by Helena Maeve
Dread was a familiar go-to reaction in such moments. Elijah tamped it down. He was safe here. Whatever his addled subconscious conjured in his sleep, he had left prison behind and Nate wouldn’t go there. Nate wasn’t like that.
The only sound in the silent bedroom was that of Elijah’s syncopated breaths.
It wasn’t until he made to roll over that he felt a spike of arousal shoot down his spine and into his stiff cock.
Just because he didn’t remember his dreams didn’t mean they had to be nightmares.
A five-alarm blaze flooded his face.
He had memories of dealing with his body’s flagrant disobedience since he’d been a teenager, but at thirty-three there was no excuse. Elijah pulled his knees up to his chest, squirming to adjust around his erection. The urge to touch himself was not unfamiliar. He’d done it when told, he’d done it for lovers who asked.
There might even have been a time when he did it for himself, though that was far back enough to be insignificant.
Guilt lashed his cheeks as he awkwardly slid a hand under his knees, feeling his way between his thighs. The crinkling of the sheets reverberated in his ears like a gunshot. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t. But he was doing it, reptilian brain claiming the upper hand as he tripped over his breaths.
Images sparked to life behind his eyes—of himself, on a steel bunk, scratchy cotton pants around his ankles. Of fingers inside him, blunt and dry, scraping against that part of him that made tears spring to his eyes.
Elijah bit into the pillow to muffle a groan.
He’d never been more ashamed, but couldn’t seem to stop. After a few seconds’ awkward fumbling, he finally found the angle at which he could clutch his dick without kneeing himself in the mouth. His wrist clicked on the upstroke. It would’ve been easier to just slide a hand into his boxer shorts and jerk off like that. But the boxers weren’t his and this wasn’t supposed to be easy.
He wasn’t supposed to enjoy it.
The splashes of color behind his eyes ignited like mandalas as heat coiled in his veins. He wanted—to come, to resist. To stop himself. He wanted for the amalgam of faces he conjured in the dark to belong to someone other than the men he’d known in prison. They weren’t all bad. Some had served as his protectors for a while. They just weren’t men he would’ve chosen, if he had the choice.
And now?
Now Elijah had nothing to offer—a broken mind and a tattered body. Now when he thought attractive or desirable, he thought of Nate. The vision flickered into being behind his eyes. Nate in his tailored suits. Nate shedding his trench coat with fluid gestures.
Nate manipulating kitchen utensils as expertly as he might do a gun.
Elijah squeezed down around the base of his cock in an effort to stave off his orgasm. It was foregone conclusion once his imagination delved into peeling back the layers of Nate’s starched shirt or unbuckling his leather belt. He had only his imagination to fill in the blank of what Nate must have looked like without his clothes, but it was enough. It was more than enough.
Release slammed into Elijah with no warning and no reprieve. Every muscle pulled taut. He ground his teeth together against the plaintive sob that threatened to spill out.
He had forgotten how good it could feel to stumble over the edge purely for the sake of pleasure. The realization stung. How fucked up was that?
Climax rolled over him in waves, stomach quivering as the wet patch on the front of his boxers became slick spatter.
Chest heaving, Elijah kicked off the covers and made a beeline for the bathroom.
He barely got the door shut behind him before his knees gave out. He’d jerked off.
So fucking what? He’d been doing as much since he was a teenager. Most men did, albeit without panic attacks or self-flagellation.
What he thought of when he stroked off had nothing to do with what Elijah wanted.
This was normal. He wasn’t—weird. A pervert.
His eyes stung as he pressed his brow to his forearm, chin trembling. Each gulping breath seemed to worsen the stiffness between his ribs. Calm the fuck down. He’ll hear.
It was that as much as any attempt to settle his racing heart that did the trick. Nate was in the other room. Elijah knew, from having spent a night on the couch, that sound traveled easily in this apartment. Chances were high that Nate had overheard him lose his shit.
Perhaps he’d even heard the rest.
Elijah leaned his head back against the door.
In a minute, he would get up from the floor and clean himself up. He’d go back to bed, pretend this didn’t happen.
The view from the bathroom floor was strange. He could see his face reflected in the shiny tile and count the droplets that trickled sullenly from the showerhead. The closer he was to the ground, the more he felt like a cockroach, infesting Nate’s home.
Tomorrow, he would leave. It was for the best.
Chapter Four
“Good morning,” said Nate, peering up from his newspaper. “Sleep okay?” He was wearing pinstriped gray slacks and a fitted black shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Elijah hadn’t even heard him enter the bedroom, let alone dress to kill. He scrubbed a hand over his face and methodically put last night’s freak-out out of his mind.
“Yeah… You?”
Nate flashed him a smile. “Mmm… Didn’t feel like cooking. Hope you like bagels.” He gestured to the white paper bag on the kitchen island.
His largesse should have been a matter of course by now, and yet Elijah still found himself surprised when Nate simply went back to his paper with no instructions on how much he was allowed to take, or what he had to offer in trade.
“Sure,” he breathed after a moment, willing his feet to move.
The bagels were already sliced and brushed liberally with cream cheese and slices of smoked salmon, ready to be consumed. Elijah carefully plucked the smallest of the three and set it on a folded napkin. He craved coffee, too, the smell of a freshly brewed pot hanging heavy and bittersweet over the kitchen, but he didn’t want to push his luck.
“Any word from Jules?” Asked obliquely enough, it might not sound like he was eager to know when he was allowed to leave.
Nate held up a finger, eyes scanning to the bottom of the newspaper page before he glanced at Elijah. “Unfortunately, she still hasn’t called. I’m sure she’s all right, though. I wouldn’t worry.”
Guilt stabbed between Elijah’s ribs. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. Jules was impervious to trouble. If she’d been a comic book character, she would have been Wonder Woman, an alien from another planet scoffing a human wickedness.
“Could you try to get in touch?” he suggested diffidently. “I don’t want to become a nuisance.”
“You’re not.”
You say that now, but if you knew… His boxers were still a little damp from trying to dry them on the bathroom radiator. He hoped it didn’t show under the borrowed jeans.
“All the same.”
Nate held his gaze, the barest hint of a frown between his thick, inky eyebrows. “I’ll try to get in touch,” he promised. “But, in the meantime, I need to get to work.”
“Okay.” A terrible sense of déjà vu shot through Elijah.
He’d paddled through yesterday’s unprecedented stint of solitude as best he could but the prospect of a repeat performance made him anxious.
“I’ve left some money by the phone,” Nate added, rolling down his sleeves and buttoning the cuffs. His suit jacket was the same light gray linen of the slacks. He looked good, but different. Less harried businessman than Hollywood star.
Elijah could’ve sworn his car keys bore a BMW logo yesterday. Today, the bow tie Chevrolet emblem gleamed in the soft light that streamed through the windows.
“Money?” he echoed, slow on the uptake.
“We’re out of cereal,” Nate replied.
The rush of heat that stained Elijah’s cheeks went unnoticed as Nate adjust
ed his collar and checked that he had wallet, keys and phone—all the necessary gadgets of a modern spook. Minus, perhaps, an exploding pen or two.
Elijah had devoured all of Nate’s food so it was on him to buy more. He was a drain on Nate’s resources. And last night he had masturbated to the fantasy of disrobing his gracious host and taking further advantage.
“You know,” Nate mused out of the blue, “I didn’t expect it, but this is quite nice.”
“What?”
Nate freed an umbrella from the foyer closet, though there was no inkling of rain outside. “Having someone to come home to. Someone to eat breakfast with… I don’t know.” He shook himself with a flustered smile. “Forget I said anything.”
“Maybe you should get a cat,” Elijah said.
“Terrible idea. What did cats ever do to you?” Nate clapped him on the shoulder, digging his fingers into the meat of his upper arm for a beat longer than was strictly necessary. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Somehow, Elijah mustered a smile as he eased the door shut in his wake.
He needed to get out of here, with or without Jules’ help.
* * * *
His clothes smelled musty from spending too much time in the front-loader but the scent was still a vast improvement on rot and stale sweat, so Elijah didn’t quibble. He grimaced as he struggled to adjust the safety pins. The wash cycle had bent them badly out of shape and the sharp points pricked his fingers no matter how careful he tried to be. Donning his old skin took longer than necessary. Elijah told himself he wasn’t dragging his feet.
It was for the best.
He wolfed down the last of the bagel and downed a cup of coffee—without permission, his heart thumping a frantic tattoo with every unsanctioned, lukewarm sip. The apartment was quiet around him, as if holding its breath for Elijah to cross the point of no return.
He was careful to rinse out the mug and dispose of the paper bag on the counter, erasing all trace of his passage. In the bedroom, Elijah stripped the sheets from the bed and stuffed them into the washing machine. He folded his clothes, too, then, on second thought, placed them in the hamper. Nate might want to burn or donate them. That was his business.
The last thing Elijah did was take the money from beneath the phone in the living room. Shame soured in his gut. He could tell himself this wasn’t robbery all he pleased. It qualified.
The apartment door swung shut behind him with a click. Elijah didn’t have a key to open it again.
* * * *
He followed the sun-baked boulevard for a couple of blocks, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other.
The sidewalk was still clean and clear when he tripped for the first time and nearly went careering into traffic. He caught himself on the ad-patterned pole of a streetlight, the steel already hot under his fingertips.
A few passersby turned their heads, though none offered help. They glanced away as soon as they registered his crudely fastened jeans and too-small raincoat. Ten minutes on the street and already Elijah was beginning to inhabit the role of the undesirable.
It was an easy suit to fit into—drunken shambling included.
He had only a vague recollection of choosing to head south, marching away from the Bay and the high-rises that vied for seven-figure waterfront views. The scenery changed slowly from trendy coffee shops to hole-in-the-wall restaurants, high-end salons giving way to ‘ethnic hairdressers’. The sun was just as merciless no matter where Elijah went, though, so he sought shade in the places he’d shunned before.
He bought lemon-flavored fizzy water at a convenience store because he had the cash and he was thirsty. It shouldn’t have called for rationalizing, but just days earlier he’d been beating people up for money and dreading a return ticket back to prison. Rationalizing didn’t mean it stung any less when the clerk eyed him suspiciously as he rang up the purchase.
Elijah eyed the cereal aisles on his way out. He had forgotten there were so many kinds.
He resumed his path southward through the scorching midday heat. A faint breeze blew in from the continent, doing little more than stir the exhaust fumes that polluted the city air. There was a reason everyone preferred a car to walking, Elijah understood, and it had everything to do with the benefits of AC.
By the time he hit the Home Depot tucked just behind the knot of the I-95 and the Dolphin Expressway, he was down to the dregs of his soda, mouth as arid as the Sahara. Overtown was a beast of a different breed than Aventura. It called for squared shoulders and tight fists. The meaner Elijah could make himself appear, the better his chances of crossing through the crumbling streets in one piece.
It was like prison all over again. It was a wake-up call.
This is where I belong now. Whatever I did before, whatever Jules thinks she can do to pick me back up from the shadows, this is my place.
This or lockup, and Elijah knew which he’d pick if given the choice.
He retraced his steps to the Seybold Canal with a sinking heart. A few desiccated palm trees tilted in the breeze on either side of the road, offering little in the way of shade. Sweat slicked down his brow and dripped down his back, sticking his shirt to his spine with a sour-sweet stench. Better get used to it.
A woman with frizzy salt-and-pepper hair shuffled past him on the sidewalk while muttering to herself. One wheel of her overflowing shopping cart squeaked with every revolution. Farther up, two pubescent boys on the back of a beat-up sedan were passing a joint back and forth. Elijah nearly stopped to watch them—or, worse, ask where their parents were—when he noticed the dealers on the other street corner.
He smothered the instinct to meddle. In this hell, only people with a thirst for pain asked stupid questions.
Past the graffiti-festooned tin containers and the remnants of bankrupt construction sites lay brambles and broken glass, the assorted paraphernalia of the destitute. Some of it was mere cardboard or broken furniture, even soiled rolls of bubble wrap. Other canal-side residents had decorated their makeshift campsites with barbed wire and chain link, proof that even the poor and the homeless had a concept of ownership and territory.
Elijah shambled down the pebbled riverside with a lump of ballast weighing down his insides. He knew enough about human nature to harbor no hopes, but maybe, if he was lucky, his measly few possessions would still be relatively intact. Maybe he wouldn’t have to start from scratch.
No such luck.
The ill-defined lot where he had made his home was little more than rubble. A few tins of fish lay open in the sweltering midday sun, flies buzzing restlessly over the fetid remains. The rubber tire he’d used for a beanbag chair and occasionally, a pillow, had been slashed and lit on fire. The molten result was the consistency of dry pitch. Brown-yellow water lapped indifferently at the lip of the shore, revealing and submerging the floppy disk storage box he’d found in a dumpster his first week after leaving the shelter.
It was the sight of those multicolor disks that sapped what was left of his energy.
Elijah whirled around, trampling weeds and debris alike underfoot, and started viciously up the incline. He feared the urge to scream and draw attention to himself.
The sidewalk burned under his hands when he finally collapsed at the top and pulled his knees to his chest. Hot, angry tears sluiced down his cheeks.
He wished, suddenly, that he’d never met Jules. That he’d never taken Nate up on his offer.
Worst of all, he wished he’d stayed at County, where free will was irrelevant and his day-to-day free-for-alls were someone else’s problem. He knew the rules there. He could have learned his place with another seven years to teach him the meaning of obedience.
Elijah pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. Salt tracks dried on his cheeks before he could wipe them off.
On the other side of the street, the hand-painted sign of a dark, poky liquor store beckoned with the promise of liquid panacea.
Elijah pushed himself to his feet.
* * * *
It wasn’t the beer that drove him back to Aventura, but it sure didn’t hurt.
The first two in the six-pack had tasted bitter and stale, as cheap booze was wont to do. By the third, Elijah could barely discern the taste. He was on his fifth now and the world seemed pleasantly fuzzy, his body light. He didn’t know why he’d ever badmouthed the flavor.
He kept to the shadowed side of the road, where passersby wouldn’t be importuned by his presence. Besides, the streetlights hurt his eyes.
The darkened entrances of closed shops called to him with the promise of a makeshift bunk, but Elijah resisted.
He was going back to pillows and clean sheets—and to Nate too. Nate, who had treated him so well and asked nothing in return. Nate, who didn’t understand how debts worked, but that was okay, too, because Elijah did.
Elijah would make it right.
He disposed of the beer before he entered the lobby. If heads turned at his passage, he didn’t notice.
While the shiny elevator cabin ascended apace, Elijah congratulated himself on waiting as long as he had. He didn’t have a watch, but he’d seen Closed signs that marked six p.m. as the end of business. Nate would be home by now for sure.
The door to apartment 513 was resolutely shut when Elijah emerged onto the landing. He rapped his knuckles lazily on the wood.
He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
“Hey,” Elijah slurred, grinning blithely. “You didn’t give me a key.”
Nate, he noticed gradually, was incredulous. “You came back.”
“I did.” Was he not supposed to? Grin dimming, Elijah scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Can I come in?”
“Christ, yes, of course…” Nate held the door open a little wider and ushered him over the threshold. “I thought you’d taken off. I didn’t know what to do. I was going to call the cops—”
“No,” Elijah exhaled, too softly to be heard.
Behind him, the door closed with a demure little click.