Squeezy didn’t even try to debate these semantics with Nikolas. Swimming, according to him, was for pussies, or people, he conceded, who were already fit and just wanted something gentle to do to while away spare moments when not concentrating on the pure, untapped strength of the human male physique.
Nikolas agreed.
Ben had never talked like this. He’d always mixed up his workouts, running with as much pleasure as he lifted or stretched. He’d always tried to sell it to Nikolas as a positive thing—to be so fit, so anatomically perfect.
None of it had clicked in Nikolas’s head. He’d sometimes felt that if he heard Ben say the term glute one more time, in any context, he’d make an effort to find out what it meant and shove one down his throat. Or somewhere else going the other way.
But this, this was…sublime. It wasn’t about looking good, or being in shape, although those were obviously unavoidable by-products of such a regime, it was about strength. About being the best—but not noticeably so. Squeezy didn’t look as strong as Ben, who had the anatomical perfection thing going nicely as far as Nikolas was concerned. But he was. Nikolas could now attest to that.
This man had exceptional core power. And Nikolas wanted it too. “Think you can take me?” He wanted the answer to be unequivocally, “Yes.”
So they spent hours in the gym, although, as Squeezy pointed out, any space could be used, but they both knew why they were doing this thing—what they were doing it for—and being in the gym reminded them with every agonising lift or push of that absence. The beautiful one who should have been there with them but wasn’t.
There was no deviation for Nikolas. He fuelled up. He tore muscle and then he reformed it. Tore and reformed, over and over and over again.
Squeezy said no other exercise was allowed. No swimming and no running either—or not yet—something Nikolas was very glad of, as it was March now, and the cold weather that had promised to arrive had, and there was often snow on the tops of the tors, and the wind cut through him like a bad reminder of the storm on Spitzbergen.
But one day Squeezy did vary the routine.
Nikolas arrived in the gym and found something in the space. Again, it didn’t bode well in his experience.
Squeezy toed the ball into the middle of the floor. “Stand on that when you do the squat.”
Nikolas furrowed his brow, trying to picture this. Tentatively, he put one foot on the cricket ball and lifted his other one. Predictably he was over on the mat, staring up at the tor through the glass ceiling before he’d even ceased to frown.
“Wanker.”
Squeezy never stinted with his encouragement when it was needed. Nikolas rose, shook himself off and attempted the balance move again.
§§§
It was odd, living in the house with this man and not Ben. Odd, but not…unpleasant. Nikolas found himself slowly warming to the annoying one, not quite weak at the knees when played with, as his co-conspirator was, but definitely warming to him. It helped that they were so intent that he rarely had time to think outside the narrow box Squeezy kept him in—hour after hour of eating and weighing and measuring and working out and stretching and sleeping. The last of these being the only thing Nikolas actually enjoyed. But it was hard not to respond positively to being someone’s entire focus. To receive that dedication and attention—even if it was accompanied by curses, insults, mockery—was exactly what he needed, being so…bereft. And after all, his relationship with Ben wasn’t that different when he thought about it.
It possibly involved less swearing.
He couldn’t deny that he’d expected something to happen between them. That first night, knowing the moron was in a bedroom just across the swim lane from him, Nikolas had anticipated a visitor. He’d lain awake for many hours, running various scenarios through his mind of how this visit would play out. In one, of course, he turned the fuckwit away, citing his biding love for Ben. But that had been a very quick and particularly uninteresting story line, and he’d moved onto others much more engaging. He particularly liked the one where he and Michael were hard at it—and he had no doubt having witnessed the demonstration of raw power he’d seen that day that hard would be a very operable word—and Ben walked in on them, having forgotten something or other—what he’d neglected to remember really didn’t matter, as this was Nikolas’s fantasy, and he could have it work out any way he wanted—and caught them fucking. This version he returned to time and again whilst lying alone in the vast, cold bed. Ben being distraught and rending his clothes in anguish was unrealistic and took some effort on his part to visualise, but was extremely satisfactory once he’d got it just right.
Ben not interrupting them had also been quite an interesting variation to ponder. That one had lasted a long time. Long enough for him to frown and check his bedside clock and wonder why the man who’d made no secret from the first time he’d met Nikolas that he wanted to fuck him, didn’t actually take the first opportunity he’d been given and do just that. They were forty feet apart. No one else in the house.
It occurred to Nikolas then that the habitual and casual reiteration of this apparent desire to sleep with him, might, in fact, be nothing more than another cover, a mask. It was unsettling—not the lack of desire; Nikolas never needed or wanted to be desired by anyone other than Ben—that he might have finally found someone he couldn’t read.
Some awareness of how Nikolas had spent the first few hours of the night appeared to manifest in the smugness on Squeezy’s face as he mixed their shakes for breakfast the next day. His casual, “Sleep well?” seemed heavily laden with innuendo.
Nikolas grunted and ignored him.
§§§
After that first night, Nikolas stopped lying awake expecting the other man to visit.
It didn’t prevent interesting scenarios from flicking through his mind, but he gave himself some considerable credit that all of these now centred on Ben, not Squeezy.
He wondered idly what Ben thought about before falling asleep these days and smirked a little, suspecting his musings weren’t nearly as entertaining as his own.
But then, working out as he was now with this other man inevitably focused Nikolas’s thoughts on sex. The visceral connection between muscle and skin and sweat concentrated the mind on the power of the male body, and that narcissism gave rise to an ache in his groin he could barely repress. Each day, just when he thought he could stand it no longer, however, his consciousness drifted entirely free of any consideration of the physical world at all, but glided into memories that were so overwhelming he could hear again his mother’s music, light and melodic because she was well; taste the food she had bought in abundance on the days when she’d decided to eat, allowed them to; savour the joyous feeling of being encouraged to fill his stomach without punishment. And while he relived his childhood, the workout passed him by—no pain, no dwelling on the belief that he couldn’t do one more squat, one more push-up without tearing apart on the agony of it all, no tumbling hard to the mat and bruising so deeply his flesh seemed to seep dark polar night. While he was there in his memories, he was with his brother again, and the fiction that Nika could be the sure foundation for his life was still believable.
He mentioned this sensation of flying free once to his fuckwit trainer when he was given some relief from the mocking and some actual praise for completing a full set of his assigned exercises.
It was something he’d never have told Ben, and it surprised him that he allowed the words to form and escape their lockdown now. Squeezy regarded him with interest. “It’s the zone. You’re lucky. Not many people get there.”
So Nikolas wrinkled his nose on the taste of olive oil and milk but swallowed down his fuel. Because day-by-day, by doing so, he began to feel…significantly different, stronger. By the end of the first month, he’d gained almost twelve pounds and all of them, according to his new guru, consisted of muscle. He had something called muscle memory, apparently, so the increase had been easier for him tha
n for lesser wassocks.
He was taller than Squeezy, and when they stood side by side in front of the floor to ceiling mirrors in Ben’s gym one day in April, stripped except for their workout shorts, he began to see what Squeezy had meant about rivalling God. Abstract versus actual? There wasn’t much of a contest in his mind.
His pleasingly changed reflection, and remembering what day it was, made him think about something else. “What are you doing today?”
“This isn’t a fucking holiday camp. You don’t get days off.”
“No. This is…connected. Drive me to London?”
Squeezy agreed, mainly, Nikolas was sure, because he wanted to see Tim—some verb to Tim anyway. After a month, sandwiched metaphorically between the two of them, Radulf was looking worried—but he consented, which was the main thing and therefore meant Nikolas didn’t have to drive or park, which, coming back to himself as he was, he realised were both beneath him.
Why keep dogs and bark yourself?
Squeezy dropped him off in Mayfair and said he’d collect him again in five hours. Five hours should just about do it.
§§§
There was a gratifying silence from the other man for the first half hour after they met back up. This might have been due to the traffic in London, which Squeezy was negotiating with ill repressed fury and expletives. But Nikolas suspected it was more because Michael Heathcote was impressed and didn’t want to admit it.
A week on Svalbard, nearly dying, actually dying, if Ben’s account was true, and then many days in hospital, Ben Rider leaving him, and living under this moron’s punishing regime—it had all taken its toll on Nikolas’s habitually immaculate appearance. His hair had gone completely white on both sides, his beard had become messianic once more—all steel grey and exuding false righteousness—his skin had paled, his eyes were ringed with the pallor of sickbeds and stress. He was lean, defined, and newly muscled, sure, but his skin was that of a man enduring endless night.
Now he was…restored. It didn’t take much, only money and connections. His hair shone golden and highlighted and exquisitely cut, not one grey hair in sight. His skin was smooth and lightly tanned all over, a healthy glow, as if he’d spent a month at a dacha on the black sea. His nails were shaped and buffed. He smelt exquisite, if he had to say so himself. And he had a new suit.
Squeezy gave him a derisory sneer before saying, “You’ve got fucking months to go, mate, before you’re as impressive as you think you are. But you need a two-pronged attack now—step things up a gear with Ben as well.”
“Notch.”
“What?”
“You are mixing your metaphors. You can’t step up a gear. It’s notch.”
“How the fuck can you step up a notch?”
Nikolas suddenly realised he didn’t even know what a notch was. It was just an expression he’d picked up in English. “Phase two is already put in motion.”
Squeezy laughed, not fooled apparently by the change of subject. “And?”
“Ben’s getting a job.”
“That a good idea?”
“Why not?”
“Ben Rider’s got lots of opportunity not given to us lesser fuckers. The face? The body? He’s a fucking movie star, hello!”
Nikolas shrugged. “I’m not thinking movies, no. I was thinking something more…prosaic. He likes to eat. I’m seeing shelf-stacking for some reason.”
Squeezy was still occasionally chuckling about this as they pulled up at the house and saw Ben’s bike parked outside—and Ben sitting on the gravel, leaning against the glass. He rose as they drove up. He was dressed in his motorcycle black leathers, his jacket unzipped with an old T-shirt visible underneath. He had a few dark smudges of oil on his face, and his hair was wayward and tousled from the wind.
Squeezy tipped his head to one side and commented nonchalantly, “If I knew what fucking irony was, I’d say Ben Rider dressed like that and espousing purity was fucking ironic.”
He slid out of the car and embraced Ben. “Diesel. What’y’doing waiting outside?” Before Ben could answer or speak to Nikolas, Squeezy ushered him in.
Nikolas, slightly annoyed that Squeezy seemed to know what espousing meant, narrowed his eyes, watching this display—Ben being welcomed into his own house by someone who’d driven up with him in Ben’s car in Ben’s place. Ben, thankfully, didn’t appear to have remembered that he’d paid for the Merc with the insurance from his house fire, and Nikolas wasn’t about to remind him of this fact. If he did recall it, then Nikolas was planning on pointing out to Ben that he owed him one Range Rover Sport, so they were even.
Even Ben couldn’t fail to see the significance of the exchange that appeared to be going on in Nikolas’s life.
This would be interesting.
But Ben didn’t take his eyes off him when Nikolas finally came in, which was even more satisfactory than feeling so much better himself. Ben came over with obvious wonder and lightly touched his arm. “You look…amazing! So much better!”
Nikolas shrugged nonchalantly. “Good nights’ sleep for a month will do wonders for anyone, I suppose.”
Ben looked chastened. He’d got the implied reprimand just as Nikolas had intended him to.
“So, what have you been doing? How is God?”
“Don’t, Nik. I came to give you…I know you said not to contact you, but…” He held out a small parcel. “Happy Birthday.”
“You remembered.”
Ben frowned. “Of course. Friends?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot.”
He sat at the table and indicated for Squeezy to make some tea. Ben hung around uncertainly, divested of his usual role, until he sat down opposite Nikolas.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” Squeezy leant on the counter, staring at Nikolas, not apparently interested in tea. “I’d have thought of something to give you tonight. Free an’ all.”
Nikolas was turning the present over and over in his hands and didn’t reply. He was fairly used to these kinds of conversations now.
“Are you going to open it?”
Nikolas glanced up at Ben’s plaintive question. “What is it?”
“Nik!” It was so familiar that Nikolas felt his throat seize up, and he rose and went to put the kettle on himself, his back to Ben.
Squeezy gave him a glance then with a sigh took his place at the table. “So, how ya been, Diesel?”
“If you’d come over, you’d know.”
“Nah, grotty fucking place. I might catch cold. Or God. Can’t be doin’ with either. You look like shit, by the way.” Ben was wan. His normally vivid expression was dull, and he smelt funny, like clothes kept in the damp. Squeezy helpfully pointed this out, too.
Nikolas brought Ben a mug of tea and was dismayed to see how he fell on the tin of biscuits offered. A pound of shortbread was hovered up before Radulf even got a sniff in.
Squeezy eventually got the hint from their subdued looks that it might be a good time to take the dog for a walk, so within a few minutes they were left together once again.
Ben pushed the present over. “Just open it.”
Nikolas did. It was a book. Second hand by the look of it. “Zoo?”
Ben coloured a little. “I thought you’d like it. It’s…relevant.”
“To?”
“To our story—of the bear. Not us…The attack…It’s just a joke. I thought…”
Nikolas smiled. “Thanks.” He began to flick the pages. “The tiger did have rabies, by the way. The one that flung itself at…” He found it hard to say her name. Neither of them had seen her for over a month. She was the ticking time bomb between them.
“Rabies! For shit?”
“Yes, for shit, whatever that means. I’m glad it was the tiger and not the bear, however.”
“You do look…amazing. I can’t believe the change in just a month.”
Nikolas could have said the same about Ben but didn’t.
“So, how does it feel to be forty-ei
ght?”
“I don’t know. Old?”
“You’re not old, you’re…Look, will you come with me this Sunday? I know what you said, about them thinking…but I haven’t told them about us. Not in so many words. When we first met, when you were in the hospital, I said you were a friend, and I’ve not really said much else since, only that we used to work together and shared a house. Roommates, I guess. So you could come as a friend, and I don’t think anyone would be thinking any different.”
“Except us.”
“Yes. But that’s in the past. Please.”
The past. It might be in the past for Ben, but Nikolas was enduring a very, very long and dark fucking present.
“All right. I’ll pick you up.”
“Oh, I thought maybe I could come here first and…shower…it’s…at the cottage…just hot water in a bowl. Sorry.”
Nikolas repressed a smile, but then realised it actually wasn’t all that funny.
That’s in the past.
He needed to up his game. God had one distinct advantage over him—eternity.
Forty-eight. Fucking hell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Nikolas was mulling over the information he’d learnt from Peyton as he waited in the kitchen on Sunday morning. Squeezy had driven up to London for the day with Radulf, so he was missing his usual companion to talk to—the dog.
He could see no way forward with these Christian people. They were the physical manifestation of pallid. They were too vanilla to be true. The church was led by the man Ben had met in the hospital, Martin, a young teacher whose parents had been killed in a car crash on the A38, visiting, of all places, a National Trust house for a cream tea. Martin and his sister, Sarah, still lived in the family home and had turned spare rooms into their church. Martin was a primary school teacher, and Sarah was a nanny for a local doctor’s family. Both had glowing references from their employers. As far as Peyton could ascertain, the children hadn’t murdered the parents. There’d been no insurance money, no financial motive at all. The church had over a hundred members; its mission was prayer—for the sick in hospitals especially, but for anyone who contacted them with a request. This had intrigued both Peyton and Nikolas. It had never occurred to either of them that you could request a prayer like a tune on the radio. Fascinating. Peyton had suggested he contact them and entreat a prayer for Nikolas—to get Ben back. Subvert God’s plan from the inside like a virus. Nikolas had liked the idea but said to wait until he’d had a chance to check them out.
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