Off Stage

by Jaime Samms

  5

  LEN WORKED next to Kilmer in silence, absorbing the older man’s instructions and doing as he was told without comment. He felt like a complete idiot for so many reasons. He didn’t want to have to explain himself, mostly because he had no explanation to give. He’d lost his mind. He’d lashed out. Then he’d run. And he couldn’t say Leave me alone, it’s my business, I’ll deal with it because he’d made it Kilmer’s business when he’d basically stolen a horse to run away on, and he’d made it Vance’s problem when he’d hit him.

  They had removed halters and bits and loosened girths, and Len stood back to let Kilmer remove the saddle from Bridget’s back. The horse was easily a seventeen-hander, probably taller, ideal for Vance’s massive frame, but too tall for Len to lift the heavy saddle down easily.

  “Sometimes you do need to say it out loud to make sense of it,” Kilmer said as they brushed the horses.

  “Say what out loud?”

  “Whatever it is puttin’ a burr under your saddle.”

  Len frowned. “What?”

  “You got a look on your face,” Kilmer explained. “Like someone just kicked your puppy. Which I could have more sympathy for if—”

  “If I wasn’t the one doing the kicking. Yeah. Okay, I get it.”

  “So if you know what you’re doin’ wrong, why do you keep doin’ it?” Kilmer stopped what he was doing to look at Len. “That’s the part I don’t get.”

  “I never plan on doing it. I just….” He shrugged, pulled the brush over the tall horse’s flank a few times and then rested his forehead against her side. “I lose it. My mind. Control. Everything. I can’t explain it. It… just… happens.”

  “Sounds like my nephew.” Kilmer motioned to the restless horse. “Come on. Focus. She’s ready to bed down and we still have to feed them.”

  Len went back to his task, stroking the brush over the horse’s fine, sleek coat. “Your nephew?”

  “Yeah. My sister’s kid. They diagnosed him with ADHD when he was, oh, twelve, maybe? Gave him Ritalin or somethin’ and it was like he was a different kid. Grades went up, trips to the principal’s office went down. Stopped mouthin’ off to his mama. You can tell when he doesn’t take his meds, even for a day, believe me, but I think he’s happier now.”

  Len said nothing. He’d been diagnosed with enough mental issues to know how it went. Dyslexia, depression, even an eating disorder when he was ten. That had been because he refused to eat the food his foster mother was making for him. She couldn’t cook worth shit and kept feeding them raw chicken. The dyslexia was obvious and problematic. The depression probably true. The eating thing had been bullshit, and had miraculously gone away when he met Trevor and Trevor’s mom had cooked for him. Go figure.

  He was pretty sure if he talked about all the things his therapist wanted him to talk about, a diagnosis of PTSD wouldn’t be far behind.

  “I just want to be normal,” he said, mostly to the horse because he could be fairly certain she, at least, wouldn’t judge. Not as long as he filled her grain bin and left her some nice-smelling straw, anyway.

  “You don’t think normal is overrated?” Kilmer asked.

  “Only time I feel even close to it is….” Len glanced over at the other man, feeling the heat rise into his cheeks, but surely here he could find sympathy. Understanding. Hell, this guy knew exactly how Vance could make him feel. Didn’t he?

  He focused on the job he was doing as he spoke, so he wouldn’t have to see what Kilmer might think of this confession. “Only time I feel close to a regular human being is with Vance. Letting him rule me. When he gives rules, it’s so easy. All I have to do is what he says.”

  “And what if, one day, he tells you to do somethin’ that frightens you? Somethin’ you can’t do? Somethin’ that makes it so you can’t trust him the next time? Where does that leave either of you?”

  This was a logical question, and Len had enough shit in his past to make it a fair one. He just didn’t have an answer for it.

  “You want my opinion, the shrink is a waste of time if you can’t tell her anythin’ more than what you tell Vance. It isn’t helpin’ you if you can’t feel safe there.”

  Len nodded. He didn’t like to say he didn’t feel safe with Lenore. But she was a doctor. A professional. Nothing he said to her would go beyond her office walls, but it wasn’t as though she could really do anything. She went home to her life, and he went back to his and nothing changed. He still felt complete shame over it all, and how could he tell Vance something like that? How could he tell him he had let Ace do the very same things he wanted Vance to do?

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” Kilmer went on. “Vance ain’t a drug. He ain’t a cure. He’s a man, and he has feelin’s and his heart’s breakin’. I know he’ll tear me a new one for sayin’ this, but it needs to be said. He will never give up on you, even if you trample him. He’ll doggedly do what he thinks is right for you and never acknowledge the damage it’s doin’ to him or to your relationship, because you’re all that matters now. Eventually, the relationship will be gone and all you’ll have to show for any of it is a Master who can keep you safe from your demons, but who can’t love you anymore. Someone who you’ll depend on, but not be able to give your heart to, and I have never seen a circumstance, human or animal, where it worked out without the heart gettin’ involved.”

  Len bit his lip and brushed the horse’s neck. He still couldn’t look at Kilmer. He felt the truth of the man’s words in his gut, but he didn’t know how to make any of it better.

  “Len.” Kilmer took the brush from his hands and set it aside. “A horse will do just about anythin’ a man asks, no matter how wild and frightened the beast is, if they know the man is invested. A man who cares can take anythin’ that beast’ll dish out to make that horse loyal and safe and strong if he knows he has the animal’s heart.”

  “All you have to do to get a horse to love you is feed it,” Len said, staring straight ahead at the deep red-brown of Bridget’s neck.

  “You know that ain’t true. You have to show kindness and patience and strength and understandin’. You have to treat that horse like it’s precious, and they’re smarter than they look. They know when you mean it and when you don’t.”

  Len nodded. “I’m the horse?”

  Kilmer’s soft chuckle was far from mocking. It was genuine, and Len felt the other man’s warmth at his back and let out a sigh. “It isn’t that I don’t trust him.”

  “Then I guess you have to focus on what it is that’s holdin’ you back. You figure that out, and this whole thing could be solved.”

  Len nodded. “You ever have a horse that’s just a demon? That no one can tame?”

  Kilmer patted his shoulder and gave a little squeeze. “I’ve never met a wild thing that man could not bring round. He doesn’t tame them all to polite company, mind you. But there’s not a one who wouldn’t let him ride, anywhere, anytime.”

  Len grinned despite his churning gut. “Oh, I’d let him ride. If I ever thought he wanted to.”

  Kilmer snickered and moved away from Len, leaving the evening breeze coming in the wide doors to cool him. “Some parts of your relationship ain’t mine to speculate on, kid.”

  Len sighed. “Only part of it I don’t understand. In Boston it wasn’t like this. He had me and he liked it. I know he did. Since we came home, nothing.”

  “Best you take that up with him.”

  What was he supposed to do? It wasn’t as though he really wanted to discuss his sex life, or lack of it, with a practical stranger. He went back to grooming the horse and for a while, lost himself in the soothing repetitiveness of it, the comfortable scents in the barn, and the animal herself, a huge, calm, contented presence accepting his affection without asking anything in return.

  “Somethin’ to keep in mind, Len,” Kilmer said as they were finishing up and putting the tools away. “It isn’t always about sex. Or a scene. Or even the rules. It’s about accepting his way as the
way, without needin’ to understand it.” He tossed Len a glance. “Probably one of the hardest things about this lifestyle is acceptin’ we don’t know why a rule is a rule, but followin’ it anyway and trustin’ that it’s right.”

  “What if it’s just what he wants and what I want doesn’t come into it?”

  “If that’s what you think, then you don’t trust him at all.”

  “How can he know what’s right for me? He barely knows anything about me.”

  “An’ now you see his dilemma. He can’t know. So he’s left to guess, and the Vance I know will never take the chance of guessin’ wrong. So he can’t give you rules, he can’t put you in a scene, he can’t even fuck you until he knows he’s choosin’ what’s good for you.” He turned from securing his horse’s lead to a post next to its stall. “That don’t make him a bad Master, Len. It makes him the very best. An’ knowin’ he can’t do right by you kills him a little bit every time he has to tell you no. Right now? I see a no-win situation for you both. The power to change that is all in you. You just have to be brave enough to use it.”

  Bridget nuzzled Len as he gripped her halter and led her toward the waiting stall. Straightening his arm to let the horse go first, he was about to enter when Kilmer stopped him. “Not like that. Here. Let me show you. Lead from the left, to start with.”

  “Why?” Len stood back and let Kilmer take the horse’s halter from him and clip on her lead.

  “Because. It’s like protocol. Convention, maybe. Everyone does it that way, so the horses get trained that way, and they’re used to it. Means anyone can lead someone else’s horse without worryin’ they’ll spook the animal.”

  Len nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “Now Bridget here is a fine, calm girl.” He paused to stroke her neck and coo at her. “So you’re probably okay, but a good rule of thumb is never put yourself into a stall with an animal you don’t know well or one who’s skittish, unless you’re doing it so you have an easy exit. You’ll have to get out again, and they can be nervous about a lot of movement behind them they’re not expectin’. So lead her like this.” He gripped the tether and walked ahead of the animal into the stall, holding the lead until he had walked in a circle and was back at the door, the horse facing the aisle and looking at Len over his shoulder. He unclipped the lead, stepped out, and closed the door behind him. “Or you can encourage her to go inside on her own, and that works with a lot of animals, but the best way is to stay in control and let her know exactly what you want from her. No guessing and no surprises that way. Everyone keeps their fingers and toes.” He gave Bridget a pat and she nuzzled his hands. “See how that works?”

  “Guess she knows it’s dinnertime.”

  Kilmer grinned. “She sure does. Come on, girl.” He brought her back out and secured her next to his horse. “We’ll fill the troughs and buckets first. Then when we take them to feed, they’ll go right on in and we can take the leads off at the door. They’ll go to the food, and no worries about ’em boltin’.”

  “You’re good at this,” Len observed.

  “I should hope so. Been around horses since before I could walk. I was probably in a saddle when I was still wobbly on my feet.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Len said, taking the grain scoop from him and mimicking his measurements into Bridget’s grain bucket. “I meant teaching me to do it.”

  “It ain’t hard to teach someone who wants to learn,” Kilmer said. “You want to know about horses, you ask your man if you can shadow me when I’m doing the rounds. I’ve no problem with showin’ you the ropes if he’s okay with it.”

  “And….” Len blushed. “The rest?”

  “He sent me to you, didn’t he?” Kilmer said gently.

  Len shrugged. “So you said.”

  “Well, then ask him about that too. See what he says. The one thing makes this sort of life work, Len, is unflinching communication. I wasn’t always so good at it. I didn’t always tell Vance what he needed to hear, and it damn near destroyed us. It was him cuttin’ me loose that made me see how I was hurtin’ him, not tellin’ him the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “What it boiled down to? The truth was, I wanted free of his bed. I wanted to work for him, because I love my job, but I couldn’t be his lover and his employee. It took me a real long time to see that. Almost too long. And it didn’t help that he knew it and didn’t say nothin’ to me because he didn’t want to let me go. So we both screwed up big-time, but we got over it. We made something new out of the ashes and it works good.”

  “He said you have your own man now.”

  Kilmer nodded. “I do. Not the same as what it was with Vance. Nothin’, I think, is ever like that. But he’s a good man, and he keeps me well.”

  “He keeps you.” Len stared at him for a moment, but Kilmer was intent on the hose and the water flowing from it into the trough shared by the two stalls their horses would occupy. “You say that like someone else might say ‘He loves me.’”

  Kilmer gave a small shrug. “It is what it is, Len. He keeps me. An’ I’m happy to be kept. In a way, we love each other. It’s a commitment that lets us be together and happy and thrivin’, so it’s as good as the same thing.”

  “Does it have to be one or the other?” Len asked.

  “Depends on the man, don’t it? Vance couldn’t have love without submission. That’s what ultimately broke us. I doubt very much he can have submission without love, and that begins with trust.”

  “Trust him enough to tell him the truth.”

  “Whatever that truth is”—Kilmer held up a hand when Len opened his mouth to speak—“an’ I don’t need to know what it is, but whatever it is, you’ve lived with it this long. Alone. Carried it all this time. If it hasn’t broke you yet, do you honestly think sharing the burden with another human being is going to be the end of you?”

  It depended on what they did with the information, didn’t it? Len bit his lip and caressed Bridget’s nose, not answering.

  He couldn’t delude himself enough to think Vance didn’t know what he held back. Or that Trevor hadn’t known or that most of the band hadn’t known. He’d convinced himself it was a mark of their respect that they hadn’t made him talk about it. That they’d let him deal with his issues in his own way. He didn’t imagine they hadn’t wanted to help him. He hadn’t welcomed any help but the balm of silence. He’d pushed anything more than that away. He’d blocked anything that might have made him think about it or relive it, including Trevor’s attempts at taking their friendship to the next level. That, he knew, he had done cruelly, and it was something he was ashamed of.

  “I think we’re done here,” Kilmer announced. “Want to put her in her stall?”

  Len nodded and untied Bridget’s lead. She followed him placidly, and he unclasped the lead on Kilmer’s instruction. He’d been right, of course. The mare shuffled sweetly into the box and dipped her nose into her grain bucket, dismissing him with the motion.

  “Huh,” Len said. “Just like that.”

  Kilmer laughed. “Just like that. I suppose you can’t completely discount their stomachs.”

  He put his horse away, and they turned off the main lights, closed the door, and hurried up to the house.

  They were directed to clean up in the mudroom, and then Len entered a warm, happily lit kitchen. It reminded him strongly of Trevor’s home in Innisfil, where he’d spent so much of his teenage years.

  Two preteen children sat at the table, one on either side of Paul. A woman Len presumed was Nancy, and that she was mother and wife, was ladling stew into bowls for them.

  Vance stood just inside the door, and he caught Len’s eye, glanced at the empty space at his side, and back to Len. Len hurried to stand beside him.

  “You go on down the hall to the bathroom and get your face properly washed. I’ll be right there.”

  “I can—” Len clamped his mouth shut when Vance looked down at him and hurried to do as he’d been told. />
  “Be right back,” he heard Vance tell the others as Kilmer greeted their hosts and accepted a bowl of stew from Nancy.

  On near-silent hinges, the bathroom door opened behind Len and closed again, once Vance had stepped into the room. “Let me have a look,” Vance ordered.

  Acquiescing, Len turned from the mirror and tilted his head back. Vance’s hands were as gentle as Len had ever felt them as he cleaned away the last of the dried blood and dirt.

  “You get the horses squared away?” Vance asked.

  “Yes, Sir. Kilmer showed me how to take care of them a bit.”

  “Good.” Vance released him and tossed the disposable towel he’d been using into the toilet. He pulled in a deep breath and rested his hands on his hips. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, I think.”

  Len nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  Vance didn’t say anything to that, but continued to watch him.

  “I shouldn’t have taken the horse without letting someone know. That was stupid.”

  “Without water or food or knowin’ where the hell you were goin’.” Vance’s tone suggested barely controlled anger, but not the rage that so often sparked through Len. His stance was stern. His expression bordered on concerned.

  “I know,” Len agreed. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Damn right it won’t, because there will be no more riding for you unless Kil or I are with you. Understood?”

  Len nodded.

  “And you will be out in that barn every day helpin’ him look after them until I’m satisfied you know how to handle yourself around them.”

  Again, Len nodded.

  “And you will be in the house between chores and stay there, unless I decide we’re goin’ somewhere. I’ll drive you to your appointments, and I will drive you home.”

  “I’m under house arrest?”

  “You’re under my supervision until I can be sure you’re not goin’ to run off and get yourself hurt or endanger one of my animals again.”

  “I—”

  Vance held up a hand. “Your word is not good enough, Len. Not until you start sayin’ somethin’ worth hearin’. Somethin’ I can take to the bank.”