.

  “No,” Ilia replied.

  Someone had called him Marilyn Manson at school because of his eye makeup. But he wasn’t a freak; he was a thing of beauty. Some people didn’t understand beauty. It scared them. They envied it, admired it, but they didn’t want to see what it was connected to, didn’t want to know that a beautiful face was plugged into a soul as brutal as their own.

  Mikhail had understood that.

  “You are not weak,” he’d told Ilia once.

  Ilia shook his head.

  “You know how to fire a gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope you will never have to. But just in case, Ilie, I am leaving one in the drawer here.”

  Being afraid of danger didn’t make you weak. It made you smart.

  What made you weak was letting a bad situation control you. You embraced everything—pain, hardships, the unexpected. And love. You took that and you gave it back tenfold. Because anyone who took love for granted was weak.

  Anyone who rejected it was unworthy of it to begin with.

  Cheap.

  The hotel looked cheap; it wasn’t. Tall, for D.C., and lit from the base by purple and red lights. Tourists walked by it in hoards. The doors revolved. Everything was red carpet and brass. Ilia’s room was on the sixth floor. The abstract prints on the walls were of dirt colored geometric shapes. The bathroom tiles had subtle butterflies painted in their centers.

  Ilia wanted his apartment back. Wanted to crawl into his bed there and wait for Mikhail.

  He found himself checking his own arms now, as though he was looking for track marks. As though everything his dad believed about him was there somewhere on his skin. If he looked hard enough, he’d see the man his father saw—not a treasure at all. A disappointment. An a
ccident.

  He’d see something cheap. Something a couple of uses away from breaking.

  Ilia needed Mikhail to look at him. Needed to see what Mikhail saw.

  Can’t. Not anymore.

  So be brave and be good and be everything.

  For him.

  He lay on the bed, and through the wall came the sound of people fucking. A thump and her whimper. A creak and his groan.

  Even places that sprang for fancy bathroom tiles didn’t spring for thick walls.

  The sanctuary had thick walls. It was on the top floor of an eight-story building, and nobody ever bothered Ilia there. He never heard the neighbors. The balcony faced a quiet back street. He could sit out there some afternoons and imagine he wasn’t in a city at all. Alone, until Mikhail arrived each evening. And then the place, the street, the world—was theirs.

  V

  There was a knock on the door, but no “housekeeping” or “delivery.”

  Ilia had spent the last five days in the hotel, venturing out only when he had to. Today he’d gotten a burger from a stand and hurried back. The burger was on the table, untouched, and Ilia was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands.

  Every so often he heard the echo of the words he’d screamed at his father in the police station. “Fuck you! I’m not going home with you! That’s not my fucking home!” His words, and the neighbors fucking, and game shows. People spinning a wheel to win. Buzzer if they lost, and a groan from the crowd.

  He was unshaven, the same makeup smeared under his eyes from days ago. Fast food stinking from his pores. The days and nights all washed into sameness as the TV blared and chemical clouds misted over the stars. He was becoming a ghost.

  Funny how that worked. Mikhail, so large and powerful in life, was now completely, awfully gone. And Ilia, never alive enough on his own, didn’t even have to die to turn to wisps.