Blue Steel Chain (Trowchester Blues Book 3)

by Alex Beecroft

  “I went jogging.” Aidan tried the guileless, charming smile that sometimes worked. He gestured to his sweatpants and T-shirt and trainers, which he had worn so he could give just this excuse if it came to it.

  “Where?”

  “Just across the fields,” Aidan pointed out towards the long fall of fallow agricultural land to the west where the river ran through a park and then out into farms. “I didn’t see anyone. I meant to be back to welcome you. I really did. But I got off the footpath somewhere and I couldn’t—”

  Piers was six foot four and obsessed with weight training. When he grabbed a hold of Aidan’s hair and yanked, Aidan had no choice but to follow. Bent over, with Piers’s fist in his hair, Aidan stumbled through the front hall aghast. “Piers, my shoes! My shoes are dirty. I’ll get mud on the—”

  His eyes watered at the sting of Piers’s grip, his scalp throbbing and a red tearing pain clawing down like skeletal fingers along both sides of his face. But he really had run across the fields and his shoes really were thick with mud, and the carpet in the living room was as white as the drive outside, pristine. And when Piers had got over being angry about him going out, he would be furious about the footprints.

  Aidan managed to toe one shoe off before he was thrown down the three steps onto the living room floor. The carpet took most of the impact, just a bruise on his shoulder that he didn’t particularly feel as he twisted up to get the other shoe off and to throw it back into the hall. There!

  He tried to gather himself onto all fours, feeling like he’d won a point, but Piers kicked his pre-bruised shoulder, and the impact flipped him over turtle-like onto his back, opening his belly to the heel that stamped down on the pit of the stomach. Piers liked it when he screamed, so he made no attempt to keep silent, yelling in pain, coughing and whooping to catch his breath.

  The pain was also far away. He could feel tears clogging his already labouring breath, decided they were a good idea, they might help. Piers liked it when he cried too. He should just lie there and get it over with, but for all his wisdom he couldn’t seem to help curling up, trying to protect his ribs and stomach and his face.

  “You little shit.” Piers stood over him, breathing hard. He risked a look to try to gauge whether it was safe to move, found Piers looking down on him like a vengeful god. He always had been so perfect. He was so tall and so beautifully put together that you scarcely noticed his bulk, and his hair was so silver it might have been minted by the Bank of England, and his suit was so impeccable, and his shiny shoes were not even scuffed by being rammed into something as dirty as Aidan.

  Aidan had once liked that, but these days he was beginning to feel some resentment towards the fact.

  He thought of saying, You never said I couldn’t go out. But that would only make Piers say it, and then it would be worse because he’d have to choose whether or not to disobey a direct command. Best to say nothing. It always passed off shorter that way.

  Catching him looking, Piers put a foot on his face, drove it hard into the floor. Aidan must have done a terrible job of vacuuming because there were flecks of grit in the carpet. As the bones of his skull creaked under the pressure, three tiny sharp points pressed into his cheekbone like caltrops. Was he bleeding? He must not stain this lovely white expanse—blood was so hard to get out. As soon as Piers let him up, he scrambled to get his arms under himself so he could bleed into his sleeves instead. “I’m sorry.”

  “You little shit,” Piers said again. “How dare you lie to me?”

  “I’m not!” Aidan managed to feel genuinely indignant, trying to believe himself so that Piers would. But Piers leaned down and got both hands underneath Aidan’s necklace, the blued-steel chain that was the first of many presents he had given him. The steel chain that fastened with a padlock to which only Piers had the key. He used the chain to pull Aidan to his feet, links digging in beneath his jaw, digging in to the soft tissue of his throat, making him gag and choke and cry harder.

  “I know exactly where you were, you little cunt. Your phone has GPS.”

  Oh fuck. The real part of Aidan, the part that was even more vulnerable than his belly, had already curled up tight inside, but this blow made what was left ring like a hollow bell. When Piers let him go, he crumpled to his knees. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Why had he ever thought he was safe? Why had he ever thought he deserved to get away with doing something he knew Piers—Piers who was so clever, so vigilant, always so right—didn’t want?

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Oh God, what a shit he was. What a shit he was. He crawled closer to Piers and hugged him around the ankles. Wiping his nose to be sure he wasn’t bleeding, he put his face down on Piers’s feet. “I’m sorry. I did run through town. I just . . . I just wanted to look at the shops. I didn’t . . . I didn’t talk to anyone. I promise.”

  “I buy you whatever you want.”

  The abject sobbing seemed to be having an effect. Aidan closed his eyes and kissed Piers’s shiny black shoes. “I know.”

  “When I found you in London, you were living in a squat, and now you have a mansion. With a swimming pool and a library . . .”

  “I know. Thank you.”

  The blows had stopped, and Piers’s voice had lost most of his anger. Now he was telling a story that gave him satisfaction, reminding himself as well as Aidan of how perfect he really was. “You were a filthy, starving, abandoned little runaway who would probably have died come winter, and I gave you everything. Everything you could possibly want.”

  “Thank you,” Aidan gasped, though he didn’t remember it being quite like that—the smell of coffee bright in his mind, feathers of frothed milk, and God he’d been lonely and heartbroken but it could have been all right. He’d had a job and a place to stay. He hadn’t wanted Piers as a sugar daddy, as some kind of ticket off the street. It could have worked out all right without Piers, if he hadn’t fallen in love.

  “Not even your parents wanted you.” Piers was definitely calming now, leaning down to whisper it almost tenderly in Aidan’s ear.

  But it was pointless to think that. Pointless to look back and wonder whether his parents might have . . . might have accepted him, if he’d tried to reach them again. He did wonder sometimes if Mum and Dad might have chosen their child over the gilt and guilt of the church. But it was pointless thinking that too. He sniffled into Piers’s shins as the man’s hand came down to stroke through the aching hair he had almost yanked out.

  Aidan knew that touch, knew the change to the pattern of Piers’s breathing. He compressed a little further down into despair, letting go of Piers’s feet so the man could strip him out of his clothes and fondle him appreciatively.

  He hated this. He always had. He hated hands on parts of his body that just weren’t meant for anyone else. Piers had both hands on his arse now, squeezing, and it wasn’t a worse feeling than being kicked in the stomach, but it was somehow harder to bear. He sighed and fidgeted away.

  When he was naked, Piers led him over to the coffee table, showed him himself in its mirrored surface. “When I found you, you were a skinny, scrawny little thing. Now look at you.”

  It was true. Piers had required him to remake himself in Piers’s image, moulding his body with exercise and feeding regimes, even scarring and tattooing it to Piers’s design. Aidan sometimes didn’t know who he was anymore. He certainly didn’t recognise the prizefighter with the anxious eyes he saw in the mirror.

  “I own you to the bone.” Piers pulled him down by the collar, secured its padlock to the apparently decorative length of chain that hung beneath the table, leaving him bent over the table’s flat surface. Aidan braced himself as well as he could with his hands, spread his legs enticingly, hoping to get this over with as fast as possible, but he still couldn’t stop himself from flinching away from Piers’s lubed fingers.

  When they’d first started to go out, and everything had been so romantic, and he’d thought he was on Olympus with the gods because Piers was so lovin
g and so perfect, so mature and grown up, Piers had told him he would get to like this. Told him that sixteen was a little old for him to still be waiting for his sex drive to kick in, but that it was bound to start soon. But not to worry until then, because Piers could still enjoy it even if Aidan just lay there and thought about homework. So not to fret, he wasn’t letting anyone down.

  It never had kicked in, and Piers’s patience had long run out. “You’re such a frigid cunt though,” he said now, slicking himself up minimally and pushing inside while Aidan gritted his teeth and remembered that he shouldn’t cry now. He was supposed to cry when he was being punished and enjoy it when he was being fucked, but he could only manage one of those two things. “You’ve got one thing to do to pay me back. Just one thing, and I’d be happy. I give you everything, and you give me nothing at all.”

  After the sex, Aidan was more or less forgiven. He was allowed to go into the hall to clean his shoes and then to go upstairs to have a shower.

  He stood in the hot water for a long time, mindlessly, while the flow stung his scalp and his bruises. At some point, he found that his face had crumpled up and he was crying, so he waited until the fit passed before getting out, the salt of his tears diluted under the spray.

  The bathroom cabinet was well stocked. Aidan was allowed to order things online, though Piers always checked the credit card receipts and made it clear when he didn’t approve. He turned a blind eye to medical supplies, in general. After prodding at his cheek, watching the colour turn from purple to white beneath his exploring fingertip, Aidan decided nothing was broken. There were three deep bruises centred on bloody red dots that needed antiseptic cream, and the middle one was large enough to warrant a suture, so he applied it with a steady hand. Stones in the carpet fallen from Piers’s shoes. He’d have to find and remove them before next time.

  That really hadn’t been so bad. Not as bad as it could have been. Perhaps not as bad as he deserved. Because really, Piers was right. He had given Aidan everything, taken him in when no one wanted him. Loved him, lusted after him. He deserved better than Aidan’s cold, reluctant responses. Aidan was always letting him down—going where he wasn’t supposed to go, lying about it, being ungrateful.

  Even now, instead of thinking about how he could repay Piers, how he could make him happy again, he was really just being glad that Piers’s age was finally catching up with him, and a fuck this afternoon meant he would be left alone tonight.

  It was over, at least until tomorrow.

  Cheered by that thought, he dressed in the casual wear that Piers preferred—a tight tank tops that showed off his arms, and shorts—and went down to make dinner from the selection of fresh ingredients that were delivered daily by a firm so professional he’d never actually caught them doing it. His stomach hurt and his shoulder hurt and his face hurt, but the painkillers would kick in soon, and it was over.

  After an evening in silence, Piers went to bed without him, which was new and worrying. Not that he wanted to sleep in the same bed as Piers and wake with the man all over him, but Piers had always wanted it. Aidan couldn’t lose his one purpose. What good would he be then?

  Quietly, so as not to make Piers angry again, he followed his lover upstairs and slipped under the satin sheets, just lying there next to him, not touching, not saying anything.

  “I knew you’d come,” Piers said in the dark with a sound like satisfaction. “You pretend not to want it, but you can’t stay away.” He rolled onto his side, putting his back to Aidan. He didn’t even touch him—never did these days unless it was in sex or violence.

  Aidan turned away from him, wrapped his own arms around his aching middle, and pushed his face into the pillow, imagining he was being held. Just held gently by someone as they both fell asleep together. It made his eyes prickle, but he wept as quietly as he could. Piers needed his sleep.

  The following day started well. Aidan was half-asleep when Piers crawled on top of him and rubbed himself off. It was easy to imagine himself as someone else—someone who liked this kind of thing. Then Piers went into work early, and the empty house sighed to see the back of him, as Aidan made breakfast for himself, feeling cheerful.

  “What the fuck?”

  It was later. His personal trainer had arrived at the door and was now standing with her gym bag slipping off her shoulder and her wiry hair standing up like a black halo behind her, looking at his face as if it appalled her.

  “Come in.” He stepped back and let her through, disconcerted by the way she started on him the moment she was in the hall.

  “What the fuck happened to your face?”

  His immune system had not liked the dirt from the stones. The tiny puncture wounds were inflamed and itchy. The skin around them had swollen and the bruise had turned all kinds of shades of purple and blue. As if for symmetry, a paler bruise showed in a half moon on his other cheek, the shape of a heel. His stomach still hurt, and his shoulder was painful and stiff. But that didn’t get him out of the duty of working to be the most perfect physical specimen possible. Piers deserved the best.

  “I . . . uh. I had an accident in town yesterday.” For some reason he’d thought she wouldn’t care. They didn’t usually. After passing Piers’s rigorous selection procedure, they were usually as empathic as an exercise bike. And Piers brought in a new one every month anyway, so none of them had time to grow suspicious. She’d only seen him once before. He hadn’t expected this line of questioning from her. He hadn’t prepared.

  “An accident with a fist?”

  “Um.” He tried the charming smile out on her, but it only made her look more worried. “Well, when I say an accident, it was more that I got into a fight.”

  “Right.” She narrowed her eyes at him as he led the way down to the gym. “Well, I ain’t known you long but I gotta say you don’t seem the fighting sort.”

  “I don’t need to be.” She was pushing at the boundaries of his good mood, and he hated her for that. “People see me and want to knock me down whether I fight back or not.”

  “Hmm . . .” She put down her bag by the cross trainer and folded her pink-leotard-clad arms over her chest. “I bet I can take a good guess at who these people are.”

  These things followed a pattern, like a werewolf’s cycle. Piers didn’t usually blow up more than once a month, which meant today Aidan was celebrating being mostly safe. He didn’t want that safe haven to be spoiled by too much thought. “I’ll just start warming up, shall I?”

  “Pull up your shirt,” she said gruffly, and he flinched.

  “Why?”

  “I’m your personal trainer, yes? So you’ve got to show me you’re well enough to do a full workout today.”

  “I’m fine.” He wondered how he could get her out of the house without having to phone Piers and tell him she was being nosy. Piers . . . he didn’t take well to interference. He would blame her, and he would blame Aidan. A word from Piers had wrecked many a career.

  “Yeah. I thought you’d say that.” She walked closer as she spoke and lunged in to yank the bottom of his T-shirt up until it caught on his armpits. A hiss of breath through clenched teeth and she shook her head at the sight of his stomach, where the bruise was almost black. “By what definition is this fine?”

  Aidan opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off with a raised hand. “No, I don’t want to hear it. I work some days in an abused women’s shelter. I have seen so many girls like this. I know all the excuses.”

  Now she was just being ridiculous. He wasn’t abused! Piers just had a temper, and who could blame him? It was different between two men, anyway. More physical. But that was only because Piers knew that Aidan could take it. He knew Aidan was strong enough—strong in his body, but more importantly strong in his love. Aidan, for all his shittiness as a boyfriend, was glad to have the chance to prove his love, his gratitude, by bearing with Piers little foibles.

  “It was a fight in town,” he said again, because he didn’t have to justif
y himself to her. “And I’m fine.”

  “You should be lying down, letting that rest.”

  She watched as he started his warm up on the cross trainer, and she might have had a point there, because as he began to breathe more rapidly, the pain in his belly and shoulder flowered into something monstrous. “I don’t want to lose condition,” he gasped, trying to push through it. “I don’t want to—”

  “Make him angry?”

  When it hurt this much, he didn’t have space for dodging her questions. He turned his face aside and ignored her.

  “You know,” she circled him, going up on tiptoes to watch his heart rate on the monitor, jabbing the difficulty button to give him less resistance, “he told me I should come all different times, without telling you beforehand. And he said I should tell him if you ever weren’t in the house waiting for me.”

  “He likes to know where I am,” Aidan gritted, labouring at the simple routine, annoyed with himself for being so pathetic. “He worries about me.”

  “He likes to make sure you never leave the house, more like.” She stopped the machine altogether and handed him a drink. “Likes to keep you isolated and under control so you never realize what a shit he is. See, I had my doubts about him right there, and now I’m sure. You need to get out. You need to get out right now, before he does worse.”

  “He’s looked after me for seven years,” Aidan insisted, bent double over his ribs, sure he should get back on the machine but not quite able to make himself do it. “I don’t have anywhere to go to. I don’t have anyone else. He takes care of me. I wouldn’t make it without him.”

  “That’s just what he wants you to think.” She touched him gently on the small of the back. It wasn’t quite the epiphany that James’s touch had been, but it was nice, and he didn’t think he could bear nice at the moment. She was stirring up too much. He couldn’t deal with it all.

  “I don’t want you saying these things. I’m going to tell him what you said and he’ll make you go away . . .”