by Onley James
He did as she asked, hands trembling. It seemed like a ridiculous exercise, but after a moment, the tightness in his chest eased, bringing him down in increments.
“What did you do to him?” Shep demanded.
Molly ignored him, her hand rubbing soothing circles on Elijah’s arm. Usually, he would shrug it off, he hated when people tried to soothe him, but it gave him something else to focus on, a sensation other than pain and panic to cling to. It seemed to take hours but eventually, his breathing returned to normal. “Are you taking any medications?” Molly asked. Elijah shook his head. Molly handed him a pill. “Take this.”
“What is it?” he mumbled.
“Alprazolam. You’re not allergic, are you?”
He shook his head, taking the pill and swallowing it down with juice. Exhaustion consumed him. He felt groggy and more than a little humiliated.
“Elijah, what just happened?” she asked.
“No.”
Their eyes swung to Shep at his sharp statement.
Molly balked. “Excuse me?”
“I said no. No more questions. I don’t know what you hoped to glean from this talk, but you can’t just explain away our feelings and you can’t scare us out of being together. You can just accept that this is a thing and leave it be or you cannot accept it and we’ll just be on our way. But this ends now. You’ve already hurt him once. Never again.”
There was no malice in his voice, no threat, just a tone that said Shep wouldn’t tolerate any response other than the one he wanted. It was the sexiest thing Elijah had ever witnessed in his life and he couldn’t even muster up the slightest hard-on, which was good, all things considered.
His mother gave a slight nod and cupped Shep’s cheek. “Alright, Jaynie. We’re done here. Why don’t you take Elijah back to the guest house to rest for a bit? That pill will knock him out and I imagine you’ll want to have some alone time to talk before lunch.”
Shep gave a single nod and pulled Elijah to his feet. “Can you walk?”
Elijah gave a weak laugh. “Yes, I think I can make it the fifty feet to our room.”
It wasn’t a lie. Elijah was sleepy and dizzy, but not faint. Still, Shep sweeping him up into his arms and carrying him to the guest house sounded amazing. He wanted to feel the tight grip of his arms around him, the reassuring heaviness of his weight pressing him down into the mattress. He wanted to lose himself in Shep just for a while. The rest of the world could wait.
Shep’s mother gave them one last lingering look before escaping to parts unknown. Elijah stood on his toes to press a kiss to Shep’s lips. “Take me to bed, Sam. I think I need to sleep.”
Shep gazed down at him. “Okay, rabbit. You sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
Elijah laughed, lids heavy. “Keep me safe from the wolves?”
Shep grinned, but his words dripped with malice. “I told you, rabbit. I am the wolf.”
Most people might have found the implied threat terrifying, but Elijah wrapped it around himself like a warm blanket. Elijah didn’t know many things, but he knew that Shep would let nobody hurt him, not even Dr. Molly Shepherd, and that was more comforting than any lock or weapon, no matter how fucked up it might seem.
Shep watched Elijah sleep, his body half flung over Shep’s, their legs entangled, Elijah drooling onto Shep’s t-shirt. The boy had been in no shape to talk when they returned to their room in the guest house. He was pale beneath his tan and the pill his mother gave Elijah dulled the light in his eyes. Shep had tried to tuck him in, but Elijah had shaken his head, tugging Shep towards him. “I don’t want to be alone,” he’d mumbled, his tone almost timid like he still thought Shep might refuse him.
Shep had replayed their conversation with his mother on repeat a thousand times since Elijah had dozed off and while he didn’t know the details, Shep felt certain Elijah’s lack of sexual experience seemed tied to one person, the person who hurt him, the one he’d mentioned on the phone what seemed like a lifetime ago. Knowing somebody had harmed Elijah, that someone had made such a grave impact on his psyche, ignited a quiet rage in Shep. He wanted to hunt them down and peel the skin from their body one strip at a time, but to do that Shep needed to find him, and Elijah’s tormentor remained a mystery. Shep knew nothing. He’d found nothing. Webster had found nothing. Whoever had hurt Elijah had hidden their tracks very well.
Elijah stirred against him sucking in a sharp breath and half sitting up, looking around, groggy. The hair on one side of his head stuck up like a baby bird’s and drool dried on his cheek but he was still the most beautiful thing Shep had ever seen. Elijah noted the wet spot on Shep’s shirt, cheeks pinking as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ew, sorry,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.
“I don’t mind,” Shep said.
Elijah started to smile, but it died as if remembering something. He lay back down, turning away but still using Shep’s bicep as a pillow. He rolled, curving his body around Elijah’s like armor, his arm going around his waist and pulling him close. Elijah gave a shuddery sigh but remained quiet.
After a time, Shep asked, “Can you tell me what happened back there?”
“I thought you would have pieced it together by now.”
It wasn’t as if Shep didn’t have a good idea, but that wasn’t the same thing as knowing. “It would only be speculation on my part. It’s your story. You should tell it. If you feel up to it.”
Elijah was silent for so long, Shep figured the matter done. Elijah wasn’t ready, and that was okay. Shep would wait.
But then Elijah spoke, his tone lifeless. “I was twelve. He was an acting coach. I had already been in so many movies by the time Lucifer enrolled me in his private lessons that it seemed dumb, but she was so insistent that I knew she had an ulterior motive. She said I was being a snob. That there was always room to better myself. This coach, she said, was a steppingstone to getting those coveted lead roles I wanted, which would be important when I hit my teen years. I went along with it because going along with Lucifer was always easier than going against her.”
Shep slid his hand under Elijah’s shirt, pressing his palm over Elijah’s heart. He placed his hand over Shep’s on top of the fabric, his voice catching, “At first it was normal acting class drills. Improv scenes, prop work, accents, stuff that was fun but seemed pointless. But then things got… weird. He started asking me questions about whether I liked girls, whether I had a girlfriend. If I’d ever kissed anybody. He told me about his wife, told me how great sex was, offered me magazines. Tried to give me alcohol or pills. Whenever I got uncomfortable, he’d laugh and drop it.”
Elijah sniffled, his voice wet as he said, “I figured out pretty quickly that my mom hadn’t sent me for acting lessons, at least not ones that occurred in front of the camera. He started talking to me about gender roles and saying how Hollywood was about appearances and that the only place we could be ourselves was when we were around people who were ‘like us’. I didn’t know what he meant, at first. But then he said my mother was concerned because people were talking about me. They said my face was too pretty, that they’d seen me wearing nail polish and one time even lip gloss. He said I had a feminine demeanor, and my voice was too soft and my mom was concerned I was gay.”
Elijah gave a bitter laugh. “Score one for Lucifer because she was right. I was. So was he. He said being gay was fine, but if I wanted to play the leading roles in Hollywood, I had to appear straight on camera and off, at least until I’d made it. Then, I could be whoever I wanted. He’d said even Elton John had to marry a woman once.”
Elijah fell silent once more and Shep tried to pull it together. So far, the boy had revealed nothing to explain his attack in the kitchen, but he told the story like every word he forced past his lips took effort, like it was work, so Shep didn’t push just tried to rein in the rage building beneath his rib cage.
“His lessons became about how to appear more masculine, the way I stood, the way I talked, even the way I he
ld my hands. In between lessons, he would say he was the only person I should trust, the only person I could be myself around. At first, I didn’t even notice how… handsy he was. Touching me, positioning me, finding excuses to put his hands on me. And the compliments… telling me I was funny and smart and talented, saying all the things my mother never did.”
Elijah’s nails dug into the back of Shep’s hand through the thin t-shirt fabric. “The first time he kissed me, he said it was just an acting exercise. I thought it was gross because he was way older than me, like older than my mom, but he said as an actor we have to kiss people no matter how we feel about them and make it convincing. It was true. So, I let him.”
There was an undercurrent to Elijah’s words, a casual self-loathing Shep had heard before when questioning former child soldiers and prisoners of war. People forced to do unthinkable things to survive. Elijah blamed himself for what happened. Shep dropped a kiss onto the top of his head because he just didn’t know what else to do.
“Things went… further.” He gave a harsh laugh. “I didn’t want to do any of it, but he was just so good at convincing me that it was normal. When I tried to tell my mom that I didn’t want to go anymore, she got mad, said I was spoiled and that millions of kids would kill to take his class. When I flat out refused to go, she explained that he had an in with the biggest director in Hollywood and making my teacher happy meant doors would open for me but pissing him off would lead to my being blacklisted. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t know. I just knew there was no getting out of it for me.
“Then one day he said he wanted to practice some scenes on this stupid, ugly daybed he had in his office, said we should practice more adult stuff, so I’d feel comfortable in front of the cameras. I let him do the things he usually did, touching stuff, but he wanted more this time. I didn’t want to. I said no, but he didn’t care. When it was over, he told me it wouldn’t be so bad next time. I couldn’t let there be a next time. It had hurt. A lot. Bad enough for me to tell my mom. Bad enough for her to call our private doctor.”
Some part of Shep had known where the story would lead, but hearing Elijah say the words induced a strange sense of calm in Shep, the kind of calm that washed over him when he’d decided something. This man, whoever he was, would pay for hurting Elijah, all he needed was a name and he was certain he or Webster could find it with this information.
“Why didn’t he go to jail?” Shep asked, remembering how Elijah had said the police were corrupt.
Elijah scoffed. “My mother said jail wouldn’t benefit anybody. She hired an attorney instead and sued, said we’d keep his secret if he paid. He didn’t seem to have money of his own, not the kind my mother asked for, but the director did. I don’t know why he agreed to pay for another man’s crimes, but he did. He paid and my mom signed a contract to keep quiet.”
“So, he’s still out there… teaching?” Shep asked, keeping his inflection as neutral as possible.
“Part of the agreement was that he never teaches children again. My mother threw in the clause and then acted as if she was Mother Teresa. It was the very least she could do.”
“Is that why you left acting?”
“Sort of. I told my grandpa what happened. He was on the first flight out of Montana. He and my mom got into a huge fight when he realized what she’d done, and my grandpa took me and left. I didn’t see my mom again for eight years.”
Shep had a million questions, most of them having to do with how Lucifer had wormed her way back into Elijah’s life, but he let it go for now.
Elijah fell silent but his sorrow was like a living thing taking up space between them. “I want to help you, but I don’t know how.”
Elijah rolled onto his back so that Shep was looking down at him. The boy’s eyes were wet, his nose red. “You’re doing it. This helps. Just you being here… it helps.”
“This doesn’t feel like helping. Finding that man and ripping his arms and legs off seems like it would be a better use of my time.”
Elijah gazed up at him, his hand grazing Shep’s cheek. “It was a long time ago. It sounds crazy, but most of the time, I don’t even think about it, about him. I’ve just sort of bricked it off behind some wall in my brain. It’s just easier that way.” He lifted enough to press a lingering kiss to Shep’s lips, but there was no heat behind it, no promise of something more. Just a kiss.
They lay like that for a while, just looking at each other, which was a rather strange way to kill time but Shep found he enjoyed looking at Elijah more than almost any other activity that came to mind, so he’d do it for as long as Elijah let him.
“I want us to have sex,” Elijah blurted. “Like, you know, sex-sex. If that’s something you want too.”
Shep’s brow raised. “What? Now?”
Eli rolled his eyes, smiling. “No, not now, like when we’re ready for that. I’m not like broken or anything. I just haven’t wanted to be close to anybody like that before. There were too many variables with me being in the closet and me being a celebrity and me being able to trust somebody to keep my secrets.” Shep made a noise of agreement. He trusted very few people. “Are you…” Elijah’s voice faded.
“Am I what?”
“I know you haven’t had sex before, but do you think you might want to top or bottom? You know, when we do…”
“Whatever you want,” Shep said without hesitation.
Elijah scoffed. “No. I’m serious. Do you have a preference?”
“I just want whatever you want. It makes no difference to me.”
Elijah’s eyes widened. “You’d let me top you?”
Shep didn’t understand Elijah’s wonderment. How many ways could Shep say he was Elijah’s? “I would.”
“You trust me not to hurt you?”
“I trust you.” Shep thought about it for a long moment. “But you could hurt me though if you needed to. If that’s your thing. Whatever you need, I want to be the one giving it to you.”
Elijah’s brows knitted together, his expression dubious. “You’d let me do anything to you? Can I carve my name on your ass?”
Shep dropped a kiss to Elijah’s lips. “If you want to.”
Elijah’s pupils dilated, his breath quickening. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” Shep promised.
Elijah shook his head. “But why?”
“It’s like you told my mother. I’m yours. This body is yours. It belongs to you. Whatever you need to be happy, whatever you want to do with it, I’ll give it to you.”
“But I want you to be happy too.”
Shep shook his head. “Seeing you happy is the closest thing to happy I can experience. You’re mine. Providing for you, giving you what you need, that… moves something in me, but that’s as close to happy as I can get. It turns me on when you use me for your own pleasure, so whatever you want, whatever you need, we can do it.”
Elijah scanned his face as if looking for any hint of a lie. Finally, he sighed. “I don’t know what I like, but I know that I don’t want to just use you to get off like you’re my personal sex robot. So, maybe we should find out what each of us likes and talk about it?”
Shep tilted his head. “How do you propose we do that?”
Elijah rolled his eyes. “The same way every other person figures out what turns them on. Porn.”
“Porn?”
Elijah laughed. “Yeah, porn.”
Shep’s cock twitched. “You want us to watch porn together?”
“Yeah, but not on your mom’s wifi. When we get to Georgia. It’ll just be you and me in that swank hotel for weeks. There won’t be anybody around to bother us.”
One look at the excitement on Elijah’s face and Shep was nodding. “Yeah, okay. In Georgia we watch porn.”
“You’re okay, I guess, but Shep can pick me up over his head with one hand. You can barely pick me up at all. Just a tiny bit like to your chest.”
Elijah stared down into the little face of Tobias
Jones, who shrugged his slight shoulders, palms up in a what-are-ya-gonna-do gesture. Tobi was a blond-haired, green-eyed, ball of energy. He was also the six-year-old son of Elijah’s costar, Demeter Jones. Demeter was a twenty-something single mom who played the teen co-ed Elijah’s character stalked in the film. Shep gave Elijah a knowing smirk from his spot on the sofa in the small makeup trailer.
Elijah let his face collapse in mock sorrow. “Wow. You said you loved my movies. You said you wanted to be just like me when you grow up.”
Tobi’s face went through a dozen expressions before he landed on one that stuck. “I do. I wanna be a famous actor like you. But Shep is big and strong like Thor or the Hulk. He’s a superhero. We’re just humans,” he said this as if to make Elijah understand it was nothing personal.
“Yeah, just puny humans,” Shep agreed, catching Elijah’s gaze in the mirror.
The makeup artist, Kaija, and Demeter—-Demi to her friends-—both laughed. Tobi let out a maniacal screech and launched himself at Shep who caught the little demon midair but not before his foot caught Shep’s crotch. Elijah winced as Shep grunted, his eyes watering as he listed to his side, his face a rather startling shade of purple. Tobi continued his assault, fists flying, unaware of Shep’s pain. Shep once more met Elijah’s gaze in the mirror, this time his expression screaming help me.
Elijah turned to the makeup artist. “Kaija, I think I look a little shiny here, no?” He pointed to his forehead.
The dark-haired girl narrowed her near-black eyes. “Oh, yeah. I can see it.”
“Mommy. Mommy, look. I beat up Shep. He’s crying.”
Demi took pity on Shep. “Tobi. Be nice. Shep’s strong… but he’s also super old. Like way older than you. Older than all of us, really.”
Shep’s mouth fell open. “Et tu, Demeter? I thought you’d have my back… one god to another.”
Demi snickered. She didn’t look like a girl named after a goddess, but she swore it was her given name. She said she came from a long line of pagans. Elijah didn’t know much about pagans, but he’d always just kind of assumed they all wore black and shopped at Hot Topic and were fond of movies like The Craft. But Demi couldn’t have been more different. She had honey blonde curls, a golden tan, and huge turquoise eyes. She also seemed to favor long lace dresses and knee-high boots and jewelry made of wood. Her aesthetic was a girl who wandered away from Coachella, but she was super nice, and she appreciated that Shep always seemed willing to keep Tobi occupied.